Your dog Is smarter than AI, an all-male AI list, and more

The December 5 intelligist digest

Author

Joaquin Bueno
December 05, 2023

Today’s Stories:

  • Meta and IBM Form Major AI Alliance: Destined to Fail?

  • Meta Chief Scientist: Your Dog Is Smarter than AI

  • The New York Times Issues an All-Male Who’s Who of AI for 2023

  • Hacker News Website Warns About Security Risks in Microsoft Copilot

  • Insights: AI Is Both a Threat and a Solution in Cybersecurity

Meta and IBM Form Major AI Alliance: Destined to Fail?

TLDR:

  • AI Alliance Formation: Meta and IBM create AI Alliance to promote open AI innovation.

  • Objectives: The Alliance seeks to build open AI resources for social and business use, trust, and infrastructure.

  • IBM's Motivation: IBM's participation may have its commercial interests in mind.

  • Different Approach: This initiative emphasizes open, collaborative AI development, differing from the proprietary methods of other major tech firms.

On Tuesday, Meta and IBM announced the AI Alliance, a collaborative initiative that includes 45 organizations to promote open innovation and science in AI.  They aim to develop open AI resources for both business and society. The Alliance will create working groups and committees to improve AI trust, hardware, and open-source AI models. Initially, this partnership goes against the closed, proprietary visions of AI innovation by other tech giants. Instead, the focus is on making an open community for responsible AI innovation. However, TechCrunch noted that the presence of competing firms within the Alliance might doom it to failure.

Meta Chief Scientist: Your Dog Is Smarter than AI

TLDR:

  • Meta’s Yann LeCun claims people exaggerate the potential for super-AI soon.

  • He points out the gap between current AI capabilities and human-level intelligence.

  • According to LeCun, near-future AI might reach only "cat-level" or "dog-level" intelligence​​.

  • Despite this, he acknowledges the potential of achieving Artificial General Intelligence (AGI) in the distant future​​.

  • He is skeptical about the immediate practicality of quantum computing.

Yesterday, Yann LeCun's, Meta's chief AI scientist, gave his perspectives on the current and future state of AI and quantum computing. Curiously, his statements come after other major tech bosses, such as Nvidia’s Jensen Huang, claimed AGI (artificial general intelligence) might be around the corner.  This also comes in the wake of the OpenAI scandal, in which inside sources revealed that the company might have already reached a form of AGI with its project Q*. While Meta is pushing open source, its rivals are entrenched in closed-source projects. One wonders what LeCun’s motivations might be in downplaying the potential imminence of AGI.

The New York Times Issues an All-Male Who’s Who of AI for 2023

TLDR:

  • The New York Times released a list of its top AI influencers for 2023.

  • The list controversially excludes women, including Mira Murati and Daniela Amodei.

  • Other notable exclusions included several open-source pioneers.

The New York Times just published its list of the main AI influencers for 2023. The list includes prominent names like Sam Altman, CEO of OpenAI, and Bill Gates, founder of Microsoft. However, there are notable omissions from the New York Times' list, including Daniela Amoedi, co-founder of Anthropic, and Mira Murati, CTO of OpenAI. These individuals represent key contributors and innovators driving the development and advancement of AI technologies​. 

Hacker News Website Warns About Security Risks in Microsoft Copilot

TLDR:

  • Microsoft is infusing Office 365 with Copilot AI.

  • Their AI is powered by GPT-4 in a partnership with OpenAI.

  • Hacker News warns about potential privacy and security risks.

Many are excited about Microsoft Copilot’s announcement that advanced AI features are coming to many 365 apps. Powered by OpenAI’s backend, these apps promise to deliver major productivity boosts and convenience. However, this raises significant data security concerns, as Copilot can access sensitive data available to a user, potentially exposing confidential information. This article from the Hacker News discusses some of these risks and how they can be fixed.

Insights: AI Is Both a Threat and a Solution in Cybersecurity

This Insights article discusses how AI poses both risks and solutions for cybersecurity. There are powerful AI tools for hackers, but also for security teams. Leveraging these tools is increasingly critical for organizational data safety.