INN012: Figure 02 | Neuralink | GroK and Llama | Altruistic Alien Angels | Google Pixel

The newsletter that explains exponential growth

Ave Innovatorians!

Rejoice! For Patrick is back. Summer holidays have had no real impact on the pace of progress, and so we had sooooo much to catchup on. In fact it was more than we could handle in the 45 minutes we had.

Luckily Ricardo worked with my Digital Twin GPT to write it all down, and provide you with fun insights into the world of digital emerging technologies.

What to expect:

Llama and Grok are battling for the love of the crowd, OpenAi seems to be tumultuous to say the least. 


OpenAi finally released their reports on their UBI experiments, and we’re not impressed. 

Lex Friedman did an 8 hour Podcast with Elon and Neuralink, and we have something to say about it.

Updates on the progress of our Bipedal friends and future overlords.

The Question that’s on all of our minds: Why do we still not have an Ai to manage our Inbox?
Google is growing it’s lead on Apple, with the new Pixel Lineup… and FLUX is turning heads in the Ai image and video department!

As always we hope you enjoy reading/watching our takes on developments, and that it provides you with some valuable insights and perspective!

Patrick, Ricardo & Aragorn

LLaMA vs. Grok 2: Opensource vs Absolute Truth?

AI face-off time! LLaMA vs Grok 2! After weeks of using LLaMA via Perplexity, we got our hands on Grok 2. Let’s just say, we’re impressed. Grok’s quick and honest responses are refreshing, even without its “fun mode” on. Meanwhile, Elon Musk’s strategy to make Twitter the real-time AI training ground is as bold as it is brilliant—leveraging live data from everything, including Tesla’s fleets. It’s a race to see who will dominate the AI space, and Elon’s moving fast.

However, the question looms: Can these technologies remain safe and ethical? If we reach human-level AI, it might just require either total altruism or authoritarian control to avoid chaos. Scary, right?

As for LLaMA, it’s more concise and conversational, which might be its edge over Grok’s intricate, sometimes lengthy responses. Either way, the AI race is heating up, and it’s going to be fascinating to see who comes out on top.

via hkaift.com

UBI: Resistance is Futile.

Universal Basic Income (UBI) and AI—two topics often discussed in isolation but deeply intertwined in reality. Sam Altman’s recent report sparked debate, with some arguing that AI doesn’t justify UBI. Seriously? Let’s get real. AI is already replacing white-collar jobs—just ask the girl I met who lost her job to a bot.

Companies like Amazon are doubling down on robots because they don’t need breaks, food, or sleep. The job market is about to be gutted, and without UBI, we're staring down the barrel of an economic collapse. Sure, UBI is just a tourniquet, but it’s necessary to keep society from bleeding out while we figure out what comes next.

The study Altman cites is limited, small-scale, U.S.-focused, and short-term. We need broader, global testing to move faster toward a UBI solution before AI disruption becomes irreversible.

The clock is ticking…

Generated via Ideogram

Lex Fridman’s 8-hour Neuralink podcast? Worth a listen. Absolutely! The first two hours with Elon Musk are riveting. But when the neurosurgeon, Dr. McDougal, took the mic? Not so much. His tales of sleep-deprived interns wielding scalpels are more frightening than science.

But let’s get to the good stuff. The real star isn’t the humans—it’s the robots. Neuralink’s AI surgeon is already handling the heavy lifting, with neurosurgeons just overseeing the operation. This tech is evolving at an exponential rate—70,000 electrodes targeting individual neurons isn’t sci-fi; it’s the next upgrade. The real game-changer? Quadriplegics potentially dominating e-sports, thanks to brain-computer interfaces.

In a few years, popping into a clinic for a body upgrade might be as routine as getting your smartphone repaired. But as this tech advances, the ethical questions will multiply faster than the hardware improvements. Who gets access? And what happens when the rich start getting these “superpowers” first? We’re on the brink of a new era— Let’s just hope we’re ready for it.

via cnn.com

AI’s Inbox Zero: Why AI’s most logical feature hasn’t arrived yet

AI for emails? Yes, please. Jim Fan, former NVIDIA whiz, recently nailed it with a post: “Inbox zero is the one true LLM killer feature.” He’s spot on. Imagine an AI that automatically filters, labels, and reprioritizes your Gmail based on a simple prompt. This isn’t just about convenience—it’s a game-changer waiting to happen.

Since ChatGPT launched, many of us have been eagerly waiting for this feature. It’s baffling that it hasn’t been implemented yet. Privacy concerns? Maybe. But as Jim pointed out, something bigger must be holding it back.

The irony? It doesn’t take AGI to revolutionize our lives—sometimes, it’s the small, practical tools that make the biggest impact. When this feature finally drops, whether from Google or another player, it’s going to redefine productivity. Inbox zero powered by AI? Now that’s a killer app.

via flow-e

The Wobbly Future of AI-Powered Humanoids

Robots on ketamine? Maybe they spiked the latest updates with some. We’ve got Figure 2 and Unitree G1 (which we talked about last issue), both impressive yet oddly wobbly, like they’ve just had a few too many. Figure 2, which once wowed us with its conversations, now stumbles around like it’s on a bender. Then there’s the Unitree G1, jumping like a gorilla and walking that infamous "ketamine walk."

It’s 2024, and robots are rolling out faster than you can say "AI revolution." What’s happening here is like the early days of the automotive industry—dozens of companies racing to launch their own humanoid bots. These robots are evolving rapidly, thanks to AI, and we’re just getting started.

So, while it’s all fun and games watching robots stumble, let’s not forget—this is the future being built before our eyes. And it’s coming faster than we think.

Google's AI-Powered Pixel: The Dawn of a Smarter, Faster Future

AI is in overdrive, and Google’s new Pixel lineup proves it. This isn’t just another phone launch—it’s the first smartphone built entirely around AI. With AI-specific chips and Gemini integrated into every aspect, Google is miles ahead, leaving Apple conspicuously absent from the AI scene.

Meanwhile, Microsoft is gearing up to release AI chip-based laptops, signaling just how fast the industry is evolving. Yet some are saying AI’s momentum is fading—seriously? We haven’t even seen the real returns on the recent surge in AI investments.

As these AI-powered devices hit the market, the impact will be massive. So, while some think AI’s peak has passed, they’re missing the bigger picture. The future of AI is just getting started, and it’s coming at us fast.

Stay tuned—there’s a lot more to come.

via blog.google

The New AI Art Contender That’s Shaking Up the Scene

A Germany-based AI startup has taken the world of AI art generation by storm with the release of their first suite of text-to-image AI models, put your hands together for FLUX.1!

Speaking of hands, one of the most applauded achievements is its accuracy in representing human hands, the dead giveaway to spot AI-generated art. So how did they do this? Black Forest calls it “Hybrid architecture” fusing transformer and diffusion techniques and scaling it up to a whopping 12 billion parameters. It also improves upon previous diffusion models.

A new company having a product on day-1 that already steps on the toes of pre-existing models such as DALL-E and Midjourney is certainly impressive, however, the company did not mention where the training data for this model came from, casting some suspicion that it may be obtained via a massive unauthorised image scrape judging by how 1:1 copyrighted characters are depicted. This is all speculative though and may be clarified in the future.

Although generative AI like this is a way to open up creative paths to those with less artistic skill, it’s very important to implement it correctly, without wrongfully appropriating the hard work of others.

Image created with FLUX.1 via Ars Technica

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That’s all for this week 🫢 

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