Sponsored by

AI is being infused into nearly everything - from sports equipment to robots, software, content creation, investments, and more. The latest craze is AI-powered phones and devices, as seen by the popularity of products like the Humane AI pin, Rabbit R1, and Samsung S24. As smart glasses, haptics, and headphones advance, having AI "at our fingertips" seems inevitable.

Furthermore, artificial general intelligence (AGI) may arrive sooner than anticipated. A company founder recently claimed to have government-approved AGI, Sam Altman said AGI is "probably very close" at Davos, and DeepMind's AlphaGeometry showcases advanced mathematical abilities - all indicators that AGI is near. With Meta going "all-in" on ethical, open-sourced AGI (see our Must Read, below), the technology may soon be mainstream.

As we enter 2024, AI copilots, autonomous agents, and devices appear to be at our doorstep. Now is the time to keep learning about AI and steering its progress in an ethical direction - especially with OpenAI recently removing a restriction on ChatGPT's military uses. While AI holds much promise, we must remain cognisant of developments happening around us.

✅ Stay up to date on engineering, tech, space, and science news with The Blueprint every day. Subscribe now

Did a friend forward this e-mail to you?

IE₊ SUPPORT INTERESTING ENGINEERING
_{Invest In Science And Engineering}

Enjoy exclusive access to the forefront of AI content, highlighting trends and news that shape the future. Join a community passionate about AI, delve into the latest AI breakthroughs, and be informed with our AI-focused weekly premium newsletters. With IE+, AI reporting goes beyond the ordinary - and it is Ad-Free.

NEWS

• 🤑 ElevenLabs raises $80M after releasing AI voice innovation

  The company has been at the forefront of natural speech synthesis, enabling users to create AI voices across many languages and accents with an unprecedented range of emotions and intonations.
  

• 🐍 Can Mamba bite ChatGPT? OpenAI rival 'outperforms' AI language models

  Another landmark invention in the AI industry?
  

• 🔮 Midjourney: AI generator unveils future cars backed by AI, green tech

  Explore the future of cars through expert predictions and AI-generated visuals, unveiling innovations in materials, AI tech, and sustainable energy.

A MESSAGE FROM OUR SPONSOR

AI: Balancing Risk and Return

Innovative technologies are revolutionizing business as we know it, and they’re more accessible than ever. But to truly harness the transformative potential of AI, you need to know how and when to use it. And which pitfalls to avoid.

The six-week Artificial Intelligence: Implications for Business Strategy online short course from MIT Sloan School of Management and MIT Computer Science and Artificial Intelligence Laboratory explores AI’s business applications and challenges. 

Choose this program to:

• Optimize your business: Leverage AI, ML, and robotics to drive efficiencies, improve productivity, and support your growth.

• Develop a strategic roadmap: Apply your knowledge to effectively integrate AI into your business.

• Gain a dual perspective: Benefit from a course designed by two prestigious schools — the MIT Sloan School of Management and the MIT CSAIL.

• Conveniently build career-critical skills: Follow a program that fits your schedule and benefit from 24/7 support and various payment options.

MUST READ

Meta's next big thing is open source 'artificial general intelligence'

Meta is going all in on artificial general intelligence (AGI) - AI that can match or exceed human capabilities across various domains. CEO Mark Zuckerberg recently announced a major reorganization and resource allocation aimed at developing ethical, open-sourced AGI faster.

Specifically, Meta is integrating its fundamental research and applied consumer AI divisions to enhance collaboration and innovation. They are snapping up a staggering 350,000 high-end H100 GPUs from Nvidia - enough infrastructure to train massive AI models for generative tasks. All told, up to $9 billion will be spent scaling AI capabilities.

Zuckerberg shared that AGI may one day power next-generation digital assistants, smart glasses, and more advanced metaverse experiences. The massive compute investment links Meta's AI aspirations directly to their troubled metaverse ambition - an immersive virtual future Zuckerberg believes will drive communication and interaction.

Motivating the AGI push is intense industry competition from AI leaders like Google and Microsoft. Zuckerberg wants Meta established securely as a top 3 industry innovator.

With privacy and responsible innovation major public concerns today, Meta's plan to open-source core AGI IP in an ethical framework provides both a steady stream of talent and some cover amid rising regulatory oversight.

Click below to learn more about Meta’s strategy shifts and the competitive landscape as major players race to shape AI’s future..

OTHER IMPORTANT UPDATES

• 🗳 AI: Joe Biden’s fake audio sounds too real, stirs election controversy New Hampshire attorney general’s office has said that these messages seem to be an illegal attempt to disrupt the election.
  

• 🧠 Generative AI model remembers and thinks like a human brain, says study UCL study reveals how generative AI elucidates memory's role in learning, reliving, and imaginative planning.

PROMPT OF THE WEEK

1. As regular readers know, great prompts require clear persona, context, output, question, and format specifications.

   Another useful tactic: treat your AI like a tutor. Explain what you want to learn, your current expertise level, desired timeframe, optimal learning style, and other relevant factors. Then ask it to design a customized curriculum - summarizing lessons, prescribing homework and hands-on exercises, even grading assignments.

   The possibilities span new languages, coding, cooking, selling - anything. With the right prompts and learning partnership, your AI can coach you to mastery.

TUTORIAL

Going for Gold on LinkedIn

Earning LinkedIn’s coveted Gold Community Top Voice badges signals expertise in specialized subjects. The process is straightforward. Go to LinkedIn Pulse and browse posts in your desired subjects that are officially verified – ideally newer articles with minimal existing engagement. To qualify:

1. Provide at least one insightful answer or comment on a minimum of 3 recent articles in the same topic. Engaging with 5 articles, with 2 insightful comments on each, is very likely to yield a badge within just 1-2 days.

2. Like your own comments. Feel free to link to your website or relevant content within your answers. You can leave multiple contributions per article or stick to 1 per article as desired. The key factors are: 3+ articles in the same general subject, with one or more thoughtful contributions on each.

3. Below each article, rate it “Great,” then like the actual post, then rate it “Great” again; liking the article resets the star rating system.

Consistency, strategic choosing of newer low-engagement articles to comment on, and value-adding responses that convey authority together result in earning subject-specific badges relatively quickly. The process may seem simple, but yields recognition as a community expert.

TOOLS OF THE WEEK

I continually showcase new AI tools, but also like to revisit existing favorites that improve over time, rather than only featuring new discoveries every week. This week I'm re-sharing upgrades to tools I've previously covered:

📹 RunwayML: Runway remains my go-to for picture/text-to-video. Their "magic brush" now enables simultaneous, multi-area edits on scenes - a major upgrade empowering even higher quality, engaging short videos..

👨‍🎤 Suno: Formerly Discord-based, Suno's new website makes their genre-agnostic, lyric-based AI music creation broadly accessible. Combined with Runway's video creation, this is a potent stack for unlimited original video soundtracks.

🏪 ChatGPT Store: ChatGPT model stores offer turnkey growth hacking, with specialized GPTs to simplify virtually any task - graphic design, taxes, research, and much more. However, evaluate data privacy protocols before training custom models.

👨‍🏫 LinkedIn Collaborative Articles: As a top LinkedIn influencer, I don't often intermix platforms. However, their new collaborative articles uniquely train their proprietary AI, and embed links drive organic traffic. As LinkedIn is owned by Microsoft and accelerating AI development, early thought leadership injection provides disproportionate visibility.