To democratic AI 🍻
Anthropic's AI; by the people, for the people. Meta's AI peeks into your brain, and OpenAI's on a mission. Bitcoin ETF's approval to make it rain billions? What's Jimmy Zhong's Story?
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Fancy a chatbot that reflects what you value?
Anthropic has stepped up to the plate.
Their latest large language model (LLM) project isn't just your run-of-the-mill AI – it's been specially trained to mirror the values of its users.
Democratic tech. AI for the people.
Chatbots like Anthropic's Claude and our dear ol' ChatGPT often have built-in guardrails to prevent them from going haywire.
While these guardrails stop things from getting too wild, critics say it can also restrict user agency.
The whole what’s "acceptable" vs. what’s "useful" debate is a hot topic.
Anthropic thought - Why not let users have a say?
They embarked on a 'Collective Constitutional AI' experiment – a fancy name for "let’s see if we can make AI democratic."
Anthropic is asking 1,000 Americans to help shape AI rules.
With some help from Polis and the Collective Intelligence Project, Anthropic surveyed 1,000 users from all walks of life.
These participants got to share their two cents on AI value judgments.
Anthropic's "Constitutional AI" approach is all about setting core rules for the chatbot. Think of it like a country's constitution.
In this experiment, they tried integrating group feedback into the AI's "constitution."
1,117 statements were contributed.
A whopping 38,000 votes were cast on various matters.
Most statements reached a high consensus, despite diverse opinions.
When the results were tallied, the chatbot designed with all that collective user feedback showed promise.
It seemed to have a slight edge over the original model, especially in reducing biased responses.
The public greatly emphasised non-discrimination based on disabilities – a significant highlight absent from Anthropic’s initial rule set.
Collective Intelligence Project co-founder Divya Siddarth.
“AI is going to have a transformative impact on the world. Yet very few people get to decide exactly what that looks like. We wanted to build processes so that wouldn't be true anymore.”
Who's suing them now?
Universal Music Group (UMG) is suing Anthropic for allegedly using its music without permission to train AI models, marking a significant legal move against AI by the music industry.
The lawsuit, backed by other major publishers, accuses Anthropic of "systematic and widespread infringement" of copyrighted song lyrics.
While the publishers recognise the potential of AI, they insist on ethical usage and adherence to copyright laws.
They're demanding a jury trial, destruction of infringing material, and up to $150,000 per infringed work.
🧠 Meta's mind-reading feat
Meta has rolled out a cutting-edge AI system capable of transforming brain activity into vibrant visualisations almost instantly.
The AI, as described in recent research, gathers thousands of brain activity metrics every second, providing a comprehensive understanding of how our brains interpret and process visuals.
Key components
Image Encoder: It translates an image into a language the AI understands.
Brain Encoder: This part connects the brain's interpretation of the image with the image itself.
Image Decoder: This reconstructs the image, echoing the initial thought.
The innovation uses magnetoencephalography (MEG) - a non-invasive method measuring the magnetic fields due to neuronal activity, offering insights into the workings of the brain.
Is this new? The University of California, Berkeley, demonstrated an AI that could recreate music just by analysing brain activity.
🤖 OpenAI's quest against Deepfakes
OpenAI, already a powerhouse in generative AI, doubles down against the menace of deepfakes, unveiling a tool designed to detect AI-created imagery.
Mira Murati, OpenAI's CTO, announced at the Wall Street Journal's Tech Live conference the company's new tool which allegedly identifies AI-produced images with a staggering "99% reliability."
OpenAI’s prior shot at detecting AI wasn't a home run. In 2022, they released a text classifier meant to separate human and machine writing. However, it was discontinued due to its high error rate.
Now, the current deepfake detection relies heavily on human intuition, focusing on elements like hands and teeth, which generative AIs struggle with.
Detecting the subtle distinction between AI-generated versus AI-edited content is still an uphill battle.
OpenAI isn't alone.
DeepMedia caters to government clients for deepfake detection, and tech behemoths like Microsoft and Adobe have devised an "AI watermarking" system to flag AI-generated content.
This symbol, a product of the Coalition for Content Provenance and Authenticity (C2PA), aims to enhance content transparency.
Yet, even this has its vulnerabilities, although Adobe has launched a cloud service to retrieve lost metadata.
TTD Numbers 🔢
$900 billion
CryptoQuant predicts that if spot exchange-traded funds (ETFs) for Bitcoin get the go-ahead in the coming year, we could witness Bitcoin's market cap skyrocketing to $900 billion.
For perspective, CoinGecko data has its current market cap at around $550 billion.
The approval isn't just monumental for Bitcoin alone.
The entire crypto market cap could swell by a hefty $1 trillion.
Despite the SEC playing hard to get, the consensus is that Wall Street's dream will soon be a reality.
Big names like Valkyrie Investments, Ark Invest, and VanEck are on the Bitcoin ETF bandwagon.
If Bloomberg Intelligence analysts are to be believed, there's a 90% chance we'll be celebrating a Bitcoin ETF in the US market by January 10.
Bitcoin experienced a brief 7% rally to $30,000 before retracting due to an erroneous news headline about the SEC approving BlackRock's spot BTC ETF application.
Analysts believe that if a real approval occurs, price gains could be even larger, although some suggest that approval has already been priced in.
Novogratz is hopeful
Galaxy Digital Holdings CEO Michael Novogratz believes that spot bitcoin exchange-traded funds (ETFs) will be approved by the end of this year.
"It's gonna get approved," Novogratz said during an interview on CNBC. "We think it happens this year, in 2023."
Also, Grayscale Investments' Chief Legal Officer, Craig Salm, believes that a spot bitcoin exchange-traded fund (ETF) is inevitable and only a matter of time.
This comes after the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) decided not to appeal a court ruling that ordered it to reconsider Grayscale's bid to convert its GBTC fund into a spot bitcoin ETF.
TTD NFTs 🐝
Norman's NFTs 🖼️
Norman Rockwell, the legendary American painter, is stepping into the future. The Norman Rockwell Museum, in partnership with the Rockwell family, is launching its first-ever NFT collection.
A tantalising series titled "Studio Sessions: The Norman Rockwell Collection." It will feature several never-before-seen works.
The museum teamed up with Iconic – the same folks who helped the Jackson Pollock Studio venture into NFTs.
Scheduled to be unveiled on November 1 on Iconic’s website, the specifics about the NFT collection remain a mystery.
Got some Ethereum or a credit card? That's all you'll need to grab one of these exclusive NFTs. As for the price? That remains a mystery for now.
The sales will support the museum's mission and the legacy of Rockwell. Plus, every NFT owner will get a snazzy limited-edition print. Double win!
Get a slice of Picasso & Dali 🔗
What if you could own a piece of a Picasso? Monada Art and 10101.art are making this dream a reality.
What’s the buzz?
Monada Art and 10101.art are taking centre stage with iconic works by artists like Picasso and Dali. They're showcasing in the luxury hub, Dubai.
This venture intends to revolutionise the art market by giving art enthusiasts a chance to own portions of masterpieces via tokenised digital assets.
10101.art isn't just stopping at Picasso and Dali. They have plans to bring more legends like Banksy and Warhol into the mix.
This new approach is breaking barriers, making art ownership a breeze. And with the power of blockchain, every piece's history is transparent and traceable.
The FTX Saga 🚨
During Sam Bankman-Fried's trial, an expert witness revealed that FTX only held around $5 billion in customer crypto funds, despite customers believing they owned around $20 billion👇🏻
TTD Musk🕴🏻
Elon Musk's Tesla seems to have kept its crypto purse strings tight this quarter. Meanwhile, the company is betting big on AI.
Financial Figures 💹
Earnings Fall Short: Tesla's Q3 2023 results didn't meet Wall Street's expectations. They reported revenues of $23.35 billion, an increase of almost 9% YoY, but missed the forecasted $24.38 billion by Zacks Investment Research.
EPS Estimates: Their earnings per share stood at $0.66, slightly off from Zack's prediction of $0.72.
Rising Expenses: Q3 saw Tesla's operating costs rise to $2.41 billion - a 13% increase QoQ and a staggering 42.5% rise YoY.
R&D Expenditure: Tesla's zeal for innovation is evident in its R&D spendings, which hit $1.16 billion in the quarter - a leap of 58% compared to last year. They attributed this hike to projects centred around the Cybertruck, AI, and other R&D endeavours.
The Bitcoin Stash 🪙
Consistency: For the fifth consecutive quarter, Tesla has kept its Bitcoin holdings unchanged.
BTC Backstory: Back in March 2021, the company acquired a massive $1.5 billion worth of Bitcoin. As of September 30, 2023, they've still held onto $184 million of digital assets.
Past Moves: Tesla made a hefty transaction in Q2 2022, where they sold off around 75% of their Bitcoin stash, translating to over 30,000 BTC, and raked in a cool $936 million.
AI Expansion
Tesla's ambitions in AI is growing, with the company more than doubling its computing capacity dedicated to AI projects.
The development of Tesla's humanoid robot, Optimus, has seen a shift. Instead of relying on coded software, Tesla is training Optimus using AI.
They've brought on board one of the world's most potent supercomputers to speed up their AI innovations.
In terms of compute capacity, they've seen a surge of over double since Q2.
Also, X , is testing a new signup model in New Zealand and the Philippines.
New users will have to pay a $1 annual fee to prove they are not a bot, opt into a premium subscription, or become a verified enterprise account.
The trial, called "Not A Bot," aims to reduce spam and manipulation on the platform.
TTD Fraud 🦹🏻
Jimmy Zhong is now chilling in a federal prison, serving a one-year sentence for swiping a hefty sum of 50,000 bitcoins from the infamous Silk Road marketplace.
The case was almost dead in the water.
That is, until Zhong, probably in one of his "Oops!" moments, dialed emergency services in Athens, GA.
Why? Someone had pinched a fortune in cryptocurrency from his crib.
Little did he know, this call would set off a chain of events leading him straight to the clutches of the US Department of Justice (DOJ).
Thanks to a sharp-eyed private investigator, whose daily grind usually involved catching spouses or handling custody battles, the feds managed to net themselves a whopper of a crypto catch.
Life before Bars
Before sporting the prison jumpsuit, Jimmy was known to live large. Think private jets, epic parties, and being that pal who hands out thousands of dollars like candy.
Zhong, a sprightly 33-year-old, checked into his new, not-so-luxurious abode, the federal prison camp in Montgomery, Alabama, in July 2023.
His crime? Wire fraud.
His punishment after pleading guilty? A year and a day behind bars, and saying goodbye to his precious bitcoins.
Looking at the bright side
Michael Bachner, Zhong's attorney, tried putting a positive spin on things when chatting with CNBC.
He mentioned that had the US government seized those 50,000 bitcoins when Silk Road's boss, Ross Ulbricht, got nabbed, they would've cashed in at about $320 per coin – pocketing a meager $14 million.
Thanks to Zhong's "safekeeping", the government's Bitcoin piggy bank grew by a whopping $3 billion. Talk about an unintentional favor.
TTD Surfer 🏄
FDIC has been criticized by its watchdog for not providing clear guidance to banks on how to handle cryptocurrencies.
The European Central Bank (ECB) has announced that it will begin the preparation phase for the digital euro project.
A doctor in Georgia has pleaded guilty to using Bitcoin to hire a hitman in a murder-for-hire plot.
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