The World's First 'AI Scientist'
Plus: Google rivals OpenAI’s advanced voice chat, xAI unveils Grok-2 and Grok-2 mini models, Apple’s iPad to get a robotic arm, and more.
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This newsletter brings you the latest AI updates in just 4 minutes! Dive in for a quick summary of everything important that happened in AI over the last week.
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In today’s edition:
🤖 Sakana introduces the world’s first ‘AI Scientist’
🎙️ Google’s take on OpenAI’s advanced voice chat
🚀 xAI unveils Grok-2 and Grok-2 mini models
💪 Apple’s iPad to get a robotic arm
💻 Introducing ‘living computers’ for energy-hungry AI
📚 Knowledge Nugget: The Unwritten Rules of AI-Generated Code & Prose by
Let’s go!
Sakana introduces the world’s first ‘AI Scientist’
Sakana AI, OpenAI’s Japanese rival, introduced The AI Scientist. It is the first comprehensive system for fully automatic scientific discovery, enabling Foundation Models such as LLMs to perform research independently.
They applied it to machine learning research. The AI Scientist automates the research lifecycle, from generating novel ideas, writing necessary code, and executing experiments to summarizing results, visualizing them, and presenting its findings in a full scientific manuscript.
Why does it matter?
For years, researchers have joked about having AI write their papers. This work is bringing this unrealistic idea to life, redefining the role of AI in research, and potentially transforming how science is conducted.
Google’s take on OpenAI’s advanced voice chat
Google rolled out Gemini Live, a mobile conversational experience that lets you have free-flowing conversations with Gemini. It’s like having a sidekick in your pocket to chat with about new ideas or practice with for an important conversation. It is also available hands-free so you can keep talking with the Gemini app in the background or when your phone is locked.
Gemini Live is rolling out in English for Gemini Advanced subscribers on Android phones and will expand to iOS and other languages in the coming weeks.
Why does it matter?
It is arguably the biggest threat to OpenAI's voice chat. At the Made by Google event, Google also revealed that Gemini Live will soon be able to "see" using your camera. It might reshape mobile AI assistants to offer more interactive and versatile experiences.
xAI unveils Grok-2 and Grok-2 mini models
Elon Musk’s xAI introduced two new models: Grok-2 and Grok-2 mini. Both models are now available in beta to Grok users on the X platform and will be available through the enterprise API later this month.
Grok-2 marks a significant upgrade from Grok-1.5, with improved conversation, coding, and reasoning. The Grok-2 mini, a smaller but capable version, is also live on X. Notably, the new Grok model now supports image generation, utilizing Flux 1, which was released a few days ago.
Why does it matter?
xAI’s unfiltered chatbots have carved their niche, but Grok-2’s state-of-the-art performance has established xAI as a serious competitor in the AI field.
Apple’s iPad to get a robotic arm
Apple is working on a new tabletop robotic home device. It will feature a large iPad-like display mounted on a "thin robotic arm" that allows the display to tilt, up, down, and rotate a full 360º. The device would serve as a "smart home command center," a videoconferencing machine for FaceTime calls, and a home security monitoring tool.
It will leverage Siri and Apple Intelligence. Apple plans to launch the device as soon as 2026 or 2027 and to lower the price to around $1,000, which may change as development proceeds.
Why does it matter?
Apple is deepening its investment in AI with a new home device. While it is leveraging AI to redefine user experiences, will it setting a new standard for intelligent home automation?
‘Living computers’ for energy-hungry AI
Some researchers, wary of AI's ballooning demands for data storage and energy, are focusing on a growing field known as biocomputing. The approach uses synthetic biology, such as miniature clusters of lab-grown cells called organoids, to create computer architecture.
Biocomputing pioneers include Swiss company FinalSpark, which earlier this year debuted its "Neuroplatform"—a computer platform powered by human brain organoids that scientists can rent over the Internet for $500 a month.
Why does it matter?
Moving away from traditional CPUs and GPUs could be a significant advancement in addressing AI's substantial energy consumption. Nonetheless, using brain organoids ventures into uncharted territory, raising significant questions.
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Knowledge Nugget: The Unwritten Rules of AI-Generated Code & Prose
The article by
contrasts the ethics of using AI in writing versus coding. In writing, especially creative contexts, using AI to generate large portions of content is seen as unethical, akin to plagiarism, while AI assistance for research or brainstorming is acceptable.Conversely, in coding, AI-generated code is widely accepted as it streamlines problem-solving and reduces costs. The article highlights the different attitudes toward AI in these fields and questions what makes writing truly "human”.
Why does it matter?
It highlights the evolving ethical landscape around AI's role in creative and technical fields. As AI becomes more integrated into our work, understanding where to draw the line between assistance and over-reliance is crucial.
What Else Is Happening❗
🤖A new fully autonomous AI software engineer, Genie, breaks the high score on SWE-Bench by 10%—ahead of Amazon and Cognition. It was trained from the start to think and behave like a human SWE.
🖥️Canalys report finds that AI PCs accounted for 14% of all personal computers shipped in this year’s second quarter, with Apple commanding about 60%.
🏆The latest ChatGPT-4o re-claimed the #1 position on LMSYS Arena, surpassing Google's Gemini-1.5-Pro-Exp with an impressive score of 1314!
🎨Google released the latest version of Imagen 3, its best text-to-image generator, to users in the US. It was first announced during I/O in May.
📈Walmart is leveraging gen AI to boost productivity, enabling it to update 850 million product catalog entries 100x faster than manual methods.
⚠️Softbank’s plans to develop AI processors to compete with Nvidia reportedly hit a major setback as Intel failed to meet volume and speed specifications. It is now considering a TSMC partnership.
📊Nous Research released Hermes 3, a new open-source model (in sizes 8B, 70B, and 405B), that achieves similar or better performance to Meta’s Llama-3.1 405B.
🎬RunwayML released Gen-3 Alpha Turbo, which has a 7x faster speed and costs half that of Gen-3 Alpha. It is available for all plans, including a trial for free users.
🚀Grammarly is launching an AI content detector tool, Authorship, designed to identify if the content was created by AI, a human, or both.
💸Anthropic introduced a Prompt Caching feature for Claude, which led to up to 90% cost reductions for developers and up to 85% latency reductions.
🎥Luma Labs released Dream Machine 1.5 with higher-quality text-to-video, smarter understanding of your prompts, custom text rendering, and improved image-to-video.
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