Weekly bulletin from AIport, issue #20

Apple unveils AI solutions at WWDC 2024, AI elevates brick-and-mortar shopping in Singapore, an African nation launches its own LLM, and much more.

Hello and welcome to the 20th issue of our AI bulletin. Enjoy this week’s selection of the most important AI and data-related news and events, arranged chronologically for your convenience. Don’t forget to give us a like and see you next week!

North America:

• Following last week’s commotion about Meta’s updated privacy policy related to AI model training, MIT Technology Review publishes a guide on how to avoid Meta’s data scraping.

• In a new interview with Wired, a veteran futurist Ray Kurzweil argues that we’re a stone’s throw away from AGI and the digital singularity.

• OpenAI appoints former head of the NSA to its Board of Directors, Elon Musk unexpectedly drops his lawsuit against OpenAI, while he himself gets sued by Tesla investors for launching xAI.

• A food company from Idaho is using AI to facilitate sustainable wheat-sourcing practices across the Pacific Northwest.

• At WWDC 2024, Apple unveils Apple Intelligence, which includes AI-enabled solutions for its flagship hardware products as well as cloud infrastructure. 

Europe:

• Russian tech giant Yandex releases a free LLM tool on GitHub, allowing companies to save vast resources on GPU usage. 

• OECD publishes a new report naming Germany a world leader in AI and praising the nation for its tech leadership within the EU. 

• In Brighton, England, a new general election candidate is an AI-generated tech entrepreneur avatar, whose creator promises it will become the first AI MP in the UK.

Asia:

• In Singapore, brick-and-mortar retailers are successfully utilizing AI to offer customers an enhanced shopping experience. 

• In Japan, SoftBank’s new voice-altering AI filter protects employees from agitated customers, while the new AI-backed CatsMe! app detects when pet cats are in pain.

• In China, universities regulate the use of AI in academic assignments, while Kuaishou, the nation’s second-largest video app, introduces a Sora-style GenAI solution named Kling.

Africa:

• Awarri, a Lagos-based tech startup backed by the Nigerian government, is reportedly building its own LLM.

Australia:

• The whole nation is shocked as a teenager gets arrested by Victoria Police for AI-generating fake nude images of female students from Bacchus Marsh Grammar, north-west of Melbourne.