Weekly bulletin from AIport, issue #29

Hello and welcome to the latest issue of the AI Bulletin! We hope you enjoy this week’s selection of the most important news from the world of AI and data science, arranged chronologically for your convenience. Don’t forget to leave us a like, and see you next week!

North America

• MIT’s FutureTech group publishes the AI Risk Repository, a new database providing a categorized overview of the AI risk landscape.

• Elon Musk’s xAI releases its newest LLM, Grok 2, which includes an image generator that’s already sparking controversy by producing uncensored images depicting sex and violence.   

• In California, WeRide, a Chinese AI-powered robocar company, obtains a permit to begin offering rides to passengers. 

• Google unveils the new Pixel 9 smartphone with inbuilt AI capabilities powered by the company’s Gemini model.

• In Wyoming, a local newspaper reporter resigns after it was discovered he had used AI to generate fake stories and quotes, including those attributed to the state’s governor. 

Europe

• In Belgium, Bureau Van Meerbeeck, a private investigative collective, adopts AI to help solve cold cases.

• In Burgas, the host nation Bulgaria wins gold at the first International Olympiad in Artificial Intelligence (IOAI). 

• Researchers from the German Federal Archives develop an AI tool to decipher colonial-era documents. Meanwhile, WWF-Germany joins forces with IBM to create an AI solution for tracking African elephants. 

Asia

• Japan’s SoftBank teams up with conglomerates from South Korea and Thailand to launch a new AI startup investment scheme. In parallel, a city in Japan is testing a new AI tool to profile students and predict school absenteeism.

• China’s ByteDance, the parent company of TikTok, announces a strategic partnership with Mercedes-Benz aimed at leveraging AI technology for in-car systems.

Latin America 

• Colombia establishes Latin America’s first AI department at the University of Caldas in Manizales, with the first students expected to enroll next year.

Africa

• Scientists from South Africa’s National Research Foundation and Wits University in Johannesburg build an AI system that monitors urban air quality. 

Australia

• The nation’s embryologists endorse AI-assisted IVF (in vitro fertilization), citing its increased precision compared to manual techniques: here’s a short video report from 9News. A scientific study outlining this methodology was published in Nature Medicine last week.