Weekly bulletin from AIport, issue #9
All US federal agencies to appoint Chief AI Officers, Belgian beer gets better with AI, Baidu’s Ernie Bot will appear in the iPhone 16, and much more.
Hello and welcome to our latest issue of the AI bulletin! This week is jam-packed with interesting AI events and happenings — be sure to have a read and give us a thumbs-up if you like our content. Enjoy!
North America:
NYC Mayor Eric Adams announces new AI-backed technology across the city’s subway stations for gun detection.
The White House publishes a memorandum, ordering every US federal agency to appoint a Chief AI Officer.
Meta is to upgrade its Ray Ban smart glasses with AI in April, reports the New York Times.
Amazon injects an additional $2.75 billion into Anthropic (the maker of Claude), bringing the tech giant’s total investment into the San Francisco-based startup to $4 billion.
Hume introduces EVI, which the company claims is the first AI assistant with emotional intelligence.
Elon Musk’s AI startup xAI unveils its newest model Grok-1.5 with improved reasoning. The Grok chatbot will be available to all paid subscribers on X (formerly Twitter) by the end of the week, promises the billionaire.
Europe:
Researchers from Belgium publish a paper in Nature Communications, explaining how AI models could predict new beer flavors prior to brewing.
In Britain, the IPPR thinktank releases a report, arguing that close to 8 million UK jobs could soon be lost to AI. Meanwhile, the country’s National Hedgehog Monitoring Programme says it will use AI to understand the animal’s declining populations.
Asia:
In India, Bill Gates meets PM Modi to discuss the future of AI, including India’s burgeoning AI talent and the challenges of AI-generated deepfake content.
iPhone 16 devices in China will feature Baidu AI (aka Ernie Bot), claims a SCMP article, citing a Chinese media report.
Australia:
CSIRO, the country’s state agency responsible for scientific innovation, puts out a report, outlining how GenAI models could boost efficiency and transform entire industries in Australia.