🦸‍♂️ After AI comes AGI

Salesforce thinks AI will eventually be smarter than you

Business services heavyweight Salesforce has announced its new generative AI tool for companies. Dubbed Einstein Copilot, the model will purportedly help organizations build custom no-code apps.

During the Einstein Copilot launch - held as part of the Dreamforce Conference - Salesforce CEO Marc Benioff outlined how he sees AI shaping the future of industry, including the prospect of artificial general intelligence (AGI), which is broadly defined as surpassing human-level intelligence.

Benioff’s proclamation didn’t fully cover what to expect from AGI, so I suppose we just have to hope our robot overlords will be friendly.

Forbes | Link to story.

China’s AI startups aren’t doing great

Is the AI gold-rush already over? In China, it might be. At least, that’s the takeaway from a new Wired piece profiling the struggles of the nation’s AI startups.

The report explains how the Great Firewall of China makes it difficult to scrape the open web for training data. Add in the eye-watering cost of AI chips and a slowing domestic economy, and many smaller Chinese AI operators are feeling the pinch.

Nonetheless, China’s tech giants are busy pushing out LLMs, so it seems those with big enough shovels might still find gold.

Wired | Link to story (paywall).

An insider’s view on raising capital

Isaac Madan, CEO of proprietary data handling service Nightfall AI, discusses how the company raised its Series B.

Madan says AI startups have to justify just why the emergent technology is key to their business model, and how investors are getting smarter about what constitutes true generative AI.

Madan also suggests raising capital for AI tools is going to get tougher over the coming 12 months.

TechCrunch+ | Link to story (paywall)

A license to AI

The US Senate is meeting with all the big names in AI this week (Meta, OpenAI, Google, etc.), but Microsoft is seemingly trying to set the agenda.

Microsoft President Brad Smith has told a Senate subcommittee that the company supports the prospect of a federal licensing system for AI. Explaining Microsoft’s position, the executive made a clunky analogy to operating a vehicle, saying “We have to prove that we can drive before we get a license.”

Smith’s stance comes as US lawmakers explore how to regulate the AI industry. Let’s just hope we don’t end up in a place where AI startups all have to get in line at the DMV.

Politico | Link to story.