Devin, Robots, and Regulations

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Steve Brown
March 14, 2024

Devin, Robots, and Regulations

Software programmers aren’t going away. But the language they use to express their vision and create software may change from Python and C++ to simple human language, making programming more accessible to more people. Following efforts like Microsoft Github Copilot, DeepMind AlphaCode, Open AI Codex, and Amazon CodeWhisperer comes Devin, an autonomous agent that can plan and execute complex software engineering tasks. Devin comes from Cognition AI, a startup funded by Peter Thiel and other tech leaders. They position Devin as the world’s first AI software engineer. It still has a long way to go, but it seems to be leagues ahead of everyone else. Watch their demo video here.

Microsoft has announced that what it positions as “the industry’s first generative AI solution” for security and AI professionals will be available on April 1st, 2024. Hopefully not a prank, the Security Copilot has been shown to increase the speed of experienced security analysts by 22%, boost their accuracy across all tasks by 7%, and 97% of those people reported they wanted to use the product again in the future.

Regulation is always going to be in catch-up with the exponential capability ramp of artificial intelligence, but the EU AI Act, passed into EU law this week, is a good start. It imposes restrictions on what it categorizes as “high-risk” AI, bans biometric surveillance, and requires the creators of frontier models to disclose their training data. And it has the teeth to impose significant fines, up to 7% of a company’s revenue.

Today’s demo: Figure 01 humanoid robot

Figure already seemed to be leading the race to create useful humanoid robots. Their recently-announced partnership with Open AI is apparently already yielding significant fruit. Check out this short demo video where Figure 01 interacts naturally and intelligently with an employee. The robot demonstrates good conversational skill, simple reasoning, and impressive dexterity. There are many who believe that the path to AGI requires embodiment—that an AI must inhabit a physical body, have agency in the world, and the ability to explore it—in order to fully understand it. Open AI's partnership with Figure would seem to be a good bet on this particular research direction. I'm watching Figure very closely, and so should you.

AI Innovation

Cerebras specializes in making massive chips the size of an entire silicon wafer. Their new Wafer Scale Engine 3 (WSE-3) has 4 trillion transistors and 900,000 AI cores capable of delivering 125 petaflops of computing performance. Compare this to Nvidia’s H100 which has 80 billion transistors. The new chip is targeted at training the next generation of AI models, which Cerebras expects to be 10x the size of the largest model out there today. The article includes an impressive photo of the giganto chip.

Among other things, DeepMind is famous for building AIs that learn to play games, from Atari games, to StarCraft II, to the ancient game of Go. They don’t just do this for fun. It’s to learn how to build AIs that can learn efficiently and effectively. They then use many of these insights to build AIs that solve real-world problems: optimizing compression algorithms, predicting protein structures, or controlling the guts of a fusion reactor. Their latest research paper outlines a general AI agent, SIMA, that can learn to play a wide variety of 3D video games. The end goal here is to build AI agents that can learn to navigate any environment. Think robots, embodiment, and the path to AGI.

Startup, Physical Intelligence (Pi), has emerged from stealth with a plan to build foundational models and learning algorithms for a wide range of robots and other physical devices. Led by ex-Google robotics guru, Karol Hausman, Pi will use its $70 million war chest to build a universal model that can be used as the ‘brains’ for all robots. This will be a significant research challenge but, if successful, could substantially advance the field.

AI Insights

No surprises here, but the FBI is warning that U.S. security officials are bracing for an onslaught of AI-powered influence operations, designed to sway voting in the upcoming presidential election. Expect more fake videos, robocalls, and social posts. AI-amplified disinformation will continue to be a major challenge.

First published last summer, this Harvard Business Review article explores how generative AI can be used to promote divergent thinking, challenge expertise bias, assist in idea evaluation, support idea refinement, and facilitate collaboration inside your organization. The conclusion: “Generative AI’s greatest potential is not replacing humans; it is to assist humans in their individual and collective efforts to create hitherto unimaginable solutions. It can truly democratize innovation.”

NPR reports on the accelerating phenomenon of AI-generated books on Amazon. Buyers beware.

Toolkit for the Future

Creating audio content can be a daunting task. Recording, editing, and refining audio often demands more time than entrepreneurs can spare. Imagine being able to produce human-like audio effortlessly with just a single click. ElevenLabs makes that a reality by allowing you to generate unbelievably high quality audio efficiently and cost-effectively in 29 languages. A game changer for content creators aiming to increase efficiency and reach a global audience through multilingual content. To see ElevenLabs in action, check out this super fun clip (not by ElevenLabs) that an AI researcher put together where he has Open AI’s GPT-4 describe a scene and then uses ElevenLabs to voice the narration in the unmistakable tones of Sir David Attenborough. Just wild. Anyway, you can try ElevenLabs out for free here.

HireLogic is a really cool AI assistant you can use to aid your interview process. Invite the HireLogic AI to your next phone, video call, or in-person interview and it will listen to and analyze the interview to provide specific insights, highlight strengths and potential concerns, and catalog skills, metrics/KPIs, key topics discussed, and a full transcript of the interview. Impressive stuff, and integrates fully with HR platforms like Workday, Greenhouse, and Crelate. And HireLogic is free to try! Really cool product.

Prospecting, trying to generate leads and close deals? This impressive sales software finds phone numbers, emails, and even builds out org charts of companies for the people you need to get to. Stay connected with old contacts who have moved jobs, fill in gaps in your contact info, auto-generate follow up emails, and get help to identify new target markets. Get 50 free credits with no credit card down and discover why over 500,000 companies use Seamless.AI to grow their business. Comprehensive and impressive.

Melio is a free and easy-to-use payment solution that helps US small businesses to pay any expense by bank transfer or credit card - even where cards are not accepted. With no setup or monthly fees, users can pay with a bank transfer for free, or a credit card while the vendor receives a check or bank transfer. Additional features let customers pay over time and allow you to accept international payments. If you’re a small business like I am, Melio is really worth taking a look at.

I’ve only just started to tap into Notion myself, but boy has it changed the way I work. A simple to use tool that helps you to organize information, thoughts, to-do lists, calendars, articles, tasks, notes, discussions, and more. It’s replaced a bunch of disparate apps and enabled me to work in one, well-organized space. And the team collaboration features make it a breeze to work together and share insights and information so you have less meetings! It has easy-to-use, powerful features and templates to get you started quickly. Notion is a calm, clear place to focus on the things that actually matter to you. Give it a go today.