🗞 DeepMind Employees Protest Military Contracts on Ethical Grounds 🙅🏼♂️

🔎 The Latest on the AI Frontier:

• DeepMind Employees Protest Military Contracts on Ethical Grounds 🙅🏼‍♂️

• Google Recruits Former Character.AI CEO for Gemini Project 👉

• Gmail Gets Gemini-Powered Writing Assistant on Mobile 📱

• Amazon's AI Assistant Q Yields Massive Productivity Gains ⌛️

• Elon Musk's X Ownership Revealed: A Diverse Investor Base 🔍

• Microsoft Plans Another Confusing Rebrand for Copilot 🖥️

• Apple Tweaks iOS to Comply with EU Regulations 🍎

• AI Sales Rep Startups Boom, but VCs Remain Cautious ☎

• Perplexity AI to Introduce Advertising on Search Platform 🔍

• Chinese Firms Exploit Cloud Loophole for US AI Chip Access 🌐

• Meshy Unveils Advanced AI-Powered 3D Modeling Tool 🎨

🙅🏼‍♂️ Google DeepMind workers protest military contracts, citing AI ethics concerns. Link

• Nearly 200 DeepMind employees signed a letter urging Google to drop military contracts, including Project Nimbus with Israel.

• Workers argue military involvement violates Google's AI Principles and DeepMind's pledge to avoid military applications.

• The letter calls for investigating military use of Google Cloud, terminating access for military clients, and creating new governance to prevent future military use of DeepMind tech.

👉 Google appoints ex-Character.AI CEO to co-lead Gemini AI project. Link

• Noam Shazeer, former Character.AI CEO, named co-technical lead for Google's Gemini AI model.

• Shazeer joins Jeff Dean and Oriol Vinyals in developing Gemini to compete with OpenAI's GPT models.

• Move follows Google's recent $2.7 billion licensing deal with Character.AI, bringing back Shazeer and co-founder Daniel De Freitas.

📱 Google adds Gemini AI features to Gmail for smarter mobile drafting. Link

• New "Polish" tool refines rough drafts into polished emails on Android and iOS Gmail apps.

• Options include Polish, Formalize, Elaborate and Shorten for refining drafts.

• Limited to Google One AI Premium and certain paid Workspace customers, expanding Gemini's integration across Google's productivity suite.

⌛️ Amazon's AI assistant Q saves company $260M and 4,500 developer-years. Link

• CEO Andy Jassy reports Amazon Q cut software upgrade times from 50 days to hours.

• AI tool generated 79% of code reviews without needing changes, boosting productivity.

• Amazon plans to expand Q's capabilities, seeing it as a "game changer" for development.

🔍 Elon Musk's X co-owners revealed in court documents, showing diverse investor base. Link

• 95 co-owners listed, including entities tied to Sean "Diddy" Combs, Jack Dorsey, and Bill Ackman, as well as Saudi conglomerate and crypto firm Binance.

• Fidelity Investments has at least 27 different investment vehicles with stakes in X, up from just one entity listed in 2022.

• The disclosure, ordered by a federal judge, provides the first complete look at X's ownership since Musk took the company private in 2022. Some investors appear to have held onto shares from Twitter's public days.

🖥️ Microsoft plans confusing rebrand of Copilot AI assistant, continuing pattern of complex naming. Link

• Microsoft has a history of convoluted product names, often leading to confusion and subsequent changes.

• Copilot, the company's AI assistant, is next in line for a rebrand, potentially adding to user confusion.

• This move follows Microsoft's trend of complicated marketing decisions, reminiscent of past examples like "Windows Mobile 2003 for Pocket PC Professional Edition."

🍎 Apple updating iOS for EU users to comply with Digital Markets Act. Link

• Apple will provide more browser choice information and allow setting new app defaults in iOS/iPadOS for EU users.

• Users can delete 5 core Apple apps: App Store, Messages, Photos, Camera and Safari.

• Changes take effect by end of 2024, stemming from ongoing talks with European Commission on regulatory compliance.

☎ AI sales rep startups booming, but VCs cautious about long-term viability. Link

• Multiple AI SDR startups are experiencing rapid growth and product-market fit within a short time.

• These tools use AI to automate personalized outreach emails and calls to potential customers.

• VCs are wary of investing due to concerns about long-term adoption and competition from established players.

• Key questions remain about effectiveness compared to human outreach and access to differentiated data.

🔍 Perplexity AI to launch ads on its AI search platform by Q4 2024. Link

• The Nvidia and Jeff Bezos-backed startup plans to introduce advertising on its AI-powered search platform.

• Perplexity recently launched a revenue-sharing program with publishers like TIME and Fortune.

• The move comes as major search engines integrate AI, posing a potential threat to Google's dominance.

🌐 Chinese firms exploit cloud services loophole to access restricted US AI chips, raising concerns and prompting regulatory action. Link

• At least 11 Chinese entities have sought access to banned US AI technologies via cloud services, with 4 specifically naming Amazon Web Services as their provider.

• US lawmakers are pushing to close this loophole, with legislation introduced in April to give the Commerce Department authority to regulate remote access to US technology.

• The Commerce Department has proposed new rules requiring cloud services to verify users of large AI models and report potentially malicious activities, as the debate over technology access and national security intensifies.

🎨 Meshy launches Meshy-4, an advanced AI-powered 3D modeling tool. Link

• Offers improved mesh geometry and redesigned workflow for creating virtual environments.

• Separates text-to-3D model generation into modeling and texturing stages for more user control.

• New "Retry" option allows quick regeneration of unsatisfactory image-to-3D results.

• Aims to produce cleaner, more professional 3D models suitable for industries like game development and architectural visualization.

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