Daily AI Newsletter: Sam Altman seeks billions to set up AI chips factories

In today’s email:

🇺🇸 Silicon Valley insiders are trying to unseat Biden with help from AI
💪 DeepMind Co-Founder: AI Is Fundamentally a "Labor Replacing Tool"
🏠 AI is coming for architecture
🧰 8 new AI-powered tools and resources. Make sure to check the online version for the full list of tools.

Sam Altman seeks billions to set up AI chip factories

Sam Altman, CEO of OpenAI, is seeking to raise billions of dollars from global investors for a semiconductor chip venture. This project involves setting up a network of factories globally to manufacture semiconductors. Altman has discussed this plan with potential investors including G42 from Abu Dhabi and SoftBank Group Corp. The aim is to meet the growing demand for AI-related chips, a need that Altman believes is currently not being met. Unlike other AI industry peers who design their own silicon and outsource manufacturing, this venture focuses on building and maintaining its own fabrication plants, which is a costly and time-consuming endeavor.

Altman's push for funding is driven by his concern about a future shortage of chips necessary for AI deployment. The construction of these semiconductor fabrication plants could cost tens of billions of dollars. Although the talks are still in early stages, the scope of the project and its focus on manufacturing have only recently been revealed.

Altman, who was temporarily ousted as OpenAI CEO but has since returned, has also approached Microsoft, OpenAI's largest investor, regarding the plan. The chip fabrication market is currently led by Intel Corp., Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co., and Samsung Electronics Co., who are potential partners for this venture.

Additionally, there are concerns raised by US lawmakers about G42's ties with blacklisted Chinese companies and potential risks to U.S. research, leading to calls for greater scrutiny and possible sanctions.

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Silicon Valley insiders are trying to unseat Biden with help from AI

Dean Phillips, a long-shot candidate opposing President Biden's renomination argues that Biden has lost the electorate's confidence. A new super PAC, backed by Silicon Valley insiders and activist billionaire Bill Ackman, supports Phillips and has raised $4 million, mainly targeting New Hampshire voters with social media ads and confessional-style videos.

The PAC, led by Silicon Valley entrepreneurs Matt Krisiloff and Jed Somers, has launched "Dean·Bot", an AI chatbot replicating Phillips’s voice, developed with open-source software. OpenAI, the creator of ChatGPT, initially part of Dean·Bot, banned its use in political campaigns, leading the PAC to remove ChatGPT from the bot. This move reflects the growing use of AI in politics, though experts warn of potential risks, like spreading misinformation.

The PAC's funding comes from various tech entrepreneurs, including Neal Khosla and Jed McCaleb. Phillips, who has changed his stance on accepting PAC money for his presidential campaign, advocates for AI regulation in political campaigns but supports its use with proper guardrails.

Despite Biden's low approval ratings and Phillips's focus on New Hampshire, where Biden is not on the primary ballot, Phillips struggles to gain significant support. The article also mentions the involvement of former Republican strategist Steve Schmidt and the formation of another super PAC, Pass the Torch, to support Phillips. The Dean·Bot aims to make Phillips more accessible to voters, offering interactive audio responses based on Phillips's voice samples. However, the technology is still imperfect, and users are advised to take the answers with a grain of salt.

How artists can poison their pics with deadly Nightshade to deter AI scrapers

Researchers at the University of Chicago have developed Nightshade 1.0, a data poisoning tool aimed at deterring the unauthorized use of images in machine learning models. Nightshade subtly alters images so that while they appear unchanged to human eyes, they mislead AI models, potentially causing them to misidentify the content.

This tool complements Glaze, another tool designed to prevent the replication of an artist's visual style by AI models. Both tools are part of a broader effort to respect the rights of content creators and prevent unauthorized data harvesting, which has been a contentious issue in the AI community. Nightshade works by selecting a label that blurs the boundaries of the concept in an image, which can confuse AI models trained on such data.

The development of these tools comes in the context of legal actions against companies accused of using artists' work without permission. Nightshade is currently specific to CLIP-based models and has some limitations, such as potential differences in images with flat colors and smooth backgrounds. The researchers also acknowledge that countermeasures may emerge, but they are prepared to adapt their software accordingly. Both Nightshade and Glaze are available for download, with a combined version in development.