Bonus Weekly Link Roundup #43.5
This is me either catching up on work or doing extra credit....
Pokémon Go Players Have Unwittingly Trained AI to Navigate the World: Interesting again to think about what parts of our worlds and lives have value and can be monetized > > “Niantic, the company behind the extremely popular augmented reality mobile games Pokémon Go and Ingress, announced that it is using data collected by its millions of players to create an AI model that can navigate the physical world. In a blog post published last week, first spotted by Garbage Day, Niantic says it is building a “Large Geospatial Model.”
Oura to integrate glucose data into its smart ring app: Looking at the previous story, I wonder what the Terms of Service will be and what data will be “owned” by the user versus what will able to maybe be de-identified and sold in bulk to say insurance companies > > “Oura has announced a new partnership that will bring an important new metric to its smart ring app. It has teamed up with Dexcom, which makes glucose monitors and associated apps, and the data collected from its devices will soon be integrated into the Oura app. Oura’s data will inform Dexcom’s apps as well, providing wearers of both products with more insight into their health.”
Microsoft quietly assembles the largest AI agent ecosystem—and no one else is close: How do people sleep on this with MSFT? How do people not see this coming? Not a value judgement at all, CoPilot Studio might be amazing but when you own enterprise relationships with the vast majority of companies, growing a new element in that ecosystem, might not be easy but it is simple “Microsoft has quietly built the largest enterprise AI agent ecosystem, with over 100,000 organizations creating or editing AI agents through its Copilot Studio since launch – a milestone that positions the company ahead in one of enterprise tech’s most closely watched and exciting segments.”
Moonvalley wants to build more ethical video models: I’m really interested in companies that are looking at ethics as a market differentiator. Isn’t that what iTunes did? They applied trust and some benefit accruing to the artist in ways that made consumers feel better about buying songs vs albums > > “Naeem Talukdar thinks that trust — not a model’s capabilities, necessarily — is what will set some generative video ventures apart from the rest. That’s why he’s founding Moonvalley, a Los Angeles-based startup that’s developing ostensibly more “transparent” generative video tools.”
From challenges to opportunities: navigating the human response to automated agents in the workplace: Figuring out how your people will work with agents will be AS important as the technical side > > “This paper aims to develop a deeper understanding of workers’ experiences with interactions with automated agents (AA) in the workplace and provide actionable recommendations for organisational leaders to achieve positive outcomes. We propose and test a simulation model that quantifies and predicts workers’ experiences with AA, shedding light on the interplay of diverse variables, such as workload, effort and trust.”
Google rolls out its Gemini AI-powered video presentation app: What happens if this goes wide? > > “Google is generally rolling out its Gemini AI-powered Vids app that lets you create video presentations using a prompt. Some of Vids’ key features include letting Gemini auto-insert stock footage for you, generating a script, and making AI voiceovers so you don’t have to speak.”
If you ever need arguments for the power of standards and how they can be freeing vs binding - here are two great stories (oddly, both about something as simple as screws):
AI-powered app integration platform UnifyApps grabs $20M from ICONIQ Growth: “Singh feels his startup has a good solution for that: UnifyApps essentially connects a company’s SaaS apps and data to each other, and lets companies build and deploy their own AI chatbots on top to interface with all the information. This approach, he says, serves to minimize AI hallucinations, because UnifyApps’ agents can essentially vet each other’s output based on the company’s data.”
Enterprise Philosophy and The First Wave of AI: Deep lessons here for enterprise deployment of AI > > “In fact, though, the personal computer wave was the 2nd wave of technology, particularly in terms of large enterprises. The first wave — and arguably the more important wave, in terms of economic impact — was the digitization of back-end offices. These were real jobs that existed”
Replit CEO Builds an App with AI in just 20 minutes: Thrill you or scare you? > > “In a groundbreaking display of the potential of AI in coding, in the video below Amjad Masad, develops a fully functional app in less than half an hour using only AI tools.”
Anthropic’s new AI model can control your PC: Here’s another to file under Thrill You or Scare You > > “Anthropic on Tuesday released an upgraded version of its Claude 3.5 Sonnet model that can understand and interact with any desktop app. Via a new “Computer Use” API, now in open beta, the model can imitate keystrokes, button clicks, and mouse gestures, essentially emulating a person sitting at a PC.”
Live Aware Labs raises $4.8M for its AI-powered gamer feedback platform: Forget the “gamer feedback” in the headline, focus on this and ask if it sounds like it would be valuable “Live Aware’s AI-powered platform not only compiles feedback data, but also provides actionable insights for developers.”
Data strategies for AI leaders -As generative AI adoption reshapes the competitive landscape, businesses without a strong data strategy will find their ambitions limited: This is the icky, get you metaphorical hands dirty work that will be 100% necessary to actually take best advantage of what could be costly AI deployments > > “The expectation that generative AI could fundamentally upend business models and product offerings is driven by the technology’s power to unlock vast amounts of data that were previously inaccessible.”
The Best Popular Science Books of 2024:
