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☆ AI is hitting a wall just as valuations reach the stratosphere
▼ + stars: | 2024-11-19 | by ( Allison Morrow | ) edition.cnn.com time to read: +5 min

The narrative from Silicon Valley is that the AI train has left the station and any smart investor had better hop on before these products become “superintelligent” and start solving all the world’s problems. Now, some of the leading language models appear to be hitting a wall, according to at least three reports last week. But if we have indeed hit a scaling wall, “it may mean that the the mega-cap technology companies have over-invested” and it’s possible that they could scale back in the near future. That’s the AI optimist/pragmatist view. For a less rosy outlook, I turned to Gary Marcus, NYU professor emeritus and outspoken critic of AI hype.

Persons: CNN Business ’, New York CNN — It’s, OpenAI, ”, that’s, “, Orion “, Ilya Sutskever, ” Sutskever, Marc Andreessen, Sam Altman, ” Gil Luria, Davidson, it’s, ” Luria, Gary Marcus, ” Marcus, “ LLMs Organizations: CNN Business, New York CNN, Nvidia, Tech, ” Bloomberg, ” Reuters Locations: New York, GPT

☆ Those bold AGI predictions are suddenly looking stretched
▼ + stars: | 2024-11-17 | by ( Alistair Barr | ) www.businessinsider.com time to read: +7 min

The generative AI boom has inspired bold AGI predictions ranging from this happening in 2025, 2026, or maybe 2027. AdvertisementThat's the main reason for huge gains in recent years in the performance of AI models. AdvertisementHorowitz noted several factors that are holding back AI model improvements, including a lack of new high-quality human data and problems sourcing the extra energy needed to power AI data centers. AGI questionsIf the main tried-and-true method for improving AI models is no longer working, we are unlikely to get AGI anytime soon. Altman's bold AGI predictions may also be an effective rallying cry for hard-working OpenAI employees.

Persons: Sam Altman, there's, that's, Oren Etzioni, Etzioni, Ilya Sutskever, Noam Brown, Google hasn't, Marc, Ben, Marc Andreessen, Ben Horowitz, Andreessen, Horowitz, we're, OpenAI, Altman, we've, AGI, Elon Musk, It's Organizations: YouTube, Allen Institute, Tech, Reuters, Orion, Bloomberg, Google, AGI, Microsoft, Intel, Computer, Artificial Intelligence Locations: Seattle

☆ Instead of job killings, there's a strange AI hiring boom happening, according to Marc Andreessen
▼ + stars: | 2024-11-14 | by ( Alistair Barr | ) www.businessinsider.com time to read: +2 min

Instead of killing jobs, generative AI is fueling a surprising job boom, according to the venture capitalist Marc Andreessen. OpenAI and Google are struggling to significantly improve their next AI models, multiple media reports said this week. That's what makes these AI models smart, and without that, OpenAI and others are hitting a worrying wall. They're a function of the training data," Andreessen said. "And a big part of the AI hiring boom is actually hiring the experts to actually craft the answers to be able to train the AI."

Persons: Marc Andreessen, Horowitz, Andreessen, OpenAI, Ben Horowitz, Andreessen's Organizations: Google, AIs, Business, Andreessen Locations: chimed

☆ Reducto's AI tool turns PDFs and spreadsheets into data LLMs can use. We got an exclusive look at the pitch deck that landed the startup $8.4 million in seed funding.
▼ + stars: | 2024-10-02 | by ( Samantha Stokes | ) www.businessinsider.com time to read: +3 min

Reducto raised $8.4 million in seed funding to develop AI for reading complex documents. AdvertisementLarge language models struggle to parse data in PDFs and spreadsheets, and one startup just raised a supersized seed funding round to build tech that can read these documents the way humans do. Reducto, which was founded in 2023 and a member of Y Combinator's winter 2024 batch, is announcing it raised $8.4 million in a seed funding round led by First Round Capital. One, Humata AI, raised $3.5 million from Google's Gradient Ventures a year ago, while OpenAI's ChatGPT Store showcases multiple AI PDF developers. AdvertisementCheck out the 13-slide pitch deck Reducto used to raise $8.4 million in seed funding.

Persons: Reducto, —, Y, Liquid2, Arash Ferdowsi, Andrew Ofstad, Kulveer Taggar, Zeus, JJ Fliegelman, Richard Aberman, Ralph Goottee, Tracy Young, Adit Abraham Organizations: Service, First Round, Big Tech

☆ The AI world's most valuable resource is running out, and it's scrambling to find an alternative: 'fake' data
▼ + stars: | 2024-08-09 | by ( Hasan Chowdhury | Hugh Langley | ) www.businessinsider.com time to read: +11 min

OpenAI CEO Sam Altman has argued that AI models should eventually produce synthetic data good enough to train themselves effectively. As the well of usable human-generated data dries up, more companies look into using synthetic data. Rather than being pulled from the real world, synthetic data is generated by AI systems that have been trained on real-world data. Synthetic data may help offer some effective "countertuning" to the biases produced by real-world data, too. 'Habsburg AI'While the AI industry found some advantages in synthetic data, it faces serious issues it can't afford to ignore, such as fears synthetic data can wreck AI models.

Persons: —, that's, Sam Altman, Gary Marcus, It's, Nathan Lambert, Gretel, SynthLabs, Meta, Timnit Gebru, Margaret Mitchell, LLMs, Sadowski, Alexandr Wang, AlphaGeometry, Marcus Organizations: Service, Google, Business, Oxford, Gartner, New York University, Allen Institute, AI, Nvidia, Meta's, Anadolu, Getty, Rush, Microsoft, Monash University Locations: Cambridge, Habsburg

☆ Biotech startup Seed Health is betting its profits on AI-powered medical science
▼ + stars: | 2024-04-11 | by ( Natalie Rose Goldberg | ) www.cnbc.com time to read: +7 min

On Thursday, Seed Health launched CODA, a computational biology platform funded by its consumer business profitability. Seed Health has been in the business of microbiome scientific breakthroughs since its founding in 2015, but its biggest success to-date may have been becoming profitable as a bioscience startup. Katz's co-founder and co-CEO at Seed Health, Raja Dhir, said CODA and the accompanying data set will help to standardize microbiome science methods, which has long been an issue in the field. CODA's first applications are in metabolic health, brain health, longevity, and menopause, research areas chosen because they have already been identified as areas of human health where early CODA data displayed the strongest evidence. Seed Health has been working on several efforts around pioneering microbiome science for human and planetary health, and many in the field believe the approach is destined to have wider applications.

Persons: Katz, Ara Katz, Eran Segal, Eric Topol, transcriptome, Katz's, Raja Dhir, Dhir, Arpana Gupta, Goodman, There's, Segal, Joseph Petrosino, Petrosino Organizations: Seed, Seed Health, CNBC, Weizmann Institute of Science, Scripps Research Institute, UCLA, Luskin Microbiome, Baylor College of Medicine, Center, Metagenomics, Microbiome Research

Of those to set a target, just 37% had one that covered their Scope 3 emissions, or those tied to a company's value chain. "A clear line in the sand on net zero has surfaced. Countless net zero targets are credibility light, but now we can say for certain that most of the world's largest listed companies are on the right side of the line on net zero intent," said John Lang, Project Lead, the Net Zero Tracker. As well as companies, the Net Zero Tracker tracks pledges made by nations, states and regions, and cities using machine and human data analysis. Alongside Oxford Net Zero, the consortium includes The Energy & Climate Intelligence Unit (ECIU); Data-Driven EnviroLab (UNC) and the NewClimate Institute.

Persons: Wolfgang Rattay, John Lang, Simon Jessop, Mark Potter Organizations: REUTERS, Nations, Dubai LONDON, Oxford University, Dubai, Oxford, The, Climate Intelligence, UNC, NewClimate Institute, Thomson Locations: Niederaussem, Germany, Dubai

☆ The CEO of Verge Genomics shares how she's overcome gender and age biases in biotech by showing people 'there can be a new way of doing things'
▼ + stars: | 2023-08-17 | by ( Josée Rose | ) www.businessinsider.com time to read: +15 min

In the latest Equity Talk, she shares how she's overcoming biases in the VC and biotech fields. Verge Genomics works with data derived from brains and spinal cords donated by people after they die. That's really been helpful because they don't necessarily see the same kind of questions. But I think part of that is just showing them that there can be a new way of doing things. I think that's an area where naivete can be a benefit, when you have big technological hurdles to overcome.

Persons: Alice Zhang, Zhang, it's, It's, That's, I've, we're, I'm, who's, There's, Alice, aren't, they're, that's unarguable, — Organizations: Genomics, Morning, Verge Genomics, Eff, pharma, Tech

☆ Insight: What happens when a $2 million gene therapy is not enough
▼ + stars: | 2023-08-12 | by ( Deena Beasley | ) www.reuters.com time to read: +13 min

Their experience raises broader questions around other high-cost gene therapies coming to market, sometimes after accelerated regulatory approvals, drug pricing experts said. Gene therapies work by replacing genes – the body's blueprint for its development. The gene Zolgensma delivers instructs the body to make a protein vital for muscle control. If gene therapies do fall short, it becomes harder to justify prices that researchers have argued are already poor value. More recently, the first hemophilia gene therapy approved by the U.S. Food and Drug Administration was priced by CSL Behring at $3.5 million; 26 more gene therapies are in late-stage development, according to IQVIA.

Persons: Elizabeth Kutschke, Ben, Zolgensma, Ben Kutschke, neurologists, Sitra Tauscher, Wisniewski, Ben's, Roger Hajjar, Brigham Gene, Kutschke, Vasant Narasimhan, Stacie Dusetzina, Roche's, Biogen, Roche, Maha Radhakrishnan, Steven Pearson, It's, Sree Chaguturu, Amanda Cook, Weston, Jackson, Cook, Elizabeth, Jerry Mendell, Russell Butterfield, –, Biogen's, Mendell, UMR, Spinraza, Eric Cox, Caroline Humer, Sara Ledwith Organizations: Reuters, U.S, Novartis, IQVIA Institute, Human Data, Novartis Gene Therapies, Mass, Cell Therapy, U.S . Food, Drug Administration, CSL Behring, CSL, Nashville's Vanderbilt University School of Medicine, Clinical, Economic, CVS Health, Aetna, SMA, Nationwide Children's Hospital, University of Utah Health, Children's, UnitedHealth, Thomson Locations: Oak Park, Berwyn , Illinois, Swiss, U.S, Lebanon , Virginia, United States, Columbus , Ohio, Russia, Kazakhstan, Chicago

☆ Why tiny homes could be a big deal
▼ + stars: | 2023-08-06 | by ( Matt Turner | ) www.businessinsider.com time to read: +6 min

It's easy to look at these tiny homes as undersized gimmicks, but there are real use cases. Others are leaning on tiny homes to house homeless veterans. Denver changed its zoning laws to make ADU construction easier, allowing two-story units in some parts of the city. Tiny homes won't fix that, but innovation in zoning and construction, taken with recent data pointing to a surge in residential construction, offer reasons for hope. Why tiny homes could be a big dealThis first appeared in the Insider Today newsletter.

Persons: Joyce Higashi, Katie Sandoval, Clark, Maggie, John Randolph, crumbles Karl Maasdam, Lawrence D, Thornton, Rebecca Zisser, Francesca Gino, Gino, she's, Read, Morgan Stanley, Arantza Pena Popo, Who's, James Gorman, Ted Pick, Morgan Stanley copresident, Insider's Hayley Cuccinello, Pick, Andy Saperstein, Ted Pick Big, Tyler Le, Brad Setser, Tess Turner, Stack, coders, — Jasmine Hyman, Doc Martens, Matt Turner, Hallam Bullock, Lisa Ryan Organizations: Service, Harvard, Big Pharma Locations: Wall, Silicon, California, San Jose, New Hampshire, Denver, Austin's, New York City

☆ Death by LLM: Stack Overflow's decline, and its plan to survive, shows the future of free online data in an AI world
▼ + stars: | 2023-08-03 | by ( Alistair Barr | Adam Rogers | ) www.businessinsider.com time to read: +12 min

Some AI models that compete against Stack Overflow were partly trained on the company's data. Online communities, like Stack Overflow and Wikipedia, thrived as hubs for experts and curious browsers to come together and share information freely. In 2021, Prosus, a major backer of Chinese tech giant Tencent, bought Stack Overflow for $1.8 billion. However, Nat Friedman, the CEO of Github through 2021, expects tech companies to pay for training data in the future. Stack Overflow is also working on new ways to measure the impact of a human's answer on the platform.

Persons: Prashanth Chandrasekar, OpenAI, Chandrasekar, coders, OpenAI's GPT, Stack, Elon Musk, Andreessen Horowitz, Sam Altman, JASON REDMOND, Jaap Arriens, GitHub, it's, chatGPT, Nasim Uddin, we're, Nat Friedman, Nat Friedman GitHub Friedman, Friedman, Axel Springer, Semafor, Prashanth Organizations: Union Square Ventures, Getty, Twitter, Publishers, Microsoft, Associated Press Locations: GPT, Prosus, AFP

☆ AIs trained on other AI output will start producing junk within a few generations, scientists warn
▼ + stars: | 2023-06-19 | by ( Mia Jankowicz | ) www.businessinsider.com time to read: +5 min

AIs trained solely on other AIs will eventually spiral into gibberish, machine learning experts say. As more and more AI-generated content is published online, future AIs trained on this material will ultimately spiral into gibberish, machine learning experts have predicted. A group of British and Canadian scientists released a paper in May seeking to understand what happens after several generations of AIs are trained off each other. Improbable events are less and less likely to be reflected in its output, narrowing what the next AI — trained on that output — understands to be possible. In addition to being home to some of the world's largest populations of black @-@ tailed jackrabbits, white @-@ tailed jackrabbits, blue @-@ tailed jackrabbits, red @-@ tailed jackrabbits, yellow @-"Anderson likened it to massive pollution, writing: "Just as we've strewn the oceans with plastic trash and filled the atmosphere with carbon dioxide, so we're about to fill the Internet with blah."

Persons: Ross Anderson, Anderson, Mozart, Antonio Salieri, Salieri, Dr Ilia Shumailov, —, NewsGuard, Shumailov Organizations: AIs, Morning, University of Cambridge, University of Oxford, Washington Post

☆ How a 3.2-million-year-old human relative named Lucy walked
▼ + stars: | 2023-06-13 | by ( Ashley Strickland | ) edition.cnn.com time to read: +6 min

Lucy's fossil includes 40% of her skeleton, one of the most complete Australopith fossils found to date. Edwin Remsberg/Alamy Stock PhotoAnalysis of Lucy’s fossil over the past 20 years has suggested that she and others of her species walked upright. Then, she used scans of Lucy’s fossil to determine how her joints were articulated and moved in life. Muscle modeling of Lucy, dubbed "AL 288-1," is compared side by side with human muscle maps. “Lucy likely walked and moved in a way that we do not see in any living species today,” Wiseman said.

Persons: “ Lucy, ”, Lucy, Edwin Remsberg, Dr, Ashleigh L.A, Wiseman, didn’t, Isaac Newton, waddle, Dr Ashleigh Wiseman, ” Wiseman, “ Organizations: CNN, Sky, Royal Society Open Science, University of Cambridge, Leverhulme, Isaac, Isaac Newton Trust, McDonald Institute for Archaeological Research Locations: Ethiopia, United Kingdom

☆ Moderna says Covid booster better against omicron BA.5, triggers immune response against BQ.1.1
▼ + stars: | 2022-11-14 | by ( Spencer Kimball | ) www.cnbc.com time to read: +3 min

Moderna's new Covid booster triggered a stronger immune response against omicron BA.5 and also appears to work against the emerging BQ.1.1 subvariant, according to the company. Moderna, in clinical trial data published Monday, found that the new booster triggered five times more antibodies against omicron BA.5 than the old vaccines in people with prior Covid infections. Moderna said it also found the new booster triggered robust immune response against omicron BQ.1.1, an emerging Covid subvariant in the U.S. Pfizer also released data earlier this month indicating that the boosters provide better protection against omicron BA.5 than the old shots. Two independent studies from Columbia and Harvard found that the boosters did not do a much better job against omicron BA.5.

☆ Pfizer releases more data indicating omicron boosters are better than old Covid shots
▼ + stars: | 2022-11-04 | by ( Spencer Kimball | ) www.cnbc.com time to read: +4 min

Pfizer and BioNTech also found that people with and without prior Covid infections had a significant increase in their antibody levels after the omicron boosters. Pfizer and BioNTech released more human data Friday indicating the omicron BA.5 boosters perform better than the old Covid shots. Pfizer and BioNTech released the first human data in October showing the omicron boosters trigger a better immune response. They found the new boosters and the old shots performed about the same against omicron BA.5. The scientific community and public health officials are closely following data on the boosters because the FDA authorized them without direct human data.

☆ FDA says two studies showing omicron boosters weren't much better than old Covid shots were too small to come to any conclusions
▼ + stars: | 2022-10-28 | by ( Spencer Kimball | ) www.cnbc.com time to read: +6 min

The recently authorized booster vaccine protects against the original SARS-CoV-2 virus and the more recent omicron variants, BA.4 and BA.5. The Food and Drug Administration said two studies this week showing that the new omicron boosters weren't that much better than the old shots were too small to come to any real conclusions. The antibody responses were slightly higher with the omicron boosters, though the studies concluded the difference wasn't significant. The studies are of public interest because there's very limited human data on how the omicron BA.5 boosters perform right now. The FDA also looked at data directly on the BA.5 shots that came from animal studies.

☆ White House Covid czar calls on seniors to get omicron booster now
▼ + stars: | 2022-10-17 | by ( Spencer Kimball | ) www.cnbc.com time to read: +4 min

Dr. Ashish Jha, head of the White House Covid taskforce, said everyone older than 50 and senior citizens in particular need to get an omicron booster as soon as possible. The elderly have faced the high risk of falling seriously ill with Covid since the beginning of the pandemic. Younger people should also get a booster this fall even though they're at lower risk of getting seriously ill from the virus, Jha said. The FDA and CDC rapidly authorized the omicron shots for children as young as 5 years old last week. But the CDC, in a study published last April, said the risk of myocarditis is higher after a Covid infection.

☆ Omicron BA.5 is declining in the U.S. as emerging variants gain ground, CDC data shows
▼ + stars: | 2022-10-14 | by ( Spencer Kimball | ) www.cnbc.com time to read: +3 min

Omicron BA.5 has splintered into several new but related variants that include BQ.1, BQ.1.1 and BF.7. In the U.S., omicron BA.5 makes up about 68% of all new infections, down from about 80% at the beginning of October. But Jha said the new omicron boosters that the U.S. started rolling out last month should provide better protection than the first-generation vaccines against these emerging variants. The boosters target BA.5 and the emerging variants are all omicron and most descend from BA.5. Pfizer and BioNTech on Thursday published the first human data from their BA.5 shots.

☆ Pfizer says omicron shots substantially boosted antibodies against BA.5 subvariant in early human data
▼ + stars: | 2022-10-13 | by ( Spencer Kimball | ) www.cnbc.com time to read: +3 min

Pfizer and its German partner BioNTech on Thursday said their new omicron boosters substantially increased protective antibodies against the dominant omicron BA.5 subvariant for adults in the first direct human data released to the public on the new shots. The participants who received the first generation vaccine saw a limited increase in antibodies against BA.5, according to the companies. The early data indicate that the safety profile of the new boosters is the same as the original vaccine, the companies said. The first generation shots were developed only against the first strain of the virus. The FDA authorized the omicron shots without direct human data on how they perform against omicron BA.5, which is causing most infections in the U.S. right now.

☆ FDA authorizes Covid omicron booster shots for kids as young as 5 years old
▼ + stars: | 2022-10-12 | by ( Spencer Kimball | ) www.cnbc.com time to read: +3 min

The Food and Drug Administration on Wednesday authorized Covid booster shots that target the omicron variant for preschoolers through elementary school students. Pfizer's new omicron boosters are now authorized for children ages 5 to 11 and Moderna's shots for kids ages 6 through 17. The new boosters target omicron BA.5 as well as the original strain of Covid that first emerged in Wuhan, China, in 2019. The first generation of Covid shots were developed in 2020 to target the original strain of Covid. More than 11 million Americans ages 12 and older have received the new booster shots so far, according to CDC data.

☆ Pfizer asks FDA to authorize omicron Covid booster shots for kids ages 5 to 11
▼ + stars: | 2022-09-26 | by ( Spencer Kimball | ) www.cnbc.com time to read: +2 min

Pfizer on Monday asked the Food and Drug Administration to authorize its new Covid booster shots that target the omicron BA.5 subvariant for children ages 5 to 11. The company, in a statement, said its request is based on human data from a similar vaccine that targets the omicron BA.1 subvariant and data from animal studies on the BA.5 shots. Pfizer's main competitor on Covid shots, Moderna, asked the FDA to authorize its omicron shots for kids ages 6 through 17 on Friday. Officials at the FDA and CDC expect the omicron BA.5 shots will provide significantly better protection against infection and disease this fall and winter. The new boosters target the dominant omicron BA.5 subvariant as well as the original strain of Covid that first emerged in Wuhan, China in 2019.

Readers can use this interactive chart to see how the price they have paid for groceries differs from the national average or from the prices shoppers paid in other major metro areas. The NBC News grocery price tracker is one measure of the outcomes of President Joe Biden's economic policies for everyday people. Input costs are up, especially for food and fuel, which pressures grocery prices. The data in the NBC News tracker, provided by NielsenIQ, is collected from real checkout prices paid nationwide at grocery stores, drugstores, mass merchandisers, selected dollar stores, selected warehouse clubs and military commissaries. The Bureau of Labor Statistics' monthly consumer price index, which uses human data collectors and includes other food product categories, is another resource for average price data.

☆ A youth mental-health crisis is crushing working parents — and employers need to pay attention.
▼ + stars: | 2022-04-13 | by ( Rebecca Knight | ) www.businessinsider.com time to read: +9 min

The upshot: Today's working parents are under enormous pressure, and their stress has quickly gone from leaking into their professional life to crashing through the floodgates. It's up to employers, experts say, to help working parents manage their priorities and offer flexibility to face this daunting reality. Recognizing the pressures that exist for working parents right now is a good starting point. Importantly, she said, working parents need to be self-compassionate. "What our children need from us changes, and the roles we need to play for them change," she said.

☆ Opioid Crisis Fast Facts
▼ + stars: | 2017-09-18 | by ( Cnn Editorial Research | ) edition.cnn.com time to read: +15 min

March 29, 2017 - Trump signs an executive order calling for the establishment of the President’s Commission on Combating Drug Addiction and the Opioid Crisis. April 9, 2018 - The US surgeon general issues an advisory recommending that Americans carry the opioid overdose-reversing drug, naloxone. The settlement will be used to fund addiction research and help cities and counties with the opioid crisis. Cleveland County District Judge Thad Balkman orders Johnson & Johnson to pay $572 million for its role in the state’s opioid crisis. November 15, 2022 - Walmart agrees to the framework of a $3.1 billion settlement, which resolves allegations from multiple states’ attorneys general that the company failed to regulate opioid prescriptions contributing to the nationwide opioid crisis.

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