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Welcome back, Superhuman
Last year, the average wait for an Nvidia GPU was around 11 months — practically a lifetime in the fast-moving world of AI. Today, we’ll explore why some tech companies think building their own AI chips will help ease those supply chain struggles.
Today’s Insights
OpenAI’s plan to build its own chips
Tutorial: Improve your negotiation skills with ChatGPT
Which countries are ready to embrace generative AI?
Everything else you should know today
5 new AI tools to boost your productivity
AI-Generated Images: Porcelain skin, literally
NEXT IN AI
OpenAI could soon have its own AI chips
Source: Bloomberg
Picture a chef who can’t seem to get a hold of the ingredients she needs. They always arrive late, and they cost a fortune. Eventually, she might think: “Fine, I’ll just build a garden and grow everything myself.” Sure, it might take a while for the seeds to become plants, but before you know it, her garden’s overflowing with produce.
OpenAI wants to bring a similar DIY ethos to its chip game. Like most major AI companies, it relies on Nvidia’s semiconductors to train and run its models. But there are only so many chips to go around, and OpenAI is worried that there could come a time when it won’t have enough capacity to train GPT-5 and its successors.
That’s why it’s reportedly in talks with several chip manufacturers, including the Silicon Valley-based supplier Broadcom, to build its own NPUs from the ground up:
Alphabet did something similar several years ago — developing proprietary tensor processing units (TPUs) to train and run Gemini on its own terms
OpenAI recently hired several Alphabet alums who’d worked on the TPU initiative, presumably to put them to work on its own AI chip
It’s not the first time the SF-based company has tried to diversify its chip supply: Earlier this year, CEO Sam Altman attempted to drum up $7 trillion for a fund that would reshape the semiconductor industry, reducing AI startups’ reliance on Nvidia
It won’t be easy: Tech journalist Stephen Witt said earlier this year that Nvidia is about five to 10 years ahead of the competition. That’s because it made a radical bet before anyone else that AI would eventually come to dominate the tech industry.
If OpenAI does land a partnership with a chip manufacturer, it’ll probably be years before the investment pays off. At the end of the day though, it might not have much of a choice. “The limiting factor of AI is capacity: chip capacity, energy capacity, compute capacity,” one insider told the Financial Times. “[OpenAI] is not just going to sit back and let others build [that] when they are on the front line.”
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THE AI ACADEMY
How to improve negotiation skills with ChatGPT
Go to ChatGPT and log in with your account.
Search for The Negotiator GPT in Explore GPTs or access it here.
Write in your prompt and give all the information the CustomGPT requires.
You’ll get your customized negotiation message.
Copy this message, enter the recipient’s details, and you are good to go.
You can use this GPT to negotiate job offers, salary raises, business contracts, and more. Just keep in mind that ChatGPT is not a substitute for professional legal advice.
Want to master AI and future-proof your skills? Access 100+ courses and tutorials at our AI Academy
AI & THE GLOBE
Which countries are ready to embrace AI?
Source: IMF
There’s a lot we still don’t know about how AI could reshape our world, but one thing is certain: It’s already transforming the global financial system. The International Monetary Fund recently looked at which countries are best prepared to integrate AI into their economies. The organization considered multiple factors, including digital infrastructure — such as access to data centers and advanced chips — and human capital — the pool of talent that AI companies can tap into.
Denmark appears to be the country best-equipped to embrace AI, registering a 0.78 on the IMF’s readiness map, which measures countries on a scale between zero and one. Other Western European countries, including the Netherlands, Germany, Finland, and Sweden, were also at the top of the pack. The US, meanwhile, earned a 0.77, the highest score in the Western hemisphere.
In the Middle East, the United Arab Emirates and Israel are the best equipped to incorporate AI into their systems, according to the IMF. And in Asia, Japan and South Korea tied for first place, with both earning a 0.73. China, the US’ biggest AI rival, scored a 0.64, landing in the same ballpark as Malaysia and Taiwan.
The IMF warns that AI could make existing inequalities between wealthy and developing countries even starker — adding that the international community should try to balance things out by opening up access to state-of-the-art equipment. That’s something that 123 countries signed on to do in a historic UN resolution earlier this month.
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AI & TECH NEWS
Everything else you need to know today
Sketch to Image in action. Source: Future
Artistic License: Journalists who tried Samsung’s new Galaxy Z Flip 6 say it’s best AI feature might be Sketch to Image, which lets you scribble onto photos, then turn those doodles into realistic, AI-generated images.
Safety Syndicate: Microsoft, OpenAI, Amazon, and other Big Tech companies have formed the Coalition for Secure AI, a new initiative that will allow them to share ideas and resources promoting AI safety.
Olympics Up Close: NBCUniversal is using Gemini to bring AI features — including immersive 3D maps of Versailles and other major Olympic venues — to its Paris 2024 broadcasts.
Blue Screen: As airlines, finance companies, and hospitals continue to recover from last week’s CrowdStrike disruption, some tech analysts are now calling it the “largest IT outage in history.”
🧠 Brain Food: A student at England’s University of Hull has come up with a new way to detect deepfakes. Adejumoke Owolabi discovered that subjects in AI-generated images often have eyes with mismatched reflections — “whereas real images generally show the same reflections in both eyes.” Owolabi was inspired by the methods astronomers use to determine the shape of different galaxies.
PRODUCTIVITY
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PROMPT OF THE DAY
Time Management
Prompt: I’m a [job role]. I’m struggling with [areas where productivity needs to improve]. I’d like to [specific goal you’d like to achieve].
Ex: I’m a programmer who works fully remotely, and at-home responsibilities frequently distract me. I also feel like I lack accountability for my work. I’m having difficulty building a consistent routine that lets me work effectively and also have time for personal interests. How can I create better work habits and structure my days to avoid interruptions? Source: BetterUp
AI-GENERATED IMAGES
Porcelain Skin
Source: Inspired by @irezumi2295 on Midjourney
Midjourney Prompt: a woman made out of porcelain, in the style of balanced symmetry, white and blue/gold, detailed facial features, organic forms, meticulous portraiture, complex patterns
--chaos 2 --ar 1:2 --stylize 350Acquire new customers and drive revenue by partnering with us
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