This Week in Future + Culture, AI Olympics, AI-powered voice app grant

Happy Tuesday, Cyborgs.

Summer is in full swing, and we’re as tuned in as we are tuned out 💀. Political blues aside, we had to keep the wheels turning during our summer event hiatus, and we miss you all too much..so we’re going to experiment with a fre$h weekly newsletter, let us know what you love & don’t 🙃

Today’s rundown:

• TLDR: This week in Future + Culture

• Community Shares

• Community Spotlight: Startup of the week

Google Maps gets an AI/AR glowup:

The future really is here, and Google Maps is becoming the navigator of our dreams. 90s babies, imagine - we were using retro spiral bound physical maps on roadtrips with the fam back in the day 🤯 

New Google Maps features incorporate AI & AR technologies and will include:

• Ability to ask questions & have an organic Chat GPT-style conversation to get info on various locations.

• Use camera to discover nearby restaurants, transit, parks etc (AR Live view) and gather info about nearby landmarks.

• AI-driven recommendations on what to do based on environmental factors ie “it’s raining, find indoor activity nearby.”

Check out this visual summary.

Why we care: This is a significant introduction of AI&AR in our day-to-day as users.

Intel AI takes over the Paris Olympics:

100 Intel employees will be deploying Intel’s Olympics AI Strategy in Paris over the next few months 🤯

Use cases include:

• Intel’s Gaudi 2 generative AI platform will power an Olympic chatbot to help 10,000 athletes better navigate day-to-day operations of the event. This LLM will integrate into an existing application used by participating athletes.

• More automation to better create real-time highlights with an overwhelming amount of footage, and to make available more small region-based moments.

• AI Newscaster narration.

• AI-powered talent identification system deployed on the ground in partnership with Samsung.

Why we care: This is a significant enterprise proof of concept implementing AI at major scale. Let’s watch closely and report back on what challenges were effectively solved (or not solved) with AI to improve the Olympics experience.

A flurry of new models released:

AI models are improving at the speed of light..

Runway announced Gen-3 Alpha, moving towards General World Models.

Anthropic Claude 3.5 Sonnet is out in the wild, and users are saying it surpasses competitors in ease and accuracy in many ways, and is better for creating charts, graphs, models, anything that requires coding.

Meanwhile, we’re eagerly awaiting broad access to Sora.

👫 ᴄᴏᴍᴍᴜɴɪᴛʏ ꜱʜᴀʀᴇꜱ 👫

OpenHome, founded by our brilliant friend Shannon Wu, is the first LLM-driven smart speaker, enabling AI interaction across all devices. If you’re an individual or team interested in building novel, human-centric AI-powered voice applications and experiences, learn more about their $50K grant program or email the team with any Qs.

Matty Shimura and the team at Civitai have launched Project Odyssey - the first of its kind AI Film Competition, aimed at fostering opportunities for both AI technologists and traditional filmmakers to get hands-on with education & resources, as well as monetary rewards. Categories include: 3D Animation, Narrative, Music Video, BTS, and Open Format. Yours truly is also a judge of said AI Film Competition. Learn more and apply - deadline is July 16th!

Congrats to Nik Kleverov & Native Foreign on creating the first brand film using Sora - for Toys R us.

Work with us @ Artist and the Machine! 

• Video editor: Seeking talented editor for sizzle content ASAP.

• Video team in LA & NY: Seeking videographer for our onsite events in LA & NY.

• Onsite social content & BTS in LA/NY: Seeking passionate, high energy individuals to help capture social content & live post at our events - from group photos, to BTS, to short video clips for stories. We’re looking for someone to help onsite at our events in LA or NY, 2-3 times per month.

  Hit reply and send us your rec plz :)

💡 𝗔&𝗠 𝗦𝘁𝗮𝗿𝘁𝘂𝗽 𝗼𝗳 𝘁𝗵𝗲 𝗪𝗲𝗲𝗸💡

Founded by Amy Wu, Manifest is a Gen Z mental health company that gamifies the journey towards emotional wellness, creating daily challenges that transform self-care into a rewarding and habitual experience. 

Manifest launched into the App Store just 3 weeks ago and got 31K+ downloads almost organically in just a few days. Congrats Amy and team!! We’re keeping a close eye on this 🚀🚀🚀

LEARN MORE & DOWNLOAD

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