This Week in Future + Culture: OpenAI progresses towards AGI, AI breakthrough in health, Grimes invests in Startup of the Week Noctal

Happy Tuesday, Cyborgs.

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

OpenAI project ‘Strawberry’ gets closer to human-level reasoning

This is a controversial debate across the industry - whether LLMs will be able to achieve a broad, human-like understanding of the world and ability to adapt to new information and resources. OpenAI has shared 5 stages of Artificial General Intelligence (AGI):

1. Chatbots: AI with conversational language

2. Reasoners: Human-level problem-solving

3. Agents: Systems that can take actions

4. Innovators: AI that can aid in invention

5. Organizations: AI that can do the work of an organization

Currently, OpenAI is on Level 1 but on the cusp of level 2…read a fascinating breakdown here.

Why we care: this feels like the exciting yet terrifying undertone of the entire future of technology and our human-machine co-existence 😅

Recent breakthrough shows AI can identify drug-resistant infections

A recent breakthrough in AI has enabled the identification of drug-resistant typhoid-like infections using high-resolution microscopic images in just a few hours. Researchers utilized AI to analyze these images, significantly speeding up the diagnostic process compared to traditional methods. The new approach not only enhances accuracy but also has the potential to improve patient outcomes by facilitating faster treatment decisions.

Why we care: More breakthroughs of exponential technology that address major issues such as global health, climate, and beyond - plz!

Meta goes 3D Gen

Here’s a big update that flew under our radar a few weeks ago. Meta released a new 3D Gen platform that delivers high quality text-to-3D asset generation, outperforming previous solutions in both quality and speed. Models created with Meta’s 3DGen can be used in real-world modelling and rendering applications.

Why we care: This is big news for 3D content creation - allowing anyone to create high quality textured models in under a minute. We’ll let you use your imagination on what this does to 3D development.

Youtube Music launches Sound Search

You’ll be able to tap a magnifying glass icon in the top right corner of Youtube Music to access a waveform button, then sing, hum or play a song to search. Results display song name, cover art, artist, album, year.

Why we care: A fun, useful, widely adoptable consumer use case.

Evan Helda interviews Matthew Ball, one of (if not the) world’s most esteemed experts on the topic and author of the best-selling book, 'The Metaverse', on his podcast Medium Energy. We learned so much from this interview, we wanted to spread the love. Some of our favorite highlights:

• Broad evolution of the internet - what’s happened since pre-covid and where we are now

• Digital twins + simulation

• Impact of the Apple Vision Pro

• Possibilities of AI + Blockchain (hot take)

• The future of identity

• Quick look at existing giants (Apple, NVIDIA, & more) and what they’re doing right & wrong

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, they’ve launched their inaugural $50K grant program. Work alongside a community of developers leading the charge in AI-powered voice projects and their implications:

Work with us @ Artist and the Machine! 

• Seeking epic human in LA or NY who can capture social content and BTS at our events: 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 :)

• Thank you for last week’s recs for a video editor and videography team- we’ve got some incredible candidates and appreciate the referrals!

💡 𝗔&𝗠 𝗦𝘁𝗮𝗿𝘁𝘂𝗽 𝗼𝗳 𝘁𝗵𝗲 𝗪𝗲𝗲𝗸💡

Noctal creates innovative AI audio tools that both identify contextual events and predictively place audio files, enhancing content creation and streamlining workflows for studios & creators.

Noctal is founded by Isaiah Chavous and James Paul, formerly of Jadu AR (leading AR storytelling company that raised over $40M and collaborated with the likes of Michael Bay and Snoop Dogg) along with PHDs in AI & Machine Learning.

Early investors include renowned musician Grimes (we might be drooling). The team is currently taking pre-seed capital from strategic angels and funds.