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Daily Digest #341

Hello folks, here’s what we have today;

PICKS

1. Remember the Vesuvius Challenge? The challenge by Nat Friedman to read Herculaneum scrolls which were charred by a volcano nearly 2,000 years ago. The tech nerds have done the job⁷⁵³, with the help of AI. Btw, Bloomberg⁴⁶³ has amazing coverage of the backstory of the challenge.🍿Our Summary¹⁶ (also below)

2. Joseph Cox from 404 Media did a report on an underground website that makes AI-generated fake IDs⁹⁵³. Joseph made 2 fake IDs in minutes on OnlyFake and successfully bypassed an identity verification check using one of them.

3. Microsoft's diving deep into the AI + news game with Semafor.³⁸⁸ Microsoft's funding a project named "Signals"²⁶⁵ under Semafor, aiming to bring AI as a research tool. Semafor says it'll be written by humans, not AI.🍿Our Summary¹⁸ (also below)

TOP TOOLS

• AI Form Roast by WorkHack³²⁴ - Free AI tool to audit and optimize online forms.

• Dorik AI^1,029 - Generate beautiful websites from a single prompt.

• PlusDocs⁴²² - Create custom templates for Google Slides.

• Syncly³⁷³ - Surface real customer pains with AI feedback analysis.

• The calibration game³²² - Get better at identifying hallucinations in LLMs.

• Promenade⁵⁷⁸ - Video game like a social network populated with AI agents. (raised $500k from a16z games)

View more →¹⁹⁷

NEWS

• AI chip demand forces Huawei to slow smartphone production.¹²⁷

• UK shelves proposed AI copyright code¹⁸² in blow to creative industries.

• MidJourney hired a hardware engineer¹⁷⁹ from Apple Vision Pro to be "Head of Hardware".

• We need startups to fight prompt injection, the top LLM security risk.³⁰⁴

• Why I switched from Google Search to Perplexity.⁹⁰⁶

• Dexa raises $6M³⁹⁵, and partners with Huberman Lab.

• Roblox rolls out real-time AI translation²⁰¹ for all users.

• On holding back^264† the strange AI tide.

• 32000 techies laid off⁴⁰³ in 2024 already.

View more →¹¹¹

Unclassifieds - short, sponsored links

• Weighty Thoughts¹⁹⁵ - a free AI newsletter with in-depth commentary from a former Bridgewater, Google[x], engineer-turned-VC. Subscribe now.⁸⁹

QUICK BITES

Remember the Vesuvius Challenge? The challenge by Nat Friedman to read Herculaneum scrolls which were charred by a volcano nearly 2,000 years ago. The tech nerds have done the job⁷⁵³, with the help of AI.

What is going on here?

The Vesuvius Challenge gets its first grand winner, reading old Roman scrolls with AI.

What does this mean?

The Vesuvius Challenge dished out a grand prize of a cool $700k to the team of Youssef Nader, Luke Farritor, and Julian Schilliger! Their submission recovered more than 2000 characters from the scrolls (the goal was to recover 4 columns of 140 characters each.)

Btw, wanna know what the part recovered in the scroll says? The author is thinking if the things that are available in lesser quantities afford more pleasure than those available in abundance. He thinks that’s not the case and writes:

as too in the case of food, we do not right away believe things that are scarce to be absolutely more pleasant than those which are abundant

Bloomberg has amazing coverage of the backstory of the challenge.⁴⁶³

Why should I care?

Think about it: if AI can read ancient, crispy scrolls, what can't it do? Yeah, it's about Roman Empire now, but tomorrow? Who knows!

Maybe figuring out medical mysteries or even understanding signals from outer space. It's showing us that AI's not just for support chatbots and spreadsheets; it could help us solve some of the biggest puzzles out there. It's a wild ride, and AI's just getting started.

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QUICK BITES

Microsoft's diving deep into the AI + news game with Semafor.³⁸⁸ Microsoft's funding a project named "Signals"²⁶⁵ under Semafor, aiming to bring AI into the newsroom.

What is going on here?

Microsoft is partnering with Semafor, leveraging AI to innovate in news production amidst a looming legal battle with the New York Times.

What does this mean?

Signals is aiming to drop about a dozen global news perspectives daily, crafted by humans but powered by AI research tools. Think of it as AI doing the legwork so journalists can craft more nuanced stories. Plus, Microsoft is also buddying up with journalism schools and organizations to spread the AI love.

But it's not all smooth sailing. The media world's on edge about AI muscling in, fearing traffic and revenue dips. The New York Times is already suing Microsoft and OpenAI on the claim of freeloading off its content.

Why should I care?

AI is being integrated into traditional sectors like journalism. AI being included in the process will certainly raise more questions about how is bias being checked, how much we consume that information and what about copyright.

But the approach of all these partnerships (previously OpenAI with AP News and Alex Springer) is to use AI for research and let journalists do their jobs better.

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