Mind-Reading, MIT Robots, & Resurrection

Author

Prith
July 08, 2024

We're riding a tidal wave of AI progress, folks - and "unprecedented" barely scratches the surface. Remember that old saying, "nothing, then all at once"? That's AI in a nutshell right now.

For years, we were twiddling our thumbs, waiting for the next big thing. But these last 12 months? Holy smokes! It's been a non-stop barrage of jaw-dropping breakthroughs. We're talking tech advancements that make the internet boom look like a lazy Sunday afternoon.

Picture this: AI churning out real-time graphics that'll make your head spin, voices so lifelike they'll give you goosebumps, and scenes that'd make Hollywood directors do a double-take. And guess what? We're just getting warmed up!

1/ Mind-reading AI?

Scientists over at Radbloud University have cooked up an AI that's peeking into our grey matter. It's amazingly reconstructing images from brain scans

They've got monkeys hooked up to electrodes, and the AI's learning to decode their thoughts. This isn't just cool - it's a game-changer that could save lives left and right.

2/ Open Tele-Vision from MIT

Started at MIT, this project is an open-source teleoperation system that allows people to control robots from many miles away

Cool facts about this project:

  • Open- TeleVision is accessible from a web browser or a VR headset

  • Open-sourced for developers

These are the kinds of open-source innovations that further humanity. 

Link to the GitHub repository: https://github.com/OpenTeleVision/TeleVision.

 if you are a developer, you can start building on top of this project and adapting it to your specific use case.

3/ Elevenlabs bringing back the dead?

ElevenLabs is bringing back the voices of deceased Hollywood actors such as Judy Garland and James Dean. Specifically on the platform, they can narrate books, articles, etc.

You might be wondering..do they have the authority to do this? Well, Eleven Labs has reached agreements with the estates of Garland and Dean to use their voices on the Eleven Labs Reader app.

They also had the following statement: "We deeply respect their legacy and are honored to have their voices as part of our platform”

Exciting, but ominous, at the same time.

4/ WhatsApp building AI Avatar generator

Not content with just messaging, WhatsApp's cooking up an AI avatar generator that'll let billions of users create digital mini-mes in any setting imaginable. It's like they've taken Lensa's magic and injected it straight into your chat app. Prepare for an avalanche of AI selfies, folks!

5/ Talk from OpenAI Cofounder Karpathy:

OpenAI co-founder Karpathy's dropping truth bombs about the changing face of computation. He's saying LLMs are the new CPUs, crunching tokens instead of bits. It's giving off serious 1980s computing revolution vibes. Buckle up, because we're in for one wild ride!

Have a great and productive week ahead.