A quick overview of interesting AI News for the Yate and Sodbury U3A's monthly AI News meeting held on January 9th 2025 (meetings are second Thursday of month, 1400-1545, St John's Church Centre, Wickwar Road, Chipping Sodbury, UK - all welcome). Note that this is very much a summary to act as background as the topics are discussed in detail at the meeting itself. We also discuss and demonstrate other AI products and services and much more.
AGI matches or surpasses human cognitive capabilities across a wide range of cognitive tasks (Wikipedia defn.)
Sam Altman's six word story on 4th January 2025 This was followed by a full blog post that explained a little of what he believed had been achieved, as linked below.
i always wanted to write a six-word story. here it is:
— Sam Altman (@sama) January 4, 2025
___
near the singularity; unclear which side.
Sam Altman's Reflections blog post It is a long read but this part was probably the most important bit: "We are now confident we know how to build AGI as we have traditionally understood it. We believe that, in 2025, we may see the first AI agents “join the workforce” and materially change the output of companies. We continue to believe that iteratively putting great tools in the hands of people leads to great, broadly-distributed outcomes. We are beginning to turn our aim beyond that, to superintelligence in the true sense of the word."
reflections: https://t.co/rHdE40AuOG
— Sam Altman (@sama) January 6, 2025
The chart that shows why everything speeded up yet again Once existing models get additional time and capability to 'think (a lot) before they speak' they achieve much more.
See how the chart is flat up to GPT-4o... those are the "non-reasoning" models. They don't 'think' before answering (aka we can't increase test time compute).
— Wes Roth (@WesRothMoney) December 30, 2024
Then the chart goes vertical 🤯
those are the 'reasoners' pic.twitter.com/CyuryaTRyr
There is much more on this in later sections.
Pornographers are early users of 'generative AI', threatening the large existing market, not least OnlyFans human service providers. In the last week we had two other examples. The terrorist in America who drove through a crowded event killing many had apparently prepared by wearing AI Glasses to record advance video of the scene without being seen. The following event also involved AI we are told, though whether the fact that the blast was ineffective was due to AI advice is unknown.
NEWS: Green Beret who exploded
— Sawyer Merritt (@SawyerMerritt) January 7, 2025
Cybertruck in Las Vegas used ChatGPT to help plan the blast. https://t.co/5q5JDEGmWW
On a lighter note, deep fakes continue to multiply. This one was used as comment on the Facebook CEO's decision to follow the X platform's approach to free speech. It was originally a Mr Bean clip.
Mark Zuckerberg copying all of Elon Musk into his system. 😂 pic.twitter.com/xjYiBKDTFZ
— SMX 🇺🇸 (@iam_smx) January 7, 2025
Of course, not all AI videos are political.
AI is disrupting Hollywood (Part 64)📽️
— Min Choi (@minchoi) December 31, 2024
You can make some incredible videos and trailers with AI.
Some impossible shots
10 wild examples:pic.twitter.com/FqNSwpqYrD
This huge event is often the place where brilliant new products and services are launched. This year has already been full of exciting announcements. This first one is about health
If this works well with important health data it’s an absolute banger pic.twitter.com/JgIYiM3Ow3
— Chubby♨️ (@kimmonismus) January 7, 2025
Some of the products may soon be in your home, like this useful robot.
2. A multitasking household robot that does everything from vacuuming, organization, air purification, monitoring pets, and even delivering you food while you sit on the couch by SwitchBot pic.twitter.com/bWKgfzJNdY
— Rowan Cheung (@rowancheung) January 8, 2025
Nvidia has also used the show to make many major announcements. Some of these are covered in the following sections but this one about Project Digits, a personal AI supercomputer at $3000 available mid 2025, was an impressive starter.
NEWS: Nvidia unveils its newest AI supercomputer.
— Sawyer Merritt (@SawyerMerritt) January 7, 2025
It will be available May 2025. pic.twitter.com/jFENPTn7vM
Tesla have been training their cars for self-driving using real world driving data gathered from the videos captured by the cameras on their cars. Outside of China, few others can compete. Nvidia is providing a complete system to help other car manufacturers with strong 'synthetic' data.
NEWS: Nvidia shows how its new “Cosmos” system uses cars to generate synthetic real world driving scenarios to train self-driving cars. It can create drivable 3D environments. Driving scenario variations can be generated from replayed drive logs or AI traffic generators.
— Sawyer Merritt (@SawyerMerritt) January 7, 2025
Next,… pic.twitter.com/IP1WQ46QfY
The Tesla Full Self Driving (FSD) product continues to impress however, as seen in the following post.
Why is Cybertruck the world's best truck? Because it's the only truck that can run Full Self-Driving (Supervised).
— Whole Mars Catalog (@WholeMarsBlog) January 4, 2025
Here's my Cybertruck driving me 33 minutes to IKEA with zero interventions. Notice how I never touched the steering once from parking spot to parking spot. pic.twitter.com/5x1Q1d5LGw
Meanwhile the manufacturers of Internal Combustion Engine cars are starting to realise that theyy are in trouble as the price of high quality electric vehicles continues to fall. Here is a key reason.
A Tesla drivetrain has around 20 moving parts, while a drivetrain from a ICE vehicle typically has 2,000+ moving parts.
— Nic Cruz Patane (@niccruzpatane) January 7, 2025
This is why a Tesla is so reliable when compared to ICE rivals. pic.twitter.com/WKrU8JoT8d
The CEO of Nvidia, Jensen Huang, showed a powerful graph pointing to the huge AI related markets of the future. At the top "self-driving cars, general robotics" and underneath that "AI Agents as coding assistants, customer service, patient care". For interest, Tesla is a world market leader in self-driving cars and general robotics.
So basically $NVDA told us where to invest next. We just got the Billion Dollar Answer. pic.twitter.com/hulyaKoxxq
— DekmarTrades via TradeCaster (@DekmarTrades) January 7, 2025
The CES Show has many demonstrations of humanoid robots. This is Digit from Agility Robotics, on stage.
If you are in Vegas for #CES2025, visit @SchaefflerGroup to watch Digit work autonomously on the show floor (West Hall, 4140). pic.twitter.com/H0Scuu06Cp
— Agility Robotics (@agilityrobotics) January 7, 2025
Unitree is a Chinese robotics company, with humanoid robots and dogs coming soon to somewhere near you at an attractive price.
9. Unitree's G1 humanoid robot in-person demo pic.twitter.com/EJxjNgHWyl
— Rowan Cheung (@rowancheung) January 8, 2025
Tokyo Robotics put just the hand of their humanoid robot on display, seen here preparing for multiple tasks including gardening. Holding secateurs firmly can be tricky!
The next-gen Torobo Hand from Tokyo Robotics, currently under development and set for release later this year,
— The Humanoid Hub (@TheHumanoidHub) January 6, 2025
features 16 DoF, up to 10N fingertip force, nearly 200 integrated pressure sensors, and backdrivable torque-controlled joints—all fully compatible with ROS. https://t.co/haa23OVMlg pic.twitter.com/P6y4VseaS7
Jim Fan is optimistic about our robotic future.
It gives me a lot of comfort knowing that we are the last generation without advanced robots everywhere. Our children will grow up as “robot natives”. They will have humanoids cook Michelin dinner, robot teddy bears tell bedtime stories, and FSD drive them to school.
— Jim Fan (@DrJimFan) December 30, 2024
We are the… pic.twitter.com/OtZnw9NFX7
Joshua Achiam describes himself as "Human. Head of Mission Alignment @openai."
The world isn't grappling enough with the seriousness of AI and how it will upend or negate a lot of the assumptions many seemingly-robust equilibria are based upon.
— Joshua Achiam (@jachiam0) January 5, 2025
I think this is from a human. Certainly he, she, it often seems to know what is about to happen. Grok is the AI produced by Elon Musk's xAI and version 3 is due in the next two or three weeks.
ok. grok 3 is asi. nothing comes close, not sure what to do.
— 🍓🍓🍓 (@iruletheworldmo) January 5, 2025
Max Tegmark is the author whose book is always discussed in the opening part of the Silver AI Project course. He has thought about this subject a lot and his summary is: "We are so not ready!"
I wish I’d been wrong in “Life 3.0” in 2017 and that it would have taken much longer to get here - were so not ready: https://t.co/6wU6o8dMHc
— Max Tegmark (@tegmark) January 5, 2025
Anthony Aguirre has an impressive X handle, so is worth listening to hs Public Service Announcement. He is "Physicist & cosmologist at UCSC. Co-Founder of Future of Life Institute, Foundational Questions Institute, and Metaculus. Apple out of the box. Pro-human."
PSA: Tech companies are not building out a trillion dollars of AI infrastructure because they are hoping you'll pay $20/month to use AI tools to make you more productive. (And they know people won't pay much more for this.)
— Anthony Aguirre (@AnthonyNAguirre) January 6, 2025
They're doing it because they know your employer will…
Finally for this section, Eliezer Yudkowsky is the leading light of those who fear humankind is not proceeding wisely ... This is a comment about the OpenAI prediction of having reached the proximity of the singularity.
Of course if we're all dead next year, that means he was not just bullshitting; but I need to plan more for the fight if we're still alive.
— Eliezer Yudkowsky ⏹️ (@ESYudkowsky) January 5, 2025
Once AI tools learned to 'reason', and to talk and listen, it became possible to give them access to the same tools on a computer that humans use. For example, they might call around restaurants to book a table. They might conduct deep research by browsing many websites and interacting with their menus and buttons. They might even spend money and enter into online contracts.
This example is Lindy in mode "Elon Mindy" based on a management technique made famous by Elon Musk recently.
And of course we ended the year with a bang with Lindy Phone Calls, seeing usage exceeding even our expectations pic.twitter.com/NOBRgIBL1H
— Flo Crivello (@Altimor) December 29, 2024
OpenAI and other leading companies are planning to launch AI Agents, or have already done so. Early versions will only be allowed limited access to a computer's applications but it is clear that such restrictions will not be maintained in the broader market.
Peter Diamandis is a leading thinker on Longevity and much else. Recently he said "Humanity's relationships with solar, fusion, and storage innovation are about to hit record highs, especially when we unlock clean, limitless power. We won't have to burn a single fossil again." Above all though, he believes there is a bright future ahead.
Here's a reminder: You’re alive at the most extraordinary moment in history. AI, longevity, and space exploration are converging to redefine what it means to be human.
— Peter H. Diamandis, MD (@PeterDiamandis) January 4, 2025
If you assume that 'more and better AI' is a good thing then this analysis will please you. It predicts 1 million automated AI researchers will be working hard by 2028.
Short timelines scenario: once an AI can replace a top AI researcher, there could be 1 million of them one year later.
— Chubby♨️ (@kimmonismus) January 3, 2025
3 more years friends
Via lesswrong pic.twitter.com/ov5z7wJQEM
There are other developments on which great progress is being made, for example Nuclear Fusion.
Fusion could be the ultimate source of low carbon energy, but achieving the process on Earth is no small feat. What will it take to unlock its immense potential?
— RE:TV (@retv_org) January 8, 2025
As @UKAEAofficial's CEO Sir Ian Chapman explains, technology is essential to success, but it's not the only factor.… pic.twitter.com/x2LBlqtxea
The award went to Alex Kendall, CEO at Wayve where he has been 'Teaching cars how to drive with machine learning'.
Total surprise to receive an OBE for contributions to Artificial Intelligence. I feel humbled given the challenges still ahead, yet proud to see the pioneering work our team is doing at Wayve recognised. I hope to inspire the deep tech community to keep pushing frontiers! https://t.co/POnrCfvuFx
— Alex Kendall (@alexgkendall) January 1, 2025
Well done to the Incubator for AI. Good to see someone in the UK is pushing our AI industry along.
How cool is this?!
— Joe Hill (@jo3hill) January 8, 2025
The Government's Incubator for AI have released an open-source list of publicly available government datasets 🤓 pic.twitter.com/qVTenQOfvS
The UK also continues to use a world leading AI tool from Palantir in the NHS.
The Federated Data Platform is at the heart of @Keir_Starmer @wesstreeting and @NHSEngland ‘s elective care reform plan, published today. @PalantirTech will help transform #NHS productivity and patient experience. pic.twitter.com/K4b8xdABUP
— louis mosley (@louismosley) January 6, 2025
Fireworks shows are so much better with added drones
Wow pretty epic drone show 🔥 pic.twitter.com/VuOj6iofFc
— Doge Norway (@DogecoinNorway) January 5, 2025
A final amusing video.
God dann it, this looks real pic.twitter.com/AtpCFrClw0
— Chubby♨️ (@kimmonismus) January 8, 2025