Hi there!

This is your daily dose of ☕️ Techpresso, where you get the latest tech news of the day effortlessly.


Here's the latest tech news from the last 24 hours:

🧠 Elon Musk's Neuralink is looking for human subjects
🔬 Zuckerberg's philanthropy project is building a massive GPU cluster to ‘cure all diseases’
🗣️ Amazon is turning Alexa into a hands-free ChatGPT
🛡️ OpenAI launches a red teaming network to make its models more robust
🎄 Amazon recruits 250,000 workers for festive season

🧠 Elon Musk's Neuralink is looking for human subjectsLINK

Neuralink, owned by Elon Musk, is recruiting human volunteers for clinical trials to measure the impact of its brain chip implants on individuals with paralysis.

The aim of the trial is to enable participants to control a computer keyboard or cursor using only their thoughts, facilitated by the implantation of Neuralink's N1 device in the brain region controlling movement intentions.

The company, which has shifted from animal testing to human trials following FDA approval, had previously faced scrutiny over allegations of animal cruelty and questions surrounding the safety of the device.

🔬 Zuckerberg's philanthropy project is building a massive GPU cluster to ‘cure all diseases’LINK

The Chan Zuckerberg Initiative (CZI), founded by Mark Zuckerberg and his wife Priscilla Chan, plans to build one of the world's largest GPU clusters for AI-driven biomedical research.

The CZI aims to use large language models to understand disease development at cellular levels and predict cell behaviors, necessitating over 1,000 Nvidia's H100 GPUs for computational requirements.

The high-performance computing system, expected to be operational in 2024, will accelerate biomedical research, from mapping varied cell types in different organisms to designing potential drugs and therapeutics.

🗣️ Amazon is turning Alexa into a hands-free ChatGPTLINK

Amazon is upgrading Alexa, its voice assistant, with the technology behind chatbots for more complex and open-ended conversation capabilities.

The new feature, which is still in progress, will show more simulated personality, interpret body language with devices equipped with cameras and modulate its voice for a more natural conversation.

While this advancement holds promise, challenges like responding to body language and the fact that these large language models can sometimes blur out inappropriate or nonsensical things, remains to refine.

🛡️ OpenAI launches a red teaming network to make its models more robustLINK

OpenAI has launched the OpenAI Red Teaming Network, a group tasked with aiding risk assessment and mitigation strategies for the company's AI models.

The Red Teaming initiative aims to catch biases and issues in AI models, enhancing safety and reliability in systems such as DALL-E 2 and GPT-4.

OpenAI calls on experts from diverse fields to participate in the network, emphasizing that confidentiality agreements may apply due to the sensitive nature of the work.

🎄 Amazon recruits 250,000 workers for festive seasonLINK

Amazon announced its plans to hire 250,000 employees (full-time, part-time, seasonal) in the U.S., for the upcoming holiday rush, a significant increase from last year's 150,000.

The wages for these new warehouse and delivery roles will range between $17 and $28 per hour, with the average pay now being $20.50, up from $19, and sign-on bonuses worth $1,000 to $3,000 in certain locations.

This announcement is part of a recent trend where Amazon has been raising the starting wages amidst labor tensions, criticism over warehouse injury records, employees' organization efforts and being the second-largest employer in the U.S., trailing only Walmart.

Other news you might like

George R.R. Martin and many renowned authors sued OpenAI, claiming copyright infringement for using their books to train AI without permission or consideration.LINK

TikTok is introducing a tool for creators to identify AI-generated content, aligning with policies against deepfakes and curbing misinformation.LINK

iFixit downgrades iPhone 14's repairability rating from 7 to 4, citing software obstacles and limitations forcing repairers to only use Apple's direct replacements.LINK

French Apple employees plan to strike during the iPhone 15 launch this weekend due to pay and working conditions disagreements.LINK

NASA is partnering with Apptronik to develop Apollo, a humanoid robot to assist astronauts in future outer space missions, easing their workload and enhancing safety.LINK

Researchers successfully recovered RNA from an extinct Tasmanian tiger specimen, marking the first achievement of this kind in extinct species study.LINK

Want to get the latest news differently? Find us on:

See you tomorrow for a new dose of ☕️ Techpresso!