👀 Weekly AI news: Did you miss it?!

👨‍🚀 The most important AI updates at a glance

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Die AInauten
December 14, 2024

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👀 Weekly AI news: Did you miss it?!

👨‍🚀 The most important AI updates at a glance

AI-HOI and happy weekend, dear AInauts!

Maybe you didn't catch all the exciting news, tools and hacks about AI last week, or maybe you've just joined us. No need to worry!

We have summarized our highlights of the past week for you:

Finally, there is the most important quick news for you - so you can keep an eye on all relevant developments with just one click! Ready? Let's go!

OpenAI has ushered in the gift-giving season with "Shipmas" and whipped out the full o1 model right at the start! Is this the holy grail of AI? Some claim that with o1, we have already achieved AGI. It thinks deeper and is able to analyze images, solve complex problems and actually thinks.

But do we, do you, really need it? For $200 a month, you can get the Pro version with unlimited access and extra power. But to be honest, it is overkill for most of us …

Ready to turn your PDF into a lively podcast with your own voice? ElevenLabs' GenFM makes it possible! With seamless integration into the ElevenReader app (now also available on the web version), you can turn any document, article or YouTube video into a dynamic discussion with two lifelike AI co-hosts in seconds - in 32 languages.

Choose from different voices or just use your own (Web-only)! The tool generates the podcast in the original language of the content and you can edit the text if needed. Pro tip: Translate PDFs into English with DeepL. In contrast to NotebookLM, you have more control - try it out!

Elon's Grok is rocking the AI world! Since August 2024, X users have not only been able to chat with Grok, but also create almost uncensored images. Besides that, you can also access the latest X data and a "fun" mode provides plenty of witty comments. Initially, Grok was only for Premium subscribers, but now anyone can use it. Give it a try and let your imagination run wild!

😤 Our honest opinion on OpenAI Sora

OpenAI has dropped Sora, supposedly the hottest AI video model ever. But can you really call it a release, since it's not available in the EU? And if you do get access, you're not allowed to create videos with humans in it. Why the buzzkill, you ask? Simple, video is a minefield for OpenAI. It makes sense, but it's annoying. Nevertheless, the results are awesome, with cool features such as storyboard, re-cut, remix, blend and loop.

You love video AIs like Runway or KlingAI, but you hate subscriptions? Welcome to the club! Luckily there's Replicate, our favorite platform for to use the latest video models with no subscription obligation. Here, you only pay per use - from just 30 cents per video. Try out the new Hunyuan Video from Tencent or our current favorite tool Minimax Video-1 (aka Hailuo).

Simply enter the prompt and off you go! We even stole a Sora video prompt and fed it to Minimax. Result: Minimax sticks better to the prompt, but Sora is slightly more stylish. Time to get creative!

Voice chatbot dreams come true - in under 10 minutes! With the new Conversational AI from ElevenLabs, you can create your own talkative assistant without any programming knowledge. Choose a language, define the first message and pick a language model. Feed your bot with knowledge from documents or URLs and pimp it with tools via webhook, e.g. for booking appointments directly.

📰 AI-News-Quickie: The HAI-lights

Finally, the most important news from the last few days - and what a week it has been! Google has overshadowed everything with really strong releases and updates - although OpenAI has released a new feature every day. And there are plenty more updates to come ... Let's dive in!

Google Gemini 2.0 Launch & Features

OpenAI - a new Christmas present every day

  • Check out the OpenAI Playlist 12 Days of OpenAI - there are already 7 great videos with demos waiting for you, click here for all the details.

  • ChatGPT can now understand live video - scan objects or share your screen in real time! EU users still have to wait (of course).

  • Ho ho ho 🎅 OpenAI is rolling out Santa in Voice Mode on ChatGPT - but only until the end of the month, after which it will be withdrawn.

  • Use ChatGPT in Apple Intelligence now - with Image Playground, Genmoji and Chatbot.

  • OpenAI CFO Sarah Friar expects business customers to pay thousands per month for AI tools.

  • Check your API consumption now with OpenAI's Usage Dashboard - keep an eye on costs and activity, and export data on the fly.

  • What about OpenAI's huge ChatGPT outage this week? A new telemetry service was to blame …

The most important AI tool updates and new applications

  • With the AI Engineer Pack from ElevenLabs you get some of the top AI tools for free or heavily discounted. Click and register for free!

  • Meta has introduced the new, more efficient Llama 3.3 70B model, with image recognition - now available on OpenRouter, 25 times cheaper than GPT-4o. Internally it is used as Metamate for coding and communication.

  • Meta has also unveiled Meta Motivo - an AI platform for controlling humanoid robots without training.

  • Aurora is a new image model in Grok, replacing FLUX.

  • PikaLabs has introduced version 2. You can create a video with the exact character, object, clothing and environment you want.

  • Unleash your creativity with Mureka - the AI platform that turns your song ideas into captivating music.

  • Adobe has introduced an AI tool that removes distracting window reflections from photos. Perfect for professionals and amateur photographers!

  • Patchwork by MidJourney helps you create story worlds. Build, connect and share your creative universes.

  • DeepSeek is now live with internet search, and with Perplexity you can now specify which websites are searched. No wonder Google is losing ground.

  • Lindy.ai can now also make phone calls - find all the details here.

  • Zoom's new AI Companion lets you analyze meetings and docs superfast.

  • YouTube now brings auto-dubbing and translates your videos into 8 languages!

  • Reddit Answers is Reddit's new AI search and gives you smart summaries from your favorite subreddits. Totally nerdy, we love it.

  • ElevenLabs' free AI math tutor is impressive - and Khanmigo also brings AI to the classroom to benefit teachers and students!

  • Speak secures $78 million at a $1 billion valuation to revolutionize language learning effectively with AI!

  • Time's new AI chatbot: ask anything about the Person of the Year, and get stories summarized or translated.

  • Automattic takes over WPAI and pimps WordPress with innovative AI tools.

  • Cognition has finally made the coding assistant Devin available to the public. Cost: starting at $500 per month, but for some it's worth it.

AI safety & ethics

  • A Russian influence operation uses ElevenLabs' AI voices to create fake Ukraine news. Once again, AI is being used for nasty purposes ...

  • A new study by Apollo Research shows that several AI models deceive developers in order to achieve their own goals.

  • Anthropic publishes Best-of-N Jailbreaking - a simple method that bypasses the security features of AI models, with a 89% success rate for GPT-4o!

  • Anthropic launches Clio. It is a smart tool to detect spam networks and new threats by recognizing Claudes usage trends.

  • Character.AI is on the hot seat again - the AI allegedly sent dangerous messages to teens.

  • Microsoft is betting $10,000 on its new hacking challenge to secure the LLMail client against prompt injection. Got and get that bounty!

  • Meta has released Video Seal, which adds an invisible watermark to AI videos, with the goal to combat deepfakes.

  • Refute raises £2.3m to detect and combat AI disinformation for businesses

  • Oregon's local journalism is thrown into chaos with fake AI-generated news!

  • Parmy Olson convinces with her award-winning book: AI is not uncontrollable, but it's time for smart regulations.

  • An AI has increased its IQ from 101 to 133 in just nine months…

News from the industry, economy & politics

And that’s a wrap! Enjoy the rest of your weekend.

Your AInauts,
Fabian & Reto

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