Week 19: What’s Happening in AI

RIL launches the first pro-innovation responsible AI commitments and protocol for startups and investors. AI builder meetups. Plus, company and policy news.

Welcome to this week’s edition of What's Happening in AI, covering the latest in policy, responsible AI, and where AI is going for the Responsible Innovation Labs community.

Below: Global policy proposals continue. Meet-ups by Cerebral Valley, VCs, and startup leaders. Cohere’s AI safety guide and AWS’ European Digital Sovereignty Pledge. Plus, what is the value in advancing generative agents? What are the ethical frameworks?

First, this week’s big story: Responsible Innovation Labs launches first pro-innovation responsible AI protocol for startups and their investors  

• Why this matters: Top VC firms sign voluntary commitments with practical tools, resources, and frameworks based on best practice (ex. 5 steps your business can take to build a responsible AI program)

• Consider: Commerce boosts this new effort, with momentum growing to nearly 50 VCs (more here, here). We worked closely with operators, investors, civil society, and the public sector in an unprecedented collaboration. Our goal is to support startups and investors to implement the Responsible AI Commitments in ways that are consistent with how founders and investors operate.

• More: See the Voluntary Responsible AI Commitments and Protocol for Startups & Investors

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Policy

Americas:

• Sen. Thune and Klobuchar release bipartisan AI bill focused on ‘research, innovation, and accountability’ (more here)

• Sen. Schumer says he’s on a mission to help eliminate racial bias in AI

• ICYMI: U.S. Senate AI ‘Insight Forum’ five and six

Europe:

• Rishi Sunak performs delicate balancing act in Big Tech lobbying battle over landmark competition bill

• AWS makes European Digital Sovereignty Pledge

• ’EU wards off Russian tech investment via its startup fund’

Asia:

• Monetary Authority of Singapore lays foundation for safe, innovative use of digital money (more here)

• ‘China caves to EU on data to keep investors sweet’

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Responsible AI

Product and alignment:

• Cohere leaders pen an enterprise guide to AI safety

• Big tech ditched trust and safety. Now startups are selling it back as a service

Science and health:

• OpenEvidence and Elsevier partner to help doctors harness AI to diagnose patients

Security and privacy:

• Google's general counsel on AI and legal liability (re: AI chatbot malware case)

• Talks on U.S. surveillance law simmer as its expiration date looms (more here)

• NSA's Joyce: Israel faces 'enormous amount of cyber pressure' from Iran, hacktivists

Society and technology:

• How states are guiding schools to think about AI

• Preparing for generative AI in the 2024 election: recommendations and best practices

• Google to distribute 100,000 Titan Security Keys to high-risk users (ex. running elections)

Climate:

• DeepMind on can AI help solve the climate crisis? (more here)

Events:

• Nov 18: AGI Buzz Conference in SF (co-hosted by many)

• Nov 18: Path to growth with growth leaders in GenAI in Palo Alto (Stanford University)

• Nov 18-19: DevDay x MultiOn API hackathon in SF (Cerebral Valley)

• Nov 21: Future of AI, ethics, tech in SF with Joscha Bach, Gaia Dempsey (Ntrophy)

• Nov 21: London AI meetup (Mindstone)

• Nov 22: AI builders co-working in SF (Susa Ventures)

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Where AI is going

Humanity:

• OpenAI is building GPT-5 — and CEO claims it could be superintelligent

• From sims to sapiens: crafting reality with code

• Scale AI partners with think tank CSIS to use AI for war gaming

Capabilities:

• Imbue co-founders Kanjun Qiu and Josh Albrecht on AI agents that reason and code

• AI research book club: Arxiv Dives with Oxen.ai and past chat notes

• Multimodal Weekly 26 by Twelve Labs and past recordings

Fundamental rights:

• AI helps defense attorneys sift through police body cam videos

• Police use of face recognition is sweeping the UK

• Israel's NSO unleashes controversial spyware in Gaza conflict

Stack and ecosystem:

• Anthropic’s London hackathon winner, Bulletpapers built with Claude

• Microsoft debuts its own AI chips

Releases, raises, more:

• Releases: Azure text to speech (Microsoft), AI Pin (Humane), Generative AI in search expands globally (Google)

• Raises: Every.io ($9.5M), Khosla Ventures ($3B), Menlo Ventures ($1.35B), Craft Ventures ($1.3B)

• More: Airbnb acquires AI startup for just under $200 million

Extra bits

• Everyday challenges and opportunities with LLMs pre- and post-production (Fiddler, more here)

• Implementing a performance management system and example leveling matrix (Molly Graham)

• Book: Unmasking AI (Dr. Joy Buolamwini, more here)

• ICYMI: Barack Obama on AI, free speech, and the future of the internet (Verge)