Hi there, this is your daily ☕️ Techpresso.
In today's Techpresso:
🧠 Google simulates brain plasticity in its AI
🤖 OpenAI asks US to expand Chips Act for AI
💰 Meta announces plans to spend $600B in the US
🔎 Columbia study finds 25% of Polymarket trades fake
🚫 Denmark bans social media for children under 15
👀 Rivian gives CEO a Musk-like pay package
🎁 + 9 other news you might like
🔮 + 2 handpicked research papers and tools
🧠 Google simulates brain plasticity in its AI LINK
Google Research developed a new technique called Nested Learning, which is inspired by brain neuroplasticity to address catastrophic forgetting, where AI models overwrite previous knowledge when acquiring new skills.
The Nested Learning method treats AI models as a series of interconnected, nested optimization problems that learn at different speeds using a technique called multi-time-scale updates to mimic brain function.
Google's proof-of-concept model, Hope, uses Continuum Memory Systems to outperform other AIs in long-context memory challenges, like the specific Needle-In-Haystack tasks, and improve general language modeling accuracy.
🤖 OpenAI asks US to expand Chips Act for AI LINK
OpenAI has asked the White House to expand the CHIPS Act's 35% AMIC tax credit, originally for chip fabs, to also cover the construction of AI data centers and servers.
The AI company also wants the tax rebate extended to suppliers of electrical grid components, including transformers and the special electrical steel from which they are made to reduce energy loss.
The proposal suggests new government incentives like grants and loans for companies that supply critical raw materials for AI systems, such as copper, aluminum, and rare earth elements.
💰 Meta announces plans to spend $600B in the US LINK
Meta announced it will invest $600 billion in US infrastructure and jobs by 2028, with much of the money set to build the AI data centers needed for its goals.
This $600 billion figure isn't new, as a hot-mic caught Mark Zuckerberg telling President Trump at a White House dinner that he wasn't ready to announce the pledge.
The company links the spending to its goal of creating "personal superintelligence," seeing it as crucial for future products like its AI glasses that prevent a "cognitive disadvantage."
🔎 Columbia study finds 25% of Polymarket trades fake LINK
A Columbia University study suggests about 25% of Polymarket's total trading volume is likely wash trading, representing roughly $4.5 billion worth of transactions intended to create artificial activity.
The paper says Polymarket's lack of Know-Your-Customer rules and transaction fees creates an incentive for "airdrop farming," where users inflate their activity to earn potential crypto token rewards.
This wash trading varied widely by category, with an algorithm finding it made up 45% of all-time volume in Sports markets but only 3% of the volume in Crypto markets.
🚫 Denmark bans social media for children under 15 LINK
Lawmakers from Denmark’s political right, left, and center reached an agreement that would ban social media platforms for any person who is currently under the age of 15 years.
The country’s Digitalization Ministry will set the minimum age at 15 but has not yet clarified which platforms will be affected or how the new rules would actually be enforced.
This move follows Australia's country-wide ban for kids under 16, which requires social media platforms to employ age-verification technology or they will have to face fines from the government.
👀 Rivian gives CEO a Musk-like pay package LINK
Rivian gave CEO RJ Scaringe a new performance-based stock award worth up to $5 billion if key milestones are met, while doubling his yearly salary to $2 million.
The board canceled a previous 2021 grant because its share price targets were deemed unreachable, which the company said created a “lack of incentive” for the executive.
This compensation is tied to 36,500,000 stock options that unlock with specific stock price hurdles and by meeting certain operating income and cash flow targets.
Other news you might like
- James Watson, co-discoverer of the shape of DNA, dies at 97LINK
- Commercial spyware “Landfall” ran rampant on Samsung phones for almost a yearLINK
- YouTube outage involves blank homepages, adblockers blamedLINK
- Most LLM benchmarks are flawed, casting doubt on AI progress metrics, study findsLINK
- Oddest ChatGPT leaks yet: Cringey chat logs found in Google analytics toolLINK
- Palantir CEO Says a Surveillance State Is Preferable to China Winning the AI RaceLINK
- Intel says software engineer took ‘top secret’ documents after getting firedLINK
- Blackwell a no-sell in China as trade deal fails to materializeLINK
Latest research and tools
nokode: an experiment where a web server uses a language model to generate responses for every user request, completely skipping the need for traditional application code.LINK
Valdi: a cross-platform UI framework that lets you write your UI once in TypeScript and compiles it directly to native views on iOS, Android, and macOS.LINK
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