AI Goes Davos

WELCOME

It’s amazing you are here and are taking the time out of your busy day to read this publication.

First of all, thank you. Thank you for your support and for being amazing.

That being said, this newsletter can be better. It should be better.

What you are reading today is a new twist on the newsletter. Besides the weekly news, there are three categories that are added: a podcast recommendation, a book recommendation, and a weekly “AI productivity tip”.

We hope that this new format will add even more value to your week and perhaps you’ll learn a thing or two.

The podcast and the book won’t always be tech-related, but they are guaranteed to be interesting.

Enjoy, and if you like the format, let me know on LinkedIn or show your appreciation by sending the newsletter to friends. It goes a long way. Thanks !

AI NEWS
Klaus Schwab’s WEF is all over AI

• It’s that time again. The “elites” are flying their private jets into Davos, for the annual World Economic Forum to talk about how to reduce carbon emissions.

  Anyway, this year (obviously), AI is the star of the show. All the big shots are at the meeting, from Satya Nadella (Microsoft CEO) to Sam Altman (OpenAI CEO). Besides the warnings and the calls for regulation, many speakers also emphasised the huge impact AI can make on the world

  Sam Altman revealed that OpenAI is working closely with the Pentagon on various “cybersecurity projects”” coming after recently removing a blanket ban on ‘military and warfare’ uses on ChatGPT’s ToS.

  ChatGPT is also accelerating work on addressing election disinformation risks, including new tools for ID’ing DALL-E-generated images.

  
  You can follow and rewatch all the talks online
  

• In a reply on X - Elon Musk says he’s uncomfortable growing Tesla to be a leader in AI and robotics without having 25% voting control. He currently owns about 13% of Tesla shares (he sold a lot of shares in order to be able to buy Twitter). It’s another seemingly erratic move by Musk who likes to take his fights public, it seems.
  

• Microsoft Copilot is now live for everyone. Until yesterday, you had to buy a minimum of 300 licenses. That limit has been removed. Meaning that if you have a small business with a few users - you are now able to purchase a license to use the product. Copilot attaches itself to your Office apps like Outlook, Teams, and PowerPoint and adds some ‘interesting’ functionality. This will set you back about 30 euros per month per user. You have to pay a full year in advance to get access.
  

• Not to be confused with “regular” Copilot, Microsoft only released “Copilot Pro,” which is available only for Microsoft 365 Personal and Family Members. This includes a new Copilot GPT Builder
  

• An open-source chatbot called “OpenChat” has released the world best open-source large language model, surpassing ChatGPT 4 and Grok 1 in performance.

• Midjourney might be the first AI image generator that is able to generate pictures that are indistinguishable from reality. We came across a post from X User @blac_ai who created a prompt that creates perfect “selfies””
  
  Here’s the prompt : “phone selfie of [person description], [location], posted on [social media platform in YEAR] --style raw --ar 9:16 --v 6.0"
  
  And here’s a result if you put in 2020, the year of COVID-19:

CYBERSECURITY NEWS
Cosmetics Firm Lush Suffers Cyberincident

• Lush, the privately-owned British cosmetics retailer with stores in North America, is “currently responding to a cyber security incident.” a spokesperson has confirmed. The company, which operates in 49 countries, also owns production facilities in Europe, Japan, and Australia. It is not clear if these have been affected.

• The hackers behind the Androxgh0st malware are creating a powerful botnet, U.S. cybersecurity agencies warned on Tuesday.

  On Tuesday, the FBI and Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency (CISA) released a joint advisory on the malware, saying multiple ongoing investigations have allowed them to assess the tactics used by the threat actors deploying it.

• Ivanti said it is seeing a spike in hackers targeting two recently disclosed vulnerabilities in its Connect Secure VPN product, as cybersecurity researchers also sized up the extent of the damage. Connect Secure is a widely used VPN product, but the use of two vulnerabilities would allow hackers to gain access by bypassing control checks.

• Microsoft will store all cloud customers’ personal data within the European Union rather than allowing transfers abroad, the company said on Thursday, the latest step in ongoing efforts by cloud providers to navigate varying privacy regulations across jurisdictions.

  Under the new policy, Microsoft will keep within what it calls the “EU data boundary” all customer data across the company’s cloud services, like Azure, Microsoft 365, Power Platform, and Dynamics 365.

  This includes “pseudonymized personal data,” which is found in system-generated logs and has been altered so as not to be directly linked to an individual ”making Microsoft the first large-scale cloud provider to deliver this level of data residency to European customers,” the company said in a release.

PODCAST TIP OF THE WEEK
The Lex Fridman Podcast

Lex Fridman is a machine learning researcher at MIT and a very thoughtful and intelligent person all-around. The concept of his podcast is to talk to “wildly interesting” people who are perhaps not always mainstream. The podcast has 408 episodes as we speak and started out as a string of academics and scholars from a very broad array of fields and specialties.

The conversations go on for hours, with one podcast reaching over 8 hours in length and being extremely fascinating.

As the podcast has gained in popularity, the calibre of the guests has increased tremendously.

Elon Musk, Jeff Bezos, Mark Zuckerberg, Sam Harris, Sam Altman, etc., but also people like Kanye West, Mr. Beast, and Joe Rogan.

Excellent, excellent podcast. Give it a listen, or check out the YouTube channel.

Here’s the latest one with Jeff Bezos, who is someone who doesn’t give interviews, but he sat down with Lex for several hours. This gives a fascinating insight into the brain of one of the world’s richest people.

Another interesting one is Elon Musk; his brain works in mysterious ways.

BOOK TIP OF THE WEEK
The Psychology of Money

I first read this book two years ago, but I find myself coming back to it time and time again.

Money, accounting, and finance are thought of as math-based fields, and while that is partly correct, there is a distinct “emotional” component to money.

It features 19 stories about money, and it’s full of these little nuggets of wisdom. I’ll give you a few here, without context, of course …

On money’s greatest intrinsic value:

On possessions:

Buy the book here

AI PRODUCTIVITY TIP OF THE WEEK
Quillbot

Quillbot is a cutting-edge AI-powered writing assistant designed to revolutionize the way we approach writing and editing tasks.

What sets QuillBot apart is its sophisticated algorithm that excels at paraphrasing. Whether you're drafting an email, preparing a report, or crafting academic papers, QuillBot helps you rephrase your content while maintaining the original meaning. It's an invaluable tool for avoiding plagiarism, enhancing clarity, and adding a touch of creativity to your writing.

You heard it right - ’s the ideal tool to take ChatGPT content and rework it into something that cannot be detected by anti-plagiarism tools.

Beyond paraphrasing, Quillbot offers a suite of writing tools, including a grammar checker, a summarizer, and a citation generator. Its user-friendly interface integrates seamlessly with your workflow, making it a breeze to improve the quality and readability of your text.

Incorporating QuillBot into your daily routine can significantly reduce the time and effort spent on writing and editing. It's not just a tool; it's a companion for anyone looking to elevate their writing skills. Give Quillbot a try and experience a new horizon of linguistic possibilities!

There’s a free version that you can use as a browser plugin that is already of great value because it removes all your typo’s.

Here’s their homepage

Closing Thoughts

Ok that’s it from us.

If you want this format to stick around and you really like it - let us know ! By any means necessary !