🏛️ AI Unveils Plato’s Final Resting Place

Hi AI Friends!

This edition highlights a groundbreaking AI application where researchers decoded an ancient scroll to reveal Plato's burial site, showcasing AI's potential to unlock historical secrets and deepen our understanding of ancient civilizations. A true fusion of technology and history.

Read Time : 4mn

• AI Unveils Plato’s Final Resting Place

• Apple Unveils OpenELM: On-Device AI Revolution

• Saudi Arabia's AI Ascent

• Some more AI news

• Picture of the day

🏛️ AI Unveils Plato’s Final Resting Place

Summary:
Using AI, researchers have deciphered a papyrus carbonized in the eruption of Mount Vesuvius, revealing the precise burial location of the philosopher Plato at his Academy in Athens.

Key Points:

• Innovative Decipherment: AI helped interpret texts from a papyrus damaged in A.D. 79 by Mount Vesuvius, preserved in Herculaneum.

• Historical Texts: The scroll contained works by Philodemus of Gadara, offering insights into Plato's life and the Academy.

• Specific Findings: The AI identified descriptions within the "History of the Academy" indicating Plato was buried in a private garden at the Academy, dedicated to the Muses.

• Advanced Techniques Used: Researchers employed methods like infrared and ultraviolet imaging to read the scroll, now housed at the National Library of Naples.

Why It Matters:
This discovery not only pinpoints Plato’s exact burial site but also enriches our understanding of ancient Greek culture and philosophical heritage. It demonstrates the powerful role AI can play in uncovering and preserving historical knowledge, bridging past and present through technology. This breakthrough could lead to further revelations about ancient civilizations and their luminaries.

🍏 Apple Unveils OpenELM: On-Device AI Revolution

Summary:
Apple has launched OpenELM, a series of open-source large language models (LLMs) designed to operate directly on devices. These models are now available for public access and contribution on the Hugging Face Hub.

Key Points:

• Open Source Models: Apple introduces eight OpenELM models, including four pre-trained and four instruction-tuned, emphasizing efficiency and accuracy.

• Innovative Strategy: Utilizes a layer-wise scaling strategy to enhance model performance, achieving significant improvements in accuracy.

• Comprehensive Resources: Alongside models, Apple provides training logs, multiple checkpoints, and detailed pre-training configurations.

• Public Availability: Hosted on Hugging Face Hub, allowing broad access to developers, researchers, and companies for further development and research.

Why it matters:
The release of OpenELM marks a significant shift in Apple’s strategy towards a more open research ecosystem, potentially accelerating advancements in natural language processing. By running AI models on-device, Apple enhances user privacy and device functionality. This move not only democratizes AI research by providing essential tools to the global community but also positions Apple as a leader in ethical AI development, fostering innovation while addressing data security and privacy concerns.

🌴 Saudi Arabia's AI Ascent

Summary:
Saudi Arabia is aggressively investing in becoming an AI superpower, highlighted by a major tech conference in Riyadh where significant deals were announced, including a $5.3 billion investment from Amazon.

Key Points:

• High-Profile Event: Over 200,000 attendees at the Leap conference, including major tech CEOs and representatives from Amazon, IBM, and TikTok.

• Massive Investments: Announcements include over $10 billion in tech deals and a $100 billion fund dedicated to AI and technology advancements.

• Strategic Partnerships: Collaborations with global tech leaders and venture capitalists to boost its AI capabilities.

• Vision 2030 Goals: Part of a broader strategy to diversify from oil dependency to technology, with ambitious projects like a 100-mile-long mirrored skyscraper and heavy investment in AI infrastructure.

Why it matters:
Saudi Arabia’s substantial investments in AI position it as a emerging powerhouse in the global tech scene, potentially shifting the balance of technological influence among the U.S., China, and other tech leaders. This move not only aims to transform its economy but also sets the stage for Saudi Arabia to have significant sway in future tech innovations and geopolitical dynamics.

📰 Some more AI news

• Researchers at Stanford University found that AI, using facial recognition, can predict a person's political affiliation from their expressionless face with surprising accuracy.

• Los Angeles is investing $11 million in 100 AI cameras on buses to issue tickets for illegal parking in bus zones, with public testing and community outreach beginning this summer.

• Andrew McAfee's report suggests generative AI could drastically enhance economic productivity, potentially handling 10% of tasks in 80% of U.S. jobs more efficiently. This rapid advancement is poised to transform labor markets, necessitate new skills, and spur job creation in entirely new fields.

• Nvidia CEO Jensen Huang personally delivered the world's fastest AI system, the DGX H200, to OpenAI's Sam Altman and Greg Brockman, marking a significant upgrade in AI computing power and memory from previous models.

📷 Picture of the day