Is Pika 1.0 AI Video's Breakout Moment?

0:01Today on the AI Breakdown, we're looking at the complicated geopolitical relationship between the US, China, and the United Arab Emirates, and what it has to do with open AI. Before that on the brief, PicoLabs 1.0 launches an idea-to-video platform, and the AI community is stoked. The AI Breakdown is a daily podcast and video about the most important news and discussions in AI. We're to Breakdown.network for more information about our YouTube, our Discord, and our newsletter. Welcome back to the AI Breakdown Brief, all the AI headline news you need in around five minutes. We kick off today with an exciting new product launch.

0:37In fact, one that some people are calling one of the most exciting product launches of the year. The launch is from Pika Labs, Pika 1.0, and what it is is a text-to-video generation platform, or as they call it, an idea-to-video platform that brings your creativity to life. So there's a lot that is very cool about this tool. First of all, not only does it allow you to go from an idea written in plain text to a video, but it also allows you to edit your own videos and change aspects of them in the same way that, for example, Generative Fill does for photos in Adobe Photoshop. The example they use in their launch video is a woman who's changing her top as she walks down the street, or adding sunglasses to a monkey.

1:18There's also the ability to resize videos and expand them automatically, which again, even the image version of this feature was getting people excited just a few months ago. Now, in addition to the announcement that the company was launching Pico 1.0, they also announced a$35 million Series A led by Lightspeed. The company was founded by two women from Stanford, one of whom Demi Guo recently left her Stanford AI PhD to build this company. Now, I think in many ways, Andre Karpathy from OpenAI has the best description of why this is such an exciting development and what this says about the state of this particular field.

1:50He writes, you know how image generation went from blurry 32 by 32 texture patches to high resolution images that are difficult to distinguish from real and roughly the snap of a finger. the same is now happening along the time access extended to video, and the repercussions boggle the mind just a bit. Every human becomes a director of multimodal dreams, like the architect in Inception. Coming back to Earth for a second, image and video generation is a perfect match for data-hungry neural nets because data is plentiful, and the pixels of each image or video are a huge source of bits, on the parameters of the network.

2:21When you're training giant neural nets in supervision-rich settings, your train loss equals validation loss, and life is so good. So here we have Andre being excited about this both from the standpoint of technology and how this opens up new sets of information to training AI models, but also because of the unlocking of human creativity that this is going to create. Now, even other nominal competitors are excited about this launch. Imad Moustak from Stability AI, who just launched their own stable video diffusion model last week, writes, Amazing work by Pika Labs. Congrats to Chen Lin Meng and Demi Guo, shipping great stuff with a small, talented, and focused team.

2:55I don't think this is just him being gracious. I think that the folks who are building these models understand that right now, it's a rising tide lifts all boats kind of moment when it comes to AI video generation. It really does seem like a very exciting product and one that I can't wait to dig into further. Next up, yesterday we were talking about QSTAR and how its capacity to do grade school math might have been the thing that freaked out the OpenAI board sufficiently to actually go out and fire Sam Altman. Well, now there is a$10 million competition to fund the development of AI models that can reason mathematically.

3:27The announcement page writes, XTX Markets is launching a new$10 million challenge fund, the Artificial Intelligence Mathematical Olympiad Prize, or AI MO Prize. The fund intends to spur the development of AI models that can reason mathematically, leading to the creation of a publicly shared AI model capable of winning a gold medal in the International Mathematical Olympiad. The grand prize of$5 million will be awarded to the first publicly shared AI model to enter an AI MO-approved competition and perform at a standard equivalent to a gold medal in the IMO. There will also be a series of progress prizes totaling up to$5 million for publicly shared AI models that achieve key milestones towards the grand prize.

4:02Now, it seems like there are two different goals here. One is to actually get people working on this particular problem set and to actually dedicate their brainpower to solving this challenge of getting AI to reason mathematically. but then the other is to spur that development in a way that is open to the public. In other words, they don't want this innovation to be limited to OpenAI or Anthropic or any closed lab and instead want it to be widely available. Now, if this is something that excites you, it appears that they are hiring a director to lead this AI Ammo Prize right now. XCX Markets founder Alex Gerko writes, First order of business with AI Ammo Prize, we're looking for somebody to run this exciting project.

4:35So if that's you, that is something to maybe check out. Next up today, a big dust-up around AI-generated content. CNN Business writes, Sports Illustrated deletes articles published under fake author names and AI-generated profile photos. So basically it appears like Sports Illustrated was experimenting with AI-generated content. That means not only using AI to write content, but actually inventing fake authors as well. All this came to light after the site FutureSim started investigating, and found, as CNN put it, that the magazine had repeatedly published articles whose authors could not be found online outside the Sports Illustrated website.

5:12The articles were all accompanied by AI generated profile photos that FutureSim also found for sale on digital marketplaces that sell AI produced headshots. Continuing, they write, during the course of FutureSim's reporting, some of the alleged Sports Illustrated writers mysteriously vanished from the publication's website, and their articles began appearing under the names of different authors who similarly didn't appear to exist online and whose likenesses were also being sold on AI headshot marketplaces. Now, obviously right now, there are no exactly agreed upon ethics when it comes to AI-generated content in publications and content websites.

5:43Certainly, this is something that people are experimenting with, often facing a lot of backlash when they do. One thing that is almost definitely for sure, though, is that people do not like being lied to and tricked. It's one thing to have a publisher say, hey, we're going to test AI publishing. Check out this article, see if you like it. This might be something we do in the future. This might be something we don't do. It's another thing entirely to try to create fake avatars that trick people into thinking it's real when actually it's been generated by AI. In fact, this seems to be one of the areas that there is wide bipartisan agreement in potential upcoming AI legislation that publishers and platforms are going to have to identify when something is created by AI so as to not sow disinformation and mistrust.

6:23For their part, the company that operates and licensed Sports Illustrated, the Arena Group, told news outlets that all of this content had been created by a third-party company, AdVon Commerce. The spokesperson said, quote, we have learned that AdVon had writers use a pen or pseudoname in certain articles to protect author privacy, actions we don't condone, and we are removing the content while our internal investigation continues and have since ended the partnership. Now, according to this, the Arena Group also says that although they use those fake images, that, quote, AdVon has assured us that all of the articles in question were written and edited by humans.

6:55I would just like to insert the raised eyebrow emoji here, as something about that doesn't really track. Now, following the report, the Union of Sports Illustrated Writers, which is called the Sports Illustrated Union, said that its members were, quote, horrified by these allegations. In a statement, they wrote, if true, these practices violate everything we believe in about journalism. We deplore being associated with something so disrespectful to our readers. Emma Basilieri, a staff writer for the magazine, also posted on X, saying, along with basic principles of honesty, trust, journalistic ethics, etc., I take seriously the weight of a Sports Illustrated byline.

7:29It meant something to me long before I ever dreamed of working here. This report was horrifying to read. Now, of course, this is not the first nor will it be the last experiment with AI-generated human alternatives. You may have seen a story about a new AI model, Aitana, who was designed by a Spanish agency and has accumulated over 120 ,000 followers on Instagram since launching over the summer. The AI-generated model is apparently earning up to$10 ,000 a month on brand deals. There is basically an endless amount that we could discuss on this, and indeed my guess is that entire sociology theses will be dedicated to this this year.

8:02Now beyond just models or Sports Illustrated writers, there is apparently a large sense among regular people that AI could be coming for their jobs. In fact, Fox Business published a piece this morning titled Two-thirds of Americans Say AI Could Do Their Job. The reporting was on a recent survey conducted by Spokio, which found that of over 1 ,000 respondents, and 66.6 % of them said that AI could carry out their workplace duties, and nearly 75 % of them said that they were concerned about the technology's impact on their industry. Now, interestingly, Spokio CEO Harrison Tang pointed out that this might be about their actual job tasks being able to be automated, but it also might be about how much the media has presented AI as a great disruptor.

8:41Tang said, Whether it's because people realize that a lot of work can be easily automated, or they believe the hype in the media that AI is more advanced and powerful than it is, the AI box has now been opened. Yes, indeed it has, and I am glad you are here exploring this new world with me. That's going to do it for the AI Breakdown Brief. Next up, the main AI breakdown. And now, a quick word from today's sponsor. I am a huge Notion user. We're talking multiple accounts for multiple projects. I use it for everything from applicant tracking to note-taking to project management to sharing public documents to frantically capturing ideas I have while out hiking or just driving around.

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10:25And when you use our link, you're supporting the show. One more time, that's notion.com slash AI breakdown. Welcome back to the AI breakdown. The most fraught relationship in geopolitics in general is of course the US and China. It stands to reason then that the most fraught relationship in the geopolitics of AI is, once again, the US and China. Indeed, that relationship is so fraught that this year, much of the efforts of the White House and various security agencies has gone into not China specifically, but its proxies around the world. The New York Times has just released a major research piece called Inside US Efforts to Untangle an AI Giant's Ties to China.

11:04The story is about an Emirates-based firm called G42, and why the US is concerned about its work with Chinese companies. Now, to understand why this story might be interesting, especially in the context of recent events in the AI space, let's go back to October 18th and a story from Reuters, titled ChatGPT Creator OpenAI Partners with Abu Dhabi's G42 as UAE Scales Up AI Adoption. Now, this was a small announcement. It came from G42 themselves, and the details were fairly scant. Reuters writes, G42 said it would utilize OpenAI's generative AI models in areas including financial services, energy, healthcare, and public services.

11:44That's literally it. That was all that was announced. However, that was not the first time this year that G42 was in the news around its AI efforts. Back in July, a new$100 million AI supercomputer deal was announced between G42 and Cerebris Systems. Cerebris, which is a company based in Silicon Valley, announced that G42 had agreed to purchase three of its first Condor Galaxy supercomputers, and that that deal was part of a larger strategic partnership where G42 could buy up to six additional supercomputers by late 2024. The deal was so significant in size that the CEO of Cerebris, Andrew Feldman, was actually planning to move to the UAE for three months to work on developing G42's products around the systems.

12:23The only detail about what G42 was planning to do with it is this line where they said they plan to use the Cerebris systems to sell AI computing services to healthcare and energy companies. Fast forward a month. At the end of August, news reports came out that the U.S. had been putting pressure on companies including NVIDIA and AMD not only to block exports of chips to China as per export restrictions that had gone into effect at the end of 2022, but also to try to block sales to parts of the Middle East. Now, this came from a regulatory filing from NVIDIA, which said that the restrictions would affect its A100 and H100 chips, and while they wouldn't have a quote, immediate material impact, they were a concern in the long run.

13:00Now, after the NVIDIA story broke, Reuters confirmed that AMD had also been asked to place similar restrictions on their business by the U.S. government. In a statement, NVIDIA said, During the second quarter of fiscal year 2024, the U.S. government informed us of an additional licensing requirement for a subset of A100 and H100 products destined to certain customers in other regions, including some countries in the Middle East. Now, at the time, the supposition was widely reported as not the U.S. government taking issue with the Middle East itself, but the concern that these advanced chips that went to the Middle East would find their way to Chinese companies or the Chinese government.

13:31Adding additional intrigue, however, the U.S. government then came out and said that they weren't blocking chip sales to the Middle East. After the regulatory filings, the Department of Commerce spokesperson said that the Biden administration had not blocked chip sales to the Middle East, adding just a whole lot of confusion to the situation. Okay, so where we were is one, there seeming to be increasing U.S. government focus on how Middle Eastern countries, particularly in the Gulf region, could be conduits for AI technology getting to the Chinese. Two, we have the Gulf nations, particularly the United Arab Emirates, cutting deals with big Silicon Valley players, including Cerebris and OpenAI.

14:05So what is the substance of this New York Times piece about this company G42? The lead of the piece reads, When the secretive national security advisor of the United Arab Emirates, Sheikh Tanun bin Syed, visited the White House in June, his American counterpart, Jake Sullivan, raised a delicate issue. G42, an artificial intelligence firm controlled by the sheik that American officials believe is hiding the extent of its work with China. In public, the company has announced its staggering growth with a steady cadence of news releases. They've included agreements with European pharmaceutical giants like AstraZeneca, and a$100 million deal with a Silicon Valley firm to build what the company's boast will be the world's largest supercomputer.

14:40Last month, G42 announced a partnership with OpenAI, the creator of ChatGPT. But in classified American intelligence channels, there have been more concerning reports about the company. The CIA and other American spy agencies have issued warnings about G42's work with large Chinese companies that U.S. officials consider security threats, including Huawei, the telecommunications giant that is under U.S. sanctions. U.S. officials feared G42 could be a conduit by which advanced American technology is siphoned to Chinese companies or the government. The CIA even produced a classified profile of Peng Xiao, the chief executive of G42, who was educated in the United States and renounced his American citizenship for an Emirati one.

15:16Basically, the argument that this piece makes is that G42 is at the epicenter of the U.S.'s goals to limit China's ability to both influence the Middle East as well as to access advanced technology. The article also points out that the stakes for the UAE are high, arguing that they're, quote, building an artificial intelligence industry as an alternative to oil income. Now, the article goes deep on all the different ways in which there might be some overlap between G42 and the Chinese government. G42's underlying technology infrastructure has been built with the help of Chinese companies, including Huawei.

15:48The company sells surveillance technology that's very similar to products that are popular with Chinese police. G42's portfolio includes a$100 million investment in ByteDance, which is obviously the owner of TikTok, which has been at the epicenter of questions of the relationship between China and the US, and so on and so forth. Now, OpenAI and Cerebris are not the only companies that have relationships with G42. Microsoft and Dell Technologies do as well. What's more, Andrew Feldman, the CEO of Cerebrus, said he was, quote, surprised to hear about the Biden administration's concerns about G42, and said that no American officials have raised those concerns with him or other officers at Cerebrus.

16:22For this article, OpenAI and Microsoft declined to comment. Now, I'm not sure that if you read this piece, you can really come away with many conclusions other than how complex the relationship between China and the U.S. really is, especially around this question of AI, that the Gulf region in general and the UAE in specific are part of a growing thread in that tension, which is countries that have relationships with both groups. Three, that part of this story is the blurring of the lines between state and the private sector, which is causing even more challenges. And four, that G42 is, if nothing else, very ambitious.

16:54Now, part of what makes this interesting in the context of the recent OpenAI skrifuffle was the reporting that came out between when Altman was fired and when he was rehired that he had been, quote, looking to raise tens of billions of dollars from Middle Eastern sovereign wealth funds to create an AI chip startup to compete with processors made by NVIDIA. Security expert Matthew Pines wrote a thread about this. He writes, Why did the OpenAI board bounce Sam? Nobody really knows. But there are public reports of Sam's geopolitical activities that might have raised concerns. Below are some events that may explain the board's accusation of lack of candor.

17:26On June 6, 2023, Sam spoke at a Hub 71 forum in Abu Dhabi, an event put on in partnership with G42 and backed by the UAE sovereign wealth fund Mubadala. Opening for him was the CEO of the Inception Institute for Artificial Intelligence, a G42 company founded by a Chinese national. Note that G42, which is chaired by the UAE's National Security Advisor, launched a$10 billion 42x tech fund in August 2022 in partnership with Mubadala. They hired a former executive of Chinese e-commerce giant JD.com to lead their Chinese investments and expand across Asia. On June 10, 2023, Sam gave the keynote virtually at the Beijing Academy of Artificial Intelligence, an event which involved Chinese firms sanctioned by the US.

18:06There, he emphasized the need for US and Chinese researchers to collaborate on AI development to manage global risks. AI has become the locus of US-China competition in the Gulf, where KSA and UAE both look to play both sides. Security protection from the US, and tech transfer and trade with China. G42, led by the UAE's spy shake, is at the center of this swirling geopolitical and tech vortex. In August 2023, G42 launched Jace, a ChadCBT-like LLM purpose-built for the Arabic world. This LLM was trained using Cerebrus chips, known to be inferior to NVIDIA's. G42 also partnered with Chinese companies to boost COVID testing and vaccine development, aka mass DNA collection.

18:43The UAE has a national strategy for AI 2031, aiming to catch up on the global tech frontier and strategically shift long-term away from an oil economy. This aligns with China's national strategic ambition to become a major AI innovation center by 2030. In August 2023, the U.S. tapped NVIDIA and AMD on the shoulder and said no MAS to any advanced GPU sales to KSA and UAE. This was motivated out of an apparent concern for pass-through sales to China that bypass export controls, but it's likely G42's indigenous efforts also played a role. The U.S. has also expressed acute concerns over Mubadala and SoftBank's investment activities.

19:17CFIUS has intervened to scrutinize and block some of their recent acquisition targets on national security grounds. U.S. has also flagged a Chinese military facility at Khalifa Port in UAE. Matthew then flags what we had just talked about, with the October deal between G42 and OpenAI, and the report from Bloomberg that the OAI board had been concerned that Sam had been looking to raise tens of billions of dollars from Middle Eastern sovereign wealth funds. And then he added on November 19th, Yahoo confirmed that Altman had been traveling to the Middle East to fundraise for the project, which was codenamed Tigris, and raised tens of billions from SoftBank, Saudi's public investment fund, and the Mubudala Investment Company.

19:50Matthew concludes, This is all in the public domain. One has to imagine that the OAI board is privy to more details, some of which may have been shared by the U.S. intelligence community, who give defensive briefings to U.S. firms, which gave them serious concerns about Sam Altman's lack of candor. Now that Sam has been fired and rumors swirl about his reinstatement, I have no idea how the situation evolves. But the above hypothesis would be confirmed if the G42 and other deals were suspended as a condition of his return. Now, of course, now we are sitting here with the benefit of hindsight and know that that didn't happen.

20:19So perhaps it's all just coincidence. The Occam's razor explanation for all of this is that Sam, as the entrepreneur he is, recognizes that the stranglehold that NVIDIA has over the entire AI industry is an opportunity, and that there are very few people who have the capital necessary to actually go and compete to take advantage of that opportunity, and thus partners with an aligned interest, including these big sovereign wealth funds and companies like G42, are of course the companies he's talking to. What I think this New York Times story shows is that even if the explanation is as simple as that, It's not actually as simple as that.

20:52It's a great example of how AI is going to be a story not just of technology and not just of business, but of the shape and structure of the world that we move into. Interesting stuff to keep an eye on. But until next time, peace.