Harvard Publishes Guidelines for Use of AI in Classroom

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September 5, 2023

Harvard Guidelines for Use of AI in Classroom — Image Credits: Harvard

The Faculty of Arts and Sciences, the largest academic division at Harvard, published its first set of guidelines for instructors on using generative AI in their classes. The Office of Undergraduate Education’s instructions are extensive and provide general knowledge on how generative AI operates and its potential academic uses.

A fully-encouraging policy, a maximally restrictive policy, and a mixed approach are the three methods that professors can use towards using AI in their courses, respectively. The guideline does not impose one AI policy across the FAS, instead, it offers specific terminology for these three options.

One grounding basis underlying the recommendations, according to Christopher W. Stubbs, dean of science, is that faculty have ownership over their courses. He said, ” I don’t think there is a one-size-fits-all course policy here. What we are requesting of the faculty is that they become informed, that they comprehend the impact this has on the learning objectives for their courses, and then, crucially, that they communicate to students clearly and frequently what their course policy is.”

The FAS guidelines also expand on university-wide AI policies that were released in July and put a strong emphasis on safeguarding private information. Faculty are not to enter student work into AI systems, according to FAS guidance. Stubbs pointed out that third-party AI platforms own both user-generated prompts and computer-generated responses.

Early last month, the school held two informational meetings for professors on the effects of generative AI in STEM and writing courses. The sessions cover potential uses of AI as an aid for learning, including real-time information synthesis, code generation, and argument evaluation.

Helm.ai Raises $55m in Series C Funding Round for Self-driving Technology

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Sahil Pawar

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September 5, 2023

Helm.ai raises $55m in Series C funding roun — Image Credits: Helm.ai

Helm.ai, a provider of cutting-edge AI software for robotics automation and autonomous driving, has raised $55 million in its Series C fundraising round. The venture capital firm Freeman Group served as the lead investor in the round, which also includes strategic contributions from Honda Motor, Goodyear Ventures, and Sungwoo Hitech.

With this financing, Helm.ai has now raised a total of $102M. Helm.ai will utilize the funding for research and development, the commercialization of its self-driving technology, and to carry out its commercial pacts with partners and clients in the automotive and robotics industries.

According to Helm.ai CEO Vlad Voroninski, their Deep Teaching technology enables to swiftly deliver top-notch AI software to Tier 1s and OEMs in a hardware-agnostic manner, accelerating the time to market and enabling the path to software differentiation with high-end ADAS and L4 systems.

While speaking about the funding, he said, “With this additional funding, we will be able to offer more advanced artificial intelligence solutions for robotics and autonomous vehicle applications and to accelerate the commercialization of our software stack.”

The announcement of Helm.ai’s latest funding round and its recognition from the industry come at a time when the autonomous vehicle industry is undergoing a major shift. According to the CEO, Helm.ai has continued to experience record acceptance and is well-positioned to gain a growing list of customers in the months and years to come, thanks to its generalized, hardware agnostic approach to AI for autonomous systems.

NVIDIA CEO Meets with PM Modi to Discuss Potential of AI in India

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Sahil Pawar

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September 5, 2023

NVIDIA CEO Meets with PM Modi India — Image Credits: FT

NVIDIA founder and CEO Jensen Huang met with Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi on Monday, underscoring the company’s expanding ties to the world’s budding technological superpower India.

The meeting took place at 7 Lok Kalyan Marg, the official house of the Indian Prime Minister in New Delhi, as Modi gets ready to host a meeting of the G20 group of the world’s major countries, including U.S. President Joe Biden, later this week. The occasion, which marks Modi and Huang’s second meeting, highlights NVIDIA’s part in the nation’s quickly expanding technological sector.

“Had an excellent meeting with Mr. Jensen Huang, the CEO of NVIDIA. We talked at length about the rich potential India offers in the world of AI,” Modi said in a Twitter post.

Had an excellent meeting with Mr. Jensen Huang, the CEO of @nvidia. We talked at length about the rich potential India offers in the world of AI. Mr. Jensen Huang was appreciative of the strides India has made in this sector and was equally upbeat about the talented youth of… pic.twitter.com/zT6Cyrmk5z
— Narendra Modi (@narendramodi) September 4, 2023

After his meeting with Modi, Huang had a casual dinner with a large group of scholars from renowned institutions of science and technology throughout the world, including the Indian Institute of Science and several campuses of the Indian Institute of Technology.

Some of the brightest minds in a wide range of disciplines, including astronomy, medicine, quantum computing, massive language models, and natural language processing, were among the guests.

The evening’s conversations covered a wide range of subjects, including how to use technology to overcome language barriers, increase agricultural yields, close gaps in healthcare services, restructure digital economies, and take on some of the biggest contemporary scientific problems.

NVIDIA started doing business in 2004 in Bangalore, India, which was almost over two decades ago. There are now more than 3,800 NVIDIANs in India, and there are four engineering development centers in the country, one each in Gurugram, Hyderabad, Pune, and Bangalore.

Hyderabad’s Grene Robotic Unveils AI-Powered Anti-Drone System Indrajaal

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Sahil Pawar

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September 5, 2023

Grene Robotic AI-Powered Anti-Drone System Indrajaal — Image Credits: Shutterstock

Grene Robotics, a well-known deep-tech business with headquarters in Hyderabad, has unveiled “Indrajaal,” which it claims is India’s first AI-powered anti-drone system. This cutting-edge device is intended to protect vital infrastructure, the private sector, and important installations from the growing drone threats.

With its extensive features and real-time threat neutralization, Indrajaal represents a significant advancement in India’s hunt for cutting-edge security solutions. With 12 different layers of artificial intelligence technology integrated, Indrajaal stands out as a ground-breaking development in drone security. It is powered by an inventive LEGO-like combination mechanism.

The technology offers 360-degree protection and is capable of detecting, identifying, classifying, tracking, and neutralizing threats in real-time, Kiran Raju, the company’s founder explained. With the help of this quick reaction mechanism, the threat can only exist for a short time, between 30 and 60 seconds, before countermeasures are taken.

The company claims that the Indrajaal Counter-Unmanned Aircraft System (C-UAS) is the only one of its kind in the world. Due to its extensive capabilities, it can defend a 4,000 square kilometer region from threats with low radar cross-section (RCS) to medium and high-altitude long-endurance (MALE and HALE) UAVs. It can tackle threats such as loitering weapons, smart bombs, rocket showers, and nano and micro drones.

The governor of Uttarakhand and former deputy chief of the army staff, Lieutenant General Gurmit Singh, emphasized the growing significance of Indrajaal in addressing India’s security issues. He discussed the Galwan event and previous drone attacks on the Jammu airport, emphasizing the necessity for efficient drone and swarm defenses.

Indrajaal has emerged as the solution to these security issues, showcasing its capacity to defend India’s private, public, and defense sector, he said.

UAE’s G42 Conglomerate Announces Open Source Arabic Large Language Model Jais

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Sahil Pawar

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September 3, 2023

UAE's G42 open source Arabic large language model Jais — Image Credits: NDTV

A team of engineers, scientists, and a semiconductor manufacturer from the Bay Area worked together to create a powerful Arabic language model Jais that can power applications for generative AI.

With 13 billion parameters, the new large language model Jais was created from a large collection of data mixing Arabic and English, some of which came via computer code. There are not many bilingual large language models, according to the group of academics and engineers who started the research, and this served as the purpose for the model.

The new language model was developed using supercomputers made by Silicon Valley-based Cerebras Systems, which makes chips the size of dinner plates that compete with Nvidia’s potent AI hardware. Businesses all around the world are looking for alternatives because Nvidia’s processors are in short supply due to China restrictions.

An open source license will be used to make Jais accessible. The group trained the Jais model on a Condor Galaxy supercomputer owned by Cerebras. Cerebras stated this year that it had sold three of these units to G42, the first of which is due this year and the remaining two in 2024.

According to Timothy Baldwin, a professor at Mohamed bin Zayed University of Artificial Intelligence, there isn’t enough Arabic data to train a model the size of Jais, thus the computer code found in the English language data helped train the model’s reasoning capabilities.

Jais, which takes its name from the highest mountain in the UAE, is the result of a partnership between the Mohamed bin Zayed University of Artificial Intelligence, Cerebras, and the AI-focused subsidiary Inception of the G42 technology conglomerate, based in Abu Dhabi.

NPCI Launches Blockchain-based Open-Source Project Falcon

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Sahil Pawar

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September 2, 2023

NPCI Launches Blockchain-based Open-Source Project Falcon — Image Credits: NPCI

On August 29, the National Payments Corporation of India (NPCI) announced the release of Falcon, an open-source project designed to manage and use blockchains. It is based on Hyperledger Fabric and powered by Kubernetes clusters. In essence, Falcon is anticipated to support developers working on blockchain-based payment solutions.

According to the official post from NPCI, Falcon is a go-to option for efficient, dependable, and automated Fabric network deployment blockchain enthusiast, developer, or organization seeking to leverage the power of distributed ledger technology using Hyperledger Fabric.

With the support of the distributed ledger technology made available by this NPCI offering, blockchain developers should be able to create network and Web3 solutions quickly and reliably.

A deliberate combination of Kubernetes and Hyperledger components, Falcon ushers in a new era of efficient blockchain solution creation and maintenance. It successfully combines their unique strengths.

The integration of Hyperledger’s solid blockchain foundation and Kubernetes’ automated operational processes should provide developers with an effective and comprehensive environment to create high-end blockchain solutions.

Industry professionals applaud NPCI for launching Falcon and predict broad advantages, theorizing that this project has the ability to speed up the adoption of blockchain-based solutions and improve the overall developer experience.

32 International Companies Submit Applications to Manufacture Laptops in India

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Sahil Pawar

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September 1, 2023

32 international companies submit applications to manufacture laptops in India — Image Credits: Bestpart

IT minister Ashwini Vaishnav said on Wednesday that at least 32 foreign electronics companies have submitted applications to India‘s incentives programme to manufacture laptops, tablets, and servers in the country. The announcement comes weeks after the government put restrictions on laptop imports.

Hewlett Packard Enterprise, Dell Technologies, Asus, Acer, and Lenovo are among the businesses that have filed to manufacture laptops and other products in India. The “Make in India” initiative of Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s administration seeks to increase domestic manufacturing capacity. As a result of the restrictions, a number of foreign corporations are either establishing their own facilities or forming joint ventures with Indian businesses.

According to Ashwini Vaishnaw, the applications were submitted by the electronics industries under the country’s $2 billion production-linked incentive (PLI) programme for information technology hardwear. According to the minister, the PLI scheme for IT hardware is predicted to result in an additional investment of Rs. 24.3 billion and create 75,000 direct jobs.

The country’s trade regulator announced on August 5 that India will offer a transition time of roughly three months prior to the implementation of a new licensing scheme for the importation of laptops, tablets, and personal computers. This is a partial overturn of the sudden decision to enforce the licensing requirement with immediate effect, which had led to requests for a postponement.

The government stated in a notification that import consignments can be cleared without a license until 31 October and a government permit would be required for clearance of import from 1 November.

Google Announces India-Tuned Version of Generative AI-powered Search

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Sahil Pawar

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September 1, 2023

Google announced on Thursday that its generative AI-powered version of its flagship product, Search, has been optimized for India. Starting today, the platform, which will be made accessible as a pilot to any user who voluntarily agrees to participate in the trial, will offer a chatbot-like experience in place of the traditional search bar that has traditionally been associated with search engines.

Users will be able to do searches in both Hindi and English using the India-specific version of Google‘s AI-powered Search, known as Search Generative Experience (SGE), which will also enable voice input for search queries and readouts of search results.

Nearly four months after its global premiere, SGE is making its way to India. Google’s vice-president and general manager of Search, Elizabeth Reid, announced the launch of the updated Search on May 10.

“We’re once more reinventing what a search engine can achieve with fresh advancements in generative AI. In order to help you navigate and make sense of the information available, we can now answer queries of a completely new kind that you never imagined Search could address thanks to this potent new technology.” said Reid.

The news comes after Microsoft took the lead by launching a new version of its own search engine, Bing, powered by OpenAI’s large language model GPT-4. With the debut, Google, whose research group is credited with developing transformer models, the key technology underlying generative AI, lost ground in the generative AI competition. This announcement can be seen as Google’s attempt at catching up.

Entrepreneur Earns Thousands of Dollars within a Month by Teaching AI Skills

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Sahil Pawar

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September 1, 2023

entrepreneur earns thousands of dollars month teaching ai skills — Image Credits: Business Insider

A crucial point in the life of 32-year-old Cypriot entrepreneur Ole Lehmann occurred following the financial losses during the FTX crypto exchange crisis. He was unsure of what to do following the incident until he came across ChatGPT, an AI tool that has subsequently helped launch him into a lucrative profession as an educator. By instructing people in the use of AI, Lehmann is currently earning thousands of dollars.

Two weeks after the crypto meltdown, Lehmann found ChatGPT, which completely altered his life. It brought up recollections of his keen interest in cryptocurrencies. He acknowledged that he became enthusiastic about AI after realizing its potential.

Lehmann started extensively studying ChatGPT in January. In order to gauge audience interest, he started tweeting AI-related content on his own Twitter account concurrently. He developed his ChatGPT skills over the next months, as well as his knowledge of AI content.

In April, he introduced “The AI Solopreneur,” a dedicated Twitter account that offers advice to solo business owners on how to use AI to increase productivity. His posts, which included threads on AI prompts and productivity-boosting technologies, received millions of views and had a surprising increase in followers. He acquired 100,000 followers in just 65 days and launched the AI Solopreneurship newsletter.

Lehmann responded to the demand for knowledge about artificial intelligence methods as his following grew. This inspired him to create the “AI Audience Accelerator” course, with the goal of assisting solo business owners in utilizing AI for effective content marketing. The cost of the course began at about $179. His course received a startling 1,078 orders in less than a month, mostly from solo business owners, content creators, and crypto aficionados in their early 20s to mid-30s from the US and Canada. This quick success led to a spectacular gross revenue of US $176,885 for Lehmann.

Ole Lehmann continues to see the rising demand as the generative AI field takes the world by storm.

Amazon Web Services Acquires Startup Fig

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Sahil Pawar

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September 1, 2023

Amazon Web Services acquires startup Fig — Image Credits: Fig

A startup called Fig, which aims to give developers a better experience at the command line interface with tools like autocomplete and collaboration, has been acquired by Amazon Web Services (AWS).

Brendan Falk, the chief executive of Fig, announced today that the firm and its employees would join Amazon Web Services, a subsidiary of Amazon. The agreement’s terms weren’t made public.

According to Fig, even though programmers spend a lot of time in integrated development environments, which resemble text editors and are used to write and edit code, a lot of brute force configuration and setup occurs on the command line. It is a programme that directly transmits user commands, line by line, to an operating system for a computer.

The command line interface, in most cases, is far more austere than an editor, provides a less interactive user experience, and is more challenging to work with, says the startup. Users who utilize Fig’s autocomplete feature receive recommendations for the next set of commands or flags, which significantly lessens the stress on operators and developers who must finish such low-level tasks.

The fact that Amazon is interested in Fig’s product fits with the company’s developer-centric trend of offering platforms that spare software engineers and operations the responsibility of developing and deploying applications. Falk said that the ultimate objective of Amazon is to include artificial intelligence into more of its developer-focused products, and that Fig will be a part of that.

According to Falk, existing users will continue to be able to use Fig and will receive ongoing support. He continued by saying that as a result of the deal, consumers can now use first-tier “Fig Team” capabilities for free. However, as the company is concentrating on integrating with AWS, no new users can register.