Author: Advanced AI Editor

Researchers from Stanford University early today published the latest edition of their annual AI Index Report, detailing the growing influence of artificial intelligence technologies on our society and the global economy. The Stanford Institute for Human-Centered Artificial Intelligence, known as Stanford HAI, has been publishing its annual reports on the state of the AI industry since 2017. This year’s edition, the eighth, is the “most comprehensive” report to date, spanning more than 430 pages. The authors say it’s arriving at a critical juncture as the influence of AI across society rapidly accelerates with the emergence of increasingly capable and sophisticated…

A techie took to Reddit to share his “horrible” interview experience with IBM Bengaluru. He claimed that a recruiter reached out to him for a mid-senior Application Developer role and assured him that his salary expectations would be considered. The candidate, currently earning a CTC of Rs 16 LPA, said he had clearly stated a minimum expectation of Rs 24 LPA. The recruiter, according to him, mentioned that the company’s budget was up to Rs 22 LPA, but if he performed well in the interviews, he could be offered Rs 23 LPA along with a Rs 1.4 lakh joining bonus.…

An MIT student has sued the federal government over its abrupt termination of her international student record in a federal database managed by the Department of Homeland Security.The student, an MIT senior set to graduate in May, learned her record in the Student and Exchange Visitor Information System, or SEVIS, was abruptly deleted in early April, putting her at risk of detainment by immigration enforcement agents.Several dozen international students in Massachusetts, and over a thousand nationwide, had their visas revoked and SEVIS records expunged by the federal government in recent days. The reason behind the moves remain unclear, and federal…

AsianFin — The global venture capital (VC) transaction volumes plunged in the first quarter of 2025, according to global research institutions Crunchbase and PitchBook-NVCA.Despite a decline in overall deal volume, artificial intelligence (AI) investments have experienced the most robust quarter in the first quarter of 2025 since mid-2022.Global VC transactions in Q1 2025 reached 7,551 deals, a 32% year-over-year decline, as per PitchBook. However, the total transaction value surged to $126.3 billion, representing a 53.46% increase compared to the same period in 2024.AI and machine learning led the charge, with 2,101 transactions worth $73.1 billion, making up 57.87% of the…

Spacial computing and AI unicorn Infinite Reality announced today that it will acquire agentic AI company Touchcast in a cash and stock deal valued at $500 million. The purchase is the latest in a long spree of acquisitions by 6-year-old Infinite Reality. Per Crunchbase data, the company has made 10 acquisitions to date, including eight since last April. Many are rather pricey deals too. Prior to Touchcast, Infinite made headlines in March by agreeing to pay $207 million for the online music brand Napster, best known for introducing peer-to-peer file sharing back in 1999. Infinite Reality says it plans to…

Boca Raton, Florida — April 16, 2025 — Infinite Reality (iR), a company focused on digital media and ecommerce through extended reality (XR ), artificial intelligence (AI), and other immersive technologies, announced today the company has entered into a definitive agreement to acquire Touchcast, an agentic AI company for $500 million in a combination of cash and stock. The acquisition is Infinite Reality’s largest yet, and the transaction agreement values the company at $15.5 billion. Touchcast’s powerful agentic AI platform, known as Mentorverse, generates an infinite universe of specialized AI mentors who engage in natural, face-to-face video conversations and, unlike traditional chatbots or static…

OpenAI announced on Wednesday the launch of o3 and o4-mini, new AI reasoning models designed to pause and work through questions before responding. The company calls o3 its most advanced reasoning model ever, outperforming the company’s previous models on tests measuring math, coding, reasoning, science, and visual understanding capabilities. Meanwhile, o4-mini offers what OpenAI says is a competitive trade-off between price, speed, and performance — three factors developers often consider when choosing an AI model to power their applications. Unlike previous reasoning models, o3 and o4-mini can generate responses using tools in ChatGPT such as web browsing, Python code execution,…

Income investors looking for a way to play the boom in artificial intelligence can look to municipal bonds connected to data centers, according to Nuveen. A lot has been made of the need for data centers to provide the infrastructure for AI, and subsequently, the increasing demand to power them. The power consumption by data centers is expected to account for almost half of the demand in electricity growth between now and 2030, a new report from the International Energy Agency found . Public power bond issuance totaled $26.8 billion in 2024, up from an annual average of $14 billion…

#ai #cicero #diplomacy A team from Meta AI has developed Cicero, an agent that can play the game Diplomacy, in which players have to communicate via chat messages to coordinate and plan into the future. Paper Title: Human-level play in the game of Diplomacy by combining language models with strategic reasoning Commented game by human expert: OUTLINE: 0:00 – Introduction 9:50 – AI in cooperation games 13:50 – Cicero agent overview 25:00 – A controllable dialogue model 36:50 – Dialogue-conditional strategic planning 49:00 – Message filtering 53:45 – Cicero’s play against humans 55:15 – More examples & discussion Homepage: Code:…

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