🗞 Board Power at OpenAI, Billion for Safe AI, and New Lab Promises Access

🔎 The Latest on the AI Frontier:

• OpenAI's Defense: Board Considers Special Voting Rights to Counter Takeovers

• Safe Superintelligence's Billion-Dollar Milestone: Former OpenAI Team Attracts Major Investment

• New AI Venture: Ex-OpenAI CTO Launches Thinking Machines Lab for Accessible AI

• HP's Strategic Move: Acquires Humane's AI Assets as Pin Device Discontinued

• UK's AI Partnership: Government Teams with Anthropic to Transform Public Services

• Other news you might find interesting

⚔️ OpenAI explores defensive strategy against Elon Musk's $97.4B takeover bid with potential new voting structure

• OpenAI's board considers granting special voting rights to its nonprofit arm to maintain control after conversion to for-profit status, potentially overruling major investors like Microsoft and SoftBank.

• CEO Sam Altman publicly rejected Musk's offer, stating "OpenAI is not for sale" and countered with a cheeky $9.74B offer to buy Twitter/X.

• The company's planned transition to a public benefit corporation faces opposition from Musk in federal court, while alternative defensive measures like a poison pill remain under consideration.

🚀 Former OpenAI chief scientist's new venture, Safe Superintelligence, approaches major funding milestone

• Greenoaks Capital Partners is leading a potential $1B funding round at a $30B valuation, with a planned $500M investment commitment.

• The startup's founding team includes ex-OpenAI researcher Daniel Levy and former Apple AI lead Daniel Gross, with previous backing from Sequoia Capital and Andreessen Horowitz.

• The company has already secured approximately $2B in total funding, though it currently generates no revenue and has no immediate plans to commercialize AI products.

🔬 Former OpenAI CTO Mira Murati launches Thinking Machines Lab with focus on accessible and customizable AI systems

• The venture assembles top talent from OpenAI, Character.ai, and PyTorch, including John Schulman as Chief Scientist and Barret Zoph as CTO.

• Company emphasizes scientific transparency through regular publication of technical content, while prioritizing human-AI collaboration and multimodal capabilities.

• The startup differentiates itself by focusing on adaptable AI systems that can serve diverse fields beyond programming and mathematics, with strong emphasis on safety and real-world value measurement.

💼 HP acquires Humane's AI technology assets for $116M as the innovative AI Pin wearable device meets an abrupt end

• Humane will shut down AI Pin service on February 28, 2025, leaving customers who invested $700 plus $24 monthly subscriptions without support.

• Only purchases made within 90 days are eligible for refunds, while earlier buyers face complete loss of investment, including subscription fees.

• HP's acquisition includes Humane's Cosmos platform, technical talent, and 300+ patents, far below Humane's expected $750M-$1B valuation.

🤝 UK government partners with Anthropic in landmark AI deal to enhance public services using Claude AI model

• The partnership, formalized through an MOU between Science Minister Peter Kyle and Anthropic CEO Dario Amodei, aims to improve online government services and test AI applications across the public sector.

• Initiative aligns with UK's economic goals, projecting AI to add £47B ($57B) annually to the economy and create 13,000 new jobs through £14B ($17B) in private investment.

• Collaboration includes focus on scientific R&D, AI infrastructure development, and support for British innovators, with Anthropic continuing work with UK AI Security Institute on safety measures.

🖨 More news you might find interesting:

• OpenAI study reveals current limitations of AI in software engineering through $1M worth of freelance tasks.

• New AI app "Death Clock" predicts life expectancy using health data from 1,200 studies, gains attention as motivational wellness tool.

• Sales intelligence startup Aomni secures $4M seed funding to enhance sales teams with AI-powered research capabilities.

• YouTube integrates Google's Veo 2 AI into Shorts with new "Dream Screen" feature to compete with TikTok.

• Perplexity launches censorship-free version of DeepSeek's R1 model, dubbed R1 1776, addressing concerns over China-related content filtering.

• Harvard Business Review outlines key strategies for job seekers to navigate AI-powered hiring systems in 2025.

• South Korea announces world's largest AI data center with 3-gigawatt capacity in $10B initial investment.

• Google Meet enhances Gemini-powered transcription with automated action item generation and task assignment capabilities.

• Department of Government Efficiency cuts FDA team overseeing Neuralink and other neurological device trials amid broader agency layoffs.

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