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Lore #74: Meet Devin — The First AI Agent That Works

Good morning.

Today, on possibly the eve of the launch of GPT 4.5, Devin, touted as "the first "AI software engineer", was announced by a recently stealth-mode startup called Cognition, which is funded by heavy-weights such as Peter Thiel's Founders Fund.

Here is their announcement, it's worth reading and watching the examples. Basically, it's an AI agent that can help you do software development-related tasks on its own. With minimal to no human involvement.

The benchmarks for coding look amazing, with 13.86% of tasks assigned to it being completed on their own. Note that in the benchmarks below, Devin does the tasks on its own. The other results are with users using the LLM — not automatic like Devin.

Even if it only completes 13.86% of assignments on its own, it's still a huge step forward. And you can imagine it will just keep getting better until agents like this can do 100% of the work a software developer would do.

With the release of Devin, Claude 3, and possibly this week's GPT4.5 (the latest version of OpenAI's powerful language model), I continue revaluating my timelines for AGI. It feels like things continue to happen faster than anyone expected.

Lore - Venture Capital
  • Applied Intuition raised $250M for autonomous vehicle software (Link)

  • Zama raised $73M to enhance privacy in blockchain and AI (Link)

  • Empathy raised $47M for AI to help with the practical and emotional bereavement process (Link)

  • Defense Unicorns raised $35M for National Security systems (Link)

  • Nanonets raised $29M for AI-based workflow automation (Link)

  • Reach Security raised $20M for AI that transforms how companies use their cybersecurity products (Link)

  • Adaptive raised $20M to help companies tailor LLMs for business (Link)

  • Kaedim raised $15M to support AI-driven 3D asset creation solutions (Link)

  • AIsphere raised $14M to compete with OpenAI's Sora (Link)

  • Haiper raised $13.8M for video-generative AI (Link)

  • Prescient raised $10M for media measurement and optimization (Link)

  • SuperAGI raised $10M to build a full-stack AGI platform based on LAMs (Link)

  • Brevian raised $9M to simplify AI agent development (Link)

  • Fijoya raised $8.3M to pioneer AI-powered platform for employer-sponsored healthcare (Link)

  • Guardrails raised $7.5M to measure, monitor and mitigate AI risks (Link)

  • Bluwhale raised $7M to bring AI to blockchain (Link)

  • Sahara raised $6M to revolutionize knowledge sharing with AI and blockchain (Link)

  • Key raised $4.3M for its community and networking platform (Link)

  • Propense raised $3M for AI-driven B2B cross-selling platform (Link)

AI Video Agency - Lore Labs

Join the AI Video revolution with Lore Labs 

Step into the forefront of AI innovation with Lore Labs. As a pioneering AI Video Agency, we're reshaping how stories are told and experiences are created.

What Lore Labs offers:

  • Creative Storytelling: Using advanced AI, we bring any concept to life, from advertisements to movie pitches.

  • Cutting-edge Technology: With tools like Runway and Pika, we're redefining the bounds of digital creativity.

  • Customized Solutions: Tailoring AI video to fit your unique needs, ensuring memorable and impactful results.

  • Diverse Applications: Whether it’s for social media, real estate, or entertainment, our AI expertise caters to all.

Embark on a journey of limitless possibilities with Lore Labs. Join our waitlist and transform your vision into reality with the next generation of AI video.

News - Lore

OpenAI posted a public statement on the evolution of its relationship with Elon Musk, underscoring its dedication to ensuring that Artificial General Intelligence (AGI) benefits humanity. Despite initial collaborations, disagreements over control and funding led to Musk leaving OpenAI to pursue AGI development independently within Tesla. OpenAI highlighted its progress in making AI tools widely available and beneficial, citing global applications such as accelerating Albania's EU accession and preserving languages. The organization continues to focus on responsibly advancing AI, emphasizing safety, accessibility, and positive impact, amidst navigating its legal disputes with Musk.

Linwei Ding, a former Google software engineer, has been charged with the theft of AI trade secrets and collaborating with two AI startups in China, facing up to a decade in prison. The saga unraveled as Google discovered a leak, tracing back to Ding, who had been secretly uploading confidential files to his personal cloud over two years. Prosecutors revealed Ding was soon after offered a CTO role at a Chinese AI startup and concurrently established another startup focusing on AI models with supercomputing chips. Intriguingly, another employee helped disguise Ding's physical presence at Google while he was in China. The FBI's seizure of Ding's devices exposed over 500 files of stolen Google information, highlighting the extreme measures taken to advance AI capabilities and underscoring the intense and secretive AI development race, particularly in China, whose rapid AI progress signals a booming and fiercely competitive scene.

Other news

  • Review completed & Altman, Brockman to continue to lead OpenAI (Link)

  • What Is Shadow AI? Enterprise IT’s Latest Security Threat (Link)

  • Could AI-designed proteins be weaponized? Scientists lay out safety guidelines (Link)

  • AI, Bitcoin And Clean Energy Boom Are Straining U.S. Power Supply (Link)

  • A Revolutionary AI Could Save the World’s Plants From Extinction (Link)

  • Major role seen for AI in farming (Link)

  • Evidence, engagement, and expansion: New Reuters Institute work on AI and the future of news (Link)

  • The Pentagon is funding new chip designs for the AI era (Link)

Coolest Things - Lore

Midjourney’s new Character Reference creates consistent characters

Sound effects on Pika

Grok is about to become open source

AI Music + AI Lip Sync + AI Face Swap

AI Tools - Lore
  • VideoTok: Create viral TikToks and shorts from text to video (Link)

  • Magic Studio: A suite of image editing tools including Magic Eraser, Background Remover and Image Upscaler (Link)

  • DeWatermark: Free tool to remove watermarks from images (Link)

  • ChatPhoto: Convert images into descriptive text (Link)

Find more tools at FutureTools.io.

AI Further Study - Lore
  • GaLore: Memory-Efficient LLM Training by Gradient Low-Rank Projection (Link)

  • Design2Code: How Far Are We From Automating Front-End Engineering? (Link)

  • ShortGPT: Layers in Large Language Models are More Redundant Than You Expect (Link)

  • Yi: Open Foundation Models by 01 .AI (Link)

  • SaulLM-7B: A pioneering Large Language Model for Law (Link)

That's it!

See you next week!

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