Beginners in AI

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Welcome to this week's edition of Beginners in AI, where we explore the latest trends, tools, and news in the world of AI and the tech that surrounds it. Like all editions, this is human curated, edited, and published with the intention of making AI news and technology more accessible to everyone.

This week, we witnessed a great victory for human creators in the battle between AI and copyright laws in Hollywood, Elon Musk’s latest plans for Tesla’s AI-driven future, DeepSeek’s hype vs reality, and OpenAI’s newest reasoning model release. We also explore the latest breakthroughs in AI drug discovery, an overview of humanoid robotics from last year, and the mildly ambitious goal of doubling human lifespans using AI. Shall we begin?

AI TOP STORY
Copyright Office: AI Content is Protected If Human Influence Is Involved

What Happened

With the growing prominence of artificial intelligence tools in the filmmaking industry, major Hollywood studios are encountering significant copyright challenges and have sought guidance from various legal and regulatory authoritative bodies. The U.S. Copyright Office, a key authority in this domain, has stated that "the use of artificial intelligence tools to assist in the creative process does not undermine the copyright of a work." However, “purely AI-generated material, is not protected.

What It Means

The Copyright Office’s position should offer reassurance to human creators: using AI as a tool in the creative process does not compromise their rights, provided that human influence remains evident. Prompting the AI in a collaborative effort, would be protected, while prompting the AI and publishing that direct result with no further human intervention would not be protected. Amid the many battles playing out among Hollywood studios, executives, and actors, one common fear running through them all is that the inclusion of AI software could somehow affect the rights involved with the creation of that work. The nature of how AI models are trained, how the data is procured, and whether compensation is due to any of the artists and creators whose work was involved in the training are ongoing debates, and ones that have been at the crux of this dilemma.

What to Take Away

The main point is that human creators will have some measure of protection. This is beneficial for content creation overall, as it encourages creators to incorporate a human element into their work rather than relying entirely on AI-generated content. This promotes the integration of AI in ways that enhance creativity rather than replace it, ensuring that human ingenuity remains central to the filmmaking process. This will also accelerate the use of AI by major studios Runway and Lionsgate Signal AI’s Hollywood Takeover

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LAST WEEK IN AI AND TECH

Musk’s Vision: AI Rideshare & Robotaxis

Elon Musk is ready to push Tesla’s AI capabilities further with a rideshare and robotaxi service powered by its Full Self-Driving (FSD) technology that could roll out as early as June of this year. While Tesla vehicles will need to be upgraded, owners that paid for the FSD as part of their package will have that done without additional charge. Uber currently has a partnership with Google’s Waymo division and is set to expand into Austin and Atlanta early this year, and NVIDIA recently announced a partnership with Honda to provide their own AI software for self-driving, signaling a clear trend for the future of automobiles NVIDIA Takes the Wheel: Driving the Future of AI in Cars  

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AI Drug Discovery Gets a Boost

LinkedIn co-founder Reid Hoffman has launched Manas AI, a $246 million AI-powered biotech initiative focused on drug discovery. The company aims to use AI to accelerate pharmaceutical research, potentially reducing the time and cost of developing new treatments. AI in medical science is one of the fastest growing fields. by the year X. The global market for AI in drug discovery is projected to increase from $1.5 billion to approximately $13 billion by 2032. Tools like Google’s AlphaFold(free to use) protein structure prediction software is already being used in everything from cancer treatments to malaria vaccinations, virology research and new drug discovery.

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DeepSeek Impact on NVIDIA Still Being Felt

DeepSeek’s rapid advancements in AI have raised questions about its impact on NVIDIA’s stock and the efficiency of US companies that have poured billions into AI. As one of the leading providers of AI hardware, NVIDIA has benefited tremendously from the AI boom. However, China’s push to develop its own AI ecosystem could shift demand away from NVIDIA’s GPUs, affecting its long-term growth. The team behind DeepSeek, which is open source for anyone to view the code, was also able to show how much progress can be made with significantly less money(though not as low as initial estimates) and hardware, most of which is purchased from NVIDIA. However, NVIDIA’s dominance as a supplier for all advanced technology should help it recover fairly quickly. NVIDIA Takes the Wheel: Driving the Future of AI in Cars  

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OpenAI Introduces O3 Mini

OpenAI has unveiled O3 Mini, a new lightweight AI model optimized for efficiency and lower computational costs for free. This model is designed for smaller-scale AI applications while maintaining strong performance. This is one of the many fallouts from DeepSeek’s unexpected release into the world last week. You do not need a subscription to use the model at ChatGPT’s main website.

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Can AI Extend Human Lifespan?

Anthropic CEO Dario Amodei believes AI-driven medical breakthroughs could potentially double human lifespans. Researchers are leveraging AI to accelerate longevity research and disease prevention among a host of interrelated fields. Mr. Amodei has a PhD in biophysics from Princeton, and his argument stems from the vast acceleration in breakthroughs that are expected through AI: “We can make 100 years of progress in areas like biology in five or ten years if we really get this A.I. stuff right.” Anthropic has received billions of dollars from both Google and Amazon in the past 2 years through partnerships and ownership stakes totaling over 8 billion and counting to further their goals.

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TECH TERMS TO KNOW

AI Model Distillation – A technique used to compress large AI models into smaller, more efficient versions without losing significant performance. This is particularly relevant as OpenAI and competitors focus on making AI models like O3 Mini more accessible and cost-effective.

Scenario: OpenAI releases a large AI model, such as GPT-4, which is powerful but requires extensive computational resources to run efficiently. Many businesses and developers want to use its capabilities but face challenges due to high costs and slow processing times.

Solution: OpenAI applies AI model distillation to create GPT-4 Mini (hypothetical)—a smaller, optimized version of the original model. This distilled version retains most of GPT-4’s reasoning and language capabilities but is designed to run faster and on lower-end hardware.

Real-World Example: OpenAI’s O3 Mini, recently introduced, is an example of model distillation. It is a compact, cost-effective model optimized for performance while reducing computational demands, making it accessible for broader use cases, such as mobile applications and small business integrations.

TOOL SPOTLIGHT (non-sponsored)

Jan AI is an open-source, offline AI assistant that allows you to download open-source models, like DeepSeek, for free.

Key Highlights

• 100% offline ChatGPT alternative

• Over 2.5 million downloads

• Completely free and open-source

Why It's Great

• 🔒 Total data privacy: Runs locally on your device

• 🛠️ Highly customizable with extensions

• 🧠 Allows personalized AI assistants

• 🌐 Gives users complete control over their data and AI experience

Core Philosophy

The Jan team believes AI should be:

• Open and transparent

• User-controlled

• Privacy-focused

• Endlessly customizable

ROBOTICS AND AI

Robotics as a field is said not to have reached its breakthrough yet. Not having had its “ChatGPT moment” yet. But progress has been steady nonetheless. Above are some of the flagship models from 2024, and below is a breakdown of how each one compares to some of its peers. 2025 has already seen new models and updates.

TRY THIS PROMPT (copy and paste into AI ChatGPT, Grok, Claude, Gemini)

"I need you to act as a research assistant. Follow these steps carefully:

Topic Exploration: Provide a well-structured summary of [insert topic]. Include historical context, current trends, and future implications.

Key Insights: Identify the top five most important takeaways or trends related to this topic.

Pros & Cons Analysis: Break down the benefits and potential drawbacks of [insert topic or technology].

Comparative Analysis: Compare [insert topic] with a similar technology, approach, or model. Explain how they differ and in which scenarios one is preferable over the other.

Expert Opinions & References: Search for recent industry insights, quotes, or studies related to this topic. If applicable, provide links or citations.

Practical Application: Suggest three ways individuals or businesses can effectively use this information.

Creative Thinking: Generate a thought-provoking question or futuristic scenario based on this research to encourage further discussion.*

Ensure the response is clear, concise, and structured for easy readability. If applicable, use bullet points or numbered lists for better organization."

DID YOU KNOW?

The first AI-generated film script was written in 2016, titled Sunspring.
Developed by filmmaker Oscar Sharp and AI researcher Ross Goodwin, the script was created using a neural network trained on dozens of sci-fi screenplays from the 1980’s and 1990’s.

The film, starring Thomas Middleditch, featured surreal dialogue and unexpected plot twists, exemplifying AI’s creative potential and its limitations when creating without high degrees of human guidance. One memorable line from the script: "It may never be forgiven, but that is just too bad."

You can watch Sunspring on YouTube here.

AI-GENERATED IMAGE OF THE WEEK

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