Rowan Cheung

Founder of the world’s most read daily AI newsletter @therundownai. Sharing the latest developments in the world of artificial intelligence.

[Rowan Cheung @rowancheung]

Exclusive: Meta just released Llama 3.1 405B — the first-ever open-sourced frontier AI model, beating top closed models like GPT-4o across several benchmarks.

I sat down with Mark Zuckerberg, diving into why this marks a major moment in AI history.

Timestamps:

00:00 Intro
00:38 Meta’s Llama 3.1 rundown
03:44 Real-world use cases for Llama 3.1
06:15 Educating developers on open-source AI tools
09:43 Societal implications of open-source AI
13:00 Balancing power and managing bad actors
14:40 Open source and global competition
16:59 Accelerating innovation and economic growth
20:04 Zuck on Apple and lessons from the past
24:22 Future of AI: Llama 3 and beyond
26:43 Prediction: Billions of personalized AI agents
31:32 Factors to changing anti-AI sentiment

[Rowan Cheung @rowancheung]

In case you missed it, Demis wrote an article on X around a framework for regulating frontier AI responsibly

He also mentioned cybersecurity risks, and named nuclear and bio as threats that may emerge as capabilities advance:

[Demis Hassabis @demishassabis]

https://t.co/PTeDiv1b6L

[Rowan Cheung @rowancheung]

AI models pushing the frontier are a growing challenge for cybersecurity.

A few weeks ago, I asked Demis what's underhyped in AI right now and on his mind:

"I'm very excited about this new agentic era and you can see us leaning into that"

"But of course we've also gotta think about the security side of that, too"

"You're seeing it a little bit with the cyber worries about some of the models, and I think that's just the beginning of some of the issues that we need to make sure we guard against"

"So I think that's playing a little bit on my mind. Maybe this is the time now to try and push some standards and maybe international cooperation"

[Rowan Cheung @rowancheung]

When you're done, it drives back to its dock, recharges, refills, and empties its waste into the home’s plumbing

If the dock has no drainage, an extending arm pumps the waste into a regular toilet instead

[Rowan Cheung @rowancheung]

A Chinese company just revealed this autonomous robot toilet

It literally drives itself to you when you summon it by voice or remote

What a time to be alive

[Rowan Cheung @rowancheung]

It uses the same technology found in advanced robot vacuums -- lidar, ultrasonic sensors, and cliff detection

This helps the toilet plan safe routes and steer around obstacles and stairs

[Rowan Cheung @rowancheung]

@Thebrucemonaco Pretty used to it growing up in Vancouver. Always pretty eerie though

[Rowan Cheung @rowancheung]

Every trip to NYC makes the case a little stronger.

[Rowan Cheung @rowancheung]

@rileybrown Might be getting a new neighbor soon

[Rowan Cheung @rowancheung]

@billyjhowell @TheRundownAI @nategrahek Lets go crew!

[Rowan Cheung @rowancheung]

@karlmehta Thanks for sharing! Here's the full thing for those curious https://t.co/1IgoZOs7cF

[Rowan Cheung @rowancheung]

Researchers used high-res X-ray scans, then machine learning detected faint traces of ancient ink hidden in the fibres.

It worked. One scroll turned out to be a work on stoic philosophy.

Now the race is on to uncover hundreds more.

[Rowan Cheung @rowancheung]

AI is going to uncover thousands of hidden moments in history.

Case in point: it just read a 2,000-year-old scroll burned into solid charcoal.

[Rowan Cheung @rowancheung]

The Herculaneum scrolls were buried under this Roman villa when Mount Vesuvius erupted in 79 AD.

Every attempt to physically unroll them since has instantly destroyed the layers.

In 2023, a global contest called the Vesuvius Challenge launched to use AI to read the scrolls.

[Rowan Cheung @rowancheung]

The full interview: https://t.co/23MCllMiTx

[Rowan Cheung @rowancheung]

Many people were doubting Meta's position in the AI race.

Yesterday, they dropped Muse Spark 1.1, now one of the strongest agentic models, and massively undercut OpenAI and Anthropic on price.

When I interviewed Zuck last year, he told me his focus:

"Have by far the highest compute per researcher, and that we do whatever it takes to go build out all that capacity."

These are the first real signs that the bet -- spending tens of billions on compute -- is paying off.

Meta's stock is now up over 10% since the release.

[Mark Zuckerberg @finkd]

(1) Today we're releasing Muse Spark 1.1 -- a strong agentic and coding model at a very low price. It's available through our new Meta Model API and in Meta AI.

[Rowan Cheung @rowancheung]

Another video from the founder here: https://t.co/PULkeVJQw1

[Garth Sheldon-Coulson @garthsc]

Today we're announcing @_panthalassa’s $140M Series B, led by Peter Thiel, with participation from John Doerr and many other incredible investors. The mission: unlock the ocean as another planetary-scale energy resource for humanity. First stop: compute.

[Rowan Cheung @rowancheung]

There's a startup trying to build data centers in the ocean.

And it's INCREDIBLY fascinating:

Mass consumption of electricity and water is a growing bottleneck for data centers.

So by moving offshore, it eliminates both problems -- the ocean provides unlimited cooling, and the waves provide unlimited power.

There are also no engines, so the data centers drive themselves to their destination by using the shape of their hull to propel through waves.

Called Panthalassa.

[Rowan Cheung @rowancheung]

@petergyang Huge congrats Peter!

[Rowan Cheung @rowancheung]

@luciekerley Thank you Lucie!

[Rowan Cheung @rowancheung]

NEWS:

The Rundown just took its first strategic investment from Electrify (behind brands like Veritasium, Fireship, and more)!

Through this partnership, we can scale significantly faster toward our mission of educating 1B people on AI.

The story below:

[Rowan Cheung @rowancheung]

@altryne Thanks Alex!