**$4.5B Humans& AI Lab Debuts as Camb.ai’s MARS8 Redefines Text-to-Speech**
New AI Labs & Research Initiatives
Humans& AI Lab Launched by Ex-OpenAI, DeepMind, and Anthropic Researchers: A new AI lab, Humans&, has been founded by researchers from OpenAI, DeepMind, Anthropic, and xAI. It secured a $480M seed round at a $4.5B valuation, focusing on human-centric AI with long-term learning and planning capabilities.
Model Releases & Updates
Camb.ai Launches MARS8: High-Fidelity Text-to-Speech Models for Real-World Use: Camb.ai introduced MARS8, a family of text-to-speech models optimized for deployment, producing near-human-quality voice output.
Liquid AI Releases LFM2.5-1.2B-Thinking: A Sub-1GB On-Device Reasoning Model: Liquid AI’s LFM2.5-1.2B-Thinking is a lightweight (<1GB) reasoning model designed for fast, memory-efficient on-device inference, outperforming larger models in concise reasoning tasks.
GLM 4.7 Now Works on llama.cpp with Flash Attention: A guide details how to run GLM 4.7 on llama.cpp with flash attention for optimized performance, including links to required resources.
ChatGPT Introduces Age Prediction for Teen Safeguards: OpenAI is rolling out an age prediction model in ChatGPT to identify users under 18, applying tailored safeguards and experiences for younger audiences.
Infrastructure & Optimization Tools
vLLM v0.14.0 Released with GPU Memory Optimizations & Marlin Support: The latest vLLM update includes automatic context length fitting for GPU memory and Marlin support on Turing GPUs, delivering significant performance improvements.
Enterprise AI & Industry Adoption
HSBC Partners with Mistral AI for Self-Hosted Generative AI in Banking: HSBC’s collaboration with Mistral AI highlights the responsible deployment of self-hosted generative AI to improve efficiency, compliance, and customer experience in banking.
Business & Monetization
Sam Altman Hints at Ads as a "Last Resort" for OpenAI’s Business Model: In an October 2024 statement, Sam Altman suggested advertising could be a fallback revenue stream for OpenAI, sparking mixed reactions from the community.