Musk’s xAI Raises $6B, Internet Archive DDoS Attack, GPT-4 Outperforms Analysts, Crows Count, and New Biology Rulle
May 28, 2024
Discover the staggering $6 billion raise for Elon Musk's xAI, advancing its ambitious AI projects. Learn about a mysterious DDoS attack on the Internet Archive that momentarily halted access to its vast resources. Delve into groundbreaking research showing that crows can count, highlighting their impressive cognitive abilities akin to toddlers. Finally, explore the intriguing concept of selectively advantageous instability in biology, suggesting that a certain level of chaos is crucial for evolution and adaptability.
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insights INSIGHT
xAI Funding
Elon Musk's xAI raised $6 billion in Series B funding, valuing the company at $18-24 billion.
The funding will accelerate product development, infrastructure, and R&D, aiming to compete with OpenAI and Google.
question_answer ANECDOTE
Internet Archive Attack
The Internet Archive suffered a DDoS attack on May 27, 2024, disrupting service for about an hour.
The motives remain unclear, but the attack drew criticism, highlighting the vulnerability of digital resources.
insights INSIGHT
Crow Counting
Crows demonstrate counting abilities through vocalizations, producing specific caws in response to numerical cues.
This challenges assumptions about animal cognition and suggests more complex communication than previously thought.
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Welcome to a new episode of Discover Daily, the AI-generated podcast curated by Perplexity to satisfy your curiosity about the latest in tech, science, and culture. I'm your host Alex, and in today's episode, we'll explore a range of fascinating topics.
Elon Musk's AI company xAI has raised $6 billion in a Series B funding round, with participation from notable investors. This values the company at $18-24 billion and will support bringing initial products to market, building infrastructure, and accelerating R&D. xAI has already launched the Grok chatbot and plans to build a supercomputer to further develop its AI capabilities.
The Internet Archive, a nonprofit digital library, was hit by a DDoS attack on May 27, 2024, temporarily disrupting access to its services. After about an hour, service was restored. The motives remain unclear, but the attack was criticized on social media.
Recent studies have shown that crows can count using vocalizations, producing specific numbers of caws in response to numerical cues. Their counting abilities resemble those of human toddlers, challenging assumptions about animal cognition and numerical abilities.
Finally, biologist John Tower has proposed the concept of "selectively advantageous instability" (SAI), arguing that some instability in biological components is essential for life. SAI allows for genetic diversity and adaptability but also contributes to aging. This new rule of biology could have broad implications for our understanding of life's processes.
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