Good Morning! Microsoft has hired former OpenAI CEO Sam Altman and others to lead a new advanced AI team, while a study reveals 75% of software engineers face retaliation for reporting workplace wrongdoing. We also talk about Neo4j's new collaboration with AWS to enhance generative AI while addressing issues like AI hallucinations.

— Forrest Knight & Meghanadh Vasireddy

Microsoft Hires Sam Altman

Microsoft has hired former OpenAI CEO Sam Altman and co-founder Greg Brockman to lead a new advanced AI research team, following Altman's controversial firing from OpenAI. The move comes after a weekend of negotiations between Altman and OpenAI's board, which ultimately failed to reinstate him. Brockman revealed that key OpenAI talent, including Jakub Pachocki, Szymon Sidor, and Aleksander Madry, will also join Microsoft in leadership positions.

OpenAI's board cited a lack of candid communication as the reason for parting ways with Altman. In response, more than 730 OpenAI employees signed a letter threatening to quit and join Altman at Microsoft unless the board resigns and reinstates Altman and Brockman. The letter's signees include Ilya Sutskever, OpenAI's chief scientist and a board member, who has been blamed for coordinating the boardroom coup against Altman.

Following Altman's departure, OpenAI appointed Mira Murati as interim CEO. However, the board later named Twitch co-founder Emmett Shear as the new interim CEO. Shear plans to hire an independent investigator to generate a report on the process leading up to Altman's firing and reform OpenAI's governance.

Microsoft's new advanced AI research team, led by Altman and Brockman, comes just a week after Microsoft announced it has built its own custom AI chip.

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75% of Software Engineers Face Retaliation

In a recent study conducted by software auditing company Engprax, it was revealed that 75% of software engineers faced retaliation the last time they reported wrongdoing at their workplace. This alarming statistic translates to approximately 145,000 software engineers in the UK alone.

The study, led by Dr. Junade Ali, Engprax's CEO, highlighted that over half of the engineers suspected unethical behavior within their workplaces. However, the fear of reprisal from management (59%) and colleagues (44%) remains a significant barrier, pushing engineers into silence and allowing potential misconduct to go unchecked.

The investigation also revealed a concerning trend of widespread retaliation and the use of banned gagging clauses, raising critical questions about the ethical landscape of the tech industry. This culture of fear and silence among software engineers is worrying, with one in six engineers feeling unable to express ideas or concerns without fearing negative consequences.

Dr. Ali emphasized the fundamental importance of software engineers being free to raise the alarm when they become aware of potential wrongdoing. Unfortunately, the research has shown that software engineers are not sufficiently protected when they need to do so.

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Neo4j Signs Strategic Collaboration Agreement with AWS

Neo4j has partnered with Amazon Web Services (AWS) to improve generative AI outcomes and mitigate AI hallucinations, aiming to ensure more accurate, transparent, and explainable AI results. This collaboration involves integrating Neo4j's knowledge graphs and native vector search with AWS's cloud computing technology. Neo4j Aura Professional, the fully managed graph database offering, is now available on AWS Marketplace, facilitating a swift start for developers working on generative AI.

Moreover, Neo4j is launching an integration with Amazon Bedrock, a fully managed service providing access to foundation models from leading AI companies via an API. This integration aims to reduce AI hallucinations, enable personalized experiences, deliver complete real-time search results, facilitate knowledge graph creation from unstructured data, and expedite its conversion into structured formats for the knowledge graph.

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Brain-Inspired AI Python Library Hits Major Milestone

The future of artificial intelligence (AI) is looking brighter as 'snnTorch', an open-source Python code library for brain-inspired deep learning, surpasses a significant milestone of 100,000 downloads. This library, which merges neuroscience and AI, is used in a wide array of projects, highlighting the growing interest in brain-inspired AI.

Developed by Jason Eshraghian from UC Santa Cruz, snnTorch is designed to create spiking neural networks, a machine learning approach that mimics the brain's efficient data processing. It extends the capabilities of PyTorch, a popular machine learning library, by applying its GPU-accelerated tensor computation to networks of spiking neurons.

Eshraghian's recent paper, which serves as a companion to the snnTorch code library, adopts a tutorial format with an unapologetically opinionated stance. It openly addresses the uncertainties within brain-inspired deep learning, offering a distinctive perspective on the field’s future. The paper is unique in that it contains blocks of code, a format unusual to typical research papers, and has been positively received by the community.

The snnTorch code may serve as a platform for simulating organoids, offering insights that are challenging to obtain in a lab setting. This holds promise for unraveling the intricacies of how the brain processes information, potentially leading to advancements that make deep learning more efficient.

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Youtube Spotlight

Building the Dev Platform Ep 9: Done with the Profile Page!

Forrest covers the process of developing a user profile and post page for a dev platform. He also discusses implementing data flow, UI/UX design, and generating unique usernames for new users. The process also involves creating an edit page for user profiles, uploading functionality for profile pictures, and formatting comments and posts for consistency.

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