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INTERNLM

InternLM has open-sourced a 7 billion parameter base chat model tailored for practical scenarios.

TALKING ABOUT A “SCHISM” IS AHISTORICAL

This article argues that the framing of the debate between AI safety and alignment as a "schism" is ahistorical and misleading. The author argues that there has never been a unified AI safety community and that the two camps have different goals and values.

ADOBE LIMITS ITS EMPLOYEES’ USE OF GENERATIVE AI

Adobe has restricted employees' use of external AI tools, urging them to use in-house offerings instead, according to an internal email from CIO Cindy Stoddard. This move mirrors similar policies at Amazon, Alphabet, Apple, and Samsung, indicating a broader trend in data protection and promotion of proprietary tech.

A HUMAN-CENTRIC APPROACH TO ADOPTING AI

This article discusses the importance of taking a human-centric approach when implementing artificial intelligence (AI) systems. It emphasizes the need for ethical considerations, transparency, and collaboration between humans and AI to ensure that AI technologies are adopted responsibly and effectively.

FULL-BODY AI SCANS COULD BE THE FUTURE OF PREVENTIVE MEDICINE

CNET explores the potential of full-body AI scans in revolutionizing preventive medicine. It highlights how AI-powered imaging technologies can detect early signs of diseases and provide personalized health insights, leading to more proactive and targeted healthcare interventions.

LONDON WANTS AMERICAN CRYPTO REFUGEES

The UK is aiming to become a global hub for crypto by drafting regulations to create a more inviting environment for crypto firms seeking clear regulatory frameworks. Despite this past year’s vicious market downturn, ex-UK Chancellor Rishi Sunak maintains a vision to make the UK a leading crypto technology player. For firms like a16z, which recently announced its expansion to London, the UK offers a reprieve from the US where regulators have been criticized for heavy-handedness and lack of clarity.

ZHAO’S RESPONSE TO JUSTICE DEPARTMENT INVESTIGATION

Binance is facing a significant management crisis as several key executives have resigned over CZ’s handling of ongoing regulatory investigations. Among the senior figures leaving are the General Counsel, Chief Strategy Officer, and SVP for Compliance. Binance, which is dealing with regulatory struggles globally, is now more vulnerable to increased scrutiny as the resignations are from departments that directly interact with regulators. Apparently, the resignations stem from dissatisfaction with Zhao's response to a probe by the US Justice Department over alleged regulatory circumvention and possible money laundering.

CIRCLE LAUNCHES PROGRAMMABLE WALLET SERVICE

Circle launched a Wallet-as-a-Service product, Circle Programmable Wallets. This platform enables developers to seamlessly embed wallets into their apps, allowing them to easily offer crypto services to users. These wallets can help streamline cross-border transactions and foster customer engagement with crypto products like NFTs, while still offering flexible custody options and operational monitoring. Its user-friendly interface also simplifies the crypto UX, bypassing the need for users to deal with complex private keys. Currently supporting Ethereum, Polygon, and Avalanche, the service bases its pricing on a scalable pay-as-you-go model.

IDEX UNVEILS ZKEVM LAYER 2 CHAIN BASED ON POLYGON SUPERNETS

IDEX, one of the oldest DEXs on Ethereum, is developing its own L2, Xchain. Built with technology from Polygon's Supernets software stack, Xchain is currently being tested as a decentralized perpetual trading platform. Polygon is aiming to help projects by giving them a platform on which to launch their own chains, and Xchain is a great example of that. IDEX CEO, Alex Wearn, is betting that this new development will enable IDEX to compete directly with centralized exchanges.

OPPORTUNITIES AND CONSIDERATIONS OF ETHEREUM’S BLOCKSPACE FUTURE

Developers are exploring the potential benefits of introducing derivative markets to Ethereum's gas market. Derivatives, which have strengthened spot markets in the past, could improve user and developer experiences by providing a fixed price for gas and enhance price discovery efficiency for the Ethereum blockspace. However, several factors, such as regulatory/legal, market, and protocol-specific considerations, need to be taken into account to put this into practice. While the timeline for this market's development is uncertain, ongoing consolidation of gas buyers, the availability of hedging products, and an increase in stakeholder sophistication could serve as a driving force to make it happen.

APPLICATION

During an interview this week, BlackRock CEO Larry Fink expressed optimism about both digital assets and tokenization. Broadly, he believes digital products, like ETFs, are displacing the mutual fund industry, and thinks that tokenization has the potential to restructure the banking system and capital markets. Fink also indicated that he views Bitcoin as an international asset, likening it to "digitized gold". As for macro predictions, he anticipates inflation to remain high in the long term and interest rates to rise.

F.B.I. SEARCHED THE HOME OF CRYPTO EXCHANGE FOUNDER

Jesse Powell, Kraken's CEO, is under investigation by the FBI over claims that he hacked and cyber-stalked a nonprofit arts organization he founded. The probe revolves around accusations that Powell obstructed computer accounts at the nonprofit and hindered access to emails and other communications. No charges have been pressed against Powell so far. Authorities began scrutinizing him last fall following a search operation at his LA house. Powell's legal counsel confirmed the investigation but maintains his innocence, stating it bears no relevance to his crypto activities.

PENDLE ATTRACTS OVER $125M IN TVL WITH ‘DISCOUNTED ASSETS’

DeFi protocol Pendle’s TVL hit an all-time high of $127M this week, with inflows having increased since the Shanghai upgrade. On top of that, Pendle's token, PENDLE, is up more than 1,700% this year. Pendle recently updated to its v2, helping increase efficiency by combining principal and yield tokens into one pool for improved trading volume growth. Pendle's unique approach separates both yield and principal, attracting conservative investors and speculators alike. Binance recently listed PENDLE, which also accelerated the project’s growth.

HOW BLUR TRAIT BIDS MIGHT PLAY OUT

Blur introduced trait bidding earlier this week. This thread breaks down how these trait bids might impact the NFT market. The thread’s high-level thesis is that trait bids will provoke those holding rare NFTs but in need of liquidity to accept bids far below the ‘trait floor’, bringing rare trait valuations down.

YOU CAN NOW BUY NFTS ON TWITTER THROUGH INSPECT'S BROWSER EXTENSION

NFT Inspect partnered with MoonPay to allow users to buy NFTs through its Chrome extension.

PUNK 6529: ON BLUR

In this thread, Punk 6529 gives his perspective on Blur and the 6529 Fund’s investment in the company. It also covers some of the market dynamics that are at play with Blur.

HOW TOM BRADY’S CRYPTO AMBITIONS COLLIDED WITH REALITY

Tom Brady was the poster boy for FTX and is now taking the brunt of the backlash over celebrity endorsements of FTX. Brady and his ex-wife Gisele Bündchen received $30 million and $18 million respectively in FTX stock, which is now worthless. They are now being sued by FTX customers seeking compensation.

HOW MARKETS VALUE SOFTWARE COMPANIES IN 2023

Valuations are creeping back up based on more than just profitability. Things are picking up again and the guess is that things will pick up steam at the end of Q3 and go bonkers starting in Q4. Are we back? Maybe.

VC FINDS ITS FOOTING AS HEADWINDS WEAKEN

Although venture capital investments continued to decline in Q2, the market is showing some signs of stabilizing.

META LAUNCHES THREADS, ALREADY HAS MILLIONS OF USERS

Meta has launched its Twitter competitor Threads, and has already signed up tens of millions of users in the process, making this a good opportunity to get ahead of the curve on a new social network.

WHY IT IS GOOD TO BE BAD AT ESTIMATION

Some good thoughts from one of the co-founders of Flurry on why it pays to be bad at estimating how long an outcome will take. This will likely (painfully) resonate with many founders on this newsletter list.

SALES REPS?

Never hurts to have a refresher on thinking through early sales team makeup and distribution. This will change considerably in the next 12 months as new AI-powered sales tools permeate the existing process.

LET’S START RETHINKING WORK FOR THE MODERN WORKFORCE

The horse is out of the barn with respect to working remotely. The idea of going into the office 5 days a week just does not make sense. Rethinking remote work and how you can leverage it to your advantage is your only hope. A few thoughts from the team over at Hubspot that are, well, spot on.

WHY YOUR STARTUP NEEDS A PODCAST

Every startup needs a podcast, and as Justin Jackson explains, it’s easier to start than you think.

OPENAI MAKES GPT-4 GENERALLY AVAILABLE

Get out from under GPT-3.5 and start using GPT-4 via the OpenAI API which is generally available starting today.

WHAT IS GROWTH?

A great piece on what growth means to David Norris. This one resonates a bit given the similarities in space-and-time juxtaposed with the craziness of a (yet again) disruptive technology. What is growth to you? It’s more than just a decrease in entropy.

FAST

Some examples of people quickly accomplishing ambitious things together.

MY TOP 10 MISTAKES GETTING TO $100M ARR

Jason Cohen, founder of WP Engine, discusses his top 10 mistakes getting to $100M ARR, including not raising enough money, prematurely trusting customer validation, and doing too much at once.

COMPONENTS

In the realm of front-end development, terms and paradigms can sometimes be mystifying. Headless UI, or headless components, may very well fall into this category. Headless components may seem esoteric, but their true power lies in their flexibility, reusability potential, and ability to improve your codebase’s organization and cleanliness. This article demystifies this pattern, shedding light on what it is, why it’s beneficial, and how it can revolutionize your approach to interface design.

DEVELOPER ESSENTIALS: HOW TO SEARCH CODE USING GREP

Wherever you are on your web development journey, you'll be searching for text or patterns in your code. Searching through code and text is one of the most common tasks you'll be performing while you're building for the web. With this post, you’ll learn what grep is, what it can do, and why it’s one of the most powerful command-line tools you will use when working with code.

THE UX OF FLIGHT SEARCHES: HOW WE CHALLENGED INDUSTRY STANDARDS

As of today, the world’s 50 top airlines have all agreed on the same flight search pattern: form, then route, then departure airport, and so on. This fictitious case study takes a look at rethinking the UX of flight searches. The author puts together comprehensive designs and presents a new way of searching for flights.

THE IMPORTANCE OF EMOTIONAL INTELLIGENCE IN EFFECTIVE LEADERSHIP

Effective leadership is crucial for the success of any organization. Emotional intelligence is a critical component of leadership because it helps leaders to communicate effectively, build strong relationships, manage conflicts, and inspire their teams to achieve their goals. This blog post explores the importance of emotional intelligence in effective leadership and how it can impact the success of an organization.

BECOME WELL CONNECTED

In our careers, relationships matter. Becoming well connected and networking properly can lead to career growth when one might least expect it. This article presents a few tips to stay well-connected, such as consistently following up, keeping a list of dream contacts, and systemizing keeping in touch.

AWS DOCS GPT

AWS Docs GPT provides AI-powered search and chat for AWS Documentation.

AUTOMIZE

Automize provides an intuitive GUI for selecting elements for testing or web scraping. It makes it easy to select complicated elements.

FIR

The Fir toolkit is designed for Go developers with moderate HTML, CSS, and JavaScript skills who want to progressively build reactive web apps without mastering complex web frameworks. It includes a Go library and an Alpine.js plugin.

Last weekend, Twitter started to throttle usage, limiting users to a few hundred tweet impressions and then cutting them off for the day. It’s still unclear what exactly caused this move, but it surely had to do with infrastructure issues. Instagram Threads enjoyed a major launch with no throttling in place. Within the first 24 hours, Threads passed 30 million sign ups.

LEADING YOUR PLATFORM MIGRATION WITH DEVELOPER EXPERIENCE

When undergoing a platform migration, it may be tempting to dive straight into requirements and metrics. However, it’s crucial to take a step back and assess the developer experience (DevEx). This article explores how empowering developers with the right environment is the key to unlocking their full potential and driving innovation.

THE BLURRY LINE BETWEEN FORMATTING AND STYLE

The delineation of formatting vs. stylistic concerns is normally pretty straightforward to follow. But there are some edge cases in formatting/style that seem to cross the divide and make it unclear when to use which tools. This article covers some of these surprising intricacies, along with how you can resolve them.

SHOPIFY CEO MAKES A COMMIT TO LLAMA.CPP (GITHUB PULL REQUEST)

Shopify CEO Tobi Lutke makes a pull request to llama.cpp, which is Meta’s open-source LLM outfitted to work locally.

THE 10 BEST JAVASCRIPT FRAMEWORKS TO USE IN 2023

With new frameworks emerging and existing ones evolving, it's important to stay updated on the latest tools available to enhance your JavaScript development process. This blog post features the top JavaScript frameworks to consider using in 2023, along with their pros and cons.

TRANSITION BETWEEN PAGES SMOOTHLY WITH A SINGLE LINE OF CODE

CSS View Transitions is one of the latest additions to Chromium-based browsers and this article teaches you how to take advantage of this new feature with 1 line of code.

INSTAGRAM’S TWITTER COMPETITOR, THREADS, IS AVAILABLE NOW

Meta's Twitter competitor Threads is now available. It can be accessed on iOS, Android, and the web. Threads allows users to create text-based posts with up to 500 characters, share photos, and upload videos up to five minutes long. It looks similar to Twitter, with an interface that gives users the option to like, comment, repost, and share threads. Users can choose to log in with their Instagram usernames or create a new account. Threads does not currently support ActivityPub, but there are plans to integrate the protocol later down the line. The app is not available in the EU due to the EU's strict privacy regulations.

CHATGPT DROPS ABOUT 10% IN TRAFFIC AS THE NOVELTY WEARS OFF

ChatGPT's traffic declined for the first time from May to June. Worldwide unique visitors to the site dropped by 5.7%, with the amount of time spent on the site down 8.5%. ChatGPT still attracts more visitors than Bing.com. Charts showing ChatGPT's growth and recent decline are available in the article.

CONTROL

OpenAI is forming a team to develop ways to steer and control superintelligent AI systems. AI with intelligence exceeding that of humans could arrive within the coming decade. There is no current solution for controlling a potentially superintelligent AI and preventing it from causing harm. The team aims to develop a solution by creating a human-level automated alignment researcher that will find ways to ensure AI systems achieve desired outcomes.

HEAT PUMPS - THE WELL-TEMPERED FUTURE OF A/CS

Air-conditioners keep people comfortable and alive. Extreme heat waves are killing more and more people every year. The demand for more air-conditioners is exacerbating climate change due to increased demand for electricity and the leakage of refrigerants. Both winners of the 2021 Global Cooling Prize were heat pumps that reduce cooling's climate impact by up to 80 percent. Heat pumps address the problems of emissions while providing a source of emissions-free power. They're also comparatively cheaper to install than central air-conditioners.