AI fights wildfires

Welcome back to The Daily Update — AI is playing a part in the fight against the latest wave of wildfires in California. Tesla stock is also on the rise after its recent Dojo announcement. Here’s the full menu:

🗞️ The Latest: California firefighters battle wildfires with AI

🤖 AI Training: Brainstorm ideas for social media posts with Claude 2

📸 Business Spotlight: Tesla stock rises nearly 10% after Dojo announcement

🚨 AI Roundup: Four quick hits

Read time: 2 minutes

🗞️ The Latest: California firefighters battle wildfires with AI

California firefighters are utilizing a new, AI-powered monitoring system to contain wildfires burning across the state. CAL FIRE Captain Kris Yeary says a recent fire in the Cleveland National Forest could have been devastating without the help of AI.

What you need to know:

• Computers watching live feeds from the Cleveland National Forest highlighted what their algorithm identified as a column of smoke.

• Human operators verified that the computers were correct and alerted firefighters who quickly extinguished the flames.

• The ALERTCalifornia system has been using AI computers since the end of June with promising results. Neal Driscoll, who heads the project, says that the system beats 911 calls about 40% of the time.

• When the software believes it detects smoke, it displays a small red rectangle on the screen and offers a percentage indicating its degree of certainty.

The bottom line: Responding quickly is crucial to containing wildfires, and California firefighters are embracing AI as a tool that can save lives.

🤖 AI Training: Brainstorm ideas for social media posts with Claude 2

Need ideas for social media posts but struggling from creative block? Let Claude 2 brainstorm ideas for your next round of posts.

Explain your role: “I am the author of a daily newsletter that covers the latest news in AI.”

Choose a social media platform: “I need video ideas for Instagram Reels.”

Ask Claude to brainstorm ideas: “Brainstorm five video ideas that highlight emerging news/trends in AI.”

Here’s the result:

📸 Business Spotlight: Tesla stock rises nearly 10% after Dojo announcement

Tesla stock gained about 10% Monday after prominent Wall Street analyst Adam Jonas hyped up the company's AI prospects. The optimism is driven by Tesla’s billion-dollar Dojo supercomputer, which Jonas estimates could add $500 billion in enterprise value.

Key points:

• Morgan Stanley analysts led by Jonas upped Tesla’s price target from $250 to $400. They also changed their rating for the electric vehicle stock from hold to buy.

• Tesla stock rose to nearly $274, closing at its highest level since July 19.

• Dojo is designed to train Tesla’s self-driving vehicles using video data, but Jonas writes that it could help the company become a powerful player in the software-as-a-service market.

• Elon Musk told investors in July that Tesla will spend over $1 billion developing Dojo over the next year. He hopes to create a supercomputer designed to meet Tesla’s image and video processing needs.

• Tesla’s $79.9 billion market cap gain makes it the seventh-most valuable company in the world.

The bigger picture: “Dojo may have the capability to be the core of the Muskonomy,” Jonas said. He predicted that the machine learning technology could additionally become central to Musk’s social media company X and aeronautics and communications firm SpaceX.

🚨 AI Roundup: Four quick hits

• Killing the Narrative: Academy CEO says Ghostwriter’s AI Drake song isn’t eligible for a Grammy.

• Controversy Continues: Another group of writers is suing OpenAI over copyright claims.

• Academic AI: Google.org to invest $20M into AI-focused grants for think tanks and academic institutions.

• Robo Doctor: Glass Health is building an AI for suggesting medical diagnoses.

Have questions or thoughts on today’s newsletter? Reply to this email and I’ll get back to you as soon as I can. Thanks for reading The Daily Update!

Jack

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