Thinking Machines Lab Co-founder Departs to Join Meta 😱

Welcome to another edition of Horizon AI,

Mark Zuckerberg’s aggressive AI hiring spree may have seemed to slow in recent months, but Meta is still quietly trying to poach top-tier talent to reinforce its AI division. The latest target is Mira Murati’s startup, Thinking Machines.

Let’s jump into it!

Read Time: 4.5 min

Here's what's new today in the Horizon AI

• Thinking Machines Lab Co-founder Andrew Tulloch Heads to Meta

• Musk's xAI Taps Nvidia Talent to Build 'World Models'

• AI Tutorial: How to get Google AI Pro for free if you're a student

• AI Tools to check out

• AI Findings/Resources

• The Latest in AI and Tech 💡

AI News

META

Thinking Machines Lab Co-founder Andrew Tulloch Heads to Meta

Andrew Tulloch confirmed his departure in a message to employees on Friday. The star AI researcher had previously spent 11 years at Meta, completed a short stint at OpenAI, and co-founded Thinking Machines alongside Mira Murati earlier this year.

Details:

• Thinking Machines said Tulloch left for personal reasons, praised his foundational contributions, and added that they are “committed to finishing what we started together.”

• Meta has been aggressively recruiting AI talent as it builds its Superintelligence Labs, hiring more than 50 researchers and reorganizing teams around projects like Llama.

• Reports of a prior Meta offer to Tulloch reaching as high as $1.5 billion were called inaccurate by Meta, and terms of the new offer were not disclosed.

• Murati launched Thinking Machines in February with over 20 former OpenAI colleagues, has raised $2 billion, and recently released Tinker, an API for fine-tuning large language models.

Meta is leading one of the fiercest recruiting drives in Silicon Valley’s history, with the mission to build an AI “dream team.” Mira Murati’s Thinking Machines Lab is only its latest target, joining a growing list that already includes top talent from Anthropic, Google DeepMind, Apple, and even OpenAI.

Source

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XAI

Musk's xAI Taps Nvidia Talent to Build 'World Models'

xAI is joining the race to build “world models,” systems that can navigate and design physical environments. The goal is to develop models that can generate interactive 3D games and could also be applied to AI systems for robots.

Details:

• xAI has hired Nvidia researchers Zeeshan Patel and Ethan He to accelerate its world model work, drawing on their experience from Nvidia’s Omniverse simulation platform.

• These world models would have a causal understanding of physics and how objects interact in different environments in real time, though they remain difficult to train due to data requirements and cost.

• Elon Musk says xAI plans to ship a “great” AI-generated game before the end of next year.

• The company is advertising for technical staff in both image and video generation to join its “Omni Team,” with salaries ranging from $180,000 to $440,000, as well as a part-time “video games tutor” role to help Grok make games.

Musk’s AI startup joins rivals such as Meta and Google in betting on these systems, which they believe could push AI’s capabilities beyond those of large language models trained solely on text.

Source

AI Tutorial

How to get Google AI Pro for free if you're a student

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AI Tools to check out

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AI Findings/Resources

📚 Google generative AI leader certification course

💼 AI companies are hiring in droves, fueling a resurgence of Silicon Valley offices

🤔 Here's what's slowing down your AI strategy — and how to fix it

👀 Would you merge your mind with AI? – Sadie St. Lawrence

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The latest in AI and Tech

Judge lifts order requiring OpenAI to indefinitely preserve all ChatGPT chat logs

Judge Ona T. Wang ruled that the company no longer needs to keep every output log, though it must retain data linked to accounts flagged by the NYT.

The lawsuit, filed in 2023, accuses OpenAI of using the newspaper’s content without authorization to train its models.

Nano Banana image editing comes to Google Search and NotebookLM

It is also coming to Google Photos “in the weeks ahead.”

Adobe encourages candidates to use AI when applying

The company is encouraging candidates to use AI tools during the application and interview process. Chief communications officer Stacy Martinet claims the company values candidates who blend creative skills with AI fluency.

While prior AI experience isn’t required, new hires should be open to learning and experimenting with these tools.

OpenAI and Sur Energy plan $25 billion data center in Argentina

The facility would have a capacity of up to 500 megawatts to power advanced AI computing and would be "one of the largest technology and energy infrastructure initiatives" in the country's history.

CEO Sam Altman called the project, named Stargate Argentina, the company’s first major initiative in Latin America.

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Gina 👩🏻‍💻