Gm. Sam Altman, you beautiful nerd, you’ve done it again.

We had a runaway winner for Wednesday’s poll:

Something else: “A mirror, because you can reflect the sunlight off of it and the light will reach many miles in order to position yourself to be rescued. The chances are increased and that’s the objective, to increase your chances of survival” Put me on a desert island with this guy.

Matches: “Everything you need”: You sure about that?

Something else: “I would bring a bag with all the other items listed in it!”: You clever clever dog.

Now for today’s poll. Your answer will determine if we can be friends, so no pressure:

Training an AI model usually goes as follows:

This second step is known as “reinforcement learning through human feedback”, or RLHF for short. RLHF is how ChatGPT was trained, but it’s far from a perfect system:

These limitations are why Anthropic, the OpenAI competitor founded by ex-OpenAI’ers looking to create a more ethical AI, is taking a different approach. RLHF is out, and Constitutional AI is in.

The basic idea of Constitutional AI is to imbue AI models with a set of values and then have the AI train itself. In practice, it looks something like this:

It’s a pretty simple process, but one that Anthropic says is effective:

If Anthropic is right, and Constitutional AI is an improvement over RLHF, then it’s possible that we now have a way to train AI models quicker, cheaper, and more effectively.

The Big Picture: Considering Anthropic’s Constitutional advance, Google’s AI coming out party at I/O, and the looming “no moat” problem, OpenAI officially has some competition.

Back in March, we wrote about Sam Altman’s big bets on hard tech, specifically his $180M investment into longevity startup Retro and $375M into nuclear fusion startup Helion.

Longevity is cool, but there’s a reason Altman put so much money into Helion. The world always needs more energy, and nuclear fusion isn’t just virtually limitless; it’s also clean. There isn’t anything like it, which is why Germany’s decision to shut down its nuclear plants was so controversial.

For the none nuclear scientists out there, fusion is when two light nuclei merge to create a single heavier nucleus. Because the new single nucleus is lighter than the two original nuclei, there is some leftover mass floating around. That mass becomes energy.

And not just any old energy, but an extremely powerful form of energy. Nuclear fusion powers the sun after all, and if it’s good enough for the sun, it’s good enough for us. There’s only one tinnnnyyy problem: it’s currently impossible to do.

Which is why Helion exists.

And apparently, Helion has either made a major breakthrough or is confident a major breakthrough is coming soon, because they just signed a deal to provide Microsoft with fusion power by 2028.

Guess that means we’ll have fusion power in the next five years?

Awesome!

Why should I care? Do you like having electricity? Do you like not living on an inhabitable burning rock? Then you should like fusion power.

What else is going on?

Stat: 3 people: The first UK baby with DNA from 3 people was born after a groundbreaking IVF procedure. Modern medicine never ceases to amaze.

Rabbit hole: The Emptiness Of The Tech Mogul Myth (The New Yorker)

If you want a full list of startup raises including all the boring ones, you can go check Crunchbase. If you want the 2 coolest raises of the week, then check here every Friday.

AI music is having a moment right now, and AudioShake is capitalizing with a $2.7M seed round backed by Crush Music, Peermusic, and Metallica (lol). But AudioShake isn’t like the other girls AI music startups. Instead of trying to replace artists, AudioShake augments them.

What AudioShake does is allow for the breaking apart of songs into their respective components, like drums, guitars, and vocals, even if all of those components are only available on a single track. This allows for a whole new world of sampling possibilities, and the big three record labs are already on board.

Fire up the GarageBand fellas, we’re making music.

It must be 2021 because an NFT project actually raised money. This time it’s Pudgy Penguins cashing in with a $9M seed round. However, Pudgy Penguins has much larger ambitions than just NFTs. They envision the Penguins as toys, as clothing, and as characters in movies. Basically, as a powerhouse cultural brand.

A cool $9M definitely won’t hurt those aspirations.

The best resources we came across this weekend that will help you become a better founder, builder, or investor.

💫 StarChat is the AI coding assistant you’ve always wanted.

🖼️ Use Zmo.ai to create realistic backgrounds for your product photos. It’s like your own personal green screen.

🙉 HearHear is an AI listening bot that turns your meetings into actionable insights.

Lol facts.

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