🧠 This AI company is discovering new smells 👃

Hey Everyone,

Today we are going to be talking about how AI is engineering new smells and getting sued by lawyers.

Just another normal Friday in Big Brain world...

🔦 Today's AI spotlights:

• This AI company wants to discover new...smells?

• AI lawyer gets sidelined

🔦 THIS AI COMPANY WANTS TO DISCOVER NEW...SMELLS?

We've seen AI produce unique visuals. And we've heard it produce new sounds.

But hold up now... do you smell that? 👃 That's the smell of AI innovation!

A new company called Osmo has raised $60M. Their mission?

To use AI to discover new smells.

Osmo is a spin out from Google research, and they believe they can disrupt the $30 billion global fragrance industry.

Here's some quick background:

• The global fragrance industry is highly concentrated & has limitations. Many smells can only be engineered with ingredients that are difficult to source or controversial.

• By leveraging historical data sets, AI models can engineer new smells from more abundant ingredients.

• But this problem isn't easy to solve. The human nose has 400 different types of receptors (vs 40 in our eyes). This makes digitizing smell a VERY difficult engineering task.

Long term, Osmo hopes to become "the Shazam for smell."

This would require them to build a 3-part system: A sensor, a map, and a printer.

Can't wait to send a digital fart to my friends!

🔦 AI LAWYER GETS SIDELINED

Remember that AI lawyer we talked about the other week?

Well it looks like it will have to wait longer for its big moment.

DoNotPay has dropped their efforts to use their robot lawyer in court.

They were set to deliver the first-ever AI-powered legal defense in court on February 22nd. But severe blowback caused the team to reverse course.

According to CEO Joshua Browder, he "received threats from multiple state bar associations."

One state bar official even suggested that it could lead to 6 months in jail.

While the plan always seemed far-fetched, it led to some important discussions.

The first, was that legal professionals clearly see AI as a threat. So it's no surprise they resorted to legal recourse to defend their positions.

The second, was that it initiated a discussion around affordable legal representation. Remember, this is the core mission that DoNotPay is pursuing.

In the mean time, the company is going to focus on assisting people with expensive medical bills and unwanted subscriptions.

You're safe for now Saul Goodman...

📰 OTHER HEADLINES

University of Texas Will Offer Large-Scale Online Master’s Degree in A.I.: Amid a boom in new tools like ChatGPT, the Austin campus plans to train thousands of students in sought-after skills in artificial intelligence.

BuzzFeed says it will use AI tools from OpenAI to personalize its content: The company's stock rose 150% on the news.

Shutterstock rolls out generative AI toolkit: The Key to the feature is that the images are “ready for licensing” right after they’re made. 

🖼️ AI ART PIECE

Image credit: Sean Simon

🤖 CHATGPT PROMPT OF THE DAY

"A strange game. The only winning move is not to play."

Via Reddit user u/No_Confidence_8876.