In a sign that the seed-stage AI segment is still alive and kicking, Betaworks, the startup studio and VC firm, is launching a new program that'll award $500,000 in funding to approximately 10 companies working on AI. Scheduled to run from mid-June until mid-September, Betaworks' program -- the ninth of its kind -- will provide startups access to benefits including a business-building curriculum and accelerated compute from companies including Hugging Face and Stability AI. The program isn't quite an accelerator; Betaworks describes it like a "camp." "This is the biggest change in technology in my lifetime," Betaworks CEO John Borthwick told TechCrunch in an email interview. "We've been building, accelerating and investing in and around machine learning for the last decade, and in the last 12 months, everything's changed -- the launch of generative visual models like [OpenAI's] DALL-E 2 last year, the open and affordable access to these models with the availability of stability and GPT. AI has the potential to affect every sector, and every part of how we live, work, play and even die."

Lil Miquela's 1.5 million followers watch her eat sherbet on the beach, visit her favorite art galleries, and hang out with other robot models. Lil Miquela is a digital influencer created using motion graphics -- something companies have long been capable of making. But even though she isn't truly an AI creation, her success has inspired venture capitalists like Betaworks to invest heavily in virtual creators and work with startups to progress the technology forward. The future of influencers, according to the general director of Betaworks' startup bootcamp, Danika Laszuk, is digital beings who actually are powered by AI. Betaworks' next startup camp will focus on what Laszuk calls "synthetic media" -- a combination of computer-generated imagery and AI capabilities.

It's difficult to remember now, but there was a moment in early 2016 when many in the tech industry believed chatbots--automated text-based virtual assistants--would be the next big platform. Messaging app Kik staked its company's future on bots and "chatvertising." Startup studio Betaworks launched an accelerator program called Botcamp. And at its 2016 F8 conference, Facebook pitched bots to developers as the best way to connect with 900 million Messenger users. Few expected that voice assistants like Amazon's Alexa and Google Assistant would thrive and text-based chatbots would become a punchline.

It's difficult to remember now, but there was a moment in early 2016 when many in the tech industry believed chatbots--automated text-based virtual assistants--would be the next big platform. Messaging app Kik staked its company's future on bots and "chatvertising." Startup studio Betaworks launched an accelerator program called Botcamp. And at its 2016 F8 conference, Facebook pitched bots to developers as the best way to connect with 900 million Messenger users. Few expected that voice assistants like Amazon's Alexa and Google Assistant would thrive and text-based chatbots would become a punchline.

This is my first guide posted on GitHub, bear with me. You can submit a pull request with anything else you think should be added here. It will come as no surprise to those of you reading this (thanks!), that the interest and applications of'Voice-Assistants' is growing rapidly. Amazon Alexa recently hit 10,000 skills and there is talk around what will drive adoption for the next 10,000. I wont be diving into specifics and discussing issues like retention.

Rage Frameworks published a report called "Can Artificial Intelligence Deliver for Today's Enterprise?" based on a survey of business executives. The primary reason given is to improve "Reasoning and Traceability". This includes having the ability to comprehend the logic behind why the AI solution reached its conclusion, which is now regarded as essential for widespread adoption in many enterprise-level applications. This will be problematic as most AI is based on computational statistics, which is essentially a "black box," and therefore the rationality is not traceable. Some of these firms do claim that the rationality is traceable, but often these are at such a high level of abstraction they fall short in terms of decision science. Alternative AI solutions such as Chatbot Author aimed at Policies and Procedures, uses a "white box" where "Reasoning and Traceability" is provided by user generated algorithms and generation of dialogue data for compliance, audit, measurements and pattern analysis.

Fresh off its promotion at Facebook's F8 developer conference, Poncho announced today that it has raised 2 million for its personalized weather forecasting service. The round was led by Lerer Hippeau Ventures and will be earmarked for improvements to Poncho's natural language processing, in addition to building artificial intelligence and data science technology into its bots and apps. Participating investors include Greycroft Partners, Comcast Ventures LP, Venture51 Capital Partners, RRE Ventures, Betaworks, Broadway Video Ventures, Ore Ventures, and several angel investors. Started two years ago out of Betaworks, Poncho offers a weather forecast alternative to Yahoo Weather, AccuWeather, and The Weather Channel. The company seeks to dominate what CEO Sam Mandel calls "thin content," which is activity that "takes place within the notification layer and also on a messaging platform that's contextually relevant, customized, and comes at the right time, but with enough polish to be engaging and cause a happy emotion."