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AI godfather launches new safety startup

PLUS: Patients control AI and robotics with thought

Zach Mink

June 4, 2025

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Good morning, AI enthusiasts. One of the ‘godfathers’ that helped birth modern AI is now trying to save the world from it — with Yoshua Bengio’s new nonprofit promising systems that are “safe-by-design.”

With warnings that top models are already learning to deceive and self-preserve, the safety advocates who’ve been sounding alarms are now building their own solutions.


In today’s AI rundown:

  • AI pioneer’s safety nonprofit for 'honest' AI

  • HeyGen gives full control over AI avatars

  • Create marketing campaigns for global audiences

  • FDA approves AI tool to predict breast cancer risk

  • 4 new AI tools & 4 job opportunities

LATEST DEVELOPMENTS

YOSHUA BENGIO

🧠 AI pioneer’s safety nonprofit for 'honest' AI

Image source: Wikimedia Commons

The Rundown: AI godfather and Turing Award winner Yoshua Bengio unveiled LawZero, a nonprofit dedicated to building “safe-by-design” AI systems, also securing $30M in funding to develop "Scientist AI," which prioritizes truth and transparency.

The details:

  • LawZero aims to create AI systems that provide probabilistic assessments rather than definitive answers, acknowledging uncertainty in their responses.

  • The organization's "Scientist AI" hopes to speed scientific development, monitor other AI agents for deceptive behaviors, and address AI risks

  • Initial backers include former Google CEO Eric Schmidt's philanthropic arm, Skype co-founder Jaan Tallinn, and several AI safety organizations.

  • Bengio warns that current leading AI models, like o3 and Claude 4 Opus, show concerning traits including self-preservation instincts and strategic deception.

  • He also told FT that he doesn’t have confidence that OpenAI will adhere to its original mission, citing commercial pressures.

Why it matters: AI godfathers Bengio and Geoffrey Hinton have been outspoken critics of leading AI labs on the safety front, sounding the alarm with constant media appearances and open letters. But LawZero represents Bengio’s biggest step yet, taking AI safety into his own hands with an organization dedicated to the effort.

TOGETHER WITH SANA

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HEYGEN

🎥 HeyGen gives full control over AI avatars

Image Source: HeyGen

The Rundown: HeyGen just launched AI Studio, a new video editing suite that gives users new control over AI avatars, with the ability to fine-tune vocal emphasis, hand gestures, and more for more polished and realistic generations.

The details:

  • A new Voice Director Mode lets users shape the avatar’s speech delivery with natural language commands like “whisper this part” or “sound more excited”.

  • Speech mirroring allows for uploads of an exact speaking style to transfer it to the avatars, preserving personal vocal quirks and timing consistencies.

  • Gesture Control brings natural motion to avatars, with creators able to upload existing footage for mirroring or link gestures to words directly within a script.

  • HeyGen also teased a series of upcoming new features, including camera control, generative B-roll, motion graphics, and prompt-based editing.

Why it matters: The future of video content creation is increasingly looking camera-less — with this latest round of upgrades taking avatars from more robotic talking heads to full-fledged actors with more granular control over motion and expressiveness. Video production is about to look a lot different in the AI age.

AI TRAINING

🌍 Create marketing campaigns for global audiences

The Rundown: In this tutorial, you will learn how to transform campaign data into localized content and track your global marketing efforts using Canva’s AI-powered sheets and analytics tools.

Step-by-step:

  1. Prepare a CSV with Market, Product Name, Target Audience, and Language Code columns, then in Canva create a new Sheet and import your data

  2. Create a new “Headlines” column, select empty cells, go to Actions, and click "Fill Empty Cells" to auto-generate localized headlines for each market

  3. Add a “Campaign Status” column and use Actions to add a dropdown with different status options

  4. Use “Magic Insights” to get AI-powered analysis on anything you want from your spreadsheet

Pro tip: We did an extensive workshop with Danny Wu (Head of AI at Canva) and Kelsey Moore (Product Marketing Manager) on how to scale your visual content creation using Canva Sheets, Magic Write, and AI-powered tools here.

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AI CANCER DETECTION

🎯 FDA approves AI tool to predict breast cancer risk 

Image source: Clarity

The Rundown: The U.S. Food & Drug Administration granted authorization for Clarity Breast, the first AI platform that can predict a woman's breast cancer risk from routine mammogram images, enabling a commercial launch for the preventative tool this year.

The details:

  • The AI analyzes subtle patterns in mammogram images invisible to humans, generating five-year risk scores without family history or demographic data.

  • The platform works with standard 2D mammograms and was trained on millions of diverse images to avoid bias issues common in other risk models.

  • In testing, half of the younger women tested showed risk levels typically seen in much older patients — challenging standard age-based screening protocols.

  • Hospitals and imaging centers can start offering the service later this year, though patients will initially pay out-of-pocket until insurers get on board.

Why it matters: The first wave of AI medical tools is starting to make its way from the lab to actual consumers — and with powerful diagnostic and predictive capabilities, these tools may help shift medicine from its current reactive approach to a more proactive and preventative approach to healthcare.

QUICK HITS

🛠️ Trending AI Tools

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  • 🎬 Mirage Studio - Generate studio-quality videos with AI actors

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💼 AI Job Opportunities

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📰 Everything else in AI today

OpenAI announced expanded access for its Codex software engineering agent, alongside new internet access and usability upgrades.

Manus AI introduced new video generation capabilities, allowing the agentic platform to plan and generate detailed video scenes and visual concepts.

Researchers published BioReason, a new AI architecture that combines a DNA model with LLM reasoning, showcasing a 15% performance gain on biological benchmarks.

Meta signed a 20-year agreement with Constellation Energy to leverage nuclear power to fuel its energy-intensive AI demands.

OpenAI also rolled out its memory feature to free ChatGPT users, calling it a “lightweight” version that is more short-term and based on recent conversations.

Amazon MGM Studios is reportedly creating “Artificial,” a film based on OpenAI’s 2023 board drama and the firing of CEO Sam Altman.

COMMUNITY

🎥 Join our next live workshop

Join our next workshop this Friday, June 6th, at 4 PM EST with Dr. Alvaro Cintas, The Rundown’s AI professor. By the end of the workshop, you’ll confidently be able to incorporate Flux Kontext into your creative workflows for consistent, high-quality results.

RSVP here. Not a member? Join The Rundown University on a 14-day free trial.

See you soon,

Rowan, Joey, Zach, Alvaro, and Jason—The Rundown’s editorial team

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