Meta’s AI Chief Quits, Celebrities Go Synthetic, and SoftBank Bets It All (Again)

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👋 Hey Reader!

Big names are moving and shaking this week — Meta’s AI legend is plotting an exit, ElevenLabs is giving voices from history a second act, and Masayoshi Son just swapped Nvidia chips for OpenAI dreams.

Grab your coffee, because today’s brew is heavy on the big bets and bigger egos. ☕⚡

🚪 Meta’s Chief AI Scientist Plans His Exit

Yann LeCun’s leaving the Meta mansion to build world models of his own.

Meta’s AI visionary Yann LeCun, Turing Award winner and longtime Chief AI Scientist, is reportedly gearing up to leave the company to launch his own startup focused on world models — systems that learn from video and spatial data instead of text.

The details:

• LeCun’s departure follows a decade at Meta, where he founded the company’s FAIR (Fundamental AI Research) arm.

• His new venture will explore “world models” — AIs that learn by watching, not reading.

• Internal sources say he’s been clashing with Meta’s new AI leadership, including Alexandr Wang, who now oversees FAIR’s parent division.

• The move follows Meta’s layoffs of 600+ AI division roles, sparing only Wang’s new TBD Lab.

Why it matters:
LeCun’s exit marks the end of an era for Meta’s research-first AI culture. The “godfather of AI” is betting that his world model approach — rooted in vision and spatial reasoning — might just outpace the text-based giants.

🧩 Translation: He thinks the future of intelligence is not reading words… it’s watching the world.

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⭐️ ElevenLabs’ Celebrity AI Voice Marketplace

Matthew McConaughey meets Maya Angelou — in a sound booth that doesn’t exist.

ElevenLabs just dropped the Iconic Voice Marketplace, where brands can license AI-replicated celebrity voices — both living and dead — for campaigns, narrations, and digital content.

The details:

• The marketplace includes 28 licensed voices, ranging from Michael Caine to Maya Angelou to Babe Ruth.

• Deals are made directly with estates or living celebrities, meaning the clones are 100% legal.

• Matthew McConaughey — an investor in ElevenLabs — now uses the platform to voice his Spanish newsletter editions.

• ElevenLabs uses its state-of-the-art voice synthesis to ensure each voice sounds eerily lifelike.

Why it matters:
Think Cameo meets ChatGPT. This is the first big step toward a world where AI-generated performances are not just realistic — they’re licensed, compensated, and approved.

🗣️ “Alright, alright, alright”… has never sounded more scalable.

💰 SoftBank Dumps Nvidia, Goes ‘All In’ on OpenAI

Masayoshi Son is back at it — betting billions on his next tech religion.

SoftBank CEO Masayoshi Son sold his entire $5.8B Nvidia stake to finance new investments with OpenAI, calling the move an “all-in” bet on Sam Altman’s empire.

The details:

• The sale marks Son’s second full Nvidia exit, the first being in 2019 (a $4B sale now worth over $150B — ouch).

• He revealed that Altman once asked him for a $10B investment, which he passed on, letting Microsoft take the spot.

• SoftBank will invest $33.2B into OpenAI infrastructure and chip ventures — part of Son’s dream to build “AI for everything.”

• For context: this is the same man who turned $20M into $150B with Alibaba… but also lost $11.5B on WeWork.

Why it matters:
Son’s calling his shot — OpenAI will become “the most valuable company in the world.” Whether that’s genius or déjà vu depends on whether this bet ends like Alibaba… or WeWork.

🎲 Masa’s motto? Go big, go bold, or go broke (again).

🗞️ Other News

🧾 OpenAI loses a landmark copyright case in Munich, with the court ruling ChatGPT illegally trained on music, setting a major precedent for AI in Europe.

🎙️ ElevenLabs launched Scribe v2 Realtime, its most accurate transcription model yet — live in 90 languages and built for real-time customer service.

📚 Wikipedia fires back, urging AI companies to pay for training data and provide attribution: “Free knowledge isn’t free to build.”

📺 Samsung’s Vision AI Companion comes to 2025 TVs — pairing Bixby, Copilot, and Perplexity for natural voice chat (and better binge suggestions).

🏦 Blue Owl Capital invests $3B in OpenAI’s massive 4.5GW Stargate data center, backed by $18B in new bank financing.

🔒 Google introduces Private AI Compute, a secure Gemini-powered cloud that keeps data isolated from even Google itself.

⚙️ IBM’s “Loon” chip makes strides in embedding quantum error correction directly into hardware — a big leap toward its 2029 quantum goal.

💻 Mastery tools of the day

• Vmake - creates studio-quality talking videos through AI enhancement that sharpens visuals and cleans audio so that content looks great

• Anything - Turns your words into mobile apps, sites, tools, and products built with code, then easily add GPT-5 and 40+ integrations

• Mapify - improves study efficiency by 10x by converting PDFs, YouTube videos, and webpages into mind maps with key highlights

💡What else are we reading and seeing?

• Galaxy brain resistance

• The terminal of the future

• Hiring and the market for lemons

• The AI Cold War That Will Redefine Everything

• Vertical Integration is the Only Thing That Matters

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☕ The Takeaway

AI isn’t slowing down — it’s splintering.
Tech giants, rebels, and risk-takers are carving their own versions of the future: ethical AI, celebrity AI, humanist AI, and financial-AI gymnastics.

Whichever vision wins, one thing’s clear — this race is no longer about who builds the biggest model.
It’s about who builds the most believable one.

✨ Thanks for reading Not So Artificial!

If today’s edition hit the right notes (or voices 🎙️), forward it to a friend who still thinks AI is just chatbots.

Until tomorrow — keep your neurons caffeinated. ☕🧠

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