Meta dishes out $250M to lure 24-year-old AI whiz kid

Key Takeaway: Meta’s decision to double its initial $125 million offer to $250 million for AI researcher Matt Deitke, and similar mega-deals, illustrates an unprecedented war for AI talent that dwarfs historic scientific compensation.

More Insights:

• Matt Deitke, who left a UW PhD to build multimodal AI at the Allen Institute and co-found Vercept, accepted Meta’s $250 million package after Mark Zuckerberg personally raised the bid.

• Meta has invested over $1 billion in poaching AI stars, including a $200 million+ package for Ruoming Pang, signaling an “all-in” strategy to win the race for artificial superintelligence.

• At $62.5 million per year on average, Deitke’s deal is roughly 327 times what J. Robert Oppenheimer earned on the Manhattan Project and eclipses Apollo astronauts’ inflation-adjusted pay.

• Companies now treat top researchers like elite athletes, offering massive stock, cash, and GPU allocations, fueling concerns about economic inequality and the future of displaced knowledge workers.

Why it matters: By elevating AI researchers to athlete-level salaries, we’re redefining our value system for intellectual labor; will this sky-high pay propel breakthroughs that benefit everyone, or cement a techno-elite that widens the gap between innovators and the workforce they may soon replace?

Free Notion and Unlimited AI

Thousands of startups use Notion as a connected workspace to create and share docs, take notes, manage projects, and organize knowledge, all in one place. We’re partnering with Notion to offer 6 months of new Plus plans($12,000 value), including unlimited Notion AI so you can try it all for free!

To redeem the Notion for Startups offer, submit an application using our custom link: https://ntn.so/superpowerdaily

Does this look like a real woman? AI model in Vogue raises concerns about beauty standards

Key Takeaway: Vogue’s first AI-generated supermodel for a Guess ad has sparked debate over diversity, transparency, and the real-world impact of digitally perfected beauty.

More Insights:

• Guess partnered with Seraphinne Vallora to develop two AI models, a process taking up to a month and costing low six figures.

• Industry veterans warn that AI could sideline plus-size and diverse models, reversing hard-won inclusivity gains.

• Young consumers face escalating pressure as AI crafts unattainable “perfect” bodies, with minimal disclosure in print ads.

• While AI may cut costs and streamline campaigns, advocates call for clear labeling and labor protections to safeguard workers’ rights.

Why it matters: As AI-driven beauty norms seep into high–fashion’s most prestigious platforms, we risk normalizing unattainable ideals and undermining both human diversity and mental well-being, forcing us to reconsider what authenticity means in the digital age.

ChatGPT users shocked to learn their chats were in Google search results

Key Takeaway: OpenAI has pulled a flawed sharing feature after thousands of private ChatGPT chats unintentionally appeared in Google search results.

More Insights:

• Fast Company found that an opt-in “Make this chat discoverable” checkbox was buried in the share dialog, leading users to unwittingly expose personal conversations.

• Although users saw no identifying info, intimate details, ranging from mental health struggles to relationship issues, were fully indexed.

• OpenAI CISO Dane Stuckey acknowledged the misstep, calling the experiment “short-lived” and ordering removal of indexed pages by Friday.

• AI ethicists warn that such “guinea-pig” experiments erode trust and highlight the dangers of opaque UX in privacy-critical tools.

Why it matters: This incident is a stark reminder that even minor UX choices can have massive privacy consequences, forcing tech companies to prioritize clear consent and guardrails before exposing user data to the open web.

Other stuff

• OpenAI’s ChatGPT to hit 700 million weekly users, up 4x from last year

• ChatGPT will now remind you to take a break from chatting

• Apple’s New ‘Answers’ Team Eyes ChatGPT-Like Product in AI Push

• AI Flight Pricing Can Push Travelers to the Limit of Their Ability to Pay

• Google’s Kaggle to host AI chess tournament to evaluate leading AI models’ reasoning skills

• Jim Acosta Just Interviewed an AI Version of a Parkland Victim

• What Happened When I Tried to Replace Myself with ChatGPT in My English Classroom

• Meta brought AI to rural Colombia. Now, students are failing exams

• AI Turns Drone Footage Into Disaster Response Maps In Minutes

Hope you enjoyed today's newsletter

⚡️ Join over 300,000 people using the Superpower ChatGPT extension on Chrome and Firefox.