Most of the AI industry is betting that bigger models mean smarter machines. A new startup is betting the opposite. Aether AI, based in San Diego, has raised a $20mn seed round to chase a different idea entirely. Its founder thinks the next leap will not come from scale. It will come from teaching machines cause and effect. Correlation versus causation Today’s big models learn by spotting patterns in huge piles of data. That works well in the lab. But it can wobble in the messy real world, where...