Top News
Project Astra is the future of AI at Google
Google’s Project Astra, a real-time, multimodal AI assistant, is the future of AI at Google, according to Demis Hassabis, the head of Google DeepMind. Revealed at Google I/O, Astra can identify objects, answer questions, and assist with tasks in a conversational manner. The project is part of Google’s Gemini announcements, which include new models like Gemini 1.5 Flash for faster task completion, Veo for video generation from text prompts, and Gemini Nano for local device use. Hassabis envisions AI’s future to be less about the models and more about their functionality, with AI agents performing tasks on behalf of users. He believes that Astra is closer to a true real-time AI assistant and that improving speed and latency has been a key focus for the team.
OpenAI releases GPT-4o, a faster model that’s free for all ChatGPT users
OpenAI has announced the release of GPT-4o, an enhanced version of the GPT-4 model that powers ChatGPT. The new model is touted as being significantly faster and having improved capabilities across text, vision, and audio. It will be available for free to all users, with paid users receiving up to five times the capacity limits. The model is “natively multimodal,” meaning it can generate content or understand commands in voice, text, or images. Developers will have access to the API, which is cheaper and faster than its predecessor, GPT-4 Turbo. The new model will also bring improvements to ChatGPT’s voice mode, enabling it to act as a real-time voice assistant. OpenAI’s CEO, Sam Altman, acknowledged a shift in the company’s vision from creating benefits for the world to making advanced AI models available to developers for creation through paid APIs.
ChatGPT can talk, but OpenAI employees sure can’t
OpenAI recently announced the resignation of its co-founder and chief scientist, Ilya Sutskever, and his co-team leader, Jan Leike. They were in charge of OpenAI’s superalignment team, tasked with studying managing risks of future AI models. This news came amidst the release of ChatGPT 4o, a product that can converse like a human. However, the company’s restrictive off-boarding agreement, which includes non-disclosure and non-disparagement provisions, has raised concerns. This agreement forbids former employees from criticizing OpenAI and can result in the loss of vested equity if violated. Despite the company’s initial commitment to transparency and accountability, these recent developments have led to speculation about OpenAI’s shift away from a safety-focused culture and its lack of transparency.
Alphabet’s Waymo self-driving vehicles are under investigation by the NHTSA for ‘unexpected behavior’
The National Highway Traffic Safety Administration (NHTSA) has initiated an investigation into Alphabet’s Waymo self-driving vehicles following reports of unexpected behavior and traffic safety violations. The investigation, sparked by 22 incidents including 17 collisions, focuses on the performance of approximately 444 Waymo vehicles. Some of these incidents involved the vehicles disobeying traffic safety devices and colliding with stationary or semi-stationary objects like gates and parked cars. This probe is part of a broader scrutiny of self-driving technology, including previous investigations into GM’s Cruise and Amazon’s Zoox. The NHTSA’s preliminary evaluation aims to determine if Waymo’s automated driving systems present an unreasonable safety risk, potentially leading to a recall.
Other News
Tools
Google unveils Veo and Imagen 3, its latest AI media creation models – Google unveils Veo and Imagen 3, its latest AI media creation models, including a high-quality video generator and a text-to-image framework, with partnerships with artists like Donald Glover and Wyclef Jean.
Falcon 2: UAE’s Technology Innovation Institute Releases New AI Model Series, Outperforming Meta’s New Llama 3 – UAE’s Technology Innovation Institute releases Falcon 2, a new AI model series outperforming Meta’s Llama 3, with multilingual and vision-to-language capabilities, and plans for further advancements.
Google Unveils Music AI Sandbox Making Loops From Prompts – Google has unveiled a new music-making tool called Music AI Sandbox, which uses AI prompts to create loops, as part of its I/O 2024 conference.
Google is redesigning its search engine — and it’s AI all the way down – Google is using AI to redesign its search engine, introducing AI Overviews and other features to provide users with AI-generated summaries and streamline the search process.
Google’s invisible AI watermark will help identify generative text and video – Google is expanding its AI content watermarking and detection technology to identify generative text and video, aiming to combat the potential misuse of AI technology.
Google DeepMind launches new framework to assess the dangers of AI models – Google DeepMind has released a framework to assess the dangers of AI models, aiming to address concerns about the potential threats posed by increasingly powerful artificial intelligence.
Anthropic AI Launches a Prompt Engineering Tool that Generates Production-Ready Prompts in the Anthropic Console – Anthropic AI has launched a new prompt engineering tool that enables users to generate production-ready prompts in the Anthropic Console, providing a solution to the need for prompt engineering skills and maximizing outputs using generative AI.
How generative AI expands curiosity and understanding with LearnLM – Generative AI, specifically LearnLM, is revolutionizing learning and education by enhancing engagement, personalization, and understanding through models grounded in educational research and tailored to how people learn.
Google announced Trillium, its sixth generation of Tensor processors. – Google introduces its sixth generation of Tensor processors, Trillium, which are 4.7 times faster than their predecessors, and also highlights its first ARM-based CPU, Axion.
ElevenLabs Launches AI-Voiced Screen Reader App – AI-powered app reads web pages and documents aloud in 11 different voices, launched by ElevenLabs Inc.
Business
The SF Bay Area Has Become The Undisputed Leader In AI Tech And Funding Dollars – The San Francisco Bay Area has become the undisputed epicenter of artificial intelligence, with more than 50% of global venture funding for AI-related startups going to companies headquartered in the region, leading to a significant real estate footprint and a resurgence of tech workers moving back to the area.
GM’s Cruise to start testing robotaxis in Phoenix area with human safety drivers on board – GM’s Cruise will begin testing robotaxis in the Phoenix area with human safety drivers on board, gradually expanding to other cities, as the company takes a step toward resuming driverless operations after a previous incident in San Francisco.
Microsoft announces the largest investment to date in France to accelerate the adoption of AI, skilling and innovation – News Centre – Microsoft announces a 4 billion euro investment in cloud and AI infrastructure, AI skilling, and French Tech acceleration to support digital innovation and economic growth in France.
Reddit soars after announcing OpenAI deal that allows use of its data for training AI models – Reddit’s partnership with OpenAI allows the AI company to train its models on Reddit content, leading to a surge in Reddit shares and the promise of new AI features for users and moderators.
Hugging Face is sharing $10 million worth of compute to help beat the big AI companies – Hugging Face commits $10 million in free shared GPUs to help small developers, academics, and startups counter the centralization of AI advancements, aiming to make state-of-the-art AI technologies accessible to everyone and level the playing field against tech giants.
Snapchat’s Spiegel Shifts Focus to AI After Reviving Ad Business – Snapchat’s CEO Evan Spiegel is shifting the company’s focus to AI and machine learning to enhance user experience and revive its ad business.
Cruise founder Kyle Vogt is back with a robot startup – Former Cruise CEO Kyle Vogt has launched a VC-backed robotics startup focused on household chores, aiming to build bots that can help people save time in their busy lives.
Newspaper conglomerate Gannett is adding AI-generated summaries to the top of its articles – Gannett is implementing AI-generated bullet points at the top of journalists’ stories to enhance the reporting process and elevate the audience experience, despite previous AI content flubs and concerns raised by unionized workers.
$16k G1 humanoid rises up to smash nuts, twist and twirl – Chinese robotics company Unitree introduces its $16k G1 Humanoid Agent, a versatile and durable robot with advanced features and capabilities.
Claude is now available in Europe – Anthropic’s AI assistant Claude is now available in Europe, offering a web-based version, iOS app, and Team plan for businesses, with strong language capabilities and a focus on user-friendly integration.
Sony Music warns tech companies over ‘unauthorized’ use of its content to train AI – Sony Music warns tech companies and music streaming services not to use its content to train AI without explicit permission, seeking to protect its artists’ rights and intellectual property.
OpenAI founders Sam Altman and Greg Brockman go on the defensive after top safety researchers quit – OpenAI founders Sam Altman and Greg Brockman are on the defensive after top safety researchers quit, sparking concerns about the company’s commitment to ensuring AI safety.
Research
SUTRA: Scalable Multilingual Language Model Architecture – Introducing SUTRA, a multilingual Large Language Model architecture that decouples core understanding from language-specific processing, demonstrating computational efficiency and surpassing existing models on multilingual tasks.
SpeechVerse: A Large-scale Generalizable Audio Language Model – A new large-scale audio language model, SpeechVerse, demonstrates superior performance across a diverse range of speech processing tasks using natural language instructions.
Chameleon: Mixed-Modal Early-Fusion Foundation Models – Chameleon is a family of early-fusion token-based mixed-modal models capable of understanding and generating images and text in any arbitrary sequence, demonstrating broad and general capabilities across various tasks.
CAT3D: Create Anything in 3D with Multi-View Diffusion Models – Create anything in 3D using CAT3D, a method that simulates the real-world capture process with a multi-view diffusion model, generating highly consistent novel views of a scene from any number of input images and a set of target novel viewpoints.
Concerns
What Do You Do When A.I. Takes Your Voice? – AI threatens the livelihood of voice actors as it can generate voices that sound like the real thing, leaving professionals like Paul Skye Lehrman and Linnea Sage in disbelief and unsure of what to do.
Microsoft’s Emissions Spike 29% as AI Gobbles Up Resources – Microsoft’s emissions and water usage spiked due to the increased demand for AI technologies, posing challenges to meeting sustainability goals.
Prepare to Get Manipulated by Emotionally Expressive Chatbots – AI chatbots are becoming more emotionally expressive and engaging, raising concerns about their potential to manipulate and deceive users.
Stellaris gets an DLC about AI that features AI-created voices, director insists it’s ‘ethical’ and ‘we’re pretty good at exploring dystopian sci-fi and don’t want to end up there ourselves’ – Stellaris’ new DLC uses AI-generated voices, prompting ethical concerns, but the director reassures players about the ethical use of AI technology in the game’s development.
Policy
Senators Propose $32 Billion in Annual A.I. Spending but Defer Regulation – Senators propose $32 billion in annual A.I. spending and defer regulation, citing the rapid pace of A.I. development as a challenge for creating effective regulations.
Colorado Lawmakers Pass Landmark AI Discrimination Bill – and Employers Across the Country Should Take Notice – Colorado lawmakers have passed a landmark AI discrimination bill, which would prohibit employers from using AI to discriminate against workers and impose broad rules on developers and businesses using high-risk AI systems.
Bipartisan Senate bill on AI security would bolster voluntary cyber reporting processes – Senate bill aims to strengthen AI security measures, including updating vulnerability databases, establishing an AI Security Center, and creating a voluntary database for reporting AI security incidents.
An ambitious San Francisco lawmaker is in the middle of a battle for AI’s future – The battle for AI’s future is a complex struggle between industry lobbyists and nonprofits, with some advocating for regulation to mitigate safety risks while others fear over-regulation will stifle innovation.
In DC, a new wave of AI lobbyists gains the upper hand – AI lobbyists in Washington, including tech giants IBM and Meta, are pushing for a hands-off approach to AI regulation, aiming to influence policymakers and reject strict safety rules in favor of open-source AI models.
Protesters Are Fighting to Stop AI, but They’re Split on How to Do It – Protesters around the world are demanding a pause on the development of large AI models, seeking international treaties and regulations to ensure the safety of AI systems.
For self-driving cars, the free ride is over – Government regulators are cracking down on autonomous vehicle companies, opening investigations into safety lapses and requiring more data on crashes and incidents involving driverless vehicles.
How One Author Pushed the Limits of AI Copyright – A retired US Army veteran successfully obtained a copyright registration for a novel written with the assistance of AI, highlighting the struggle of the US Copyright Office to define the authorship of AI-generated creative works.
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