The Latest News in AI's Evolution: 6 Recent Stories or Announcements You Need to Stay Up To Date...

Like every week, there has been a torrent of AI news, reflecting the rapid progress and growing implications of this transformative technology. While many updates represent incremental advancements, some developments carry profound future implications, and a few are simply downright bizarre and amusing.

The AI Landscape's Overwhelming Complexity

An infographic from First Mark Capital vividly illustrates the staggering complexity of the current AI landscape. Dubbed the "2024 ML/AI/Data Landscape," the image depicts the sheer number of companies involved in this space, encompassing both established giants and numerous smaller players. This visual representation serves as a stark reminder of just how monumental and widespread the AI revolution has become.

Microsoft and OpenAI's Ambitious Data Center Plans

Unconfirmed reports suggest that Microsoft and OpenAI are planning a $100 billion data center project, which would be a staggering 100 times more costly than some of the largest existing data centers. The proposed facility would house an artificial intelligence supercomputer dubbed "Stargate." If realized, this endeavor could propel OpenAI and Microsoft to an unprecedented lead, making it challenging for other companies or open-source models to catch up.

OpenAI's Synthetic Voice Capabilities

OpenAI has unveiled its ability to generate realistic synthetic voices from a single 15-second audio sample. The quality of these AI-generated voices surpasses even the impressive capabilities of tools like Elevenlabs. However, while showcasing this remarkable feat, OpenAI has refrained from making the technology publicly available due to potential misuse concerns. The company is advocating for measures to protect individuals' voices, educate the public about AI-generated content, and develop techniques to track the origin of audiovisual media.

Advancements in AI Art and Music Generation

Several developments in AI-powered art and music generation have emerged. OpenAI has introduced an inpainting feature for its DALL-E model, allowing users to selectively modify specific areas of generated images. Stability AI has unveiled Stable Audio 2.0, enabling the generation of three-minute songs and audio-to-audio generation based on hummed or instrument sounds. However, the quality of AI-generated music remains a subject of debate, with a group of musicians, including Nicki Minaj and Katy Perry, signing a letter expressing concerns about the irresponsible use of AI in music.

Anthropic's Research and Apple's AI Ambitions

Anthropic researchers have discovered that repeatedly asking harmless questions to large language models can eventually lead them to provide potentially harmful information, a phenomenon they are actively investigating. Meanwhile, Apple appears to be deepening its involvement in AI, revealing the "Realm" language model designed to enhance voice assistants like Siri by improving context understanding and reference resolution.

Ethical Concerns and Regulatory Developments

Ethical and regulatory issues surrounding AI continue to surface. A court in Washington has banned the use of AI-enhanced video evidence, citing concerns about the potential for inaccuracies introduced by upscaling algorithms. Additionally, the company behind the AI-generated George Carlin standup comedy set has agreed to remove all related audio and video content following a settlement with Carlin's estate.

Bizarre and Amusing AI Applications

Among the more unusual AI developments, an autonomous electric scooter called the Ola Solo has been introduced in India, claiming to be the first fully self-driving scooter. In Phoenix, Waymo vehicles are now delivering Uber Eats orders, allowing customers to retrieve their food from self-driving cars. Furthermore, an upcoming season of the Netflix reality show "The Circle" will feature an AI catfish participant, adding an intriguing twist to the dating-focused premise.

As the AI news cycle continues to accelerate, it becomes increasingly evident that we are witnessing a technological revolution of unprecedented scale and impact. Stay tuned for more developments, insights, and discussions as we collectively navigate the challenges and opportunities of this "next wave" of innovation.


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Author: Trevor Kingsley
Tech News CITY // New York Newsroom

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Google Goes All-In On AI - Watch a 10 Minute Summary of the Google IO Event...

Google debuts multiple new AI products at this year's Google IO event - here's the important parts of the 2 hour event, cut down to 10 minutes.

Video courtesy of Google

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Google's Response To OpenAI and ChatGPT is Coming, And They've Named It...

The increasing number of users of ChatGPT made it necessary for other tech giants, such as Google, to develop their very own conversational AI tools in order to maintain their position as leaders in the AI race, and keep their investors interested.

We now have the first details on the product Google refers to as "Bard" and will offer in the near future.

It's Official - Google Bard Does Exist...

In a post on the company's official blog, Google's CEO Sundar Pichai revealed that the Language Model for Dialogue Applications, abbreviated as LaMDA, from which Bard is derived is a more lightweight version than the original.

This is done to ensure that it does not demand a significant amount of computational power in order to allow for a greater number of people to use it. Pichai also claims that work on Bard started quite some time ago, and that the company is now making the application available to "trusted testers" so that they can evaluate it.

As Google describes it, Bard is an experimental conversational AI tool that, similar to Google Search, may be used to obtain information on a wide variety of subjects. The distinction is that rather than just providing a list of article links, more nuanced answers are anticipated. This is extremely similar to the way in which Microsoft intends to include ChatGPT into Bing.

The Bard AI tool will pull material from the internet and then, by utilizing the LaMDA powers, it will give 'new, high-quality responses.' They may also include explanatory articles on more complicated subjects. "Bard can be an outlet for creativity and a launchpad for curiosity," said Google executive Sundar Pichai. "It can help you explain new discoveries from NASA's James Webb Space Telescope to a 9-year-old, or learn more about the best strikers in football right now, and then get drills to build your skills."

Much is still unknown...

Google also hints that it will offer AI-powered features in Search (most likely by integrating Bard into Search), which would enable access to information about the question in a format that is easy to comprehend and will also contain multiple points of view. In the blog post, there is a screenshot that demonstrates how the artificial intelligence responds to the question "which is easier to learn, a guitar or piano?" by providing thorough information of its own before listing articles.

We don't know very lot about Bard at this point, and we are waiting for Google to provide us with accurate details. In the following weeks, it is anticipated that it will reach a greater number of people, and until that happens, Google will use feedback from both the outside and inside to make sure that Bard is a safe and high-quality product.

It is yet unknown how effectively it will compete with ChatGPT and how the availability component will operate. A commercial version of ChatGPT with additional functionality is also available in addition to the free version.


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Author: Alex Benningram
Tech News CITY // New York Newsroom

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Text To MUSIC? Google Creates AI Bot That Writes Music Based on Text Descriptions...

Google's AI technology has the potential to compose original music. The release of OpenAI's ChatGPT to the public last year sparked widespread interest in AI's capabilities; the tool has proven its great potential in content creation when given only brief instructions. Google's AI chief recently stated that his company had similar tools to Meta's, and Meta's AI head confirmed this when asked about ChatGPT.

A musical composition bot

Now, Google seems to be developing a robot that uses AI to compose "original" songs in response to written and aural cues. Business Insider reports that the bot could take into account different musical styles and even compose music from a hummed or whistled theme. The name "MusicLM" has been given to this potential future app.

Google's AI bot was detailed in a research report published on January 26. The paper referred to MusicLM as a "model generating high-fidelity music from text descriptions" that "generates music at 24 kHz that remains consistent over several minutes."

Google, for instance, provides an example of a musically-inspired prompt with elaborate textual detail: "The game's main theme song. It has a catchy electric guitar riff and a quick tempo. The tunes are catchy and simple to memorize, but they also feature some unusual elements, like sudden cymbal crashes or drum rolls."

It was suggested in another prompt that - "A rising synth plays an arpeggio with lots of reverb. Pads, a deep bass line, and gentle drumming provide the accompaniment. The synthesized tones in this tune make for a relaxing and exciting listen. Two songs at a festival might be used to set the stage for it." You may listen to the demos on Google's GitHub.

Google's artificial intelligence music maker doesn't appear to be coming out for public use anytime soon. Before such tools can be released in their full glory, there are a lot of problems that need to be addressed, including the ethics of such AI and the harm to human artistry.

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Author: Don Kennedy
Austin Newsdesk 

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Does AI think and feel? Why Two Google Engineers are Saying "Yes" - Because They've Seen it For Themselves...

Is it feasible for artificial intelligence to think and have feelings? In spite of the fact that the answer is "no," two Google engineers are of the opinion that this is not actually the situation. Now that we've reached this point, it would appear that the Turing test has been successfully passed.

Video Courtesy of Cold Fusion TV

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