Aug 28, 2024

AI Reshapes Political Ads as 16 States Adopt New Laws

AI's growing role in political advertising: Recent advancements in generative artificial intelligence (AI) technologies have prompted lawmakers and regulators to address potential risks in the context of political advertising, particularly as the 2024 election cycle approaches. State and federal efforts are underway to regulate the use of AI in political ads, with a focus on transparency and preventing the spread of misinformation. As of August 2024, 16 states have adopted laws governing AI-generated content in political advertising, while another 16 states have bills under consideration. The Federal Communications Commission (FCC) has proposed a new rule requiring television and radio broadcast...

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What to Expect from Nvidia’s Upcoming Earnings Report

AI industry powerhouse: Nvidia, the leading chipmaker in the artificial intelligence sector, is set to report its second-quarter earnings, with Wall Street anticipating significant growth driven by the ongoing AI boom. Financial expectations: Analysts project Nvidia to report adjusted earnings of 65 cents per share on revenue of $28.74 billion for the second quarter, more than doubling its performance from the same period last year. The company's revenue has more than tripled on an annual basis over the past three quarters, with the majority of growth stemming from its data center business. Wall Street is closely watching for any signs...

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California Lawmakers Advance Bill to Protect Performers from AI Replicas

California legislature takes stand on AI replicas: The California Senate has approved AB 2602, a bill aimed at protecting performers' rights in the face of advancing AI technology. The bill requires explicit consent from performers in various entertainment sectors, including TV, film, videogames, audiobooks, and commercials, before creating digital replicas of their likeness or voice. This legislation is seen as a significant move to prevent potential abuse of licensing agreements and unauthorized use of performers' digital likenesses. SAG-AFTRA, the union representing actors and other media professionals, has expressed strong support for the bill. Key provisions of AB 2602: The bill...

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New Research Explores Global Divide in AI Chip Ownership

AI chip distribution reveals global digital divide: New research uncovers a stark imbalance in the global distribution of advanced AI chips, highlighting the concentration of computational power in a handful of countries and its potential impact on AI development and governance. Key findings of the study: A peer-reviewed paper, shared exclusively with TIME, maps the locations of publicly accessible GPU clusters worldwide, revealing significant disparities in AI infrastructure distribution. The United States and China lead in the number of GPU-enabled regions, with China having more overall but the U.S. dominating in the most advanced GPU availability. Only 30 countries worldwide...

read Aug 28, 2024

More and More Americans Believe AI Will Negatively Impact Jobs

Growing concern over AI's impact on jobs: Recent polls indicate an increasing number of Americans are worried about artificial intelligence's potential negative effects on the job market. A YouGov study found that the percentage of Americans who believe AI will decrease job availability in their industry has risen from 29% in March 2023 to 48% in August 2024. Despite concerns about overall job market impacts, most Americans are not fearful of losing their own jobs to AI. A separate Gallup survey revealed that three-quarters of respondents believe AI will reduce the total number of jobs in the next decade, consistent...

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Experts Debate the Future of LLMs — Optimization or Radical Transformation?

The future of large language models: The debate surrounding the evolution of large language models (LLMs) is centered on whether they will undergo significant transformations or maintain their current capabilities while becoming more accessible and efficient. Two contrasting perspectives have emerged within the AI community: one anticipating dramatic changes in LLMs within months, and another suggesting that improvements in compute power and data have reached a plateau. Skeptics predict that while LLMs may not experience substantial intelligence gains, they are likely to become considerably more cost-effective and faster to use. Current state of LLM development: Analysis of LLM reasoning capabilities...

read Aug 28, 2024

Claude ‘Artifacts’ are Now Generally Available — Here’s What To Know

Anthropic expands Artifacts feature to all Claude.ai users: Anthropic has announced the general availability of Artifacts, a feature that enhances creative collaboration with Claude, their AI assistant. Artifacts are now accessible across Free, Pro, and Team plans on Claude.ai, including iOS and Android mobile apps. The feature allows users to instantly view, iterate, and build upon work created with Claude in a dedicated window. Since its preview launch in June, users have generated tens of millions of Artifacts. Key applications across industries: Artifacts enable various professionals to create high-quality work products more efficiently than ever before. Developers can generate architecture...

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Kamala Harris Camp Denies Using AI Version of Trump to Prepare For Debate

AI in political campaigns: The 2024 U.S. election cycle is witnessing a growing interest in artificial intelligence tools, with campaigns cautiously exploring their potential while navigating ethical concerns. Harris campaign's stance on AI debate prep: Vice President Kamala Harris' team has explicitly rejected the use of AI-generated versions of former President Donald Trump for debate preparation, opting for traditional human stand-ins instead. The Harris-Walz campaign spokesperson, Mia Ehrenberg, stated that their current authorized use of generative AI is limited to productivity tools such as data analysis and industry-standard coding assistants. This decision comes amid revelations that tech companies have been...

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Cerebras Launches AI Inference Tool to Challenge Nvidia

AI startup Cerebras challenges Nvidia with new inference tool: Cerebras Systems has launched a tool for AI developers that provides access to its large-scale chips for running AI applications, positioning itself as a more affordable alternative to Nvidia's GPUs. The new tool allows developers to use Cerebras' Wafer Scale Engines, which are the size of dinner plates, for AI inference tasks. Cerebras claims to offer superior performance at higher accuracy and lower prices compared to Nvidia's GPUs. The company aims to charge as little as 10 cents per million tokens, a measure of AI model output. Market opportunity and competitive...

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Samsung Expands 7-Year Software Support to AI-Integrated Smart TVs

Samsung's Commitment to Long-Term Software Support: Samsung is extending its seven-year OS update policy from smartphones to its AI-integrated Smart TVs, signaling a significant shift in the company's approach to product longevity and customer support. The extended software support will apply to Samsung TVs from 2023 onwards, with a focus on AI-integrated models launched in March 2024. This move mirrors Samsung's earlier announcement of seven years of OS updates for its Galaxy S24 smartphone lineup. The company has not yet released a specific list of eligible TV models or a detailed rollout schedule for these updates. Tizen OS and Update...

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Amazon’s AI-Enhanced Alexa Expected To Come With These 5 New Features

Amazon's AI-powered Alexa upgrade: Amazon is set to launch an enhanced version of its Alexa virtual assistant with advanced AI capabilities, offering subscribers a range of new features aimed at providing more personalized and interactive experiences. Key features of the upgraded Alexa: The new AI-powered Alexa will introduce five main features designed to enhance user interaction and provide more tailored assistance. Smart Briefing will deliver daily AI-generated summaries of news articles, curated based on individual user preferences, keeping subscribers informed on topics of interest. More personalized responses will be enabled through voice recognition technology, allowing Alexa to learn and adapt...

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Want to Make an App But Don’t Know How to Code? Try Cursor

AI-powered coding revolution: Cursor is a groundbreaking AI coding tool, which leverages advanced language models to generate code from natural language. Cursor combines a development environment with an AI chatbot, utilizing models like Claude 3.5 Sonnet and GPT-4 to streamline the coding process. Built on the same foundation as Microsoft Visual Studio Code, Cursor offers a familiar interface for developers while integrating powerful AI capabilities. The tool has gained significant traction, boasting 30,000 paying customers, including professionals from innovative companies like Perplexity, Midjourney, and OpenAI. Democratizing app development: Cursor's user-friendly approach makes coding accessible to a wider audience, from novices...

read Aug 27, 2024

Tech Giants Are Shifting to Paid Models for Advanced AI Services

AI's transition to paid models: The era of free AI services is coming to an end as major tech companies move towards subscription-based models for their advanced AI offerings. OpenAI and other AI companies are increasingly brokering deals with media outlets to address content scraping and training concerns, but the landscape remains largely unregulated. Visual artists and content creators continue to face challenges as AI companies use their work for training without compensation, raising concerns about intellectual property rights. The high costs associated with developing and training large language models are likely to be passed on to consumers through subscription...

read Aug 27, 2024

Rand Report Shows 80% of AI Projects Fail Due to Leadership and Data Issues

AI project failure rates soar: A new RAND Corporation report reveals that over 80% of artificial intelligence projects fail, double the rate of non-AI IT projects, despite skyrocketing private-sector investment in the technology. Leadership shortcomings at the root: Business leaders' misunderstanding of AI capabilities and poor communication of project goals are primary reasons for AI project failures. Executives often have inflated expectations of AI's potential, fueled by impressive demonstrations and sales pitches. Many underestimate the time and resources required for successful AI implementation. A critical disconnect exists between business leaders and technical teams, leading to misaligned project goals. Organizations frequently...

read Aug 27, 2024

YouTube Is Expanding Access To Its New AI-Generated Conversational Radio

AI-powered conversational radio expands on YouTube Music: YouTube Music is broadening the availability of its AI-generated conversational radio feature, offering users a more interactive and personalized music discovery experience. The feature, initially announced in July, is now being rolled out to a wider group of US YouTube Premium subscribers. Users are greeted with an animated "Experiment" card prompting them to "Ask for music any way you like," launching a fullscreen chat interface. The chat UI encourages users to express their music preferences through text or voice input, with the option to choose from 14 pre-set suggestions. How it works: The...

read Aug 27, 2024

Why Business Leaders Shouldn’t Wait to Implement AI

AI adoption in business soars as leaders recognize its transformative potential, with McKinsey reporting a near doubling of organizations employing generative AI in just 10 months. This surge underscores the urgency for leaders to integrate AI into their operations to remain competitive and prepare for future innovations. The AI revolution is here: Unlike fleeting tech trends, artificial intelligence represents a fundamental shift in how businesses operate and compete. The AI market is projected to reach a value exceeding $500 billion in 2024, highlighting its growing importance across industries. Google's early investment in AI, with over 2,700 projects by 2015, exemplifies...

read Aug 27, 2024

Experts Weigh In On The Future of Automated R&D

AI research automation: A growing frontier: The potential for artificial intelligence to automate its own research and development processes is emerging as a critical area of study, with significant implications for the pace of AI advancement. AI researchers are divided on the timeline for automating AI R&D tasks, reflecting the complexity and uncertainty surrounding this emerging field. A recent study interviewed eight AI researchers to gain insights into the nature of AI R&D work, automation predictions, and potential evaluation methods for AI systems' R&D capabilities. The findings highlight the diverse nature of AI R&D tasks and the challenges that must...

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Anthropic Has Published Its System Prompts, Marking Milestone for AI Transparency

Anthropic's release of AI model system prompts marks a significant step towards transparency in the rapidly evolving generative AI industry. Unveiling the operating instructions: Anthropic has publicly disclosed the system prompts for its Claude family of AI models, including Claude 3.5 Sonnet, Claude 3 Haiku, and Claude 3 Opus. System prompts act as operating instructions for large language models (LLMs), guiding their behavior and interactions with users. The release includes details about each model's capabilities, knowledge cut-off dates, and specific behavioral guidelines. Anthropic has committed to regularly updating the public about changes to its default system prompts. Insights into Claude...

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Sweden’s Klarna Attributes Reduced Headcount to AI Chatbot Efficiencies

Klarna's AI-driven transformation: Swedish payments group Klarna has implemented artificial intelligence to handle customer queries, resulting in significant job reductions and improved efficiency. The "buy now pay later" company has reduced its workforce from 5,000 to 3,800 positions over the past 12 months, primarily through attrition rather than layoffs. Klarna's AI assistant is now performing the work of 700 employees, reducing average resolution time for customer queries from 11 minutes to just two minutes. CEO Sebastian Siemiatkowski expects the headcount to potentially decrease further to around 2,000 employees in the future, though no specific timeframe was provided. Financial performance and...

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New Humanoid Robot ‘CL-1’ Is Purpose-Built for Warehouse Operations

Advancements in humanoid robotics: LimX Dynamics has unveiled significant upgrades to its CL-1 humanoid robot, showcasing its enhanced capabilities in a simulated warehouse environment. The company released a three-minute, single-take video demonstrating CL-1's improved hardware and its ability to perform complex warehouse tasks autonomously. The robot exhibited various postures and movements, including deep squats, lifting, and carrying heavy objects weighing up to 18 pounds. CL-1 demonstrated real-time perception and adaptability by replanning its actions when a human moved an object it was about to pick up. Key technological improvements: LimX Dynamics has focused on enhancing the robot's real-time perceptive abilities...

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AI Startup Cerebras Challenges Nvidia With 20x Faster Chips

AI chip market disruption: Cerebras Systems, a US startup, is making waves in the AI chip industry with its Wafer Scale Engine (WSE) processors, positioning itself as a formidable challenger to Nvidia's dominance. Cerebras claims its chips can execute AI workloads up to 20 times faster and at one-fifth the cost compared to Nvidia's GPUs, including the popular H100 model. The company has introduced a new service called Cerebras Inference, designed specifically for running generative AI programs. Cerebras' chips have demonstrated impressive performance in running Meta's Llama 3.1 language model, producing 1,800 tokens per second for the 8 billion parameter...

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Google Meet Is Getting an AI Note-Taking Upgrade

AI-powered note-taking arrives for Google Meet: Google has begun rolling out its new "take notes for me" feature to select Google Workspace customers, offering automatic AI-generated summaries of meetings. Key features and availability: The feature is currently available to customers with Gemini Enterprise, Gemini Education Premium, or AI Meetings & Messaging add-ons It automatically summarizes meeting content in a Google Doc, which is then attached to the calendar event and shared with participants The tool currently only supports spoken English Google plans to complete the rollout to all Google Workspace customers by September 10th, 2024 How it works: Unlike Meet's...

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AI Fluency Takes Center Stage at MIT’s Global Education Summit

AI fluency in education: The first AI + Education Summit, hosted by MIT's RAISE Initiative, brought together 350 participants from nearly 30 countries to explore the integration of AI in education and the need for AI fluency beyond digital literacy. The three-day conference featured speakers from various organizations, including the App Inventor Foundation, the Mayor's Office of the City of Boston, and the Hong Kong Jockey Club Charities Trust. A key event was the "Hack the Climate" hackathon, where participants developed climate change-fighting apps using MIT App Inventor. Core principles of AI education: RAISE principal investigators emphasized the importance of...

read Aug 27, 2024

OpenAI Reportedly Set to Release Powerful ‘Strawberry’ AI Model This Fall

OpenAI's Strawberry AI: A potential game-changer for ChatGPT and GPT-4: OpenAI is preparing to launch a new AI technology, codenamed Strawberry, that could significantly enhance the capabilities of its chatbots and large language models (LLMs) this fall. Key features of Strawberry: The new AI system boasts advanced mathematical reasoning and programming skills, setting it apart from current LLMs in the market. Strawberry, previously known as Q* (Q Star), was initially developed by OpenAI's former chief scientist Ilya Sutskever and later improved by researchers Jakub Pachocki and Szymon Sidor. The AI demonstrates the ability to solve novel math problems and answer...

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