Jul 18, 2024

TSMC’s AI-driven profits Soar as Chip Supply Struggles to Meet Demand

TSMC's second-quarter profit beats expectations as the AI chip boom continues, with robust demand for advanced chips used in AI applications stretching chip supplies. Strong financial performance driven by AI demand: TSMC reported impressive second-quarter results, surpassing revenue and profit expectations: Revenue reached NT$673.51 billion ($20.82 billion), up 40.1% from a year ago, beating estimates of NT$657.58 billion. Net income increased 36.3% year-over-year to NT$247.85 billion, exceeding the LSEG SmartEstimate of NT$238.8 billion. Tight supply and capacity expansion: The explosive demand for AI has led to a supply crunch, with TSMC working hard to meet customer needs: CEO C.C. Wei...

read Jul 18, 2024

Opinion: Billions of People Must Learn to Become AI Literate Or Risk Being Left Out of the New Economy

In a recent article, MIT Senior Fellow and Investor, John Werner, argues why billions of people must learn AI literacy or risk being left behind in the new automation economy. AI literacy is critical as AI becomes the new immersive technology; those who understand and can use AI effectively will gain exceptional power, while others risk being left behind. Defining AI literacy: Unlike traditional literacy, which focuses on reading and writing, AI literacy involves viewing AI technologies critically, understanding their context, and making informed decisions about their use: It requires the ability to discern the benefits and challenges of AI...

read Jul 18, 2024

Deezer Launches AI-Powered Playlist Creator to Rival Spotify, Amazon, and YouTube Music

Deezer's new Playlist with AI feature allows users to generate personalized playlists by inputting text prompts describing musical preferences, moods, or activities, offering a novel approach to music discovery and curation. The feature is currently in beta, with 5% of Deezer's subscribers randomly selected to test it out. Playlist with AI utilizes an AI model to interpret user prompts and curate a list of songs from Deezer's vast music library, including tracks the user has never played before. The AI-generated playlists can be based on a wide range of criteria, from musical genres and time periods to current emotions and...

read Jul 18, 2024

AI Meets Reality TV: Holographic Host Joins Big Brother’s 26th Season

A holographic Julie Chen Moonves will join the real Julie Chen Moonves in hosting the upcoming 26th season of the reality show Big Brother: The show's AI theme this year, "BB AI", will feature a 7-foot hologram projection box containing a virtual version of host Julie Chen Moonves, known to fans as "Chenbot", though her exact role is not yet clear. Hologram technology brings celebrities to life: The AI-powered hologram is created by Proto Hologram, which has also produced interactive holographic experiences featuring William Shatner, Elton John, and others for various industries: To create the hologram, the subject is filmed...

read Jul 18, 2024

Senators Demand Answers After AT&T Data Breach

AT&T revealed that customer call and text records were illegally downloaded from a third-party cloud platform called Snowflake, raising questions about the telecom giant's data practices and the security of sensitive user information. Senators demand answers from AT&T: In the wake of the breach, US Senators Richard Blumenthal and Josh Hawley sent a letter to AT&T CEO John Stankey, asking why the company retained months of detailed customer communication records and uploaded them to a third-party analytics platform: The senators sought clarification on AT&T's policy regarding the retention and use of such sensitive information, including specific timelines. AT&T's initial disclosures...

read Jul 18, 2024

Trump’s AI Executive Order Draft Aims To Boost Military Tech and Cut Regulations

Trump allies draft sweeping AI executive order aimed at boosting military technology and reducing regulations, signaling a potential shift in AI policy if Trump returns to the White House in 2025. Key elements of the draft order: The plan, titled "Make America First in AI," outlines a series of "Manhattan Projects" to advance military AI capabilities and calls for an immediate review of what it terms "unnecessary and burdensome regulations" on AI development: The approach contrasts with the Biden administration's executive order from last October, which imposed new safety testing requirements on advanced AI systems. The proposed order suggests creating...

read Jul 18, 2024

Wiz Research Uncovers Critical Flaws in SAP AI, Risking Customer Data and Cloud Security

Wiz Research uncovers critical vulnerabilities in SAP AI Core, potentially exposing customer data and cloud environments to malicious actors. The research reveals that executing arbitrary code through AI training procedures allowed lateral movement and service takeover, granting access to sensitive customer files and cloud credentials. Key findings: Wiz researchers gained privileged access to SAP AI Core's internal assets by exploiting vulnerabilities, enabling them to: Read and modify Docker images on SAP's internal container registry and Google Container Registry Access and modify artifacts on SAP's internal Artifactory server Obtain cluster administrator privileges on SAP AI Core's Kubernetes cluster Retrieve customers' cloud...

read Jul 18, 2024

How AI Companions Are Redefining Human Relationships in the Digital Age

The emergence of AI companions is redefining human relationships in the digital age, raising profound questions about the nature of companionship and the potential consequences of substituting human interaction with digital entities. The rise of AI companions: AI chatbots and holographic avatars are being designed to provide emotional support, companionship, and even mimic romantic or intimate relationships: Replika, an AI chatbot, provides personalized emotional support through text conversations, learning over time to simulate a genuine emotional connection. Gatebox's holographic AI companion sends messages, welcomes users home, and controls smart home appliances, creating a sense of presence for those living alone....

read Jul 18, 2024

NVIDIA Releases New AI Video Upscaling Tech

NVIDIA's latest AI video upscaling technology, RTX Video Super Resolution, significantly improves the quality of streamed and offline video content. Key features of RTX Video Super Resolution: NVIDIA's AI-powered video upscaling solution leverages dedicated Tensor Cores on GeForce RTX 40 and 30 Series GPUs and RTX professional GPUs to remove compression artifacts and upscale lower-resolution content up to 4K, matching the user's native display resolution. The technology combines advanced de-artifacting techniques with AI upscaling to deliver stunningly clear video, even from low-bitrate sources like Twitch streams. RTX Video Super Resolution will soon be available in popular video editing apps like...

read Jul 18, 2024

OpenAI Is Making a New Safety Push, But Critics Demand Even More

OpenAI is working to make AI systems safer and more transparent, but critics say more oversight is still needed to ensure responsible AI development. New research aims to improve AI transparency: OpenAI has unveiled a new technique that involves two AI models engaging in conversation, with one model explaining its reasoning to the other, in an effort to make the workings of AI systems more transparent and understandable to humans. The research, tested on a math problem-solving AI model, encourages the AI to be more forthright and transparent in its explanations. OpenAI hopes this approach, part of its long-term AI...

read Jul 18, 2024

Anthropic and Menlo Ventures Launch $100M Fund to Back Promising AI Startups

Anthropic, the AI research company, has partnered with venture capital firm Menlo Ventures to launch a new $100 million fund focused on supporting promising AI startups. Key details of the Anthology Fund: The new fund, cleverly named the Anthology Fund as a play on Anthropic's name, aims to invest in and support the next generation of AI companies: The fund will focus on seed and Series A investments, with check sizes starting at $100,000. Startups accepted into the program will receive access to Anthropic's most advanced AI models, along with $25,000 in free credits to utilize these powerful tools. Interested...

read Jul 17, 2024

OpenAI’s Prover-Verifier Game Will Enhance AI Explainability and Trustworthiness

AI researchers at OpenAI have developed a new algorithm that helps large language models (LLMs) like GPT-4 better explain their reasoning, addressing the critical issue of AI trustworthiness and legibility. The Prover-Verifier Game: A novel approach to improving AI explainability; The algorithm is based on the "Prover-Verifier Game," which pairs two AI models together: A more powerful and intelligent "prover" model aims to convince the verifier of a certain answer, regardless of its correctness. A less powerful "verifier" model, unaware if the prover is being helpful or deceptive, attempts to select the correct answer based on its own training. OpenAI's...

read Jul 17, 2024

Trump’s AI Executive Order Will Prioritize Military AI and Reducing Regulations

Trump allies draft sweeping AI executive order to prioritize military AI and reduce regulations if Trump returns to power in 2025. Key Takeaways: The draft order, titled "Make America First in AI," outlines a significant shift in AI policy under a potential second Trump administration: It calls for "Manhattan Projects" to advance military AI capabilities and an immediate review of "unnecessary and burdensome regulations" on AI development. This approach contrasts with the Biden administration's executive order from last October, which imposed new safety testing requirements on advanced AI systems. The proposed order suggests creating "industry-led" agencies to evaluate AI models...

read Jul 17, 2024

GB News Becomes First UK Broadcaster to Integrate AI-Generated Content into Programming

GB News to introduce AI-generated sports news bulletins on its radio station, marking the first UK news broadcaster to integrate generative AI into regular public-facing output. Key details of GB News' AI implementation: The AI-generated sports updates will be a significant step forward in GB News' use of artificial intelligence across its editorial operation: 30-second AI-generated sports updates will air at the end of the main news bulletins every hour, written using generative AI. The bulletins will be delivered using the virtual voice of GB News presenter Tatiana Sanchez, requiring almost no human intervention. GB News is already using AI...

read Jul 17, 2024

HP Unveils AI Computers, Intensifying Tech Hardware Battle

HP's new AI-powered computers are set to intensify competition in the tech hardware market as companies race to integrate artificial intelligence capabilities into their products. Key details of HP's AI computer launch: HP has announced plans to release "the world's highest performance AI PC," positioning itself at the forefront of the AI hardware battle: The new computers feature an advanced chip capable of running AI commands without an internet connection, aimed at enhancing productivity in the workplace. Notable features include a camera that tracks the user's face during meetings, an on-device AI "companion," and the ability to build a searchable...

read Jul 17, 2024

CCC Introduces AI Licensing Solution to Foster Innovation While Compensating Creators

CCC launches collective licensing for AI: Copyright Clearance Center (CCC) has introduced a new collective licensing service that allows companies to access and use copyrighted materials in their internal AI systems while ensuring compensation for content creators. The new service, available as of July 1, is an addition to CCC's existing Annual Copyright Licenses (ACL) and aims to streamline the licensing process across multiple rightsholders. The license covers internal use cases such as article summarization, literature review, and market surveillance, but does not extend to public use of the copyrighted materials. CCC has worked collaboratively for over a year to...

read Jul 17, 2024

Google-Backed Cropin Is Using AI to Predict the Future of Food Production

The acquisition of Cropin by Google is a significant development in the agriculture technology sector, with implications for the future of food production and supply: Cropin's AI-powered predictive intelligence: Cropin's Sage solution, powered by Google's Gemini AI model, converts the world's agricultural landscape into a proprietary grid-based map and delivers precise predictive intelligence for 13 vital crops that account for 80% of global food demand: By leveraging historical data on productivity, climate, farm practices, and soil, Sage enables decision-makers to ask questions about crop performance and life cycles in their native language. This real-time intelligence solution aims to forecast future...

read Jul 17, 2024

Saudi Aramco Backs AiXplain’s Mission to Transform Generative AI into Action-Taking Agents

Saudi Aramco's venture arm makes first U.S. AI investment, backing startup AiXplain in a $6.5 million pre-Series A round to develop generative AI agents that can take action and ensure better representation of Arabic languages. Key details of the investment: Wa'ed Ventures, a venture unit of Saudi Arabian oil company Aramco, is investing in San Francisco-based AiXplain as part of a $6.5 million funding round: AiXplain, led by AI industry veteran Hassan Sawaf, plans to use the proceeds to expand its business operations. The startup has raised $16.5 million to date, has early customers, and was profitable last year. AiXplain's...

read Jul 17, 2024

How Overcoming Bad Data and Digital Divides In Organizations Will Increase AI Adoption

The vast majority of AI proof-of-concept projects fail to reach production due to digital boundaries, digital employees, and bad data, according to Capgemini research. Addressing these challenges requires a fundamental rethinking of how businesses approach AI adoption. Data quality is a major obstacle: Many organizations have become accustomed to working with subpar data, which poses significant risks as AI increasingly drives business decisions: By 2030, AI is expected to make 50% of business decisions, particularly in autonomous supply chain applications, making poor data quality unacceptable from a risk perspective. Digital employees cannot wait for cleaned-up data to make operational decisions,...

read Jul 17, 2024

Samsung’s ZFold 6 AI Turns Sketches into Photorealistic Images

Samsung's new Fold 6 features a powerful "sketch to image" AI tool that can turn rough sketches into photorealistic images. Key Features of Sketch to Image: The "sketch to image" tool on the Galaxy Z Fold 6 allows users to draw rough sketches on photos or blank note pages and uses generative AI to transform them into detailed images: Drawing on a blank note produces fun, cartoon-like results, such as goofy trucks or teddy bears with extra limbs, based on the user's doodle and chosen style like "3D cartoon" or "illustration". Sketching on an existing photo yields more troubling outcomes,...

read Jul 17, 2024

Google Launches Project Oscar To Bring AI Agents to Open-Source Software Development

Project Oscar is an open-source platform from Google that enables software product teams to create AI agents for managing issues and bugs throughout the software development lifecycle: AI agents can range from developer agents to planning, runtime, and support agents, interacting through natural language without requiring code changes. The platform is currently geared towards open-source projects but may be released for closed-source projects in the future. Real-world application in Go: Google's open-source programming language Go has deployed an AI agent through Project Oscar to help manage the project's large scale and complexity: The Go project has over 93,000 commits and...

read Jul 17, 2024

Paris Olympics 2024: AI and Tech to Revolutionize Sports Broadcasting Experience

The 2024 Summer Olympics in Paris offer a glimpse into how AI is poised to change sports broadcasting by leveraging cutting-edge technology and AI to deliver an immersive, personalized viewing experience across multiple platforms. Unprecedented coverage and customization options: NBC and other broadcasters are offering an extensive array of viewing options to cater to individual preferences and make it easier for audiences to find and watch the events they want: The Olympic Broadcasting Service (OBS) plans to generate over 11,000 hours of content from the 3,800 hours of competitions, including live coverage, behind-the-scenes features, analysis, and highlights. NBC's Peacock streaming...

read Jul 17, 2024

Opinion: How UBI Can Alleviate Class Disparity and Mental Health Issues In the Age of AI

The rapid advancement of artificial intelligence (AI) and automation is reshaping the global job market, leading to layoffs and raising concerns about the future of work and societal well-being. The problem: mental health and education in the age of automation; The increasing ability of AI to perform current human job functions is leading to job displacement, exacerbating mental health issues among young people who already face alarming rates of anxiety and alienation: One in seven adolescents globally experiences mental disorders, impacting their education and overall well-being, according to the World Health Organization. AI and automation create a demand for skills...

read Jul 17, 2024

Bhutan’s Student-Led AI Startup Secures Major Clients, Faces Scaling Challenges Amid Infrastructure Limitations

Bhutan's first AI startup, NoMindBhutan, is run by seven college students and has secured prominent clients, but faces challenges scaling due to the country's limited infrastructure. Key players: College students taking on the AI industry; NoMindBhutan was founded by Ugyen Dendup and Jamphel Yigzin Samdrup, two sophomores at Gyalpozhing College of Information Technology, which recently revamped its curriculum to focus on AI and data science: The seven-member team, all college students, operates out of their dorm room and rented spaces during college vacations, putting in long hours to balance their startup work with classes and assignments. The college has played...

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