Generative AI
OpenAI's chatbot shows racial bias in advising home buyers and renters
An AI chatbot often recommends neighbourhoods to potential home buyers and renters based on race. This may be a reflection of bias stemming from generations of US housing discrimination. "A lot of people think that generative AI and large language models are the emerging technologies of the future," says Eric Liu at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. "But of course they're being trained on data from the past." How this moment for AI will change society forever (and how it won't)
The Morning After: Microsoft introduces its AI-centric Copilot PCs
It just revealed a bunch of new hardware and plans for Windows. Copilot PCs were the big announcement, designed to run generative AI processes locally instead of in the cloud. Of course, Microsoft had new Surface devices to showcase these features, but the usual PC suspects also have new laptops that meet the spec requirements -- and include Copilot in their name for added chaos. The company also claims Copilot PCs are 58 percent faster than the M3-powered MacBook Air. We'll drill into some other announcements down below.
TechScape: The people charged with making sure AI doesn't destroy humanity have left the building
I'm in Seoul for the International AI summit, the half-year follow-up to last year's Bletchley Park AI safety summit (the full sequel will be in Paris this autumn). While you read this, the first day of events will have just wrapped up – though, in keeping with the reduced fuss this time round, that was merely a "virtual" leaders' meeting. When the date was set for this summit – alarmingly late in the day for, say, a journalist with two preschool children for whom four days away from home is a juggling act – it was clear that there would be a lot to cover. The inaugural AI safety summit at Bletchley Park in the UK last year announced an international testing framework for AI models, after calls … for a six-month pause in development of powerful systems. There has been no pause. The Bletchley declaration, signed by UK, US, EU, China and others, hailed the "enormous global opportunities" from AI but also warned of its potential for causing "catastrophic" harm.
Do YOU think it sounds like Scarlett Johansson? ChatGPT's 'flirty' AI bot's voice is revealed - so, do you think it resembles the Hollywood A-lister?
Ever since Scarlett Johansson voiced an AI assistant in the sci-fi blockbuster'Her', many tech fans have dreamed of making that technology a reality. But it now seems that OpenAI may have pursued that dream too literally as they face accusations of deliberately copying Johansson's voice for ChatGPT's latest update. According to Ms Johansson's statement, the likeness is'so eerily similar to mine that close friends and news outlets could not tell the difference'. Following the allegations, OpenAI's'flirty' voice assistant has now been paused, yet tech fans have been weighing in on whether there really is a resemblance. So, do you think ChatGPT's AI voice sounds like Scarlett Johansson?
Scarlett Johansson accuses OpenAI of plagiarizing voice: 'Shocked' and 'in disbelief'
'The CyberGuy' Kurt Knutsson joins'Fox & Friends Weekend' to discuss Elon Musk's lawsuit against OpenAI and its CEO over a contractual breach, saying hes right on this one. "Avengers" and "Her" actress Scarlett Johansson revealed that legal action was likely behind OpenAI removing a voice that sounded eerily like hers. A statement released by NPR on Monday explained that OpenAI CEO Sam Altman reached out to Johansson in September about possibly hiring her to voice the ChatGPT 4.0 system. She claimed he suggested her "comforting" voice "could bridge the gap between tech companies and creatives" and help with the "seismic shift concerning humans and Al." Though she rejected the offer after "much consideration and for personal reasons," Johansson was furious to hear the public discuss how the "Sky" voice system resembled hers. Scarlett Johansson said in a statement that she took legal action against OpenAI CEO Sam Altman and the company.
Join me at EmTech Digital this week!
Between the world leaders gathering in Seoul for the second AI Safety Summit this week and Google and OpenAI's launches of their supercharged new models, Astra and GPT-4o, the timing could not be better. AI feels hotter than ever. This year's EmTech will be all about how we can harness the power of generative AI while mitigating its risks,and how the technology will affect the workforce, competitiveness, and democracy. We will also get a sneak peek into the AI labs of Google, OpenAI, Adobe, AWS, and others. This year's top speakers include Nick Clegg, the president of global affairs at Meta, who will talk about what the platform intends to do to curb misinformation.
Scarlett Johansson 'Angered' By ChatGPT Voice That Sounded 'Eerily' Like Her
Scarlett Johansson said Monday that she was "shocked, angered and in disbelief" when she heard that OpenAI used a voice "eerily similar" to hers for its new ChatGPT 4.0 chatbot, even after she had declined to provide her voice. Earlier on Monday, OpenAI announced on X that it would pause the AI voice, known as "Sky," while it addresses "questions about how we chose the voices in ChatGPT." The company said in a blog post that the "Sky" voice was "not an imitation" of Johansson's voice, but that it was recorded by a different professional actor, whose identity the company would not reveal to protect her privacy. But Johansson said in a statement to NPR on Monday that OpenAI's Chief Executive Officer Sam Altman had asked her in September to voice the ChatGPT 4.0 system because he thought her "voice would be comforting to people." She declined, but nine months later, her friends, family and the public noticed how the "Sky" voice resembled hers.
Towards Responsible Development of Generative AI for Education: An Evaluation-Driven Approach
Jurenka, Irina, Kunesch, Markus, McKee, Kevin R., Gillick, Daniel, Zhu, Shaojian, Wiltberger, Sara, Phal, Shubham Milind, Hermann, Katherine, Kasenberg, Daniel, Bhoopchand, Avishkar, Anand, Ankit, Pîslar, Miruna, Chan, Stephanie, Wang, Lisa, She, Jennifer, Mahmoudieh, Parsa, Rysbek, Aliya, Ko, Wei-Jen, Huber, Andrea, Wiltshire, Brett, Elidan, Gal, Rabin, Roni, Rubinovitz, Jasmin, Pitaru, Amit, McAllister, Mac, Wilkowski, Julia, Choi, David, Engelberg, Roee, Hackmon, Lidan, Levin, Adva, Griffin, Rachel, Sears, Michael, Bar, Filip, Mesar, Mia, Jabbour, Mana, Chaudhry, Arslan, Cohan, James, Thiagarajan, Sridhar, Levine, Nir, Brown, Ben, Gorur, Dilan, Grant, Svetlana, Hashimoshoni, Rachel, Weidinger, Laura, Hu, Jieru, Chen, Dawn, Dolecki, Kuba, Akbulut, Canfer, Bileschi, Maxwell, Culp, Laura, Dong, Wen-Xin, Marchal, Nahema, Van Deman, Kelsie, Misra, Hema Bajaj, Duah, Michael, Ambar, Moran, Caciularu, Avi, Lefdal, Sandra, Summerfield, Chris, An, James, Kamienny, Pierre-Alexandre, Mohdi, Abhinit, Strinopoulous, Theofilos, Hale, Annie, Anderson, Wayne, Cobo, Luis C., Efron, Niv, Ananda, Muktha, Mohamed, Shakir, Heymans, Maureen, Ghahramani, Zoubin, Matias, Yossi, Gomes, Ben, Ibrahim, Lila
A major challenge facing the world is the provision of equitable and universal access to quality education. Recent advances in generative AI (gen AI) have created excitement about the potential of new technologies to offer a personal tutor for every learner and a teaching assistant for every teacher. The full extent of this dream, however, has not yet materialised. We argue that this is primarily due to the difficulties with verbalising pedagogical intuitions into gen AI prompts and the lack of good evaluation practices, reinforced by the challenges in defining excellent pedagogy. Here we present our work collaborating with learners and educators to translate high level principles from learning science into a pragmatic set of seven diverse educational benchmarks, spanning quantitative, qualitative, automatic and human evaluations; and to develop a new set of fine-tuning datasets to improve the pedagogical capabilities of Gemini, introducing LearnLM-Tutor. Our evaluations show that LearnLM-Tutor is consistently preferred over a prompt tuned Gemini by educators and learners on a number of pedagogical dimensions. We hope that this work can serve as a first step towards developing a comprehensive educational evaluation framework, and that this can enable rapid progress within the AI and EdTech communities towards maximising the positive impact of gen AI in education.
Securing the Future of GenAI: Policy and Technology
Christodorescu, Mihai, Craven, Ryan, Feizi, Soheil, Gong, Neil, Hoffmann, Mia, Jha, Somesh, Jiang, Zhengyuan, Kamarposhti, Mehrdad Saberi, Mitchell, John, Newman, Jessica, Probasco, Emelia, Qi, Yanjun, Shams, Khawaja, Turek, Matthew
The rise of Generative AI (GenAI) brings about transformative potential across sectors, but its dual-use nature also amplifies risks. Governments globally are grappling with the challenge of regulating GenAI, balancing innovation against safety. China, the United States (US), and the European Union (EU) are at the forefront with initiatives like the Management of Algorithmic Recommendations, the Executive Order, and the AI Act, respectively. However, the rapid evolution of GenAI capabilities often outpaces the development of comprehensive safety measures, creating a gap between regulatory needs and technical advancements. A workshop co-organized by Google, University of Wisconsin, Madison (UW-Madison), and Stanford University aimed to bridge this gap between GenAI policy and technology. The diverse stakeholders of the GenAI space -- from the public and governments to academia and industry -- make any safety measures under consideration more complex, as both technical feasibility and regulatory guidance must be realized. This paper summarizes the discussions during the workshop which addressed questions, such as: How regulation can be designed without hindering technological progress? How technology can evolve to meet regulatory standards? The interplay between legislation and technology is a very vast topic, and we don't claim that this paper is a comprehensive treatment on this topic. This paper is meant to capture findings based on the workshop, and hopefully, can guide discussion on this topic.
AI in Manufacturing: Market Analysis and Opportunities
In this paper, we explore the transformative impact of Artificial Intelligence (AI) in the manufacturing sector, highlighting its potential to revolutionize industry practices and enhance operational efficiency. We delve into various applications of AI in manufacturing, with a particular emphasis on human-machine interfaces (HMI) and AI-powered milling machines, showcasing how these technologies contribute to more intuitive operations and precision in production processes. Through rigorous market analysis, the paper presents insightful data on AI adoption rates among German manufacturers, comparing these figures with global trends and exploring the specific uses of AI in production, maintenance, customer service, and more. In addition, the paper examines the emerging field of Generative AI and the potential applications of large language models in manufacturing processes. The findings indicate a significant increase in AI adoption from 6% in 2020 to 13.3% in 2023 among German companies, with a projection of substantial economic impact by 2030. The study also addresses the challenges faced by companies, such as data quality and integration hurdles, providing a balanced view of the opportunities and obstacles in AI implementation.