Meta Platforms Inc. today unveiled an advanced "generative artificial intelligence system" that's designed to help artists better showcase their creativity. The system, called "Make-A-Scene," is meant to demonstrate how AI has the potential to empower anyone to bring their imagination to life. The user can simply describe and illustrate their vision through a combination of text descriptions and freeform sketches, and the AI will come up with a stunning representation of it. As the company explains in a blog post, generative AI is already used by a number of artists to augment their creativity. Examples include expressive avatars, animating children's drawings, creating virtual worlds in the metaverse and producing digital artworks using only text-based descriptions.

To many they are art's next big thing -- digital images of jellyfish pulsing and blurring in a dark pink sea, or dozens of butterflies fusing together into a single organism. The Argentine artist Sofia Crespo, who created the works with the help of artificial intelligence, is part of the "generative art" movement, where humans create rules for computers which then use algorithms to generate new forms, ideas and patterns. The field has begun to attract huge interest among art collectors -- and even bigger price tags at auction. US artist and programmer Robbie Barrat -- a prodigy still only 22 years old -- sold a work called "Nude Portrait#7Frame#64" at Sotheby's in March for £630,000 ($821,000). That came almost four years after French collective Obvious sold a work at Christie's titled "Edmond de Belamy" -- largely based on Barrat's code -- for $432,500.

To many they are art's next big thing--digital images of jellyfish pulsing and blurring in a dark pink sea, or dozens of butterflies fusing together into a single organism. The Argentine artist Sofia Crespo, who created the works with the help of artificial intelligence, is part of the "generative art" movement, where humans create rules for computers which then use algorithms to generate new forms, ideas and patterns. The field has begun to attract huge interest among art collectors--and even bigger price tags at auction. US artist and programmer Robbie Barrat--a prodigy still only 22 years old--sold a work called "Nude Portrait#7Frame#64" at Sotheby's in March for £630,000 ($821,000). That came almost four years after French collective Obvious sold a work at Christie's titled "Edmond de Belamy"--largely based on Barrat's code--for $432,500.

The Argentine artist Sofia Crespo, who created the works with the help of artificial intelligence, is part of the "generative art" movement, where humans create rules for computers which then use algorithms to generate new forms, ideas and patterns. The field has begun to attract huge interest among art collectors -- and even bigger price tags at auction. US artist and programmer Robbie Barrat -- a prodigy still only 22 years old -- sold a work called "Nude Portrait#7Frame#64" at Sotheby's in March for £630,000 ($821,000). That came almost four years after French collective Obvious sold a work at Christie's titled "Edmond de Belamy" -- largely based on Barrat's code -- for $432,500. Collector Jason Bailey told AFP that generative art was "like a ballet between humans and machines".

To many they are art's next big thing -- digital images of jellyfish pulsing and blurring in a dark pink sea, or dozens of butterflies fusing together into a single organism. The Argentine artist Sofia Crespo, who created the works with the help of artificial intelligence, is part of the "generative art" movement, where humans create rules for computers which then use algorithms to generate new forms, ideas and patterns. The field has begun to attract huge interest among art collectors -- and even bigger price tags at auction. US artist and programmer Robbie Barrat -- a prodigy still only 22 years old -- sold a work called "Nude Portrait#7Frame#64" at Sotheby's in March for £630,000 ($821,000). That came almost four years after French collective Obvious sold a work at Christie's titled "Edmond de Belamy" -- largely based on Barrat's code -- for $432,500.

A small mouse stands on two paws as it lifts its nose to sniff the air; colorful fish with shifting patterns drift underwater; flowers bloom and sway on tall, delicate stems. The painterly flora and fauna of Sofia Crespo's Critically Extant are based on real, critically endangered species like the Perote Deer Mouse, the Mekong Giant Catfish, or Parakaempferia synantha (a plant in the ginger family). Crespo trained AI algorithms on millions of open source images of approximately ten thousand species, using the resulting models to generate visual representations of animals and plants that -- despite being endangered -- have little or no presence on social media or in the broader public discourse. The generated representations appear slightly uncanny in form, in part due to the limitations of AI, but primarily due to the lack of man-made input available. How can an algorithm perfectly recreate an animal when it has too few examples of what that animal looks like?

Police in Florida believe recordings from a murder suspect's Amazon Echo may contain crucial information as they investigate an alleged argument at the man's home that ended in his girlfriend's death. Adam Reechard Crespo, 43, is charged with murder in connection to the July death of Silvia Galva, who died after suffering a stab wound to the chest. The Broward County Sheriff's Office believes Crespo's Echo - a smart speaker that connects to the Amazon voice-activated personal assistant Alexa - may have been a witness to the crime and obtained search warrants for all the device's recordings. Hallandale Beach Police Department spokesman Sgt Pedro Abut told the Sun-Sentinel that the department has received the recordings and is "in the process of analysing the information that was sent to us". The police department did not immediately return NBC News' request for comment on Saturday.

Police in Florida are investigating whether they have stumbled on a silent witness to a possible murder and are trying to get the truth from "her". Sylvia Galva Crespo, 32, was killed by a spear to the chest at home in Hallandale Beach, Florida, north of Miami, in July, which her husband, Adam Crespo, 43, has portrayed as a mysterious accident. But police believe the Amazon Echo smart speaker devices in the home, known as Alexa because of the common "wake" word used to activate them, may have heard and recorded something relevant during the fatal altercation when the couple argued after a night out, the Sun Sentinel reported. "It is believed that evidence of crimes, audio recordings capturing the attack on victim Silvia Crespo that occurred in the main bedroom … may be found on the server maintained by or for Amazon," police wrote in a legal filing. Adam Crespo is charged with second-degree murder.

It was a day for robots inside Monarch High School in Louisville on Saturday as dozens of teams competed in the First Lego League Robotics Competition. Kids were tasked with constructing and programming robots to complete a series of tasks. The teams also conducted science-themed research projects where students came up with solutions for real world problems. Among the teams was one put together several years ago by Casa de la Esperanza, a Longmont based organization that houses and helps recent Latin American immigrants who work in the agriculture industry to adjust to life in the United States. Program coordinator Vanessa Escarcega said that the organization has four teams for different age groups, and the teams were started as a way to get the children of immigrants into science, technology, engineering and math as well as help them succeed in school and go on to attend college.