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Geoffrey Hinton, ‘The Godfather Of A.I.’, Leaves Google And Warns Of Future Dangers Of A.I.

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In 2012, Geoffrey Hinton and two of his graduate students from the University of Toronto created technology that has become the foundation of Artificial Intelligence systems used by some of the biggest tech companies in the world. Now, Hinton has left his job at Google and is warning many about the risks of AI technology, stating that he now regrets his life’s work.

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Alphabet Stock Drops After Samsung Considers Switching Default Search to Bing

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Samsung is considering ending its long-standing partnership with Google in favor of Bing as the default search engine for its devices. Alphabet, Google’s parent company, saw its stock drop by more than 3% in early trading Monday as a result of the news.

According to The New York Times, Google’s internal response to the possible change was “panic.” It is unclear whether Microsoft’s decision to incorporate ChatGPT into Bing was a driving factor in Samsung’s deliberation.

Since Google makes the bulk of its money from search ads, the development of AI search technology represents the greatest threat to Google’s search business in the past 25 years. As it stands, Google’s contract with Samsung generates around $3 billion in annual revenue. Google’s contract with Apple, which is up for renewal this year, brings in $20 billion in revenue.

Recent advances in AI have prompted Google to explore ways to incorporate AI into its flagship search product. According to internal reports, around 160 designers, engineers, and executives at Google are all working together in “sprint rooms” on a new project called Magi to build competitive AI-powered search features.

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Google is also working on a brand-new search engine that uses artificial intelligence more broadly. Plans for this new search engine are still in the early stages, and a release date has not been set. The future system will anticipate user searches, provide curated lists of potential purchases, and be more conversational, similar to Bing’s new search engine format. In the meantime, the goal of the Magi project is to enhance Google’s current search engine.

Jim Lecinski, a former Google vice president of sales and service and professor of marketing at Northwestern University, said the company has to now persuade users that it is as “powerful, competent and contemporary” as its competitors.

“If we are the leading search engine and this is a new attribute, a new feature, a new characteristic of search engines, we want to make sure that we’re in this race as well.”

During a test last week, Google employees quizzed the Magi project’s enhanced Google search on its conversational skills by asking it follow-up questions. Next month, Google plans to roll out the tools to the public, making them available to as many as 1 million users, with added functionality coming in the fall. According to The New York Times, the number will increase to 30 million users by the end of the year. The tools will only be available in the United States.

In a roadmap document, a Google executive revealed that the company is thinking about integrating artificial intelligence into Google Earth’s mapping features and providing a separate feature that lets users conduct music searches via conversation with a chatbot.

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A feature that uses AI to generate images within image results is also in the works, as is a feature that uses AI text conversations to teach users a new language. Users will also be able to ask a chatbot questions as they browse the web using a product called Searchalong.

Last year, Google made $162 billion from its search business. According to The New York Times, Google was taken aback by the prospect of Samsung, which sells hundreds of millions of smartphones with Google’s Android software every year, switching its default search engine.

In a statement to CNN, Google spokesperson Lara Levin said the company has always been committed to using AI to “improve the quality of our results” and “offer entirely new ways to search,” citing a feature rolled out last year that allowed users to search by combining images and words.

“We’ve done so in a responsible and helpful way that maintains the high bar we set for delivering quality information. Not every brainstorm deck or product idea leads to a launch, but as we’ve said before, we’re excited about bringing new AI-powered features to search and will share more details soon.”

Google has been involved in AI research for a long time, and its DeepMind lab in London is world-renowned. The company has also contributed to the development of autonomous vehicles and large language models used by chatbots. Due to concerns over the accuracy of AI, Google has been slow to integrate it into its search engine.

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Meta Announces They’re Prioritizing Advancing Artificial Intelligence As A Company 

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Almost two years after Facebook rebranded as Meta and advertised giving the world a futuristic landscape through the metaverse, the company announced that now, their top investment priority is advancing artificial intelligence (AI). 

CEO Mark Zuckerberg sent out a letter to Meta staff on Tuesday, announcing plans to lay off 10,000 employees as a means of focusing on efficiency for the company; a move that was first announced last month in Meta’s quarterly earnings call. 

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Zuckerberg now says Meta will “focus mostly on cutting costs and streamlining projects. Building the metaverse remains central to defining the future of social connection, Zuckerberg wrote.

“Our single largest investment is in advancing AI and building it into every one of our products.” 

He added information on how AI tools can help “users of its apps express themselves and discover new content, but also new AI tools can be used to increase efficiencies internally by helping engineers write better code faster.”

The CEO described last year as a “humbling wake-up call as the world economy changed, competitive pressures grew, and our growth slowed considerably.”

AI in general has been taking over the tech world, and Meta is no different, in fact, the company has been involved in AI research and development since it was called Facebook. 

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“I do think it is a good thing to focus on AI,” Ali Mogharabi, a senior equity analyst at Morningstar, told CNN. 

“Meta’s investments in AI has benefits on both ends because it can improve efficiency for engineers creating products, and because incorporating AI features into Meta’s lineup of apps will potentially create more engagement time for users, which can then drive advertising revenue,” he explained.

“A lot of the investments in AI, and a lot of enhancements that come from those investments in AI, could actually be applicable to the entire metaverse project,” Mogharabi stated. 

Last year, Meta lost more than $13 billion from its “Reality Labs” unit, the business sector focused on developing and expanding the metaverse. This shift comes after multiple big investors expressed their concerns over the lack of growth that came from the sector. 

Angelo Zino, a senior equity analyst at CFRA Research, said “the second round of layoffs at Meta officially make us convinced that Mark Zuckerberg has completely switched gears, altering the narrative of the company to one focused on efficiencies rather than looking to grow the metaverse at any cost.”

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Snapchat Launches AI Chatbot Powered by ChatGPT

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Snapchat is launching its own artificial intelligence chatbot powered by OpenAI’s viral ChatGPT. The feature, called My AI, will be available to Snapchat Plus subscribers starting this week.

In a blog post, Snapchat shared how My AI can help subscribers with various tasks and assist them in their day-to-day activities.

“My AI can recommend birthday gift ideas for your BFF, plan a hiking trip for a long weekend, suggest a recipe for dinner, or even write a haiku about cheese for your cheddar-obsessed pal.”

Snapchat cautioned, however, that the chatbot is “experimental” and may respond in unexpected ways.

“As with all AI-powered chatbots, My AI is prone to hallucination and can be tricked into saying just about anything. Please be aware of its many deficiencies, and sorry in advance!”

An AI hallucination is a term for when an AI presents false facts as the truth. In other words, it may confidently output completely made-up answers, leading to misinformation. At times, the answers may even be nonsensical.

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In an email to CNET, a Snapchat representative described how the company customized the latest version of OpenAI’s ChatGPT technology for its platform.

“My AI was trained to have a unique tone and personality that plays into Snapchat’s core values around friendship, learning, and fun. It has been trained to adhere to our trust and safety guidelines.”

The company’s community guidelines prohibit the chatbot from responding with explicit, inflammatory or violent content.

Snapchat will store all conversations between subscribers and their My AI to review and help improve product experience. Users can also submit direct feedback to Snapchat by pressing and holding any message. Snapchat advised users not to “share any secrets with My AI” and to not rely on it for advice.

Currently, the feature is only available to Snapchat Plus members. However, in an interview with the Verge, Snapchat founder and CEO Evan Spiegel said the goal is to make the feature available to all of Snapchat’s 750 million monthly users.

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Snapchat is the latest in a string of companies to integrate artificial intelligence into their platforms. Google recently revealed its ChatGPT contender Bard. The chatbot infamously made a factual error during an ad demo, costing Google a $100 billion drop in market value.

The same week, Microsoft announced it would integrate ChatGPT into its search engine Bing.

Since Snapchat is a messaging service, Spiegel believes it is uniquely positioned to create a personable chatbot. Spiegel told the Verge, “The big idea is that in addition to talking to our friends and family every day, we’re going to talk to AI every day.”

Unlike other AI chatbot integrations on platforms, Snapchat’s My AI interface suggests the chatbot is intended to be more than just a productivity tool. The chatbot has an avatar, and its “user profile” resembles a regular Snapchat friend profile. Users can even change the chat’s wallpaper.

The current price for a subscription to Snapchat Plus is $3.99 per month.

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Google’s AI Chatbot ‘Bard’ Makes a Factual Error, Costing Alphabet $100 Billion in Market Value

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Alphabet, the parent company of Google, saw a $100 billion drop in market value after Bard, its competing chatbot to Microsoft’s ChatGPT, made an error in an ad containing a demo.

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Real Estate Agents Utilizing ChatGPT AI Tool To Generate Listings

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Real estate agents across the nation are utilizing ChatGPT, an AI chatbot tool that can generate detailed descriptions based on prompts given by the user.

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The Ultimate Impact of Intelligent Automation Will Not Just Be Measured by Its Efficiency, but Also by How It Will Uplift Humanity | Dr. Asish Banerjee

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From robot-assisted surgery to email spam filters, there is much we gain from artificial intelligence. However, people are often wary of systems that they don’t fully understand. Dr. Ashis Banerjee, an associate professor of industrial and systems engineering and mechanical engineering at the University of Washington, has made it his mission to educate people about the ways in which automation can contribute to the betterment of humankind.

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Man Wins Art Fair With AI Generated Art

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A video game designer in Pueblo, Colorado, won an art fair with artwork generated by artificial intelligence software. Jason M. Allen entered his work titled “Théâtre D’opéra Spatial” into a state fair and received first place, winning a prize of $300. He had spent 80 hours tinkering with an AI art generator named Midjourney to create his final piece.

The two competition judges, Cal Duran and Dagny McKinley told The Pueblo Chieftain that while they did not know an AI created the work, they still would have awarded Allen the prize. In Duran’s mind, the chief purpose of any artwork is to tell a story.

“Even as this controversy is coming out, it’s still invoking that. It’s still causing an uproar. That in itself is kind of remarkable.”

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In order to generate art using an AI like Midjourney, a user must input keywords that the AI uses to make associations between prompts and images on the internet. It recognizes shapes, colors, and patterns within existing art and photos. The resulting piece of art is an amalgamation of those elements.

The recent development of AI-generated art engines such as DALL-E has started a debate on the ethics of art and the implications of automating creativity. While automation is becoming increasingly more common in other sectors of society, people previously considered the automation of art, music and writing beyond technological capability.

Even iPhone users can download AI art generators from Apple’s app store, albeit much weaker ones. Nonetheless, these apps can craft a piece of art within 15 seconds based on as little as one keyword. Even an online poetry generator titled “Verse by Verse” exists. Google programmed the software to compose poetry in the voice of historically famous poets.

Allen told The Pueblo Chieftain that Midjourney had also aided his team in creating concept art for their game designs. While inputting keywords may seem easy, Allen claims it is difficult to put in a prompt that is just right to generate the desired image.

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Judge McKinley is optimistic about the replicability of the quote-on-quote “artist” if AI art becomes commonplace. “Yes, it will likely take away some jobs from artists, but the technology exists and we can’t go backwards,” McKinley said.

“For me, nothing can replicate human work because human work is flawed and it is those flaws that bring humanity to art. How does an artist create their own style and voice? That is what makes art interesting.”

Understandably, many artists are unhappy with the potential automation of the creative process.

RJ Palmer, a concept artist, wrote on Twitter, “what makes this AI different is that it’s explicitly trained on current working artists.” Artists are not paid for their work but instead used to generate digital art pulled from their original ideas. Palmer writes that it is “actively anti-artist.”

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AI Rapper FN Meka Dropped From Capitol Records After Being Called Out For Racial Stereotyping 

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Capitol Records has dropped AI rapper FN Meka and offered its “deepest apologies to the Black community,” after the virtual celebrity was criticized for perpetuating racist stereotypes. This comes just 10 days after the record label signed FN Meka. 

FN Meka is an AI (Artificially Intelligent) rapper who was given the appearance of a Black Male cyborg. He was initially created in 2019 by Anthony Martini and Brandon Le, co founders of Factory New, a “first of its kind, next-generation music company, specializing in virtual beings” as performers. 

According to Martini, the rapper’s songs are performed by an anonymous Black man, but the music and lyrics are generated by an AI that analyzes popular music. Capitol Records boasted about how he was “the world’s first AR [Augmented Reality] artist to sign with a major label.” 

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However, within the 10 days that FN Meka was signed to the label, backlash against Capitol Records and the creators of the AI rapper grew due to his use of the N-word in his 2019 song ‘Moonwalkin,’ and an Instagram post that showed FN Meka being beaten by a police officer in prison. 

Capitol Records announced on Tuesday that it had “severed ties with the FN Meka project, effective immediately.” 

Just hours before Capitol’s statement Industry Blackout, “a unified body of Black people in the industry committed to changing the community,” released their own statement on FN Meka. 

“FN Meka is offensive and a direct insult to the Black community and our culture. An amalgamation of gross stereotypes, appropriative mannerisms that derive from Black artists, complete with slurs infused in lyrics.” 

“This digital effigy is a careless abomination and disrespectful to real people who face real consequences in real life,” Industry Blackout wrote in their statement to Capitol. 

“For example, Gunna, a Black artist who is featured on a song with FN Meka, is currently incarcerated for rapping the same type of lyrics this robot mimics. The difference is, your artificial rapper will not be subject to federal charges for such,” the group explained. 

 

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“Some of the early content, now if you take it out of context, it obviously looks worse or different than it was intended,” Martini said when he was asked about the image of FN Meka being beaten by a police officer.

“We offer our deepest apologies to the Black community for our insensitivity in signing this project without asking enough questions about equity and the creative process behind it.”

“We thank those who have reached out to us with constructive feedback in the past couple of days – your input was invaluable as we came to the decision to end our association with the project,” the statement read. 

Back in 2021 Martini, who is white, and Le, who is Asian, explained how they were working on making FN Meka fully AI, meaning he would no longer need a human as a voice. 

“As of now, a human voice performs the vocals, but we are working towards the ability to have a computer come up with and perform its own words – and even collaborate with other computers as ‘co-writers’,” Martini said. 

 

Europe’s Proposed Artificial Intelligence Law Could Cost Its Economy $36 Billion 

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A new law proposed for the European Union designed to regulate artificial intelligence could cost the nation up to 32 billion euros; about $36 billion. The payments would be spread out over five years according to a report from the Center for Data Innovation, a Washington-based think tank. 

The Artificial Intelligence Act is a proposed law put forward by the European Commission, the executive arm of the EU. The act is said to be the :world’s most restrictive regulation of AI” according to the center. 

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“It will not only limit AI development and use in Europe but impose significant costs on EU businesses and consumers.”

The Center for Data Innovation argued that a small or midsize enterprise with a turnover of 10 million euros will face compliance costs of up to 400,000 euros if it was to deploy an AI system deemed “high risk.” These systems are ones that the commission defines as “affecting people’s fundamental rights or safety.” 

“That designation sweeps in a broad swath of potential applications — from critical infrastructure to educational and vocational training — subjecting them to a battery of requirements before companies can bring them to market,” the center said.

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The center argues that “compliance borders” will cost European businesses 10.9 billion euros per year by 2025, or 31 billion euros over the next five years. Ben Mueller, a senior policy analyst at the Center for Data Innovation and author of the report suggested that this would be more harmful than helpful to many sectors of the economy. 

“The Commission has repeatedly asserted that the draft AI legislation will support growth and innovation in Europe’s digital economy, but a realistic economic analysis suggests that argument is disingenuous at best.”

“The rosy outlook is largely based on opinions and shibboleths rather than logic and market data,” he added, explaining that AI is already being used by major companies like Google, Apple, and Facebook, but lawmakers in Europe aren’t even aware of the impact this new law could have. 

Mueller explained that the technology has the potential to improve healthcare and climate modeling for the nation, however, it can also be used to give every citizen a “social score.” The law is still in the works and the debates over its actual benefits are ongoing.