Elon Musk and Steve Wozniak are among a group of more than 1,100 tech leaders, researchers and AI stakeholders who have signed an open letter calling for a pause on “giant AI experiments.” The missive, published by the Future of Life Institute, warns of “profound risks to society and humanity” that could be caused by an “out-of-control race” to develop and commercially deploy artificial intelligence systems “that no one — not even their creators — can understand, predict, or reliably control.” Other signatories include politician Andrew Yang, Skype co-founder Jaan Tallinn, Pinterest co-founder Evan Sharp and Stability AI CEO Emad Mostaque.  Continue reading Concerned Thought Leaders Call for Pause on AI Movement

SoftBank-owned Alibaba Group — with headquarters in Hangzhou, China — plans to split into six independent companies that may seek separate IPOs, the company announced as Chinese authorities appear to be winding down a regulatory clampdown on the country’s powerful technology sector. The business empire assembled around e-commerce by industrialist Jack Ma these past 20 years was at its peak valued at more than $800 billion but is now assessed at about one-fourth that amount. The company’s stock soared on the news adding about $32 billion in global value, a rising tide that also lifted competitors’ boats. Continue reading Alibaba to Split into Six New Companies with Potential IPOs

Despite threats by U.S. lawmakers to ban popular social video app TikTok, parent company ByteDance continues to drive its apps to the top of the charts. The Chinese company’s latest hit is Lemon8, described as a rival to Instagram that serves a “lifestyle community.” As of Monday, Lemon8 was No. 10 across apps and games in the U.S. App Store’s Top Charts. On Tuesday it climbed to No. 9 among apps. The video- and photo-sharing app was launched internationally in March 2020, but ByteDance appears to have taken a new interest in promoting it. Last month, media outlets reported the company was paying influencers to post on it. Continue reading ByteDance Pushes Lemon8, a Possible Instagram Competitor

Nvidia is launching new cloud services to help businesses leverage AI at scale. Under the banner Nvidia AI Foundations, the company is providing tools to let clients build and run their own generative AI models that are custom trained on data specific to the intended task. The individual cloud offerings are Nvidia NeMo for language models and Nvidia Picasso for 3D visuals including video and images. Speaking at Nvidia’s annual GPU Technology Conference (GTC) last week, CEO Jensen Huang said “the impressive capabilities of generative AI have created a sense of urgency for companies to reimagine their products and business models.” Continue reading Nvidia Introduces Cloud Services to Leverage AI Capabilities

On the heels of its success debuting the new Bing AI search engine, Microsoft has revamped Teams, promising twice the performance using half the memory resources and allowing users to appear as 3D avatars in video meetings. Teams now features AI and the interface has been redesigned. For now, the new Teams is available only to those who opt-in to a public preview for Windows users, though Microsoft plans to make it more widely available (including on Apple devices) later this  year. In January, Microsoft reported Teams had 280 million monthly active users, up from 250 million in July 2021. Continue reading Microsoft Upgrades Teams with Avatars, AI, Improved Speed

In what the White House says is a precedent-setting move, President Biden has signed an executive order prohibiting use by the U.S. Government of “commercial spyware,” powerful cyber technology used by state actors to spy on journalists, dissidents and human rights activists. The White House defined the class of apps as “sophisticated and invasive cyber surveillance tools sold by vendors to access electronic devices remotely, extract their content, and manipulate their components, all without the knowledge or consent of the devices’ users,” explaining such technology “has proliferated in recent years with few controls and high risk of abuse.” Continue reading Biden Restricts the Government Use of Commercial Spyware

Apple plans to spend $1 billion a year on theatrical release films, according to Bloomberg, which say the move is “part of an ambitious effort to raise its profile in Hollywood and lure subscribers to its streaming service.” The films will reportedly play in theaters for at least one month before debuting on Apple TV+. Martin Scorsese’s crime drama “Killers of the Flower Moon,” starring Leonardo DiCaprio, and Ridley Scott’s historical drama “Napoleon,” are among the Apple-funded projects expected to be released in “thousands of theaters,” though Apple still hasn’t finalized distribution arrangements. Continue reading Apple Reportedly Allocates $1 Billion for Theatrical Releases

Adobe is plunging into the world of generative AI with Adobe Sensei GenAI, designed to leverage multiple large language models across the Adobe Experience Cloud and the real-time data management framework known as the Adobe Experience Platform. Adobe Firefly is the company’s new suite of creative generative AI models for the cloud. Its first two products are a text-to-image generator and an effects generator for typeface. Adobe is touting its image-creator as “designed to generate content safe for commercial use” in that the AI model was trained only on licensed or out-of-copyright work and shouldn’t expose users to liability. Continue reading Adobe Sensei GenAI Offers Firefly Image-Generator, Text FX

Canva, the web-based design platform, is debuting “Magic” AI-powered tools that can automate a variety of tasks, from logo design to video editing. The idea is to empower people without design training to do these things, and more. Infographics, advertising materials, illustrations and presentations are among the types of output Canva AI offers. The company is also adding brand management tools to its Visual Worksuite, including a Brand Hub that provides assets for creative application, with permission settings that can restrict off-brand use of things like color or fonts. Continue reading Canva Launches New Branding Features and Magic AI Tools

Epic Games introduced Unreal Engine 5.2 at GDC 2023, demonstrating new levels of photorealism and physics designed to facilitate the creation of real-time interactive worlds for the metaverse. Procedural content generation tools and a material framework called Substrate for intricate surfaces with detailed refraction and reflection are new to the 5.2 preview build, available now at the Unreal Engine Marketplace and on GitHub. The economy around Unreal Editor for “Fortnite” has expanded to include a new revenue-sharing plan that lets creators keep 40 percent of funds generated from “islands” they create for the popular game. Continue reading Epic Debuts Unreal 5.2 and Expands ‘Fortnite’ Profit-Sharing

OpenAI is adding plug-in support for ChatGPT, a major upgrade that lets the chatbot incorporate current web data, as opposed to being limited to training data ending in 2021. Initially, the company is allowing 12 external plug-ins, including those from Expedia, Instacart, OpenTable, Shopify, Slack and Zapier. The group has been invited through a waitlist. “We’re starting with a small set of users and are planning to gradually roll out larger-scale access as we learn more,” explained OpenAI, which is also introducing two plug-ins of its own: a web browser and code interpreter. Continue reading OpenAI Adds Browser, Plug-In and API Support for ChatGPT

After several months of testing, Anthropic is making its AI chatbot Claude available for general release in two configurations: the high-performace Claude and a lighter, cheaper, faster option called Claude Instant. Anthropic was launched in 2021 by a pair of former OpenAI employees, and its Claude chatbots are competitors to that firm’s ChatGPT. Accessible through a chat interface and API in Anthropic’s developer console, Claude is being marketed as the product of training designed to produce a more “helpful, honest, and harmless AI systems.” To that end, Anthropic says “Claude is much less likely to produce harmful outputs.” Continue reading Anthropic Takes Claude Chatbot Public After Months of Tests

Filmustage, a digital platform that streamlines pre-production for film, has raised $550,000 in a funding round backed by Flyer One Ventures, Geek Ventures, Imaguru and Vesna Capital. The money will be used to translate the product into languages including Spanish, French and German as part of an international expansion commencing this summer. Next year the company plans to add Hindi and Chinese. Founded in 2020, Filmustage software automates script breakdowns, categorizing scenes and tagging elements like costumes, props, characters and locations. Company co-founder and CEO Egor Dubrovsky said more than 30 features have been added since launch. Continue reading Filmustage Software Uses AI to Automate Script Breakdowns

Today’s leading AI chatbots need tremendous computing resources to train, then function, but that isn’t stopping startups from trying to get into the game, some with open-source alternatives. Clearly disadvantaged compared to market leaders like OpenAI, Meta, DeepMind and Anthropic — deep-pocketed, all — a band of independent researchers has coalesced under the name Together. Their aim: to become the first open-source challenger to the likes of ChatGPT. The industry seems undecided as to whether open-source AI is a good thing. Many are worried at the thought of a universally available AI toolkit, and what troublemakers might do with it. Continue reading Researchers Developing Open-Source Challenger to ChatGPT

The Federal Trade Commission is cracking down on fraudulent tech advertising, which escalated substantially during the COVID-19 pandemic, issuing orders to eight social media and video streaming platforms seeking information on commercial practices that are deceptive or expose consumers to false health-care products, financial scams and counterfeit or fake goods. The action compels services including Meta Platforms’ Instagram, Alphabet’s YouTube, ByteDance’s TikTok and Amazon’s Twitch to provide answers in 45 days so the FTC can analyze their practices. In addition to fact-finding, the order is intended to pressure the companies to self-regulate. Continue reading FTC Demands Info from Tech Firms in Fight Against Ad Fraud