Spotify is using AI to drive podcast language translation in what sounds like the podcaster’s own voice, which has obvious implications for film and television dubbing. Working with podcast notables including Dax Shepard, Monica Padman and Bill Simmons, Spotify used AI to mimic their voices in Spanish, French and German for several episodes. The proprietary Spotify technology uses OpenAI’s new text-to-speech voice-generation technology as well as its open-source Whisper speech recognition system, which transcribes spoken words into text. The result, Spotify says, is “more authentic” and “more personal and natural” than traditional dubbing. Continue reading Spotify Uses AI to Copy Host Voices for Podcast Translations

Amazon has entered into a strategic investment in San Francisco-based Anthropic, founded by former members of OpenAI. The AI startup will train and deploy future models using AWS Trainium and Inferentia chips to train and deploy future foundation models with AWS as its primary cloud provider. In turn, Amazon says it will invest up to $4 billion in Anthropic, as it strives to compete with other technology firms in the race to develop generative AI, seeding growth for what is shaping up to be an entirely new economic and social landscape. Continue reading Amazon Plans to Invest Up to $4 Billion in AI Startup Anthropic

YouTube announced a new AI-powered creator tool called Dream Screen and hinted at things to come at its annual Made on YouTube event last week. Rolling out on a test basis to select YouTube Shorts creators later this year, Dream Screen will generate “fantastic settings” for video backgrounds. YouTube says it will “eventually” allow creators to “instantly reimagine” their videos by typing an idea prompt that results in new content created with AI tools. The company also announced it will have AI-generated recommendations for video ideas and machine learning assistance with music track search. Continue reading YouTube Debuts AI Creator Tools for Shorts and Mobile Video

As creators embrace artificial intelligence to juice creativity, TikTok is launching a tool that helps them label their AI-generated content while also beginning to test “ways to label AI-generated content automatically.” “AI enables incredible creative opportunities, but can potentially confuse or mislead viewers,” TikTok said in announcing labels that can apply to “any content that has been completely generated or significantly edited by AI,” including video, photographs, music and more. The platform also touted a policy that “requires people to label AI-generated content that contains realistic images, audio or video, in order to help viewers contextualize.” Continue reading TikTok Creates New Tools for Labeling Content Created by AI

Amazon announced a wide range of compelling news at its annual Devices and Services event this week. The company is adding artificial intelligence to its virtual assistant Alexa and unveiled next-generation Echo Frames smart glasses that let you take the voice assistant “on the go.” AI also provides “enhanced conversational voice search” with the new Fire TV Stick 4K Max. The company’s eero Max 7 Wi-Fi system and new Echo Hub are also stand-outs from the holiday shopping primer, which streamed live from Amazon’s new corporate compound in Arlington, Virginia, ahead of Prime Big Deal Days, October 10-11. Continue reading Amazon Debuts AI for Alexa and Fire TV Max 4K at Fall Event

OpenAI has released the DALL-E 3 generative AI imaging platform in research preview. The latest iteration features more safety options and integrates with OpenAI’s ChatGPT, currently driven by the now seasoned large language model GPT-4. That is the ChatGPT version to which Plus subscribers and enterprise customers have access — the same who will be able to preview DALL-E 3. The free chatbot is built around GPT-3.5. OpenAI says GPT-4 makes for better contextual understanding by DALL-E, which even in version 2 evidenced some glaring comprehension glitches. Continue reading OpenAI’s Latest Version of DALL-E Integrates with ChatGPT

The UK’s Competition and Markets Authority has issued a report featuring seven proposed principles that aim to “ensure consumer protection and healthy competition are at the heart of responsible development and use of foundation models,” or FMs. Ranging from “accountability” and “diversity” to “transparency,” the principles aim to “spur innovation and growth” while implementing social safety measures amidst rapid adoption of apps including OpenAI’s ChatGPT, Microsoft 365 Copilot, Stability AI’s Stable Diffusion. The transformative properties of FMs can “have a significant impact on people, businesses, and the UK economy,” according to the CMA. Continue reading UK’s Competition Office Issues Principles for Responsible AI

Adobe Firefly is out of beta and in release, adding generative AI features to the Creative Cloud suite. The upgrade starts this week with Firefly added to Photoshop and Illustrator. “AI-powered innovation” is also being integrated into Premiere Pro and After Effects, the company says. Creative Cloud paid plans now include the Firefly web application, “a playground for exploring AI-assisted creative expression.” The company is also going wide with Adobe GenStudio for enterprises, and is rolling out a bonus program that pays contributors to Adobe Stock, on which Firefly was trained for model training data. Continue reading Adobe Releases Firefly and Intros Contributor Model Training

Stability AI is launching Stable Audio, a music generation AI tool that uses latent diffusion to deliver what the company says is high-quality 44.1 kHz music for commercial use. Stable Audio uses a web-based interface to generate music from text prompts and duration. Because its latent diffusion model architecture has been conditioned on text metadata as well as audio file duration and start time, it defeats a problem common to diffusion for generative audio — producing cohesive musical segments as opposed to arbitrary sections of a song that start or end in the middle of a phrase. Continue reading Stability AI Develops ‘Stable Audio’ Generative Text-to-Music

ETC@USC is hosting its 9th vETC virtual conference at this year’s IBC in Amsterdam, September 15-18. The event — which highlights significant presentations of emerging technologies and their impact on the M&E industry — will explore how generative AI, machine learning, and other compelling new tools help simplify building 3D worlds and tackle today’s computer vision challenges. The sessions will be recorded and posted on ETC’s YouTube channel. For those attending IBC who may be interested in attending the sessions (located in Hall 7 at Booth C28), visit the program guide, which includes a full schedule and speaker bios. Continue reading vETC Coming to IBC 2023: The Path of Sustainable Innovation

U.S. consumers are consolidating their devices, eliminating outdated ones to make room for new ones that better serve their needs, according to the fourth annual Deloitte Connected Consumer survey. The study found that while 48 percent of consumers purchased a minimum of one new connected device this year, the average number of devices per household fell to 21 in 2023 from 25 in 2021, “when many loaded up on technology during the COVID-19 pandemic.” Although many consumers may be attempting to streamline their digital lives, they remain very interested in virtual experiences and tech innovation. Continue reading Deloitte: Consumer Views of Connected Devices Are Changing

Microsoft says it will assume legal responsibility for commercial customers who get sued for copyright infringement as a result of the company’s AI Copilot product services. A new initiative called the Copilot Copyright Commitment is designed to provide peace of mind to Microsoft business users as more copyright holders challenge the handling of protected works by the companies building AI models. “If a third party sues a commercial customer for copyright infringement for using Microsoft’s Copilots or the output they generate, we will defend the customer” and pay any resulting fees, including settlements, Microsoft says. Continue reading Microsoft Copilot AI Customers Shielded from Legal Exposure

Financial software giant Intuit is adding a customer-facing AI assistant to work with individuals and small businesses. Intuit Assist is being integrated across Intuit products starting with TurboTax and expanding to QuickBooks, Credit Karma and Mailchimp. Assist will be embedded across Intuit’s products via a common user interface, allowing customers to get personalized recommendations via contextual datasets. The generative AI assistant was built using Intuit’s Generative AI Operating System, a proprietary corporate model dubbed GenOS, launched in June. Intuit is working with OpenAI to accelerate GenAI app development on GenOS. Continue reading Intuit’s GenOS Spawns Its First Customer AI Product: ‘Assist’

California Governor Gavin Newsom signed an executive order for state agencies to study artificial intelligence and its impact on society and the economy. “We’re only scratching the surface of understanding what GenAI is capable of,” Newsom suggested. Recognizing “both the potential benefits and risks these tools enable,” he said his administration is “neither frozen by the fears nor hypnotized by the upside.” The move was couched as a “measured approach” that will help California “focus on shaping the future of ethical, transparent, and trustworthy AI, while remaining the world’s AI leader.” Continue reading Governor Newsom Orders Study of GenAI Benefits and Risks

Walmart is putting generative AI in the hands of roughly 50,000 non-store U.S. employees who will have access to My Assistant, an LLM trained on information. From speeding the drafting process to serving as a creative partner and summarizing documents, “My Assistant has the potential to change how our associates work and solve problems,” Walmart said, emphasizing the launch goes beyond productivity gains. “We believe the key to unlocking transformation lies in the creativity and innovation of our associates. Ideally, this technology will free them from monotonous, repetitive tasks, allowing more time and focus for improving the customer/member experience.”  Continue reading Walmart Is ‘Empowering’ 50,000 U.S. Associates with GenAI