On the heels of announcing a $6.6 billion funding round, OpenAI is getting busy with new products including the launch of the latest iteration of ChatGPT. The chatbot will now extend beyond simple questions and answers with Canvas, a new interface that opens in a separate window, allowing collaborative engagement with ChatGPT on writing and coding projects. Launching in beta, Canvas was built with GPT-4o and can be manually selected in the model picker. Canvas is being made available first to global ChatGPT Plus and Team users with Enterprise and Edu users next. The company says it will be available to all free ChatGPT users when it’s out of beta. Continue reading ChatGPT Enhances Collaborative Ability with Canvas Interface

OpenAI has begun allowing users of its DALL-E 2 image-generating system to work with facial image uploads. The program previously allowed only computer-generated faces in an effort to prevent deepfakes and misuse, but OpenAI says improvements to its safety system succeeded in “minimizing the potential of harm” from things like explicit, political or violent content. OpenAI will continue to prohibit use of unauthorized photos and will seek to protect right of publicity, though it remains to be seen how effective that will be. In the past, customers have complained the company was overzealous in its policing. Continue reading OpenAI Expands DALL-E 2 Functionality with Facial Uploads

According to a Treasury Department report, a number of tech startups have received funds from the federal government’s Paycheck Protection Program, forgivable loans intended to pay workers’ salaries. Cloud software company C3.ai, for example, valued at $3.3 billion, got a $5 million Paycheck Protection Program loan. Other startups have been denied loans, however, when the federal authorities deemed their venture capital partners an “affiliated business.” Meanwhile, almost 70,000 employees of tech startups recently lost their jobs. Continue reading Federal Payroll Loans Unevenly Distributed to Tech Startups

Some startups are trying to create another form of AI than deep learning, to minimize the amount of training, data and server power needed. Samsung Next, the South Korean company’s venture capital unit, just launched the Q Fund to jumpstart this idea by funding companies focusing on new ways of developing artificial intelligence. One of Q Fund’s first investments is Vicarious, a startup that wants to give machines “imagination” and is inspired by biology to make machines learn more quickly. Continue reading Samsung Fund to Boost Startups with New Approaches to AI