AI Memmo | 11-19-23

Below is a summary of the most interesting articles from the past week related to AI.
article date: 11/19/2023



Microsoft Ignite 2023: Copilot AI expansions, custom chips and all the other announcements
Summary: Microsoft's Ignite 2023 event was highlighted by several AI product reveals and expansions. The company rebranded its AI-powered chatbot, Bing Chat, to Copilot, making it accessible in Windows and other platforms. Microsoft also announced its custom AI chips, Azure Maia 100 AI Accelerator and Azure Cobalt 100 CPU, aimed at reducing GPU dependency. New AI tools were unveiled, including Copilot for Azure, Copilot for Service, Copilot Studio, and Copilot in Dynamics 365 Guides. Microsoft Teams introduced an AI-powered home decorator and voice isolation feature. The company also consolidated its planning tools into a single product and announced copyright protections for more customers using Azure's OpenAI Service. Lastly, Microsoft introduced Windows AI Studio for running AI locally on Windows and Azure AI Speech for creating text-to-speech avatars.
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Category: AI in Business, Technology Updates.

Meta brings us a step closer to AI-generated movies
Summary: Meta has introduced a new technology, Emu Video, that brings us closer to AI-generated movies. Emu Video is an evolution of Meta's image generation tool, Emu, and can generate a four-second animated clip from a caption, image, or photo paired with a description. The clips can be edited using another AI model, Emu Edit, which allows users to describe modifications in natural language. Despite its impressive capabilities, Emu Video has limitations, particularly in animating complex actions and maintaining consistent object presence. The technology has raised ethical concerns about the potential displacement of animators and artists, as well as issues around copyright and compensation for creators whose works are used in training AI models. Link: Link to Article
Category: Business, entertainment

Google is opening up its Bard AI chatbot to teenagers
Summary: Google is expanding access to its conversational AI tool, Bard, to teenagers who meet the minimum age requirement to manage their own Google Account. The tool, which can be used for learning and problem-solving, will be available in English initially, with more languages to be added in the future. Google has implemented safety features and guardrails to protect teen users from inappropriate content. Bard can also assist with data visualization and provide step-by-step explanations for solving math equations. The first time a teen asks a fact-based question, Google's double-check response feature will automatically run to evaluate the accuracy of Bard's response. The company is also planning to introduce an onboarding experience for teens to learn how to use generative AI responsibly.
Link: Link to Article
Category: Generative AI

Siena AI raises $4.7M to develop an empathic AI customer service agent
Summary: Siena AI, a company co-founded by Andrei Negrau and Lisa Popovici, has raised $4.7 million in seed funding to develop an AI customer service agent that can respond with empathy like a human. The AI-powered customer support solution is designed to understand context and juggle multiple tasks in the same interaction. The company's unique features include AI Personas, which allow merchants to create a unique brand voice, and a cognitive reasoning-based engine, CORE, which determines the best resolution path for complex customer service problems. Since its launch six months ago, Siena AI has acquired 65 customers and manages up to 80% of customer interactions across over 100 languages and all channels. The funding will be used for hiring, go-to-market capabilities, and technology development.
Link: Link to Article
Category: Business

Microsoft launches a deepfakes creator at Ignite 2023 event
Summary: Microsoft has launched a tool called Azure AI Speech text-to-speech avatar at the Ignite 2023 event. This tool can create a photorealistic avatar of a person and animate it to say things that the person didn't necessarily say. Users can generate videos of an avatar speaking by uploading images of a person and writing a script. The tool trains a model to animate the avatar, while a separate text-to-speech model reads the script aloud. The avatars can speak in multiple languages and can be used to build conversational agents, virtual assistants, chatbots, and more. Microsoft has implemented measures to prevent misuse, including limiting access to custom avatars and requiring explicit written permission from avatar talent.
Link: Link to Article
Category: Business

Google claims it is beating Huawei in AI weather prediction
Summary: Google's DeepMind AI unit has developed an AI weather forecaster, GraphCast, that has outperformed the European Centre for Medium-Range Weather Forecasting (ECMWF) across 90% of over 1,300 atmospheric variables such as humidity and temperature. Unlike traditional weather simulations that require powerful servers and hours to compute, GraphCast can generate a forecast in under a minute on a laptop. The AI model uses machine learning algorithms trained on 39 years of observations collected by the ECMWF. Despite its success, the model has limitations, including a tendency to underestimate the strength of significant events like Category 5 storms and difficulties in predicting conditions in the stratosphere.
Link: Link to Article
Category: Business

Biden’s Executive Order on AI Is a Good Start, Experts Say, but Not Enough
Summary: President Joe Biden has signed an executive order that sets new federal standards for AI safety, security, and trustworthiness. The order, which is the most comprehensive official policy on artificial intelligence in the U.S. to date, also addresses various aspects of AI risk and development. It mandates AI developers to share safety data, training information, and reports with the U.S. government before publicly releasing large AI models or updated versions of such models. The order also requires the creation of federal standards and tests to ensure AI doesn't threaten national security. However, experts argue that while the order is a significant step forward, it has notable gaps and is insufficient to tackle all the problems posed by advancing AI.
Link: Link to Article
Category: Business

US, China at critical odds on future of military AI
Summary: The US and China have agreed to hold talks on the future use of artificial intelligence (AI) in military areas amid rising tensions over various issues. The agreement was made during the Asia Pacific Economic Cooperation (APEC) summit. However, there is no indication that the two countries are close to making a joint declaration. The discussions are expected to focus on the risks associated with using advanced AI systems in sensitive military functions. Despite this, neither side is likely to accept any ban limiting their freedom to deploy AI in their militaries. The US is pushing for clear and strong legal instruments that restrict the use of AI in autonomous weapons systems, while China aims to counterbalance and rival the US in setting future AI standards, particularly in the military sphere.
Link: Link to Article
Category: AI in Military, International Relations.

Mind-Reading AI Turns Thoughts Into Text, Gives ALS Patient His Voice Back
Summary: Unbabel, a neural tech company, has demonstrated its Project Halo at the Web Summit conference. The technology aims to enable silent, thought-based communication between humans and machines by combining a non-invasive neural interface with generative AI to transform bioelectrical signals into language. The system allows users to receive a message via earbuds and then send a reply by simply thinking about what they want to say. This technology has potential applications ranging from replying to texts in a movie theater to helping people with amyotrophic lateral sclerosis (ALS) communicate via text or audio notes. The company plans to commercially launch Project Halo in 2024.
Link: Link to Article
Category: AI in Healthcare, Neural Interfaces.

ChatGPT Puts Paid Plan Signups on Pause as Systems Strain
Summary: OpenAI has temporarily halted new signups for its ChatGPT Plus program due to overwhelming demand that has exceeded the platform's capacity. The decision was announced by the company's CEO, Sam Altman, following a surge in consumer demand after the introduction of new features at the company's developer conference, DevDay. The company also shared details about its new GPT-4 Turbo AI model at the event and discussed plans to pay creators who are subscribed to the program for using GPTs they have made. The pause in new signups is a response to the need to ensure a high-quality user experience amidst the surge in usage.
Link: Link to Article
Category: AI Services, OpenAI.

New Open Source AI Model from China Boasts Twice the Capacity of ChatGPT
Summary: Beijing Lingyi Wanwu Information Technology Company has developed an open-source artificial intelligence (AI) model, known as the Yi series, which can handle up to 200,000 tokens of context. This capacity significantly surpasses other popular models like Anthropic's Claude and OpenAI's GPT-4 Turbo. The Yi series, which includes the lightweight Yi-6B-200K and the more robust Yi-34B-200K, can understand and respond to English and Mandarin. Despite a limitation where the model struggles to retrieve accurate information when a prompt occupies more than 65% of its capacity, the Yi series performs well in reading comprehension, common-sense reasoning, and common AI tests. The open-source nature of the model allows users to run it locally on their own systems, offering greater control and customizability.
Link: Link to Article
Category: AI Development, International AI.

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