All posts tagged: genAI

OpenAI built a voice cloning tool, but you can’t use it… yet

OpenAI built a voice cloning tool, but you can’t use it… yet

Published by skeptic

As deepfakes proliferate, OpenAI is refining the tech used to clone voices — but the company insists it’s doing so responsibly. Today marks the preview debut of OpenAI’s Voice Engine, an expansion of the company’s existing text-to-speech API. Under development for about two years, Voice Engine allows users to upload any 15-second voice sample to generate a synthetic copy of that voice. But there’s no date for public availability yet, giving the company time to respond to how the model is used and abused. “We want to make sure that everyone feels good about how it’s being deployed — that we understand the landscape of where this tech is dangerous and we have mitigations in place for that,” Jeff Harris, a member of the product staff at OpenAI, told TechCrunch in an interview. Training the model The generative AI model powering Voice Engine has been hiding in plain sight for some time, Harris said. The same model underpins the voice and “read aloud” capabilities in ChatGPT, OpenAI’s AI-powered chatbot, as well as the preset voices …

When deploying GenAI at scale, people must come first. Here’s how

When deploying GenAI at scale, people must come first. Here’s how

Published by skeptic

FG Trade/Getty Images A recent Salesforce survey of 600 IT leaders reveals a new mandate from their bosses: Incorporate generative artificial intelligence (GenAI) into the technology stack — and fast.  But the response from IT professionals is “not so fast” — highlighting concerns about resources, data security, and data quality.  Also: Even more businesses will use AI and data to boost sales and services this year Nearly three in five IT professionals say business stakeholders hold unreasonable expectations regarding the speed and agility of new technology implementations. In fact, the IT leadership survey reveals almost nine in 10 IT professionals can’t support the deluge of AI-related requests they receive at their organization. A 2024 study found that 90% of IT leaders say it’s tough to integrate AI with other systems. AI adoption has exploded and amplified the need for a coherent IT strategy, but achieving that balance is easier said than done. MuleSoft’s ninth annual Connectivity Benchmark Report was produced from interviews with 1,050 IT leaders (management positions or above) across the globe (public and …

OpenAI’s deals with publishers could spell trouble for rivals

OpenAI’s deals with publishers could spell trouble for rivals

Published by skeptic

OpenAI’s legal battle with The New York Times over data to train its AI models might still be brewing. But OpenAI’s forging ahead on deals with other publishers, including some of France’s and Spain’s largest news publishers. OpenAI on Wednesday announced that it signed contracts with Le Monde and Prisa Media to bring French and Spanish news content to OpenAI’s ChatGPT chatbot. In a blog post, OpenAI said that the partnership will put the organizations’ current events coverage — from brands including El País, Cinco Días, As and El Huffpost — in front of ChatGPT users where it makes sense, as well as contribute to OpenAI’s ever-expanding volume of training data. OpenAI writes: Over the coming months, ChatGPT users will be able to interact with relevant news content from these publishers through select summaries with attribution and enhanced links to the original articles, giving users the ability to access additional information or related articles from their news sites … We are continually making improvements to ChatGPT and are supporting the essential role of the news …

How to make AI music using Project Music GenAI

How to make AI music using Project Music GenAI

Published by skeptic

Adobe’s Project Music GenAI offers an easy way for anyone to start making AI music. Providing any budding musician with the ability to turn that single tune into a full-blown musical masterpiece with just a few clicks. This isn’t a distant dream; it’s what’s happening right now in the music industry, thanks to the power of artificial intelligence (AI). Project Music GenAI is at the forefront of this shift, enabling machines to do what once only human minds could—compose music. As you delve into the world of AI-generated music, you’ll see that AI isn’t just a helping hand; it’s reshaping the way music is created. Let’s talk about the impact AI is having on music composition. Imagine feeding a simple melody into a computer system and getting back a complete arrangement. That’s what AI technologies in music generation are doing. Project Music GenAI takes your melody and builds harmonious accompaniments around it, potentially taking your music to a professional level. This is changing the game for music production, making it more accessible to people who may …

Making GenAI more efficient with a new kind of chip

Making GenAI more efficient with a new kind of chip

Published by skeptic

A prototype mixed digital and analog chip does the most demanding portions of GenAI, the accumulate operation, in low-power analog circuitry. EnCharge AI 2024 is expected to be the year that generative artificial intelligence (GenAI) goes into production, when enterprises and consumer electronics start actually using the technology to make predictions in heavy volume — a process known as inference. For that to happen, the very large, complex creations of OpenAI and Meta, such as ChatGPT and Llama, somehow have to be able to run in energy-constrained devices that consume far less power than the many kilowatts used in cloud data centers. Also: 2024 may be the year AI learns in the palm of your hand That inference challenge is inspiring fundamental research breakthroughs toward drastically more efficient electronics. On Wednesday, semiconductor startup EnCharge AI announced that its partnership with Princeton University has received an $18.6 million grant from the US’s Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency, DARPA, to advance novel kinds of low-power circuitry that could be used in inference. “You’re starting to deploy these …

Google’s GenAI Bots Are Struggling. But so Are Its Humans

Google’s GenAI Bots Are Struggling. But so Are Its Humans

Published by skeptic

The last few months have been rough for Google. Company executives have been in the hot seat because of some embarrassing missteps, the most awkward of which was the bungled launch of Google’s latest image generator. The company launched it as part of its suite of GenAI tools named Gemini, but then quickly pulled it back after the generator produced some seriously weird results. This week, we welcome WIRED senior writer Paresh Dave back to the show to talk about Gemini’s strange outputs. We also talk about some of the staffing pains Google has been going through recently, including layoffs and accusations of discrimination. Show Notes Read more about the “woke AI” controversy. Read Bloomberg’s story about Google’s layoffs to its trust and safety team. Read Paresh’s story about the Googler with a disability who alleges workplace discrimination at the company. Listen to our broader discussion about tech layoffs on episode 633. Recommendations Paresh recommends the food blog The Fancy Navajo. Lauren recommends Lauren Mechling’s story in The Guardian about journalism; the Le Carré Cast …

Political deepfakes are spreading like wildfire thanks to GenAI

Political deepfakes are spreading like wildfire thanks to GenAI

Published by skeptic

This year, billions of people will vote in elections around the world. 2024 will see — and has seen — high-stakes races in more than 50 countries, from Russia and Taiwan to India and El Salvador. Demagogic candidates — and looming geopolitical threats — would test even the most robust democracies in any normal year. But this isn’t a normal year; AI-generated disinformation and misinformation is flooding the channels at a rate never before witnessed. And little’s being done about it. In a newly published study from the Center for Countering Digital Hate (CCDH), a British nonprofit dedicated to fighting hate speech and extremism online, the co-authors find that the volume of AI-generated disinformation — specifically deepfake images pertaining to elections —  has been rising by an average of 130% per month on X (formerly Twitter) over the past year. The study didn’t look at the proliferation of election-related deepfakes on other social media platforms, like Facebook or TikTok. But Callum Hood, head of research at the CCDH, said the results indicate that the availability …

Amazon’s new Rufus chatbot isn’t bad — but it isn’t great, either

Amazon’s new Rufus chatbot isn’t bad — but it isn’t great, either

Published by skeptic

Last month, Amazon announced that it’d launch a new AI-powered chatbot, Rufus, inside the Amazon Shopping app for Android and iOS. After a few weeks’ delay, the company began to roll out Rufus to early testers today — including some of us at TechCrunch — to help find and compare products as well as provide recommendations on what to buy. So I put it through the ringer, naturally. Rufus can be summoned in one of two ways on mobile: by swiping up from the bottom of the screen while browsing Amazon’s catalog or by tapping on the search bar, then one of the blue-bubbled suggestions under the new “Ask a question” section. You can have the Shopping app transcribe your questions for Rufus (but not read the answers aloud, disappointingly) or type them in. The Rufus chat interface is pretty bare bones at the moment. There’s a field for questions… and that’s about it. Conversations with Rufus can’t be exported or shared, and the extent of the settings is an option to view or clear …

Like 5G, telcos must seek commercial use cases to move GenAI forward

Like 5G, telcos must seek commercial use cases to move GenAI forward

Published by skeptic

Andriy Onufriyenko/Getty Images In driving the adoption of generative artificial intelligence (GenAI), telcos should seek out use cases that actually add value or they could face having to deal with issues ahead.  Noting that AI isn’t a new technology for telcos, GSMA Intelligence’s head Peter Jarich said GenAI has become much of the lexicon because it democratized the use of such tools and driven widespread interest in them. Also: 5.5G touted as the network to bring improved enterprise connectivity The key question now is how telco should tap the new opportunities. He pointed to 5G, which has been the fastest-growing mobile technology but hasn’t been as successful in driving profits and revenue for operators. It is the reason so much discussion continues to revolve around the monetization of 5G and leveraging its capabilities to deliver services that are useful.  He further noted that GenAI interest among operators remains low, with 56% still in the testing phase and the number of commercial deployments small.  While there are valid reasons for operators to move slowly — since …

Karine Perset helps governments understand AI

Karine Perset helps governments understand AI

Published by skeptic

To give AI-focused women academics and others their well-deserved — and overdue — time in the spotlight, TechCrunch is launching a series of interviews focusing on remarkable women who’ve contributed to the AI revolution. We’ll publish several pieces throughout the year as the AI boom continues, highlighting key work that often goes unrecognized. Read more profiles here. Karine Perset works for the Organization for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD), where she runs its AI Unit and oversees the OECD.AI Policy Observatory and the OECD.AI Networks of Experts within the Division for Digital Economy Policy. Perset specializes in AI and public policy. She previously worked as an advisor to the Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers (ICANN)’s Governmental Advisory Committee and as Conssellor of the OECD’s Science, Technology, and Industry Director. What work are you most proud of (in the AI field)? I am extremely proud of the work we do at OECD.AI. Over the last few years, the demand for policy resources and guidance on trustworthy AI has really increased from both OECD member countries and also …