Jay fell in love with math at boarding school after a supportive physics teacher introduced him to the joy of complex calculus. He went on to study physics and math in college, hoping to one day similarly pass on what he’d learned to a new generation. That chance came in …
Read More »Help, My Friend Got Me a Dumb AI-Generated Present
“An artist friend of mine got me an AI-generated painting as a gift. I can see she tried to personalize the concept, and it’s nicely framed, but part of me still feels a little cheated. Is that fair?” —No Returns Dear No Returns, There’s something implicitly paradoxical about feeling “cheated” …
Read More »This Tiny Website Is Google’s First Line of Defense in the Patent Wars
A trio of Google engineers recently came up with a futuristic way to help anyone who stumbles through presentations on video calls. They propose that when algorithms detect a speaker’s pulse racing or “umms” lengthening, a generative AI bot that mimics their voice could simply take over. That cutting-edge idea …
Read More »Google’s AI Boss Says Scale Only Gets You So Far
For much of last year, knocking OpenAI off its perch atop the tech industry looked all but impossible, as the company rode a riot of excitement and hype generated by a remarkable, garrulous, and occasionally unhinged program called ChatGPT. Google DeepMind CEO Demis Hassabis has recently at least given Sam …
Read More »Air Canada Has to Honor a Refund Policy Its Chatbot Made Up
After months of resisting, Air Canada was forced to give a partial refund to a grieving passenger who was misled by an airline chatbot inaccurately explaining the airline's bereavement travel policy. On the day Jake Moffatt's grandmother died, Moffat immediately visited Air Canada's website to book a flight from Vancouver …
Read More »This Company Says Conversational AI Will Kill Apps and Websites
I might have inadvertently insulted Bret Taylor and Clay Bavor when I interviewed them about their new AI startup last week. Their new company, Sierra, is developing AI-powered agents to “elevate the customer experience” for big companies. Among its original customers are WeightWatchers, Sonos, SiriusXM, and OluKai (a “Hawaiian-inspired” clothing …
Read More »OpenAI’s Sora Turns AI Prompts Into Photorealistic Videos
We already know that OpenAI’s chatbots can pass the bar exam without going to law school. Now, just in time for the Oscars, a new OpenAI app called Sora hopes to master cinema without going to film school. For now a research product, Sora is going out to a few …
Read More »Google’s Flagship AI Model Gets a Mighty Fast Upgrade
Alphabet’s Gemini AI model has been public for only two months, but the company is already releasing an upgrade. Gemini Pro 1.5, launching with limited availability today, is more powerful than its predecessor and can handle huge amounts of text, video, or audio input at a time. Demis Hassabis, CEO …
Read More »Some People Actually Kind of Love Deepfakes
A month ago, the consulting company Accenture presented a potential client an unusual and attention-grabbing pitch for a new project. Instead of the usual slide deck, the client saw deepfakes of several real employees standing on a virtual stage, offering perfectly delivered descriptions of the project they hoped to work …
Read More »The Puzzling Testimony of Craig Wright, Self-Styled Inventor of Bitcoin
The cross-examination of Craig Wright, a computer scientist defending his claims to be the inventor of Bitcoin in court, proceeded fitfully over the course of seven days. In the UK High Court, opposing counsel Jonathan Hough bombarded Wright with examples of what he argued were anomalies that showed Wright had …
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