Barret Zoph, a research lead at OpenAI, was recently demonstrating the new GPT-4o model and its ability to detect human emotions though a smartphone camera when ChatGPT misidentified his face as a wooden table. After a quick laugh, Zoph assured GPT-4o that he’s not a table and asked the AI …
Read More »With Gemini on Android, Google Points to Mobile Computing’s Future—and Past
Nearly a decade ago, Google showed off a feature called Now on Tap in Android Marshmallow—tap and hold the home button and Google will surface helpful contextual information related to what’s on the screen. Talking about a movie with a friend over text? Now on Tap could get you details …
Read More »It’s the End of Google Search As We Know It
Google Search is about to fundamentally change—for better or worse. To align with Alphabet-owned Google’s grand vision of artificial intelligence, and prompted by competition from AI upstarts like ChatGPT, the company’s core product is getting reorganized, more personalized, and much more summarized by AI. At Google’s annual I/O developer conference …
Read More »Astra Is Google’s Answer to the New ChatGPT
ChatGPT is not yet two years old, but the idea of communicating with artificial intelligence by typing into a box is already starting to seem quaint. At Google’s I/O developer conference today, Demis Hassabis, the executive leading the company’s effort to reestablish leadership in AI, introduced a “next-generation AI assistant” …
Read More »ChatGPT Gets a Snappy, Flirty Upgrade With OpenAI’s GPT-4o AI Model
Since it launched in late 2022, OpenAI’s ChatGPT has generally fended off suggestions that it has emotions or desires by responding that it’s just an artificial intelligence model. Upgrades announced by OpenAI Monday showed the company apparently trying to make the chatbot act more like a human. In demos, the …
Read More »Generative AI Is Totally Shameless. I Want to Be It
AI has a lot of problems. It helps itself to the work of others, regurgitating what it absorbs in a game of multidimensional Mad Libs and omitting all attribution, resulting in widespread outrage and litigation. When it draws pictures, it makes the CEOs white, puts people in awkward ethnic outfits, …
Read More »Protesters Are Fighting to Stop AI, but They’re Split on How to Do It
On a side street outside the headquarters of the Department of Science, Innovation and Technology in the center of London on Monday, 20 or so protesters are getting their chants in order. “What do we want? Safe AI! When do we want it?” The protesters hesitate. “Later?” someone offers. The …
Read More »I Am Once Again Asking Our Tech Overlords to Watch the Whole Movie
Today OpenAI announced GPT-4o, a new AI model that will be available to free and paid users alike. Among its many upgrades—faster response times, enhanced memory capabilities, better parsing of images—is a conversational voice that tries its level best to sound like a real live human. It laughs, it jokes, …
Read More »How A Controversial Gun-Detection Technology Found Its Way to NYC
In February 2022, a meeting was set up between New York City mayor Eric Adams’ team and an artificial intelligence gun-detection company called Evolv. An email thread from Evolv representatives included an accompanying brochure, which listed opportunities to partner together: in the Port Authority Bus Terminal, NYC schools, hospitals, and …
Read More »Generative AI Doesn’t Make Hardware Less Hard
Things aren’t going so well for AI hardware startups. After years of development, startup Humane launched a $700 wearable in early April that leans heavily on artificial intelligence. The original pitch for the Ai Pin was that you no longer need to juggle different apps; its operating system can “search …
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