The US Department of Defense is investing in deepfake detection
The US Department of Defense has invested $2.4 million over two years in deepfake detection technology from a startup called Hive AI. It’s the first contract of its kind for the DOD’s Defense Innovation Unit, which accelerates the adoption of new technologies for the US defense sector. Hive AI’s models are capable of detecting AI-generated…
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OpenAI’s new defense contract completes its military pivot
At the start of 2024, OpenAI’s rules for how armed forces might use its technology were unambiguous. The company prohibited anyone from using its models for “weapons development” or “military and warfare.” That changed on January 10, when The Intercept reported that OpenAI had softened those restrictions, forbidding anyone from using the technology to “harm…
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Google DeepMind’s new AI model is the best yet at weather forecasting
Google DeepMind has unveiled an AI model that’s better at predicting the weather than the current best systems. The new model, dubbed GenCast, is published in Nature today. This is the second AI weather model that Google has launched in just the past few months. In July, it published details of NeuralGCM, a model that…
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The startup trying to turn the web into a database
A startup called Exa is pitching a new spin on generative search. It uses the tech behind large language models to return lists of results that it claims are more on point than those from its rivals, including Google and OpenAI. The aim is to turn the internet’s vast and chaotic tangle of web pages…
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How US AI policy might change under Trump
This story is from The Algorithm, our weekly newsletter on AI. To get it in your inbox first, sign up here. President Biden first witnessed the capabilities of ChatGPT in 2022 during a demo from Arati Prabhakar, the Director of the White House Office of Science and Technology Policy, in the oval office. That demo set…
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Moving generative AI into production
Generative AI has taken off. Since the introduction of ChatGPT in November 2022, businesses have flocked to large language models (LLMs) and generative AI models looking for solutions to their most complex and labor-intensive problems. The promise that customer service could be turned over to highly trained chat platforms that could recognize a customer’s problem and…
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This manga publisher is using Anthropic’s AI to translate Japanese comics into English
A Japanese publishing startup is using Anthropic’s flagship large language model Claude to help translate manga into English, allowing the company to churn out a new title for a Western audience in just a few days rather than the 2-3 months it would take a team of humans. Orange was founded by Shoko Ugaki, a…
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What the departing White House chief tech advisor has to say on AI
President Biden’s administration will end within two months, and likely to depart with him is Arati Prabhakar, the top mind for science and technology in his cabinet. She has served as Director of the White House Office of Science and Technology Policy since 2022 and was the first to demonstrate ChatGPT to the president in…
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These AI Minecraft characters did weirdly human stuff all on their own
Left to their own devices, an army of AI characters didn’t just survive — they thrived. They developed in-game jobs, shared memes, voted on tax reforms and even spread a religion. The experiment played out on the open-world gaming platform Minecraft, where up to 1000 software agents at a time used large language models (LLMs)…
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We need to start wrestling with the ethics of AI agents
Generative AI models have become remarkably good at conversing with us, and creating images, videos, and music for us, but they’re not all that good at doing things for us. AI agents promise to change that. Think of them as AI models with a script and a purpose. They tend to come in one of…
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