AI gains momentum in core manufacturing services functions
When considering the potential for AI systems to change manufacturing, Ritu Jyoti, global AI research lead at market-intelligence firm IDC, points to windmill manufacturers. To improve windmills before AI, she says, the company analyzed data from observing a functioning prototype, a process that took weeks. Now, the manufacturer has dramatically shortened the process using a…
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People shouldn’t pay such a high price for calling out AI harms
This week everyone is talking about AI. The White House just unveiled a new executive order that aims to promote safe, secure, and trustworthy AI systems. It’s the most far-reaching bit of AI regulation the US has produced yet, and my colleague Tate Ryan-Mosley and I have highlighted three things you need to know about…
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Unlocking supply chain resiliency
Tracking a Big Mac hamburger’s journey from ranch to fast-food restaurant isn’t easy. Today’s highly segmented beef supply chain consists of a wide array of ranches, feedlots, packers, processors, distribution centers, and restaurants, each with its own set of carefully collected data. Yet in today’s complex digital world, organizations need more visibility than ever to…
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We need to focus on the AI harms that already exist
This is an excerpt from Unmasking AI: My Mission to Protect What Is Human in a World of Machines by Joy Buolamwini, published on October 31 by Random House. It has been lightly edited. The term “x-risk” is used as a shorthand for the hypothetical existential risk posed by AI. While my research supports the…
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Joy Buolamwini: “We’re giving AI companies a free pass”
Joy Buolamwini, the renowned AI researcher and activist, appears on the Zoom screen from home in Boston, wearing her signature thick-rimmed glasses. As an MIT grad, she seems genuinely interested in seeing old covers of MIT Technology Review that hang in our London office. An edition of the magazine from 1961 asks: “Will your son…
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Exclusive: Ilya Sutskever, OpenAI’s chief scientist, on his hopes and fears for the future of AI
Ilya Sutskever, head bowed, is deep in thought. His arms are spread wide and his fingers are splayed on the tabletop like a concert pianist about to play his first notes. We sit in silence. I’ve come to meet Sutskever, OpenAI’s cofounder and chief scientist, in his company’s unmarked office building on an unremarkable street in…
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This new tool could give artists an edge over AI
This story originally appeared in The Algorithm, our weekly newsletter on AI. To get stories like this in your inbox first, sign up here. The artist-led backlash against AI is well underway. While plenty of people are still enjoying letting their imaginations run wild with popular text-to-image models like DALL-E 2, Midjourney, and Stable Diffusion,…
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This new data poisoning tool lets artists fight back against generative AI
A new tool lets artists add invisible changes to the pixels in their art before they upload it online so that if it’s scraped into an AI training set, it can cause the resulting model to break in chaotic and unpredictable ways. The tool, called Nightshade, is intended as a way to fight back against…
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How Meta and AI companies recruited striking actors to train AI
One evening in early September, T, a 28-year-old actor who asked to be identified by his first initial, took his seat in a rented Hollywood studio space in front of three cameras, a director, and a producer for a somewhat unusual gig. The two-hour shoot produced footage that was not meant to be viewed by…
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China has a new plan for judging the safety of generative AI—and it’s packed with details
This story first appeared in China Report, MIT Technology Review’s newsletter about technology in China. Sign up to receive it in your inbox every Tuesday. Ever since the Chinese government passed a law on generative AI back in July, I’ve been wondering how exactly China’s censorship machine would adapt for the AI era. The content produced by…
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