AI’s hype and antitrust problem is coming under scrutiny
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 AI sector is plagued by a lack of competition and a lot of deceit—or at least that’s one way to interpret the latest flurry of actions taken in Washington. Last…
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We saw a demo of the new AI system powering Anduril’s vision for war
One afternoon in late November, I visited a weapons test site in the foothills east of San Clemente, California operated by Anduril, a maker of AI-powered drones and missiles that recently announced a partnership with OpenAI. I went there to witness a new system it’s expanding today, which allows external parties to tap into its…
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How to use Sora, OpenAI’s new video generating tool
MIT Technology Review’s How To series helps you get things done. Today, OpenAI released its video generation model Sora to the public. The announcement comes on the fifth day of the company’s “shipmas” event, a twelve-day long marathon of tech releases and demos. Here’s what you should know—and how you can use the video model right now….
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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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