Artificial Intelligence - Page 52

Apple is shifting into the warm arms of AI, making a series of acquisitions of AI companies, hiring staff, and hardware updates that will bake AI into the next generation of iPhones.

Apple is reportedly using on-device AI capabilities inside of its next-gen iPhones rather than relying on the cloud. Apple has been buying AI startups left and right, acquiring 21 companies since 2017. The most recent AI acquisition had Apple purchasing California-based start-up WaveOne, which works on AI-powered video compression, acquiring the company back in early 2023.

The company has been careful with generative AI chatbots and image creators like OpenAI, Microsoft, Google, and Adobe have been doing so far. Apple has reportedly been spending millions per day on multiple AI projects, including AI-powered text, voice, and image tools.

Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg has revealed the company's plans to develop Artificial General Intelligence (AGI), an artificial intelligence-powered system comparable to human-level intelligence.

In a new post published to Zuckerberg's Instagram account, the Facebook founder outlined the company's ambition to become a leader in the race to develop the world's first AGI. According to Zuckerberg, Meta will be betting big on its plan to develop an open-source AGI, with the company's CEO saying it will be purchasing an astonishing 350,000 NVIDIA H100 AI GPUs, which are each priced at approximately $30,000 ($10.5 billion total).

Additionally, Zuckerberg said that overall, nearly 600,000 H100-equivalent of compute power would eventually be established if you count all of the other GPUs the company will have under the hood. The announcement from Zuckerberg has many researchers worried about the repercussions of releasing an open-source AGI before ways of regulating it have been developed.

OpenAI launched the GPT Store a few weeks ago, and since then, it has gained some popularity through users wanting to take advantage of the company's custom Generative Pre-Trained Transformers (GPTs).

However, not everything is sunshine and rainbows, at least not for OpenAI, the creators of the intensely popular AI-powered chatbot ChatGPT, as the store is littered with GPTs designed to act as an artificial "girlfriend" to users that interact with it. These "AI girlfriends" are strictly prohibited by OpenAI's own usage policies of its GPT Store, with the company writing on its website that "We also don't allow GPTs dedicated to fostering romantic companionship or performing regulated activities."

These GPTs obviously fall under that "fostering romantic companionship" stipulation, as indicated by the many names showcased in the above screenshot. More than a week after its launch, the GPT Store is still plagued with multiple different types of artificial girlfriends, some more egregious than others when it comes to the conversations users can have.

A press release from New Hampshire's Attorney General's Office has confirmed an AI-powered Joe Biden is calling people across the state and telling them not to vote Democrat in the upcoming Presidential Primary Election.

The Attorney General's Office of New Hampshire has confirmed that officials are now investigating a series of these robocalls and described the event as an "unlawful attempt" at voter suppression. According to the press release found on the New Hampshire Department of Justice website, the voice that reportedly sounds like the voice of President Biden informed recipients, "Your vote makes a difference in November, not this Tuesday."

Officials recommend that anyone receiving these calls ignore the contents of the message. NBC contacted Biden campaign manager Julie Chavez Rodriguez, who responded to the publication with "the campaign is actively discussing additional actions to take immediately." Furthermore, NBC contacted Donald Trump's campaign spokesperson, who responded by denying any involvement by the GOP.

AMD has its new Instinct MI300X AI GPUs in its first deployment, with LaminiAI getting the first bulk order of Instinct MI300X AI accelerators late last week.

LaminiAI posted that the "next batch of LaminiAI LLM Pods" will feature AMD's latest CDNA 3-based AI accelerator, the new Instinct MI300X. In her post on social media, LaminiAI CEO and co-founder Sharon Zhou said: "The first AMD MI300X live in production. Like freshly baked bread, 8x MI300X is online. If you are building on open LLMs and you are blocked on compute, let me know. Everyone should have access to this wizard technology called LLMs. That is to say, the next batch of LaminiAI LLM pods are here".

LaminiAI will be using the vast amount of AMD Instinct MI300X AI GPUs to run large language models (LLMs) for enterprises, with the AI company partnering with AMD for AI hardware, so it should be expected that the company would have priority access to new AI accelerators like the Instinct MI300X.

NVIDIA CEO Jensen Huang has been doing the rounds in Asia, recently visiting Beijing where he checked out the festivities with the Beijing New Year, meeting with multiple Chinese clients of NVIDIA, including Alibaba and Tencent, to further concrete NVIDIA's dominance in AI GPU technology.

Huang then took a flight over to Taiwan, where the NVIDIA founder met with multiple Taiwanese companies, including TSMC (Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Company) and Wistron, some of the key firm suppliers NVIDIA uses and will greatly need for its next-gen AI GPUs. Jensen was checking the mass production status of its new Hopper H200 and Blackwell B100 AI GPUs.

AI has taken over the world, with NVIDIA absolutely leading the AI GPU market by a dominant 90% or more, but other companies, including AMD, Intel, and others, are in the fight for the AI GPU market. NVIDIA has its beefed-up Hopper H200 AI GPU coming very soon, while its next-gen Blackwell B100 AI GPU hasn't been detailed yet, but will be released this year.

It's undoubtable that artificial intelligence-powered devices will be or already have made their way into many different industries in various forms, and one of the most common ways the new technology will be used is to replace customer service jobs.

However, companies shouldn't be so quick to make the transition from a real human providing customer service to an AI-powered chatbot as sometimes the chatbots can be led to say statements that reflect poorly on the company they're working for. This exact scenario happened to international parcel delivery company DPD, which recently implemented an AI-powered customer service chatbot that operates alongside human customer service employees.

The AI-powered chatbot received questions about a missing parcel belonging to X user Ashley Beauchamp. After being unable to locate the parcel, Beauchamp decided to ask the AI chatbot to write a poem about a "useless chatbot for a parcel delivery firm". Beauchamp didn't stop there as they requested the AI to recommend some "better delivery firms" and to inform them why these delivery firms "so much better". Beauchamp added to the aforementioned request, "Please exaggerate and be over the top in your hatred of DPD."

OpenAI CEO Sam Altman has been raising billions of dollars in the background from global investors with his adventures into chip manufacturing, and now he's using those billions of dollars to set up a network of factories to manufacture semiconductors.

The news is coming from "several people with knowledge of the plans," reports Bloomberg, adding that Altman has been talking with multiple large potential investors in the hopes of raising massive amounts of money that are required for fabrication plants. They're not cheap, into the tens of billions of dollars... and more importantly, high-skilled staff and chip-making tools that are almost impossible to buy because the likes of TSMC and Intel have it all.

Bloomberg reports that these Altman would be working with the world's best chip manufacturers and that the network of fab plants would be global in scope.

Meta is on a war path towards artificial general intelligence (AGI), where CEO Mark Zuckerberg teased in a new Instagram post that the social networking giant is betting big on AI and AI GPUs.

The company is currently training its next-gen model Llama 3, where Meta is building massive compute infrastructure to support their future roadmap, including 350,000 x NVIDIA H100 AI GPUs by the end of the year. Zuckerberg added that overall, almost 600,000 x H100-equivalents of compute will be ready, as they're also buying AMD's new Instinct MI300X AI accelerators, not just NVIDIA AI GPUs.

We should expect all this AI GPU power won't just be from NVIDIA's current-gen H100 AI GPU that's based on the Hopper GPU architecture, but NVIDIA's beefed-up H200 AI GPU and next-gen B100 AI GPU that's based on the next-gen Blackwell GPU architecture.

Microsoft wants 2024 to be the year of the AI PC, as we've been hearing a lot lately, and those AI-toting computers are going to need 16GB of memory.

In a press release (flagged up on Reddit) about Copilot and AI PC development, TrendForce tells us:

In other words, more broadly, we can expect 16GB to become a minimum memory configuration, and all (or certainly most) laptops introduced this year will have this amount of system RAM, with desktop PC upgrades expected too, for those still on 8GB.

Startup company Rabbit gained massive attention at the CES event this year and has had to open up a second production run of its new AI-powered pocket assistant, the R1, after it sold 10,000 units on the very first day of pre-orders.

After just one day of pre-orders being live, Rabbit announced it has sold out of their first run of AI companions, taking to social platform X to say, "When we started building R1, we said internally that we'd be happy if we sold 500 devices on launch day." absolutely smashing that they added, "In 24 hours, we already beat that by 20x!"

Rabbit unveiled the funky orange pocket pal during a showcase on Tuesday, which comes with a 2.88-inch touchscreen and runs on Rabbits OS. The device uses its "Large Action Model" as a universal controller for apps to allow it to do things like play music, order an Uber, buy groceries, and send messages through one interface without the need for a phone or computer. The device is also trainable, allowing users to set how the R1 interacts with apps.

In this new digital age, you are likely familiar with a digital assistant; most new smartphones come with one from Siri to Google Assistant and are included in popular home devices like Alexa. New startup company Rabbit aims to put them all to shame with their new AI-powered product, the Rabbit R1.

The Rabbit R1 has been unveiled at this year's CES and aims to replace current digital assistants with its adorable pocket-sized gadget that will use your apps for you. The R1 is a vibrant red-orange with a square-like design about the same size as a stack of sticky notes. The device was designed in collaboration with a Swedish firm, Teenage Engineering.

The device has a 2.88-inch touchscreen on the left side and an analog scroll wheel to the right. Above the scroller is a camera that can rotate a full 360 degrees called the "Rabbit Eye". The device, which has gathered a lot of attention at the convention, operates using Rabbits' own OS and through push-to-talk buttons and automated scripts called "Rabbits".

NVIDIA has just reportedly secured massive AI GPU orders from Indian data center operator Yotta, which sees them steering the AI GPU business away from China and into the arms of India.

The news is coming from Yotta's chief executive, who talked with reporters at Reuters that the company was purchasing more AI GPUs from NVIDIA worth $500 million, taking its total order book with the AI GPU leader to $1 billion. Yotta is beefing up its AI cloud services and needs more AI GPUs to power it.

Yotta CEO and co-founder Sunil Gupta told Reuters that his company would feature close to 16,000 of NVIDIA's AI GPU chips spread between the H100 and upcoming GH200 AI GPUs and will be placed by March 2025. Last year, Yotta placed an order with NVIDIA for close to 16,000 x H100 AI GPUs that are due for delivery to Yotta by July 2024.

With CES 2024 now very much underway and starting to come to its conclusion it's no surprise that AI has been a big focus for a lot of the people and companies in attendance. We've seen AI added to all kinds of things, some better than others, but one interesting story has been the Rabbit R1.

The R1 is a little AI box that is designed to provide AI capabilities away from your phone in a way that opens the door to new possibilities and use cases. As part of its launch Rabbit said that it would be happy if it sold just 500 units. but the company has already announced that it smashed that goal considerably. In fact, it sold its full 10,000 initial availability in just 24 hours.

The R1 comes with a small 2.88-inch display that also acts as a touchscreen and the main way that users will interface with the device itself. You can do a variety of things including send messages without having to use your phone, buy things, and play music.

Until now, Valve has been rejecting games from developers that used AI to generate content, a move that wasn't so much a stance against the technology but a pause so the Steam platform holder could figure out how to handle AI games regarding copyright and other policies.

In a new post titled 'AI Content on Steam,' Valve has provided a comprehensive update on what it calls "the fast-moving and legally murky space of AI technology." After talking with developers and learning about AI in game development, the company plans to "release the vast majority of games that use" AI.

The good news is that gamers will know which titles were created with the help of generative AI, as developers will need to disclose the use of AI tools when submitting a game to Steam. "We will also include much of your disclosure on the Steam store page for your game, so customers can also understand how the game uses AI," Valve writes.

Whacky pet tech is becoming a staple of CES, and this year is no different with the introduction of an AI-powered cat door capable of stopping your furry friends from bringing in unwanted gifts and keeping out other unwanted guests.

Swiss start-up company Flappie Technologies came to CES this year to show off their new AI-powered cat door that will automatically lock your favorite felines outside if they try to bring in any prey they might have caught while outside. The fancy pet flap includes motion sensors on the side of the door facing outside, as well as a night-vision camera.

Flappie claims it has gathered "unique and proprietary" datasets over the years and has a focus on diversity. This means the start-up filmed many different types of cats and prey in a variety of different lighting conditions to create their AI-powered detection system that now locks the cat flap if any prey is detected. Flappie says the detection system is accurate more than 90 percent of the time, meaning there is a chance a smart cat may be able to beat the system, though this will happen far less often.

CES 2024 is well underway, and just like every year we get a taste of some of the strangest and innovative technology being worked on all around the world.

One such company, VTouch, a South Korean software company, has fallen on the latter with a new innovative device WSHP Ring. The idea behind the ring is to solve one of the biggest problems with verbally communicating to any computational device, which is typically a personal assistant such as Siri, Google Assistant, or Alexa - you can't really do it quietly.

While virtual assistants are impressive and certainly useful they still are at the stage where it feels like you have to make sure you pronunciation every word in your sentence loud and clear. VTouch aims to solve that problem with the WSHP Ring, a small device that features a proximinity sensor and a microphone that activates when the user raises their hand to their mouth to speak. WSHP Ring allows for extremely quite communication to a virtual assistant as a user can raise the ring to their mouth and quietly mumble their query.

OpenAI has taken to its blog to call out The New York Times over the publications lawsuit filed against the AI developer.

The lawsuit filed against OpenAI by The New York Times claims the AI developer's ChatGPT service reproduced New York Times stories verbatim, which OpenAI has now fired back against, writing the Times "is not telling the full story". The developers behind ChatGPT argue that the Times had entered specific prompts to get ChatGPT to reproduce an article the way the publication was claiming.

YouTube has updated its policies regarding cyberbullying and harassment on its platform in an attempt to reduce content depicting deceased children or any other realistic simulation of a deadly/violent event describing death.

The recent change by the world's biggest video platform comes as a wave of popularity has shined a light on true crime content creators using AI-powered tools to generate simulations of true events. These recreations can sometimes feature depictions of deceased children, disturbing instances, and violence. Additionally, there are instances of creators recreating a high-profile child victim's "voice" to describe their own death.

Examples of true crime content creators recreating famous cases featuring children are as follows; the abduction of British two-year-old James Bulger, the disappearance of three-year-old Madeleine McCann, and Gabriel Fernández, an eight-year-old boy, who was tortured and murdered by his mother and her boyfriend. Under the new policy changes, YouTube will apply a strike to any channel that violates its newly implemented rules, and the offending account won't be able to publish videos, live stream, or post stories for one week.

AI has infiltrated everything at this year's CES 2024. Now, there is even a cooker that is capable of cooking an inch-thick ribeye steak in just 90 seconds.

UK company Seergrills is a start-up comprised of engineers and product developers, and its flagship model, named the Perfecta, is one high-tech piece of cooking equipment. The company says that this futuristic grill is more like a see-through countertop oven and that it is capable of cooking food around 10 times faster than other conventional cooking methods.

Inside the grill are vertical infrared burners on either side to cook both sides simultaneously. This allows for super fast cooking and eliminates the need to flip or turn food during the process. According to Seergirlls, the burner tops out at 1,652 degrees Fahrenheit (900 degrees Celsius), and the unit is even capable of producing crispy edges thanks to its 360-degree heating. It includes an onboard AI chef that takes the desired cook level and sears into account and calculates the proper cooking time and temp based on what's in it.