US and China agree to map out framework for developing AI responsibly. Here’s what you need to know
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While a date hasn't been set, it's expected that the US and China will meet in the next few months to work on a framework for the responsible development of AI.
As they eye the next wave of advance tech with potentially conflicting motivations and goals, here's a look at what each side wants, what regulations are in place, and the risks they may contend with. ...
They include fears it could be used to disrupt the democratic process, turbocharge fraud, cause widespread job losses — and then there's the obvious worries around military applications. ...
Meanwhile, in a recent Brookings Institute report — A roadmap for a US-China AI dialogue — authors Ryan Hass and Graham Webster argued that ...
For military applications, they said the challenge was not about promising not to use AI on the battlefield but to "begin building boundaries and common expectations around acceptable military uses of automation".
Last year, a report from the Australian Strategic Policy Institute found China was beating the US in 37 of 44 technologies likely to propel innovation, growth and military power.
They include AI, robotics, biotechnology, advanced manufacturing, and quantum technology. ...
But despite the platitudes from both sides, many AI policy and ethics experts maintain that it's yet to be seen whether Beijing and Washington and their respective militaries can demonstrate a shared commitment to common interests or global safety. ...
In recent weeks, it's been revealed that Beijing and Washington are preparing for bilateral talks "this spring" (autumn in Australia). ...
See the full story here: https://www.abc.net.au/news/2024-02-25/china-united-states-artificial-intelligence-ai-regulations/103477338
Bill Foster, a particle physicist-turned-congressman, on why he’s worried about artificial general intelligence
… When I started making noise about this inside the caucus, people expected the first jobs to fall would be factory assembly line workers, long haul truck drivers, taxi drivers. That’s taken longer than people guessed right then. But the other thing that’s happened that’s surprised people is how quickly the creative arts have come under assault from AI. … There’s a lot of nervousness among teachers about what exactly are the careers of the future that we’re actually training people for.
… I think one of the most important responses — something that the government can actually deliver and even deliver this session of Congress — is to provide people some way of defending themselves against deepfakes. … There’s two approaches to this. The first thing is to try to imagine that you can detect fraudulent media and to develop software to detect deepfake material. I’m not optimistic that that’s going to work. It’s going to be a cat-and-mouse game forever. … Another approach is to provide citizens with a means of proving they are who they say they are online and they are not a deepfake.
FS: An authentication service?
BF: A mobile ID. A digital driver’s license or a secure digital identity. This is a way for someone to use their cell phone and their government-provided credential, like a passport or Real ID-compliant driver’s license, and associate it with your cell phones [This could] take advantage of your cell phone’s ability through AI to recognize its owner — and also the modern cell phone’s ability to be used like a security dongle. It has what’s called a secure enclave, or a secure compute facility, that allows it to hold private encryption keys that makes the device essentially a unique device in the world that can be associated with a unique person and their credential. ...
FS: How optimistic are you that this new AI task force is actually going to produce legislation?
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BF: One reason I’m optimistic is the Republican’s choice of a chair: Jay Obernolte. … He’s another guy who keeps up the effort to maintain his technical currency. He and I can geek out about the actual state of the art, which is rather rare in the U.S. Congress. … One of the missions, certainly for this task force, will be to try to educate members about at least the capabilities of AI. ...
FS: How worried are you about artificial general intelligence?
BF: Over the last five years, I’ve become much more worried than I previously was. And the reason for that is there’s this analogy between the evolution of AI algorithms and the evolution in living organisms. And what if you look at living organisms and the strategies that have evolved, many of them are deceptive. ...
See the full story here; https://fedscoop.com/bill-foster-house-ai-task-force/
OpenAI’s Sora: It’s the Beginning or the End of Video and Either Way It’s a Big Deal
- OpenAI shared a first glimpse at new tool Sora that instantly generates videos from just a line of text.
- The apparent capabilities of Sora are deemed perfect for stock footage, presentations, and commercials with developments likely to lead to longer form films.
- AI tools that can generate videos indistinguishable from video shot with a real camera raise concerns again about content creation industry jobs and misuse by spreading deepfakes
See the full story here: https://amplify.nabshow.com/articles/ic-open-ai-sora
What is Sora? Inside the New Generative AI Tool That Could Transform Video Production
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How Does Sora Work?
Sora combines features of text and image generating tools in what is called a “diffusion transformer model.”
Transformers are a type of neural network first introduced by Google in 2017. They are best known for their use in large language models such as ChatGPT and Google Gemini.
Diffusion models, on the other hand, are the foundation of many AI image generators. They work by starting with random noise and iterating towards a “clean” image that fits an input prompt. ...
Sora uses the transformer architecture to handle how frames relate to one another. While transformers were initially designed to find patterns in tokens representing text, Sora instead uses tokens representing small patches of space and time. ...
...Sora makes videos up to 60 seconds. ...
Lumiere cannot make videos composed of multiple shots, while Sora can. ...
OpenAI’s technical paper about Sora is titled “Video generation models as world simulators.” ...
See the full story here: https://amplify.nabshow.com/articles/ic-what-is-openai-sora
The Justice Department gets a chief AI officer
The Justice Department appointed Princeton professor and technology law researcher Jonathan Mayer as its first chief AI officer as it figures out how AI impacts law enforcement.
Attorney General Merrick Garland said in a statement that appointing an AI officer was important for the department to “keep pace with rapidly evolving scientific and technological developments.”
One of Mayer’s responsibilities will be to build a team of technical and policy experts around cybersecurity and AI. Mayer will also serve as the department’s chief science and technology advisor and help recruit tech talent.
Government agencies were tasked by the Biden administration’s executive order on AI to shore up AI talent and create guidelines on using the technology in their services. The executive order also includes establishing standards to ensure fairness if AI is used for sentencing, parole, and surveillance — actions that fall into the purview of the Justice Department. ...
See the full story here: https://www.theverge.com/2024/2/22/24080167/justice-department-chief-ai-officer-law-enforcement
Hundreds of AI luminaries sign letter calling for anti-deepfake legislation
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Hundreds in the artificial intelligence community have signed an open letter calling for strict regulation of AI-generated impersonations, or deepfakes. While this is unlikely to spur real legislation (despite the House’s new task force), it does act as a bellwether for how experts lean on this controversial issue.
The letter, signed by more than 500 people in and adjacent to the AI field at time of publishing, declares that “deepfakes are a growing threat to society, and governments must impose obligations throughout the supply chain to stop the proliferation of deepfakes.” ...
See the full story here: https://techcrunch.com/2024/02/21/hundreds-of-ai-luminaries-sign-letter-calling-for-anti-deepfake-legislation/?utm_source=substack&utm_medium=email
The Walt Disney Company Announces the 10th Year of the Disney Accelerator Program and its 2024 Participant Companies
The companies selected to participate in the 2024 Disney Accelerator program are:
AudioShake: AudioShake is an audio technology company that uses AI to separate the layers of recorded sound in order to make audio interactive, editable, and customizable.
ElevenLabs: ElevenLabs is a voice AI research and deployment company that creates realistic, versatile, and contextually aware AI audio.
PrometheanAI: PrometheanAI is a company that provides a suite of tools for virtual world creation and digital asset management using natural language prompts.
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See the full story here: https://thewaltdisneycompany.com/disney-accelerator/
Disney’s 2024 Accelerator Program Participants Include 3 AI-Focused Companies
... Bloomberg said in a Wednesday report that three of the five companies chosen for this year’s class are working on AI. AudioShake uses AI to mix music tracks, ElevenLabs uses the technology to convert text to speech, and PrometheanAI uses it to search digital archives, according to the report. ...
Bloomberg report here: https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2024-02-21/disney-leans-on-ai-in-latest-class-of-startup-investments?srnd=premium
See the full story here: https://www.pymnts.com/aml/2024/raiffeisen-bank-international-discloses-investigation-by-austrian-financial-regulator-fma/
NYT plans to debut new generative AI ad tool later this year
How it works: The new technology, which is being created internally at the Times, will deliver a recommendation for where an ad campaign could perform best based on its message or objectives.
- The tool can also be used to target niche audiences that were previously unidentifiable based on their interests, aspirations and opinions. ...
Why it matters: The Times started working on these efforts long before it filed a landmark lawsuit against OpenAI and Microsoft for copyright infringement, executives said. ...
See the full story here: https://www.axios.com/2024/02/20/new-york-times-ai-ad-tool
AI Is Driving Streaming Entertainment’s Evolution and Profitability in 2024
#1: AI’S FORTUNE TELLING ABILITY AND IMPACT ON DEVELOPMENT
#2: PERSONALIZATION: KEEPING VIEWERS HAPPY AND SUBSCRIBED
#3: ARTIFICIALLY CURATED ADS AND AVOIDING AD FATIGUE
#4: THE TOWER OF BABEL: AI OVERCOMES LANGUAGE BARRIERS
See the full article here: https://www.thefastmode.com/expert-opinion/35088-ai-is-driving-streaming-entertainment-s-evolution-and-profitability-in-2024
SMPTE AI and Media rpt.
SMPTE, the home of media professionals, technologists, and engineers, in conjunction with the European Broadcasting Union (EBU) and the Entertainment Technology Center (ETC), have released a comprehensive document on Artificial Intelligence (AI) and its effect on the media. The document was the result of a task force on AI standards in media that began in 2020. ...
This report was created to provide media professionals with a background in both AI and Machine Learning (ML). It begins with a technical understanding of the two technologies followed by the effect they will likely have on the media landscape. The report then moves on to examine AI ethics and ends by discussing the role that standards can play in AI/ML’s future.
“I believe that AI will continue to see exponential growth and adoption throughout 2024,” said SMPTE President Renard T. Jenkins. “Therefore, it is imperative that we examine the overall impact that this technology can have in our industry. That is why the progressive thought leadership presented in this document is so important for us all.” ...
Drafting this report was a joint effort by SMPTE and the ETC with support from the EBU. Members and non-members of SMPTE can access the document for free - https://5253154.fs1.hubspotusercontent-na1.net/hubfs/5253154/SMPTE-ER-1010-2023.pdf
See the full story here: https://www.cxnetwork.com.au/smpte-releases-engineering-report-on-artificial-intelligence-and-the-media/
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