By Phil Lelyveld
January 10, 2024
Musician will.i.am of the Black Eyed Peas — who is also a noted technologist, entrepreneur, investor and philanthropist — discussed his work with Mercedes-AMG, why he attends the CES conference each year in Las Vegas, and his vision of the future. In 2022 he was asked by Mercedes to reimagine a vehicle. He loves pattern-matching, he said, and seeing how things align. After developing ideas with his team and auctioning off the working prototype WILL.I.AMG to raise funds for his inner-city education philanthropy, he went back to Mercedes with a simple but powerful pitch with a focus on audio.
Car passengers are accustomed to the roar of the internal combustion engine as a car’s ambient sound. Electric vehicles are either silent rides, or they have artificial sounds pumped through the speakers to correspond to normal driver activities like acceleration and braking.
Our experience with music has been how it was captured on lacquer. Unchanging and repeatable. What if you captured data from the car’s sensors — accelerometer, gyroscope, compass, brakes, etc. — and use it to create a real-time audio driving experience?
He pulled a team together on his own and developed MBUX Sound Drive, “a fusion of cutting-edge technology and musical artistry, raising the Mercedes-AMG in-car entertainment experience to an even higher level,” which is being demonstrated at CES 2024.
The future of in-car music, will.i.am said, is real-time live music generation. Music unfolds and gets remapped and rearranged based on what you do. Even if you have a fixed commute, there are differences every day in how you wait at a light, hit a bump, or weave in traffic. It will turn your daily commute into a new experience every day.
It will turn drivers into composers the way Instagram turned people into photographers. Professional musicians could sell pieces to be reworked by the car’s motion, and drivers could capture and share their driving compositions.
Will.i.am comes to CES to see “what the big boys are afraid to put out fast.” He primarily looks at the small booths where he can find great ideas presented by “big brains with small budgets.” But he also has seen amazing ideas in prototype demos from big companies that won’t be put into products until Legal sees how the public responds to them.
Will.i.am has been working in AI since at least 2015, when his team prototyped a smartwatch and later implemented their AI into Beats headphones. He linked AI to the term Abracadabra. Folk etymologies attribute it to ancient Greek or Latin words meaning “I will create as I speak.” Historically, it has been used for incantations, but it also echoes how we interact with AI algorithms, he said. Just as abracadabra incantations summoned change, he proposed that AI will overturn old industries and create new ones.
The people who will create those new industries, he posited, are the downtrodden who will use AI to learn and advance from their oppression — like the people digging up the minerals in Africa and South America that are used to make consumer electronics. The future isn’t “Terminator” with one global OS and AI. It is “Star Wars” with multiple robots, multiple operating systems, and multiple AIs.
AI can already be your genie for information, he suggested. As AI spreads, it will be everyone’s genie for aspirations.
See the original post here: https://www.etcentric.org/ces-will-i-am-discusses-the-intersection-of-music-and-tech/?fbclid=IwAR1fo_133W1W_ITDFvkiyq7VFZzY9zkKG6seoyq1-Rk6YjpdsJaR-6dxsfM
By Phil Lelyveld
January 16, 2024
A CES session on government AI policy featured an address by Assistant Secretary of Commerce for Communications and Information Alan Davidson (who is also administrator of the National Telecommunications and Information Administration), followed by a discussion of government activities, and finally industry perspective from execs at Google, Microsoft and Xperi. Davidson studied at MIT under nuclear scientist Professor Philip Morrison, who spent the first part of his career developing the atomic bomb and the second half trying to stop its use. That lesson was not lost on Davidson. At NTIA they are working to ensure “that new technologies are developed and deployed in the service of people and in the service of human progress.”
There is no better example of the impact of technology on humanity than the global conversation we are having now around AI. Davidson said that we will only achieve the promise of AI if we address the real risks that it poses today — including safety, security, privacy, innovation, and IP concerns. There is a strong sense of urgency across the Biden administration and in governments around the world to address these concerns.
He described President Biden’s executive order (EO) on AI. Directed by the EO, NIST is establishing a new AI safety institute, the Patent and Trademark Office is exploring copyright issues, and NTIA is working on AI accountability and the benefits and risks of openness. Governments, businesses, and civil society are stepping up to engage in the dialogue that will shape AI’s future.
U.S. government activities were discussed by Stephanie Nguyen, CTO of the Federal Trade Commission, and Sam Marullo, counselor to the Secretary of Commerce. Nguyen explained that the FTC’s mission is to protect against unfair, deceptive, and anticompetitive acts and practices. There are “no AI exemptions on the books,” she said.
The President’s EO on AI aspires to safe, secure, and trustworthy AI. Both the FTC and Department of Commerce are working to build the best multidisciplinary subject-matter-expertise teams to address key aspects of this challenge. Those teams will include government, private sector, and civil society representation.
Open questions that the panel discussed include how AI will impact establishing provenance, ‘know your customer’ models, and patent and copyright issues. There is bipartisan interest in Congress to do “something,” Marullo said, but discussions are in their very early stages.
Industry perspective was articulated by Xperi VP of Marketing David McIntyre, Google Global Cloud AI Policy Lead Addie Cooke, and Microsoft Senior Director for AI Policy Danyelle Solomon.
McIntyre made a key point about AI and regulation when he said that AI is not a fundamentally new problem for the agencies. It is simply a new tool to be applied to the use cases for which the agencies have already developed regulations. The agencies should focus on the end goal of the use cases, he suggested, and identify the gaps and holes that AI introduces, and develop regulations to address these issues rather than develop a separate AI regulatory regime.
Cooke was heartened to hear the FTC suggest that a diversity of people, skills, and ideas is important for policy development. She stressed the need to coordinate standards development nationally and internationally, rather than have individual jurisdictions develop their own local regulations. She noted that the first ISO standard for AI (42001) was recently published, and NIST has put out AI standards. At the federal level, Solomon listed a number of bills being developed for which she has a positive opinion.
“Something I’m sure we all feel pretty strongly about,” said McIntyre, “is making sure you’re regulating the use-case rather than the underlying technology.” How do you make sure your AI rules and safeguards are part of the engineering mindset and then how do you build them into the test framework? How do you incorporate tests for potential risks at a micro level so they are as integral to the QC process as any other feature that is prone to attack?
The President’s EO on AI set up the NIST’s Artificial Intelligence Safety Institute with a proposed $10 million budget, and a pilot program through the National Science Foundation and partners for a National Artificial Intelligence Research Resource (NAIRR) that will establish a shared national research infrastructure. Solomon called these critical resources and expressed her support for them.
What stood out in the EO for McIntyre was the comment that AI is not an exception or something new. The agencies’ fundamental rule-making roles continue. “AI is a tool that achieves an end, and you’re regulating that end,” he said.
Cooke added that privacy regulators need to remind players in their jurisdictions that the rules around privacy, security and other issues have not changed. It doesn’t matter what the technology is. You have to respect the rules and regulations.
Solomon called for a national privacy law. The three panelists agreed that national policies and laws on many of these key issues, rather than state level laws, would be desirable.
See the original post here: https://www.etcentric.org/ces-panelists-weigh-need-for-safe-ai-that-serves-the-public/
The project is a way to help the university learn how to make education more accessible to all
A Michigan university is believed to be the first in the US to enrol artificial intelligence students onto its classes.
The AI students won’t have a physical, robotic form but will be attending classes virtually.
Ferris State associate professor Kasey Thompson said the two virtual students will tune in to lectures, interact in hybrid classes, and complete assignments.
...
Thompson told MLive: “Like any student, our hope is that they continue their educational experience all the way up as far as they can go, through their PhD.
“But we are literally learning as we go, and we’re allowing the two AI students to pick the courses that they’re going to take. ...
See the full story here: https://www.standard.co.uk/news/tech/us-artificial-intelligence-enrol-university-students-b1132027.html
... The United States does not need so many new AI policies. It needs a new kind of policymaking. ...
The problem with reaching for a twentieth-century analogy is that AI simply does not resemble a twentieth-century innovation. ...
Instead of reaching to twentieth-century regulatory frameworks for guidance, policymakers must start with a different first step: asking themselves why they wish to govern AI at all. Drawing back from the task of governing AI is not an option. ...
Technologies that went undergoverned are now hastening democratic decline, intensifying insecurity, and eroding people’s trust in institutions worldwide.
But when tackling AI governance, it is crucial for leaders to consider not only what specific threats they fear from AI but what type of society they want to build. ...
The Biden administration has begun to make moves to apply the same approach to AI. In October 2022, the White House released its Blueprint for an AI Bill of Rights, which was distilled from engagement with representatives of various sectors of American society, including industry, academia, and civil society. The blueprint advanced five propositions: AI systems should be safe and effective. The public should know that their data will remain private. The public should not be subjected to the use of biased algorithms. Consumers should receive notice when an AI system is in use and have the opportunity to consent to using it. And citizens should be able to loop in a human being when AI is used to make a consequential decision about their lives. The document identified specific practices to encode public benefits into policy instruments, including the auditing, assessment, “red teaming,” and monitoring of AI systems on an ongoing basis. ...
If policymakers return to first principles such as those invoked in the AI Bill of Rights when governing AI, they may also recognize that many AI applications are already subject to existing regulatory oversight. ...
It is much less common in the world of policymaking. But NIST’s use of policy versioning will permit an agile approach to the development of standards for AI. NIST also accompanied its framework with a “playbook,” a practical guide to the document that will be updated every six months with new resources and case studies. ...
Democratic leaders must understand that disrupting and outpacing the regulatory process is part of the tech industry’s business model. Anchoring their policymaking process on fundamental democratic principles would give lawmakers and regulators a consistent benchmark against which to consider the impact of AI systems and focus attention on societal benefits, not just the hype cycle of a new product. ...
AI governance need not be a drag on innovation. Ask bankers if unregulated lending by a competitor is good for them. ...
See the full story here: https://www.foreignaffairs.com/united-states/right-way-regulate-ai-alondra-nelson?utm_source=substack&utm_medium=email
... If they sue, major studios could force AI companies to the bargaining table to get leverage. Most creators who’ve already filed suits have signaled they’re willing to take licensing deals. The Authors Guild is heading that way, with plans in motion to unveil a platform for its members to opt in to the offering of a blanket license. Discussions involve a fee to use works as training data and a prohibition on outputs that borrow too much from existing material. “We have to be proactive because generative AI is here to stay,” says Mary Rasenberger, chief executive of the organization, who notes that best-selling author James Patterson helped fund the project. “They need high-quality books. Our position is that there’s nothing wrong with the tech, but it has to be legal and licensed.”
In the meantime, as courts wrestle with novel questions of copyright law, concept artists like Southen are seeing a diminishing market for their services as they’re increasingly being forced to compete with the chatbots they unwillingly helped create.
“Business this year has been absolutely terrible,” Southen says. “I know there were the strikes, but there’s definitely more to it than that.”
See the full story here: https://www.hollywoodreporter.com/business/business-news/studios-sue-ai-companies-or-ip-deal-1235785627/
...
Blockchain can be used to track exactly what data an algorithm was trained on, when, by whom, as well as what other steps were taken to vet and verify that data, said Scott Zoldi, FICO’s chief analytics officer. Companies building AI models typically try to follow that data trail, but using blockchain would make it easier to end up with shared, consistent, trustworthy records, he said.
Blockchain won’t stop algorithms from going off the rails or exhibiting bias—but it would offer an auditable record that could show why, he said.
...
Blockchain isn’t the answer to explainability, or the “black-box” problem in AI models. On its own, it won’t determine why an AI model spit out a particular answer. What it does promise are better records to help answer that question, Zoldi said.
...
See the full story here: https://www.wsj.com/articles/ai-has-a-trust-problem-can-blockchain-help-ba3b26f7#
...
1 Customized chatbots ...
2 Generative AI’s second wave will be video ...
Runway has set up an annual AI film festival that showcases experimental movies made with a range of AI tools. This year’s festival has a $60,000 prize pot, and the 10 best films will be screened in New York and Los Angeles. ...
3 AI-generated election disinformation will be everywhere ...
In Slovakia, deepfakes of a liberal pro-European party leader threatening to raise the price of beer and making jokes about child pornography spread like wildfire during the country’s elections. And in the US, Donald Trump has cheered on a group that uses AI to generate memes with racist and sexist tropes. ...
4 Robots that multitask ...
See the full article here: https://www.technologyreview.com/2024/01/04/1086046/whats-next-for-ai-in-2024/
... Shapero: The biggest unknown, and probably the biggest change, is that almost every role is going to be rewritten in the context of AI. From engineers to salespeople, marketers, finance professionals to lawyers — everyone’s going to be leveraging AI in some way. And so how does the talent team think about hiring people based on knowledge of leveraging AI? And how do they equip people to learn the new skills that are required?
You could argue it’s the largest skills transformation that we’re likely to go through in our lifetimes. You might even say that one of the most important skills in any job is just going to be understanding how to unlock the power of AI in your day-to-day. And that’s a pretty abrupt evolution of what’s going to be required to be successful. ...
What advice would you give a young person entering a world in which AI is changing so much?
I would say, learn how to use the tools, try them out, and see what they can do. People who are comfortable with these tools — just like people who are comfortable with technology in general — are going to have opportunities.
And as much as there’s going to be demand for technical skills, there’s going to be increased demand for human skills: communication and creativity. Successful schools will be the ones that foster those kinds of learning experiences for people in a way that’s going to be what employers are looking for. ...
See the full story here: https://www.latimes.com/business/story/2024-01-03/how-to-get-a-job-in-the-age-of-ai-according-to-a-top-linkedin-exec
...
Regulators will step in, and not everyone will be happy about it. ...
Authenticity will grow more important than ever. ...
The steam engine of innovation will keep chugging along …
… Unless the bubble bursts. ...
See the full story here: https://www.latimes.com/business/technology/story/2024-01-02/ai-predictions-2024-competency-tests-election-ads-bankruptcies
A Nobel Prize-winning labor market economist has cautioned younger generations against piling into studying science, technology, engineering, and mathematics (STEM) subjects, saying “empathetic” and creative skills may thrive in a world dominated by artificial intelligence.
Christopher Pissarides, professor of economics at the London School of Economics, said that workers in certain IT jobs risk sowing their “own seeds of self-destruction“ by advancing AI that will eventually take the same jobs in the future.
While Pissarides is an optimist on AI’s overall impact on the jobs market, ..., jobs requiring more traditional face-to-face skills, such as in hospitality and healthcare, will still dominate the jobs market. ...
See the full story here: https://time.com/6551407/ai-stem-jobs-pissarides/
