Google DeepMind’s AI Pop Star Clone Will Freak You Out
Angela Watercutter | Wired
“Two new instruments utilizing DeepMind’s music era algorithm Lyria let anybody make YouTube shorts utilizing the AI-generated vocals of Demi Lovato, T-Ache, Troye Sivan and others. …All anybody has to do is sort in a subject and choose an artist off a carousel, and the software writes the lyrics, produces the backing observe, and sings the track within the type of the musician chosen. It’s wild.”
The First CRISPR Medication Simply Bought Authorised
Emily Mullin | Wired
“The primary medical remedy that makes use of CRISPR gene enhancing was licensed Thursday by the UK. The one-time remedy, which shall be bought below the model title Casgevy, is for sufferers with sickle cell illness and a associated blood dysfunction referred to as beta thalassemia, each of that are inherited. The UK approval marks a historic second for CRISPR, the molecular equal of scissors that gained its inventors a Nobel Prize in 2020.”
Google DeepMind Needs to Outline What Counts as Synthetic Normal Intelligence
Will Douglas Heaven | MIT Expertise Evaluation
“AGI, or synthetic basic intelligence, is among the hottest subjects in tech at the moment. It’s additionally probably the most controversial. A giant a part of the issue is that few folks agree on what the time period even means. Now a workforce of Google DeepMind researchers has put out a paper that cuts via the cross discuss with not only one new definition for AGI however a complete taxonomy of them.”
Why Tech Giants Are Hedging Their Bets on OpenAI
Michelle Cheng | Quartz
“Microsoft owns a 49% stake in OpenAI, having invested billions of {dollars} within the maker of ChatGPT. However the tech titan can be an investor in Inflection AI, which has a chatbot referred to as Pi and is seen as a rival to OpenAI. …Final week, Reuters reported that Google plans to take a position a whole lot of hundreds of thousands in Character.AI, which builds personalised bots. In late October, Google mentioned it had agreed to sink as much as $2 billion into Anthropic, a key rival to OpenAI. What’s occurring right here?”
Begin-Ups With Laser Beams: The Corporations Making an attempt to Ignite Fusion Power
Kenneth Chang | The New York Occasions
“Take a smidgen of hydrogen, then blast it with lasers to set off a small thermonuclear explosion. Do it proper, and possibly you possibly can resolve the world’s vitality wants. A small group of start-ups has launched into this quest, pursuing their very own variations on this theme—totally different lasers, totally different methods to set off the fusion reactions, totally different parts to fuse collectively. ‘There was fast development,’ mentioned Andrew Holland, chief government of the Fusion Trade Affiliation, a commerce group lobbying for insurance policies to hurry the event of fusion.”
Younger Kids Trounce Giant Language Fashions in a Easy Downside-Fixing Activity
Ross Pomeroy | Massive Assume
“Regardless of their real potential to alter how society works and capabilities, massive language fashions get trounced by younger youngsters in fundamental problem-solving duties testing their capacity to innovate, based on new analysis. The examine reveals a key weak spot of enormous language fashions: They don’t innovate. If massive language fashions can sometime turn out to be innovation engines, their programmers ought to attempt to emulate how youngsters be taught, the authors contend.”
CULTURE
Sphere and Loathing in Las Vegas
Charlie Warzel | The Atlantic
“I needed to be cynical concerning the Sphere and all it represents—our telephones as appendages, screens as a mediated type of experiencing the world. There’s a lot to dislike concerning the factor—the impersonal flashiness of all of it, its $30 tequila sodas, the possible staggering electrical energy payments. However it’s also my solemn responsibility to report back to you that the Sphere slaps, a lot in the identical means that, say, the Tremendous Bowl slaps. It’s gaudy, overly commercialized, and funky as hell: a brand-new, non-pharmaceutical sensory expertise.”
DIGITAL MEDIA
Meta Brings Us a Step Nearer to AI-Generated Motion pictures
Kyle Wiggers | TechCruch
“Like ‘Avengers’ director Joe Russo, I’m changing into more and more satisfied that absolutely AI-generated motion pictures and TV exhibits shall be doable inside our lifetimes. …Now, video era tech isn’t new. Meta’s experimented with it earlier than, as has Google. …However Emu Video’s 512×512, 16-frames-per-second clips are simply among the many greatest I’ve seen by way of their constancy—to the purpose the place my untrained eye has a tricky time distinguishing them from the true factor.”
Joby, Volocopter Fly Electrical Air Taxis Over New York Metropolis
Aria Alamalhodaei | TechCrunch
“Joby Aviation and Volocopter gave the general public a vivid glimpse of what the way forward for aviation may seem like [last] weekend, with each corporations performing temporary demonstration flights of their electrical plane in New York Metropolis. The demonstration flights have been carried out throughout a press convention on Sunday, throughout which New York Metropolis Mayor Eric Adams introduced that town would electrify two of the three heliports situated in Manhattan—Downtown Manhattan Heliport and East thirty fourth Road.”
Google’s ChatGPT Competitor Will Must Wait
Maxwell Zeff | Gizmodo
“Google is having a tough time catching up with OpenAI. Google’s competitor to ChatGPT won’t be prepared till early 2024, after beforehand telling some cloud prospects it might get to make use of Gemini AI in November of this yr, sources informed The Info Thursday. …Google’s Gemini was reportedly set to debut in 2023 with picture and voice recognition capabilities. The chatbot would have been aggressive with OpenAI’s GPT-4, and Anthropic’s Claude 2.”
Picture Credit score: Brian McGowan / Unsplash