Tag Archives: AI

Critics question tech-heavy lineup of new Homeland Security AI safety board

reader comments 28 On Friday, the US Department of Homeland Security announced the formation of an Artificial Intelligence Safety and Security Board that consists of 22 members pulled from the tech industry, government, academia, and civil rights organizations. But given the nebulous nature of the term “AI,” which can apply to a broad spectrum of… Read More »

Apple releases eight small AI language models aimed at on-device use

Getty Images reader comments 30 In the world of AI, what might be called “small language models” have been growing in popularity recently because they can be run on a local device instead of requiring data center-grade computers in the cloud. On Wednesday, Apple introduced a set of tiny source-available AI language models called OpenELM… Read More »

School athletic director arrested for framing principal using AI voice synthesis

reader comments 122 On Thursday, Baltimore County Police arrested Pikesville High School’s former athletic director, Dazhon Darien, and charged him with using AI to impersonate Principal Eric Eiswert, according to a report by The Baltimore Banner. Police say Darien used AI voice synthesis software to simulate Eiswert’s voice, leading the public to believe the principal… Read More »

Deepfakes in the courtroom: US judicial panel debates new AI evidence rules

reader comments 15 On Friday, a federal judicial panel convened in Washington, DC, to discuss the challenges of policing AI-generated evidence in court trials, according to a Reuters report. The US Judicial Conference’s Advisory Committee on Evidence Rules, an eight-member panel responsible for drafting evidence-related amendments to the Federal Rules of Evidence, heard from computer… Read More »

Microsoft’s Phi-3 shows the surprising power of small, locally run AI language models

Getty Images reader comments 20 On Tuesday, Microsoft announced a new, freely available lightweight AI language model named Phi-3-mini, which is simpler and less expensive to operate than traditional large language models (LLMs) like OpenAI’s GPT-4 Turbo. Its small size is ideal for running locally, which could bring an AI model of similar capability to… Read More »

Microsoft’s VASA-1 can deepfake a person with one photo and one audio track

Enlarge / A sample image from Microsoft for “VASA-1: Lifelike Audio-Driven Talking Faces Generated in Real Time.” reader comments 131 On Tuesday, Microsoft Research Asia unveiled VASA-1, an AI model that can create a synchronized animated video of a person talking or singing from a single photo and an existing audio track. In the future,… Read More »

LLMs keep leaping with Llama 3, Meta’s newest open-weights AI model

reader comments 18 On Thursday, Meta unveiled early versions of its Llama 3 open-weights AI model that can be used to power text composition, code generation, or chatbots. It also announced that its Meta AI Assistant is now available on a website and is going to be integrated into its major social media apps, intensifying… Read More »

OpenAI winds down AI image generator that blew minds and forged friendships in 2022

Enlarge / An AI-generated image from DALL-E 2 created with the prompt “A painting by Grant Wood of an astronaut couple, american gothic style.” reader comments 39 When OpenAI’s DALL-E 2 debuted on April 6, 2022, the idea that a computer could create relatively photorealistic images on demand based on just text descriptions caught a… Read More »

New UK law targets “despicable individuals” who create AI sex deepfakes

reader comments 95 On Tuesday, the UK government announced a new law targeting the creation of AI-generated sexually explicit deepfake images. Under the legislation, which has not yet been passed, offenders would face prosecution and an unlimited fine, even if they do not widely share the images but create them with the intent to distress… Read More »

Words are flowing out like endless rain: Recapping a busy week of LLM news

Enlarge / An image of a boy amazed by flying letters. reader comments 17 Some weeks in AI news are eerily quiet, but during others, getting a grip on the week’s events feels like trying to hold back the tide. This week has seen three notable large language model (LLM) releases: Google Gemini Pro 1.5… Read More »