In-depth articles with more detailed investigations, interesting thought pieces, and more.
Google DeepMind CEO Demis Hassabis leads the company’s efforts to advance artificial intelligence while balancing research goals with commercial applications. In an extensive interview with Harry McCracken, Hassabis details how the April 2023 merger of DeepMind and Google Brain created a powerhouse AI research organization that now serves as Google’s “engine room.” The combined entity …
A new study from the University of California, Riverside reveals that ChatGPT’s computer systems consume approximately two liters of water for 10-50 queries, four times more than previously estimated. The research, to be published in Communications of the ACM, shows that data centers require substantial water for cooling their AI servers, which generate intense heat …
A new study by Singapore’s National University Show Lab evaluates Anthropic’s Computer Use mode, which enables the AI model Claude to interact with computers through standard user interfaces. According to VentureBeat’s Ben Dickson, the system shows promise in handling complex tasks involving web searches, workflow automation, and office productivity but frequently makes basic mistakes humans …
Meta has fundamentally transformed its business strategy by focusing on Llama, its open-source artificial intelligence model. According to Sharon Goldman’s detailed report in Fortune, CEO Mark Zuckerberg made the pivotal decision to release Llama 2 as open-source in July 2023, despite internal concerns about monetization and security risks. The model has since been downloaded over …
AI and business strategist Elin Hauge argues that humans need to develop deeper knowledge across multiple disciplines to work effectively alongside artificial intelligence. In an analysis published by VentureBeat, Hauge emphasizes that while AI will automate many routine jobs, the focus should shift to developing comprehensive expertise in multiple domains. She warns that surface-level knowledge …
Amazon’s attempt to upgrade Alexa with generative AI capabilities has encountered significant challenges, according to internal documents obtained by Jason Del Rey at Fortune. The new version, codenamed Banyan, suffers from response delays and low customer satisfaction scores in testing. Documents reveal that the AI assistant’s latency issues could frustrate users, and nearly 10% of …
A new investigation by Alex Reisner for The Atlantic reveals that major tech companies have used dialogue from over 53,000 movies and 85,000 TV episodes to train their AI systems. The data, sourced from OpenSubtitles.org, includes content from acclaimed series like “The Simpsons,” “The Wire,” and “Breaking Bad,” as well as Oscar-nominated films from 1950 …
Jakob Uszkoreit, one of the authors of the influential 2017 paper “Attention Is All You Need,” reveals insights about the development of transformer technology in an interview with Ars Technica’s Benj Edwards. The paper, written by eight Google researchers, introduced the transformer architecture that now powers most modern AI systems including ChatGPT and various audio …
The debate over artificial intelligence in creative writing has intensified after NaNoWriMo announced it would allow AI usage in its annual writing challenge. Writer Savannah Cordova, in an article for VentureBeat, argues that while AI can serve as a limited auxiliary tool for tasks like brainstorming or spelling, it should not be used for core …
Spotify is facing a growing problem of AI-generated fake music being uploaded to legitimate artists’ pages, Elizabeth Lopatto reports for The Verge. The fraudulent uploads target musicians with single-word names like Health, Annie, and Standards, appearing on their verified pages through music distributors. Industry expert Andrew Batey estimates that this type of streaming fraud costs …