Where will AI go next?
This year we’ve seen a dizzying number of breakthroughs in generative AI, from AIs that can produce videos from just a few words to models that can generate audio based on snippets of a song.
Melissa Heikkilä, MIT Technology Review’s senior AI reporter, stopped by Google’s new Manhattan offices last week, where the company announced a slew of advances in generative AI, including a system that combines its two text-to-video AI models, Phenaki and Imagen.
While they’re impressive pieces of AI research, it’s unclear how Google could monetize them. Melissa spoke to several of the top executives at some of the world’s leading AI labs to hear about the potential, and the limitations, of these sorts of models. Here’s what they had to say.
Melissa’s story is from The Algorithm, our weekly AI newsletter covering everything you need to know about the industry’s movers and shakers. Sign up to receive it in your inbox every Monday.
Podcast: Decoding a Future of Fire
We take a look at how AI and other tech is being used to help predict, detect, and pinpoint the location of wildfires in the second of a two-part series. Refresh your memory by listening to the first part of the series on Apple Podcasts, or wherever else you usually listen.
The must-reads
I’ve combed the internet to find you today’s most fun/important/scary/fascinating stories about technology.
1 There’s no evidence that US voting machines have been tampered with
Humans tend to be the weakest link in the security chain. (New Yorker $)
+ Apps popular among immigrants are rife with political misinformation. (WP $)
+ The worst surge of misinformation could be yet to come. (NYT $)
2 Cop27’s Wi-Fi in Egypt is blocking human rights websites
Global rights groups are struggling to access their own sites. (The Guardian)
+ Greece will stop selling spyware following a series of accusations. (NYT $)
3 A German privacy activist is fighting Clearview AI over his face
Matthias Marx wants EU regulators to crack down on data scrapers. (Wired $)
+ A UK group has filed a similar complaint against PimEyes. (BBC)
+ The walls are closing in on Clearview AI. (MIT Technology Review)