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Welcome to the Inside AI newsletter! Here are our top stories: - Disney wants to integrate AI across all of its businesses.
- Google and Universal Music Group (UMG) are exploring an AI tool that generates music legally.
- The U.S. government and AI companies partnered on a "hackathon" to build AI to fix software vulnerabilities.
If you find this newsletter useful, please share it with your friends and colleagues. Thank you. Beth
p/beth-duckett | |
| 1 | | Disney has formed an AI task force to explore further AI applications across all of its businesses, with a focus on cutting costs, according to Reuters. Disney wants to use AI to reduce the steep price of TV and movie production, as well as power new advertising features and enhance customer support at its theme parks. More: - The task force, which existed before the Hollywood writers' strike, plans to review each of Disney's business units to identify more opportunities for AI integration.
- The team is working to create in-house AI applications and collaborate with AI startups.
- Disney has also listed new job openings in machine learning and AI across its different branches, including theme parks, engineering, television, and advertising.
- One source told Reuters that legacy media conglomerates like Disney need to embrace AI to avoid becoming obsolete.
Zoom out: - Another unidentified executive, who had worked at Disney, told Reuters, "AI research at Disney goes back a very long time and revolves around all the things you see being discussed today: Can we have something that helps us make movies, games, or conversational robots inside theme parks that people can talk to?"
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| 2 | | Google and Universal Music Group (UMG) are in early talks to create an AI-generated music tool that would compensate artists and songwriters for their music, Financial Times reported. Fans could use AI to legally create tracks based on participating artists' voices, lyrics, and sounds. More: - While a deal hasn't been confirmed, the tool could compensate copyright holders for music rights, with artists having the choice to join.
- The goal is to ensure tracks are produced legally with the proper copyright attribution.
- The talks come after unauthorized AI-generated tracks have spread on platforms like TikTok.
Zoom out: - Earlier this year, UMG started issuing takedown requests for AI-generated songs, saying it's a breach of copyright.
- The music industry remains divided on AI, with supporters like Grimes and David Guetta endorsing the technology and others like Sting defending human artistic work.
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| 3 | | A significant majority of voters across the political spectrum are concerned about AI's risks and support a federal agency to regulate AI, according to a survey by think tank the Artificial Intelligence Policy Institute. 
What the numbers say: 82% of voters don't trust tech executives to regulate AI, and 86% believe AI could accidentally cause a catastrophic event. When it comes to AI development, 72% of voters prefer slowing it down versus only 8% who prefer speeding it up. Why it matters: The results show that Americans are cautious about AI and want lawmakers to step in to make sure it's responsibly developed, according to the institute's executive director, Daniel Colson. In a world of political division, this type of agreement is rare. He said the U.S. needs an organization to provide policymakers and the public "with polling, information, and research that will play a key part in regulating the technology." Where to see the impact: In May, two U.S. senators re-introduced a bill to create a federal agency to regulate AI and digital platforms. Meanwhile, other U.S. lawmakers proposed creating a federal commission to study AI and potentially create regulations as U.S. lawmakers ramp up their efforts to control rapidly growing AI. Lawmakers from both major parties are advocating for the commission, which would evaluate today's current AI oversight, propose new structures, and create a risk-based regulatory framework for AI. | | | |
| 4 | | The U.S. government has teamed up with major AI companies to launch the "AI Cyber Challenge," a competition to identify and fix software vulnerabilities in critical U.S. infrastructure using AI. The Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA) is overseeing the two-year challenge, with $18.5M in prizes going to the top contestants. More: - U.S.-based teams will compete to secure critical infrastructure code using AI, building AI systems that can proactively find and fix software vulnerabilities.
- DARPA will also award $1M each to up to seven small businesses that participate.
- Anthropic, Google, Microsoft, and OpenAI will provide their technology for the challenge, which is focused on securing open-source software.
- The Open Source Security Foundation (OpenSSF), a project under the Linux Foundation, will advise the challenge.
- Qualifying rounds will take place in spring 2024, leading to a semifinal competition at DEF CON 2024 and finals at the DEF CON hacker convention in 2025.
Zoom out: - The goal is to create systems capable of automatically defending any software against attacks, said DARPA program manager Perry Adams, who came up with the idea.
- "The recent gains in AI, when used responsibly, have remarkable potential for securing our code," he said.
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| 5 | | Following mixed reviews, TikTok-parent company ByteDance is conducting further testing of its Chinese-language AI chatbot, known as "Grace." Marketed as "your AI bud," the chatbot is currently only available to users with a ByteDance corporate email or account. More: - According to the SCMP, Grace has received some negative reviews from employees.
- In one example, the chatbot responded to the basic greeting of "Hi Grace" with "Apologies, I'm not Grace. I am Grace."
- A ByteDance spokesperson acknowledged that the bot is "still immature" and not as advanced as its global counterparts like ChatGPT and Google's Bard.
- Grace will only be available in the Chinese market.
Zoom out: - Under China's upcoming AI law, companies offering generative AI services will need a license to operate.
- Beijing has yet to grant official approval to any ChatGPT-like service.
- In China, AI chatbot offerings include Alibaba Group Holding's Tongyi Qianwen, Baidu's Ernie Bot, and SenseTime's SenseChat, which are all in the "trial mode" phase.
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| 6 | | 🍋 FRESH FUNDING 🍋 - Elon Musk's brain-computing interface startup Neuralink Corp. secured $280M in Series D funding led by Peter Thiel's VC firm Founders Fund, the startup announced in a social media post.
- Canadian AI processor company Tenstorrent raised $100M in capital through a strategic financing round led by Hyundai Motor Corp and Samsung Catalyst Fund.
- IVIX, a New York-based startup that aims to help governments detect tax fraud and financial crimes, has raised a $12.5M Series A round led by Insight Partners with participation from Team8, Citi Ventures, and Cardumen Capital.
- Satim, a startup that develops automatic object detection software, has raised $2M. Cultivation Capital led the round, with participation from Verissimo Ventures, The Flying Object, Everywhere Ventures, Hustle Fund, and StartupIst Ventures.
For the latest on AI startup funding and more in the VC community, subscribe to our Inside Venture Capital newsletter. | | | |
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- Amazon removed five books from its platform that were wrongly credited to author Jane Friedman, who suspects they were AI-generated.
- IBM will host Meta's Llama 2 language model on its business-oriented AI platform, watsonx.
- Microsoft unveiled an AI-enabled version of its Dynamics 365 Field Service platform, designed to speed up services and repairs for frontline workers.
- An AI-powered poem postcard generator is launching within the updated Google Arts & Culture app. Users can select art, craft poems with Google's PaLM 2, and share the postcards with friends.
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INSIDE AI LEADERBOARD (7 DAYS) |
 | AI and technology writer | | Beth is the curator and writer of the AI and Tech newsletters at Inside. With a career in journalism and editing that began in 2007, she has written for publications including USA Today, The Arizona Republic, Arizona Business Gazette, and more. You can reach her at Beth.Duckett@yahoo.com. | | This newsletter was edited by Aaron Crutchfield | |
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