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| Here are today's top AI stories: - FTC opens inquiries into Microsoft, Amazon, and Google AI deals.
- AI-generated explicit images of Taylor Swift trigger concern, calls for regulation.
- Google Cloud to host Hugging Face's AI software.
Beth
p/beth-duckett | |
| 1 | | The U.S. Federal Trade Commission has subpoenaed Amazon, Microsoft, and Alphabet for details on their AI development and dealings with AI startups Anthropic PBC and OpenAI. FTC Chair Lina Khan described it as a "market inquiry" into investments and partnerships between top cloud service providers and AI developers. More: - Khan, speaking at a public workshop today, said the FTC is monitoring the AI industry, cautioning that companies in the space "cannot use claims of innovation as cover for law breaking."
- Under Section 6(b) of the FTC Act, the agency can issue civil investigative demands that are separate from its law enforcement activities.
- AI is not exempt from the laws, and the FTC is "looking closely at the ways companies may be using their power to thwart competition or trick the public," Khan noted.
- The companies have yet to comment on the inquiry.
Zoom out: - Microsoft has invested over $10B in OpenAI, the creator of ChatGPT, which was the top AI startup deal of 2023.
- Anthropic, founded by former OpenAI employees, has received a $2B commitment from Alphabet's Google and up to $4B from Amazon. Anthropic developed the Claude AI chatbot powered by its large language model.
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| 2 | | AI-generated explicit images of Taylor Swift have surfaced on social media, mainly X/Twitter, prompting the singer's fans to counteract by flooding the platforms with positive posts. According to The Verge, one of the X posts drew over 45 million views and 24,000 reposts before it was removed by the platform, which also suspended the account of the user who first shared the post. More: - X's policies ban the posting of "synthetic, manipulated, or out-of-context media that may deceive or confuse people and lead to harm."
- According to 404 Media, the images may have originated from a Telegram group before they were shared on X and elsewhere.
- X and representatives for Swift have not commented on the matter.
Reactions: - U.S. Sen. Mark Warner (D-Va.) called it "a deplorable situation," saying he would "keep pushing on AI companies to stop this horrible capability and on platforms to stop their circulation."
- Ben Decker of Memetica, a digital investigations agency, told CNN that the incident highlights how AI is being used for malicious purposes without adequate safeguards to protect the public.
- Decker noted that there's been a rapid rise in the spread of harmful AI-generated content targeting public figures on social media platforms, which lack "effective" monitoring strategies.
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| 3 | | Google Cloud will now host Hugging Face's AI software. Google is strengthening its relationship with the open-source AI community by forming a new partnership with the startup. Hugging Face will make its GitHub-like platform for sharing open-source AI models available via Google Cloud. More: - Under the deal, Google's cloud unit becomes the "preferred destination" for Hugging Face's AI training and inference workloads.
- Developers on Hugging Face will be able to use Google Cloud's infrastructure for services and training AI.
- The infrastructure includes Google's computing power, TPUs, and GPUs for training and deploying open models and developing new generative AI apps.
- Developers will also gain tools to "train, tune, and serve" Hugging Face models through Google Cloud's Vertex AI product suite, which includes more than 130 foundation models.
Zoom out: - Google was among the companies that invested in Hugging Face's $235M funding round last August, valuing the AI startup at $4.5B.
- Developers can both use and upload their own models to Hugging Face. The AI model repository hosts over 350,000 models, including Meta's Llama 2 and Stability AI's Stable Diffusion, and offers databases for model training.
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| 4 | | A 61-year-old Texas man has filed a lawsuit claiming he was wrongfully arrested and assaulted due to mistaken identification by facial recognition software. The suit claims the AI technology incorrectly identified Harvey Murphy Jr. as the culprit in robberies at a Sunglass Hut and a Macy's in Houston. More: - Macy's said its facial recognition software, which scans surveillance footage and compares faces against a shoplifter database, implicated Murphy in robberies at both stores.
- After he was arrested, Murphy was beaten and sexually assaulted by three men in jail, according to the lawsuit.
- However, he was later released without charge when it was found that he had been in a Sacramento jail on unrelated charges at the time of the robberies.
- Murphy is seeking $10M in damages in the lawsuit filed against Macy's, EssilorLuxottica (Sunglass Hut's parent company), and three individuals allegedly involved in the case.
Zoom out: - Murphy joins at least six other individuals who say they were wrongfully accused of crimes due to false facial recognition matches.
- Last month, the FTC accused the drugstore chain Rite Aid of using inaccurate facial recognition tech that wrongly identified some customers as shoplifters.
- Rite Aid will have to stop using facial recognition surveillance in its stores for five years under a proposed settlement.
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| 5 | | The University of Texas at Austin is launching a Center for Generative AI that includes a massive GPU computing cluster. The Vista cluster will house 600 NVIDIA H100s GPUs, making it one of the largest in the academic world. More: - The new center, part of UT's Machine Learning Laboratory, will be jointly led by the Cockrell School of Engineering and the College of Natural Science.
- The center includes faculty and support from Dell Medical School, the School of Information, and McCombs School of Business.
- UT hosts the NSF-backed AI Institute for Machine Learning Foundations and TACC's Frontera, the U.S.'s most powerful university supercomputer.
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| 6 | | AI mergers and acquisitions: - Fusemachines, an AI products developer for businesses, is set to merge with CSLM Acquisition Corp., a blank check company, in a $200M deal to list on the Nasdaq. Fusemachines, led by entrepreneurs of Nepali origin, offers enterprise products for industries such as healthcare, retail, and banking.
- San Francisco's Voltron Data is acquiring real-time AI platform Claypot to improve its data analytics offerings, including fraud detection and personalization. Voltron Data handles large batch workloads using GPUs and plans to integrate the real-time functionalities of Claypot AI on its GPU platforms.
- Apple has been quietly acquiring AI-focused companies and talent as it works to integrate on-device AI into upcoming iPhones, the Financial Times reported. PitchBook data reveals that Apple has outpaced other tech competitors in acquiring AI startups, with a total of 21 purchases since 2017. Its most recent was AI video compression startup WaveOne in 2023.
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- Publicis, the world's largest advertising group, announced a 300M euro ($327M) investment in AI over three years, with plans to advance its AI technology and workforce upskilling.
- Chinese fintech Ant Group has formed an AI unit called NextEvo, led by a former Google engineer.
- Guns N' Roses released a new music video for their recent track, "The General," featuring a blend of live and animated sequences generated by AI.
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 | AI and technology writer | | Beth is a contributing editor and writer of Inside's AI and Tech newsletters. She has written for notable publications like USA Today and the Arizona Business Gazette. During her time as a public policy reporter at The Arizona Republic, she received recognition with a Pulitzer Prize nomination and a First Amendment Award for her collaborative reporting on pension cost increases. Beth also authored a book on the solar photovoltaic industry in 2016. You can reach her at Beth.Duckett@yahoo.com. | | This newsletter was edited by Aaron Crutchfield | |
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