Inside AI

For May 31, 2024

Here’s a look at today's AI briefing:

AI-generated images of Israel-Hamas war go viral.
Tribeca Festival to debut OpenAI-generated short films.
Saudi Aramco venture fund invests in Chinese startup Zhipu AI.
Dell falls short of investor expectations for AI servers.
Other top AI stories this week.

AI-created images related to the Israel-Hamas war have surfaced on social media, according to NBC News. The surge follows the circulation of a seemingly AI-generated image calling for "All Eyes on Rafah" following the deadly Israeli strike on a tent camp in Rafah, Gaza.

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Officials said 45 people in a tent camp were killed by Israeli airstrikes on Sunday.
The "Rafah" image soon spread rapidly on social media platforms, particularly on Instagram stories.
After the image went viral, pro-Israel and pro-Palestine images featuring typical AI characteristics like blurred elements also began circulating.
One apparent AI-generated image showed a crowd in a town square beneath block letters that read "bring them home now," referring to the 125 Israeli hostages still held in Gaza.

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According to NBC, the AI-generated images reflect the broader social media battle between supporters of Israel's Gaza campaign and advocates for Palestinians, highlighting AI's growing influence on political speech, internet activism, and propaganda.

This year's Tribeca Festival will premiere five short films made with OpenAI's Sora model. "Sora Shorts" will be screened at Tribeca on June 15 and include a discussion afterward.

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OpenAI trained Tribeca alumni on its tools and granted them early access to Sora, its text-to-video generator.
The filmmakers are Bonnie Discepolo, Ellie Foumbi, Nikyatu Jusu, Reza Sixo Safai, and Michaela Ternasky-Holland.
To participate, they agreed to AI contract terms reached by the movie industry, directors, actors, and writers last year.
OpenAI said the filmmaker feedback will help the company improve Sora, which is due out to the public later this yea r.

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According to OpenAI, Sora has had weaknesses when it comes to complex scene physics, cause and effect, and spatial details, including confusion over directions and precise camera movements.
Sora has competitors in the global AI video generator market, which is expected to top $2.17B by 2032.
Google's new video-generating AI, Veo, produces high-quality 1080p videos of over a minute in different styles, for example.

Saudi Aramco's venture fund Prosperity7 Ventures joined a $400M funding round for Chinese AI startup Zhipu AI. It's the first time a foreign investor has backed a prominent Chinese startup specializing in GenAI.

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The financing round reportedly values Zhipu AI at $3B.
Founded in 2019, Zhipu AI has launched a chatbot and a visual language foundation model.
Prosperity7, which manages a $3B fund, is part of the state-owned oil group Aramco's venture capital arm.

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In 2023, the Biden administration compelled Prosperity7 to sell its shares in Rain, a U.S. AI chip startup backed by OpenAI CEO Sam Altman and others.
The U.S. has also been closely scrutinizing Middle Eastern funds with potential ties to China.

Shares of Dell fell on Friday after the company failed to meet investor expectations regarding its AI-optimized servers. Bernstein analysts were concerned that the AI servers "are being sold at near-zero margins."

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In Q1, Dell's shipments of the AI servers more than doubled from he prior quarter, reaching $1.7B.
- The shipments still represented under 7% of total revenue.
Dell's backlog of AI server orders also rose more than 30% quarter-over-quarter to $3.8B.
- However, some analysts had expected the backlog to reach $4B to $5B.
Rising costs associated with building high-demand AI servers are also expected to hurt Dell's annual margin.

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Dell COO Jeff Clarke still expressed confidence in the company's AI capabilities to investors, saying "no company is better positioned than Dell to bring AI to the enterprise."
Bank of America analysts noted that it's still in the early stages of AI adoption and Dell could "capture higher AI margins over time."

Weekly roundup — The other top AI stories you might have missed this week:

Elon Musk's AI company, xAI, secured $6B in funding, marking one of the biggest AI venture capital rounds. The startup, valued at $18B before the new funding, reached a post-money valuation of $24B.
OpenAI has formed a new Safety and Security Committee led by CEO Sam Altman and other board members. The committee's first task is to review and improve the company's "processes and safeguards" within 90 days.
Google says it made "technical improvements" to its AI-generated answers in Search following user reports of misinformation. For example, the overviews advised using glue to keep cheese on pizza and recommended users eat at least one rock per day.
OpenAI said it recently started training its latest flagship AI model. The likely successor to GPT-4 will bring OpenAI to "the next level of capabilities" as it works to develop artificial general intelligence or AGI.
Apple plans to improve Siri with advanced AI, allowing users to control app functions through voice commands. The update, planned for 2025, will analyze users' activity on their devices to automatically activate Siri features.
Former OpenAI director Helen Toner revealed that the board learned of ChatGPT's launch through Twitter. On the TED AI Show podcast, Toner discussed internal events that led to Sam Altman's firing last year, accusing the CEO of "withholding information" and "misrepresenting" company efforts.

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ElevenLabs launched a new tool for users to create sound effects through text prompts.
Beijing is advancing robotaxi operations toward its city center, with one route expected to become fully driverless within a year.
Meta's AI is now summarizing Facebook comments, with some bizarre results, according to The Verge.
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Beth Duckett

AI and technology writer

Beth is a contributing editor and writer of Inside's AI and Tech newsletters. She has written for publications including USA Today, the Arizona Business Gazette, and The Arizona Republic, where she received recognition with a Pulitzer Prize nomination and a First Amendment Award for collaborative reporting on state pension cost increases. You can reach her at Beth.Duckett@yahoo.com.