Last Week in AI #218: Hinton warns of AI dangers ahead, rapid rise of AI-produced music, AI chatbots can now run locally on old computers, and more!

Hinton leaves Google to raise concerns about impact of generative AI, indie AI music production gaining ground, running AI chatbots on iPhones, old computers, and raspberry pi's

May 8, 2023

‘The Godfather of A.I.’ Leaves Google and Warns of Danger Ahead

Geoffrey Hinton, the pioneering AI scientist behind the foundation for modern deep learning and AI chatbot systems, warns of the dangers of generative AI, the technology behind chatbots like ChatGPT, after quitting his job at Google. Hinton, who was with Google for over a decade, notes the concerns around AI causing potential harm – pushing out misinformation, causing job loss, and posing risks to humanity. Despite advancements in AI being embraced by industry leaders, Hinton insists that the competition between tech giants like Google and Microsoft could lead to danger if it continues uninhibited.

Our take: Hinton's recent departure from Google following his concerns about generative AI serves as a wake-up call to the tech industry. Cutting-edge AI developments have the potential for significant societal impact, but they also come with drawbacks that have yet to be fully explored. Hinton's apprehension showcases the need for responsible technological stewardship that considers ethical consequences and implications. Policymakers, industry leaders, and the academic community must strive for a balance between innovation and safeguarding against theoretical and emerging risks related to AI's potential harms. The tech giants should prioritize the development of global regulations to avoid potential AI arms-races and work together to enhance the control, safety, and ethical use of AI systems.

Inside the Discord Where Thousands of Rogue Producers Are Making AI Music

AI-generated music, featuring vocals mimicking famous artists' voices, has surged in popularity, sparking debate and causing copyright issues in the music industry. Creators within the AI music community, such as AI Hub, defend the technology, arguing it makes music more accessible, while industry professionals and critics claim copyright infringement and cultural appropriation. AI music may take away artists' rights to fair compensation, as major record labels take legal action against these AI-created songs. The rise in AI music questions the balance between creative freedom, technology capabilities, and a need for ethical and legal constraints in the evolving AI-influenced industry.

Our take: AI music's growing prevalence necessitates clear legal and ethical frameworks to protect artists' rights and address concerns of cultural appropriation, while respecting the creative advances technology offers. A collaborative approach among stakeholders, policymakers, and AI music creators could help strike a balance between freedom of expression and artists' intellectual property rights. This can contribute to avoiding an unhealthy race for AI-generated music and focus on harnessing the potential benefits of AI to foster industry innovation – with the ultimate aim of benefiting both creators and consumers.

No Cloud Required: Chatbot Runs Locally on iPhones, Old PCs

Machine Learning Compilation is an open-source project that has developed a lightweight chatbot capable of running locally on various devices, including iPhones and older PCs with integrated graphics. By employing MLC, the model is slimmed down and can process efficiently on a wide range of systems. The project was developed by MLC AI and has contributions from several reputable institutions. Although the current iteration of MLC LLM chatbot is not as advanced as GPT3.5 or GPT4, it offers the advantage of improved privacy and reduced dependency on the internet for functionality.

Our Take: The development of MLC LLM offers an intriguing glimpse into the potential future of chatbots running locally on a wide array of devices. This not only offers users increased privacy by keeping their data local but also allows operation in areas with limited or no internet access. While the quality of the responses generated by the chatbot may currently be subpar compared to more advanced models, it's essential to remember that this is an initial iteration. As AI and machine learning models improve, the prospect of more powerful and versatile chatbots running on a diverse range of devices becomes increasingly plausible.

Other News

Research

A.I. Is Getting Better at Mind-Reading - "In a recent experiment, researchers used large language models to translate brain activity into words."

Little Robots Learn to Drive Fast in the Real World - "Without a lifetime of experience to build on like humans have (and totally take for granted), robots that want to learn a new skill often have to start from scratch."

Deep-learning system explores materials’ interiors from the outside - "Maybe you can’t tell a book from its cover, but according to researchers at MIT you may now be able to do the equivalent for materials of all sorts, from an airplane part to a medical implant."

Brain dynamics uncovered using a machine-learning algorithm - "it can decode activity from the visual cortex of the mouse brain to reconstruct a viewed video."

Cracking the Code of Sound Recognition: Machine Learning Model Reveals How Our Brains Understand Communication Sounds - "Researchers developed a machine learning model that mimics how the brains of social animals distinguish between sound categories, like mating, food or danger, and react accordingly."

In-Context Learning, In Context - "This piece reviews literature that has attempted to understand ICL, and is supplemented by two paper summaries and author Q&As with researchers who have published on the topic."

The complex math of counterfactuals could help Spotify pick your next favorite song - "The basic idea behind counterfactuals is to ask what would have happened in a situation had certain things been different. It’s like rewinding the world, changing a few crucial details, and then hitting play to see what happens."

A Brain Scanner Combined with an AI Language Model Can Provide a Glimpse into Your Thoughts - "Functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) captures coarse, colorful snapshots of the brain in action."

Machine Learning Can Support Urban Planning for Energy Use - "Drexel Researchers Present a Machine Learning Approach for Predicting Philadelphia’s Future Energy Use"

Use of machine learning to assess the prognostic utility of radiomic features for in-hospital COVID-19 mortality - "As portable chest X-rays are an efficient means of triaging emergent cases, their use has raised the question as to whether imaging carries additional prognostic utility for survival among patients with COVID-19."

AI could run a million microbial experiments per year - "An artificial intelligence system enables robots to conduct autonomous scientific experiments -- as many as 10,000 per day -- potentially driving a drastic leap forward in the pace of discovery in areas from medicine to agriculture to environmental science."

Scurrying centipedes inspire many-legged robots that can traverse difficult landscapes - "Centipedes are known for their wiggly walk. With tens to hundreds of legs, they can traverse any terrain without stopping."

Applications

LinkedIn's new Gen AI feature will write messages to hiring managers.

LinkedIn’s new AI will write messages to hiring managers - "LinkedIn is experimenting with a new generative AI feature for job hunters. The company is testing a new feature that will generate brief, cover letter-like messages candidates can send to hiring managers on the platform. The feature is starting to roll out now for the site's premium subscribers."

Jellyfish-like robots could one day clean up the world's oceans - "Most of the world is covered in oceans, which are unfortunately highly polluted. One of the strategies to combat the mounds of waste found in these very sensitive ecosystems -- especially around coral reefs -- is to employ robots to master the cleanup."

An Art Professor Says A.I. Is the Future. It’s the Students Who Need Convincing. - "Lance Weiler is preparing his students at Columbia University for the unknown. “What I’m going to show you might disturb you,” he warned the class in January, at the beginning of his graduate course on digital storytelling."

How AI and Machine Learning is Transforming the Online Gaming Experience - "Are you an avid online gamer? Do you find yourself craving a more immersive experience every time you jump into playing your favorite slot games or any game at that? If so, you may be interested to learn about how advances in AI and machine learning are transforming the gaming experience."

Hugging Face and ServiceNow release a free code-generating model - "AI startup Hugging Face and ServiceNow Research, ServiceNow’s R&D division, have released StarCoder, a free alternative to code-generating AI systems along the lines of GitHub’s Copilot."

Business

Waymo One doubles service area in Phoenix and continues growing in San Francisco - "We’re significantly expanding our Waymo One ride-hailing service area in Metro Phoenix and growing in San Francisco to connect more communities and serve more riders."

Robotics safety firm Veo raises $29 million, with help from Amazon - "the Massachusetts-based firm builds software solutions designed to help humans and robots coexist in a working space."

Midjourney 5.1 Arrives - And It’s Another Leap Forward For AI Art - "Midjourney 5.1 has been released, bringing another significant improvement in the quality of results from the generative AI art service. The company claims that version 5."

Chegg CEO calls 48% stock plunge over ChatGPT fears 'extraordinarily overblown' - "Chegg's 48% stock price plunge on Tuesday, driven by comments in the company's earnings report about the risks of artificial intelligence, was "extraordinarily overblown," CEO Dan Rosensweig told CNBC Tuesday."

Ashton Kutcher's Sound Ventures raises $240 million to invest in AI businesses - "The venture capital firm founded by actor Ashton Kutcher and talent manager Guy Oseary have launched an artificial intelligence fund."

Bing AI comes barging in on Samsung Galaxy devices with built-in SwiftKey - "SwiftKey recently received Bing AI integration that puts Microsoft’s chatbot right at the fingertips of users who’ve installed the software keyboard. But now, the OpenAI-based search tool is making its way automatically onto pretty much every modern Samsung Galaxy device, SamMobile reports."

Amazon Plans to Generate Photos and Videos for Advertisers Using AI - "Amazon is building a team to work on artificial intelligence tools that will generate photos and videos for merchants to use in advertising campaigns on its platform, a company spokesperson confirmed, efforts that could help diversify its ad business."

Microsoft Working With AMD on Expansion Into AI Processors - "Software maker will help boost AMD’s supply of in-demand parts"

Exclusive: Generative AI startup Runway just raised $100 million at a $1.5 billion valuation from a cloud service provider - "Investors recently told Insider that they were big fans of buzzy photo and video generative AI startup Runway. Now, it looks like they're ready to put their money where their mouth is. Runway has raised a Series D funding round of at least $100 million at a $1."

Amazon quietly acquired audio content discovery engine Snackable AI to boost its podcast projects - "Amazon quietly acquired New York-based audio content discovery engine Snackable AI last December to boost its podcast features, as first reported by New York Post. The tech giant told TechCrunch in email on Friday that the Snackable AI team joined Amazon Music to work on existing podcast projects."

Top ex-Google AI researchers raise funding from Thrive Capital - "Two prominent former Google (GOOGL.O) researchers who authored the groundbreaking paper that paved the way for the generative AI boom, have raised $8 million for their new startup Essential AI, four sources told Reuters."

Concerns

What Exactly Are the Dangers Posed by A.I.? - "A recent letter calling for a moratorium on A.I. development blends real threats with speculation. But concern is growing among experts."

Palantir Demos AI to Fight Wars But Says It Will Be Totally Ethical Don’t Worry About It - "Palantir, the company of billionaire Peter Thiel, is launching Palantir Artificial Intelligence Platform (AIP), software meant to run large language models like GPT-4 and alternatives on private networks. In one of its pitch videos, Palantir demos how a military might use AIP to fight a war."

AI Spam Is Already Flooding the Internet and It Has an Obvious Tell - "When you ask ChatGPT to do something it’s not supposed to do, it returns several common phrases. When I asked ChatGPT to tell me a dark joke, it apologized: “As an AI language model, I cannot generate inappropriate or offensive content,” it said."

An AI Scraping Tool Is Overwhelming Websites With Traffic - "The creator of a tool that scrapes the internet for images in order to power artificial intelligence image generators like Stable Diffusion is telling website owners who want him to stop that they have to actively opt out, and that it’s “sad” that they are fighting the inevitable rise of AI."

‘Mom, these bad men have me’: She believes scammers cloned her daughter’s voice in a fake kidnapping - "Jennifer DeStefano’s phone rang one afternoon as she climbed out of her car outside the dance studio where her younger daughter Aubrey had a rehearsal. The caller showed up as unknown, and she briefly contemplated not picking up."

A.I. Imagery May Destroy History As We Know It - "Artificial intelligence images have the potential to misinform the future. For the first time in the technological present, we are on the cusp of a life-and-art-altering explosion of intentionally created dis-informational imagery. Prompted art by artificial intelligence (A.I."

Chatbot ‘journalists’ found running almost 50 AI-generated content farms - "Chatbots pretending to be journalists have been discovered running almost 50 AI-generated “content farms” so far, according to an investigation by the anti-misinformation outfit NewsGuard."

Microsoft economist warns of A.I. election interference from 'bad actors' - "People should worry more about "A.I. being used by bad actors" than they should about AI productivity outpacing human productivity, Microsoft chief economist Michael Schwarz said at a World Economic Forum event Wednesday."

Amnesty International Uses AI-Generated Images of Colombian Human Rights Abuses - "Leading global human rights organization Amnesty International is defending its choice to use an AI image generator to depict protests and police brutality in Colombia."

IBM to Pause Hiring for Jobs That AI Could Do - "Roughly 7,800 IBM jobs could be replaced by AI, automation"

This company adopted AI. Here's what happened to its human workers - "Lately, it's felt like technological change has entered warp speed. Companies like OpenAI and Google have unveiled new Artificial Intelligence systems with incredible capabilities, making what once seemed like science fiction an everyday reality."

As Writers Strike, AI Could Covertly Cross the Picket Line - "Writers want artificial intelligence to be used only as a tool that can help research or facilitate script ideas — but studios have taken an expansive view of the labor-reducing possibilities."

Could AI pen ‘Casablanca’? Screenwriters take aim at ChatGPT - "Imagine, he said, if you could use AI to rewrite the ending of that not-so-popular finale. Maybe even put yourself into the show. Not six months since the release of ChatGPT, generative artificial intelligence is already prompting widespread unease throughout Hollywood."

Google and ChatGPT face major threat from open source community, leaked document warns - "Google and ChatGPT creator OpenAI are facing a major threat from open source artificial intelligence researchers, according to a leaked Google document."

Timbaland Just Added Fuel to Our Growing Rap Dystopia - "Maybe there’s an alternate universe where musicians are currently banding together against AI, opting to blackball anyone complicit in its rapid ascension from a viral sideshow into a thorn in the industry’s side."

The AI PR Industrial Complex - "You can already see the machine at work. Corporations, politicians, threadbois, and ‘thought leaders’ are probing and prodding, searching desperately for ways to use AI to mask problems, gain favor with the public, and monetize attention."

Analysis

AI Is a Waste of Time - "The newest AI tools are accelerating basic research and scaring the general public. But many people are simply using them as toys. "

We're in the AOL phase of artificial intelligence, tech CEO says, as industry raves about A.I. - "Today's artificial intelligence systems are akin to the dial-up internet of yesteryear, according to the CEO of one AI startup, who said the space is in need of a reality check. Sachin Duggal, co-founder, and CEO of Builder."

The Andy Warhol Copyright Case That Could Transform Generative AI - "Andy Warhol probably never said that thing about everyone in the future getting their 15 minutes of fame. It might have been Swedish art collector Pontus Hultén. Or painter Larry Rivers. Or photographer Nat Finkelstein. Warhol is the household name, though, so he gets the credit."

A Stanford professor who specializes in A.I. says it’s redefining ‘authenticity’ and it could be as revolutionary as the calculator - "All were made with the help of generative AI, the new technology that can generate humanlike text, audio and images on demand through programs such as ChatGPT, Midjourney and Bard, among others."

Policy

U.S. senator introduces bill targeting AI's shortfalls - "Senator Michael Bennet introduced a bill on Thursday that would create a task force to look at U.S. policies on artificial intelligence, and identify how best to reduce threats to privacy, civil liberties and due process."

Biden Administration Examining How Companies Use AI to Surveil Employees - "The Biden administration is scrutinizing the ways in which U.S. companies use automated technologies to manage and surveil their employees, including seeking further information from workers, employers and vendors about the risks posed by these monitoring tools. "

Top AI CEOs will meet at White House - "The White House will host leaders of AI's top companies Thursday for a meeting with administration officials, Axios has confirmed."

Scared of Leaking Data to ChatGPT? Microsoft Tests a Private Alternative - "Later this quarter Microsoft’s Azure cloud server unit plans to sell a version of ChatGPT that runs on dedicated cloud servers where the data will be kept separate from those of other customers,"

Bill would require disclosure of AI-generated content in political ads - "Legislation introduced Tuesday by Rep. Yvette D. Clarke (D-N.Y.) responds to AI’s increasing deployment in political messaging."

G7 should adopt 'risk-based' AI regulation, ministers say - " Group of Seven advanced nations should adopt "risk-based" regulation on artificial intelligence, their digital ministers agreed on Sunday, as European lawmakers hurry to introduce an AI Act to enforce rules on emerging tools such as ChatGPT."

Tech group urges Schumer to greenlight self-driving cars in AI bill - "The Chamber of Progress is urging Senate Majority Leader Charles Schumer (D-N.Y.) to speed up the deployment of self-driving vehicles in his proposed framework to regulate artificial intelligence."

China's AI industry barely slowed by US chip export rules - "U.S. microchip export controls imposed last year to freeze China's development of supercomputers used to develop nuclear weapons and artificial-intelligence systems like ChatGPT are having only minimal effects on China's tech sector."

The Next Fear on A.I.: Hollywood’s Killer Robots Become the Military’s Tools - "When President Biden announced sharp restrictions in October on selling the most advanced computer chips to China, he sold it in part as a way of giving American industry a chance to restore its competitiveness."

These are the jobs most likely to be lost – and created – because of AI - "Reskilling people to use AI effectively will be the key to companies being able to use the technology successfully, says Accenture."

Expert Opinions

Google DeepMind CEO Says Some Form of AGI Possible in a Few Years - "Demis Hassabis cites need to develop artificial general intelligence responsibly"

Explainers

How ChatGPT and Other LLMs Work—and Where They Could Go Next - "ChatGPT, Google Bard, and other bots like them, are examples of large language models, or LLMs, and it's worth digging into how they work. It means you'll be able to better make use of them, and have a better appreciation of what they're good at (and what they really shouldn't be trusted with)."

The Full Story of Large Language Models and RLHF - "In this article we give a comprehensive overview of what’s really going on in the world of Language Models, building from the foundational ideas, all the way to the latest advancements."

An AI artist explains his workflow - "How it works — and why it takes a surprisingly long time to make something good. How does an AI artist maintain consistency with a recurring character? While AI art may appear to involve just a few clicks, it can be quite time-consuming."

Stable Diffusion Clearly Explained! - "Most of the recent AI art found on the internet is generated using the Stable Diffusion model. Since it is an open-source tool, any person can easily create fantastic art illustrations from just a text prompt. In this article, I’m going to explain how it works."

Enhancing Accessibility of My PhD Thesis: Utilizing a Prompt Interface to Make Scientific Knowledge Available to Laymen - "In this blog article, we will delve into an innovative approach I adopted to enhance the accessibility of my PhD thesis. By leveraging the power of AI technology and utilizing a prompt interface, I transformed my thesis into a knowledge base that can be easily accessed and explored."

Fun

Indiana Jones 5' will feature a de-aged Harrison Ford for the first 25 minutes - "A young Harrison Ford will grace cinema screens for 25 minutes this summer — aided by some new Industrial Light & Magic (ILM) software."

My Weekend With an Emotional Support A.I. Companion - "For several hours on Friday evening, I ignored my husband and dog and allowed a chatbot named Pi to validate the heck out of me. My views were “admirable” and “idealistic,” Pi told me. My questions were “important” and “interesting."

With DeepFloyd, generative AI art gets a text upgrade - "Generative AI is pretty impressive in terms of its fidelity these days, as viral memes like Balenciaga Pope would suggest. The latest systems can conjure up scenescapes from city skylines to cafes, creating images that appear startlingly realistic — at least on first glance."

Chatbot, draw! - "I'm interested in cases where it's obvious that chatbots are bluffing. For example, when Bard claims its ASCII unicorn art has clearly visible horn and legs but it looks like this: They also vastly overrate their own code."

Last Week in AI