In the world of AI, what might be called “small language models” have been growing in popularity recently because they can be run on a local device instead of requiring data center-grade computers in the cloud. On Wednesday, Apple introduced a set of tiny source-available AI language models called OpenELM that are small enough to run directly on a smartphone.
Source: Apple releases eight small AI language models aimed at on-device use
The proliferation of large language models and generative AI has created fertile ground for vector database technologies to flourish. Vector databases, store and process data in the form of vector embeddings, which convert text, documents, images, and other data into numerical representations that capture the meaning and relationships between the different data points.
Source: Why vector databases are having a moment as the AI hype cycle peaks | TechCrunch
En masse, the music industry seems to have decided that NFTs were a terrible idea best swept under the carpet and forgotten. And in fairness, many of the industry’s initial experiments with NFTs deserve exactly that fate. However, with the hype having ebbed away the musicians who are still exploring how NFTs and related web3 technologies might be able to serve their art and their fan communities.
Source: Sound of Fractures wants tokens to ‘re-imagine our relationship with music’
When Walter Woodman and his team were working on one of their latest film productions, they kept hitting a snag. They couldn’t get the character at the centre of their picture, a man with a balloon for a head, to look quite right. “It would draw a face on the balloon and we didn’t really want that,” Mr. Woodman said. “If we even mentioned the word ‘face’ it would put a human face inside the balloon … and so I think we learnt after a while to say ‘the balloon man is expressionless’.”
Source: Lights, camera, algorithm: How artificial intelligence is being used to make films
The agreement will lead to the production of audio versions of select deep backlist series books that would not otherwise have been created, using ElevenLabs’s text-to-speech technology. According to ElevenLabs, the tech firm has developed an AI-based tool that can transform text into speech using artificial intelligence and makes it possible to “reflect the emotion, intonation, and pacing of the written word in audio, delivering a high-quality experience that sounds human”.
Source: HarperCollins and ElevenLabs AI to create audiobooks for foreign titles
Few new technologies have been quite as foundation-shaking as generative AI. Apart from the head-snapping speed at which the technology has developed, it operates on such different principles from other information technologies as to challenge the very notion of creativity, and to defy traditional concepts of authorship, identity and intellectual property.
Source: Hollywood’s AI Concerns Present New and Complex Challenges for Legal Eagles to Untangle
While the big AI companies are delving into legal gray areas trying to find new sources of data for their Large Language Models, the situation for website operators and publishers is much more black and white. Traffic to websites is drying up — and a full-on drought could be about to hit, as search engines morph into generative AI chatbots.
Source: SEO Implications of Search Engines Morphing Into AI Chatbots
The contract the Guild secured in September set a historic precedent: It is up to the writers whether and how they use generative AI as a tool to assist and complement—not replace—them. Ultimately, if generative AI is used, the contract stipulates that writers get full credit and compensation. The victory was important for writers, but its implications reverberate far beyond Hollywood.
There’s a problem with leading artificial intelligence tools like ChatGPT, Gemini and Claude: We don’t really know how smart they are. That’s because, unlike companies that make cars or drugs or baby formula, A.I. companies aren’t required to submit their products for testing before releasing them to the public. There’s no Good Housekeeping seal for A.I. chatbots.
Source: A.I. Has a Measurement Problem
So far, almost all contentious AI-generated images have been debunked within hours, mostly because of the power of social media to quickly crowdsource errors in these photos that are often otherwise imperceptible. Big Tech companies and independent fact-checkers, too, have prioritized finding and removing such harmful politically motivated falsehoods. But audio remains uncharted territory.
Source: Spot the deepfake: The AI tools undermining our own eyes and ears