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AI (Artificial Intelligence) letters are placed on computer motherboard in this illustration taken June 23, 2023. “It is clear over the last three years that transparency is on the decline while capability is going through the roof," said Stanford professor Percy Liang, a researcher behind the Foundation Model Transparency Index. Foundation models are AI systems trained on massive datasets that can perform a variety of tasks from writing to coding. The index’s authors hope that the report will encourage companies to increase their foundation model transparency, and also serve as a starting point for governments grappling with how to regulate the burgeoning field. The index is a project from the Stanford Institute for Human-Centered Artificial Intelligence’s Center for Research on Foundation Models.

Persons: Dado Ruvic, Percy Liang, Amazon’s, OpenAI’s, Anna Tong, David Gregorio Our Organizations: REUTERS, Stanford University, Google, Stanford, Microsoft, Stanford Institute for, for Research, Thomson Locations: San Francisco

The updates include the addition of memory storage to its developer tools for using AI models. The new features are expected to be rolled out at OpenAI’s first-ever developer conference in San Francisco on November 6, sources said. Keeping developers happy has been a major focus for OpenAI, these sources told Reuters. Earlier this year, the company rushed to release ChatGPT plugins, add-on tools that allow developers to create applications within ChatGPT. Earlier this year, Altman admitted to a group of developers in London that plugins have not gained market traction.

Persons: Sam Altman, Elon Musk, Altman, Musk doesn't, OpenAI, Jasper, ChatGPT, Lakshya Bakshi, Krystal Hu, Anna Tong, Kenneth Li, Nick Zieminski Organizations: Reuters, Elon, Google, Thomson Locations: OpenAI’s, San Francisco, London

CEO Sam Altman has made the acquisition of more AI chips a top priority for the company. Meta's (META.O) custom chip effort has been beset with issues, leading the company to scrap some of its AI chips, according to a Reuters report. OpenAI's main backer, Microsoft (MSFT.O), is also developing a custom AI chip that OpenAI is testing, The Information has reported. Demand for specialized AI chips has soared since the launch of ChatGPT last year. Nvidia is one of the few chipmakers that produces useful AI chips and dominates the market.

Persons: Dado Ruvic, OpenAI, Sam Altman, Altman, Bernstein, Stacy Rasgon, Anna Tong, Stephen Nellis, Max A, Kenneth Li, Stephen Coates 私 Organizations: REUTERS, FRANCISCO, Reuters, Nvidia, Microsoft, Google, Amazon.com, Annapurna Labs, Devices Locations: WASHINGTON, San Francisco

Announcements at Meta Connect, Meta's biggest event of the year, will indicate how Zuckerberg plans to navigate the shift this year of investor fervor to artificial intelligence from augmented and virtual reality technologies. Developers will be watching to assess what apps they might create for Meta's latest hardware devices, such as a new Quest virtual reality headset due out this fall. The Wall Street Journal initially reported the plan to announce generative AI chatbots at Connect. Just before the event, Meta said it was delivering on a plan announced early last year to roll out mobile and web versions of its flagship social VR platform Horizon Worlds. It also quietly added legs to its previously upper-body-only virtual reality avatars, as spotted by industry blog Upload VR.

Persons: Dado Ruvic, Mark Zuckerberg, Zuckerberg, Meta, Katie Paul, Anna Tong, Miral Organizations: Facebook, REUTERS, FRANCISCO, Meta, Street Journal, Thomson

As it seeks to gain ground in the fast-moving AI space, Google is rolling out Bard Extensions, enabling users to import their data from other Google products. For instance, users could ask Bard to search their files in Google Drive or provide a summary of the user’s Gmail inbox. For now, Bard users will only be able to pull information in from Google apps, but Google is working with external companies to connect their applications into Bard in the future, Google senior product director Jack Krawczyk said. Another new feature in Bard seeks to alleviate a nagging problem for generative AI: inaccurate responses known as “hallucinations”. Bard users will be able to see which parts of Bard’s answers differ from and agree with Google search results.

Persons: Bard, OpenAI, ChatGPT, Jack Krawczyk, it's, ” Krawczyk, Anna Tong, Lisa Shumaker Organizations: Google, Microsoft, Gmail, Thomson Locations: San Francisco

Sept 14 (Reuters) - Artificial intelligence leader OpenAI is opening an office in Dublin, the Microsoft (MSFT.O)-backed company announced Thursday. Its headquarters are in San Francisco and it announced it was opening a London office in June. The Dublin office will not be the company's European headquarters and there will not be an executive running the office, at least not yet, Kwon said. In opening a Dublin office, OpenAI is following a well-established American tech company strategy. Tax implications did not play a role in the decision, as OpenAI is not profitable, Kwon said.

Persons: OpenAI, Jason Kwon, Kwon, OpenAI's ChatGPT, Anna Tong, Rosalba O'Brien Organizations: Microsoft, Reuters, Meta, Google, Thomson Locations: Dublin, San Francisco, Ireland, American, Europe

OpenAI and ChatGPT logos are seen in this illustration taken, February 3, 2023. Worldwide desktop and mobile website visits to the ChatGPT website decreased by 3.2% to 1.43 billion in August, following approximately 10% drops from each of the previous two months. U.S. ChatGPT traffic in August rose slightly, in concert with American schools being back in session. OpenAI also released the ChatGPT app on the iOS system in May, which could sap some traffic from its website. Besides ChatGPT, OpenAI makes money by selling access to its AI models for developers and enterprises directly and through a partnership with Microsoft, which invested over $10 billion into the company.

Persons: Dado Ruvic, ChatGPT, chatbot, David F, Carr, Similarweb, Bard chatbot, Bing, OpenAI, Anna Tong, Kenneth Li Organizations: REUTERS, Microsoft, Thomson Locations: San Francisco

BLACK ROCK CITY, Nevada, Sept 4 (Reuters) - Thousands of Burning Man attendees readied to make their "exodus" on Monday as the counter-culture arts festival in the Nevada desert ends in a sea of drying mud instead of a party around its flaming effigy namesake. One person died at the event in the Black Rock Desert, authorities said on Sunday, providing few details. Every year Burning Man brings tens of thousands of people to the Nevada desert to dance, make art and enjoy being part of a self-sufficient, temporary community of like-minded spirits. The festival typically has a penultimate night send-off with the burning of a giant wooden effigy of a man, along with a fireworks show. Reporting by Anna Tong at Black Rock City and Rich McKay in Atlanta; Editing by Rosalba O'BrienOur Standards: The Thomson Reuters Trust Principles.

Persons: Marc Chenard, revelers, Trevor Hughes, Brian Fraoli, Fraoli, Anna Tong, Rich McKay, Rosalba O'Brien Organizations: National Weather Service, Center, Rock City, USA, Network, REUTERS, Acquire, Black Rock City, Thomson Locations: Nevada, Reno, College Park , Maryland, Rock, New York, San Francisco, Black, Atlanta

REUTERS/Dado Ruvic/Illustration/File Photo/File Photo Acquire Licensing RightsAug 28 (Reuters) - Artificial intelligence leader OpenAI said on Monday it is releasing a version of ChatGPT targeted to large businesses, increasing the overlap in what OpenAI and its financial backer Microsoft (MSFT.O) offer to customers. ChatGPT Enterprise offers more security, privacy and higher-speed access to OpenAI’s technology, the company said. With the launch of ChatGPT Enterprise, OpenAI hopes employers will feel comfortable embracing ChatGPT usage at work. Microsoft already offers businesses access to ChatGPT via its Azure OpenAI Service, though in order to use it businesses must be a customer of Azure, Microsoft’s cloud computing platform. ChatGPT Enterprise subscribers need not subscribe to Azure, OpenAI said.

Persons: Dado Ruvic, OpenAI, Carlyle, Estee Lauder, Anna Tong, Chris Reese, Marguerita Choy Organizations: REUTERS, Microsoft, ChatGPT Enterprise, Estee Lauder Companies, Reuters, OpenAI, ChatGPT, Thomson Locations: U.S, San Francisco

Aug 17 (Reuters) - Two prominent former Google (GOOGL.O) researchers, one of whom was a co-inventor of the “transformer” artificial intelligence architecture that paved the way for the generative AI boom, announced on Thursday they had started a new AI company based in Tokyo. Sakana AI, founded by David Ha and Llion Jones, declined to disclose funding details. Ha was previously the head of research at Stability AI and a Google Brain researcher. After the famous paper came out, advances in generative AI foundation models have centered around making the “transformer”-based models larger and larger. Instead of doing that, Sakana AI will focus on creating new architectures for foundation models, Jones told Reuters.

Persons: David Ha, Llion Jones, Jones, Ha, “, ”, Noam Shazeer, Aidan Gomez, Anna Tong, Frances Kerry Organizations: Google, Reuters, Thomson Locations: Tokyo, San Francisco

Aug 15 (Reuters) - Artificial intelligence code cleanup startup Grit has raised a $7 million in a seed round, the New York City-based startup said on Tuesday. Founders Fund and Abstract Ventures led the round, with participation from Quiet Capital, 8VC, A* Capital, AME Cloud Ventures, SV Angel, Operator Partners, CoFound Partners, and Uncorrelated Ventures. Grit provides an AI-powered product that automates software maintenance, traditionally a manual and frustrating task for software engineering teams, particularly for large enterprises with antiquated code bases. For example, when new versions of software come out, engineering teams can spend months updating their code to work with the new software version, which Grit uses AI to entirely automate, said the company’s CEO Morgante Pell. In one case, a software project that was supposed to take six months was shortened to one week using Grit, he said.

Persons: Morgante Pell, “, John Luttig, Anna Tong, Tomasz Janowski Organizations: New, Fund, Ventures, Quiet, AME Cloud Ventures, SV Angel, Partners, CoFound Partners, ”, Reuters, “, Thomson Locations: New York City, San Francisco

REUTERS/Heather Somerville/File PhotoAug 3 (Reuters) - Cruise, General Motors' (GM.N) robotaxi unit, said on Thursday it had signed the driverless car industry's first labor union agreements, a significant milestone as unions and robotaxi firms have historically been at odds. The company is partnering with two local San Francisco union chapters that represent electrical workers and janitors, the International Brotherhood of Electrical Workers Local 6 and Service Employees International Union Local 87. Reuters could not definitively determine if these are the driverless car industry’s first union agreements. Cruise, which offers limited service in San Francisco with a fleet of Chevrolet Bolts fitted with driverless technology, has accumulated over 3 million driverless miles, the company said. Reporting by Anna Tong in San Francisco; Editing by Leslie AdlerOur Standards: The Thomson Reuters Trust Principles.

Persons: Heather Somerville, ”, John Doherty, Cruise, Anna Tong, Leslie Adler Organizations: General Motors Corp, REUTERS, General Motors, San, International Brotherhood of Electrical Workers, Employees International Union Local, Reuters, United Auto Workers, Detroit Three, GM, Chevrolet Bolts, California’s Public Utilities Commission, Thomson Locations: San Francisco, California, U.S, IBEW

July 25 (Reuters) - Artificial intelligence is expected to pay off big for tech giants including Microsoft (MSFT.O) and Alphabet (GOOGL.O) someday. Microsoft is bearing AI costs in two ways, analysts said: to power its own products such as its forthcoming $30-a-month Copilot AI assistant, and to serve companies wanting to use its Azure cloud computing services to create AI products. "They're buying a bunch of H100s," said Ben Bajarin, chief executive and principal analyst of Creative Strategies, referring to Nvidia's flagship chips for AI. Microsoft may be "aggressively buying Nvidia chips, given Microsoft does not have its own silicon as an alternative," said Atlantic Equities analyst James Cordwell. "The message on inflection point was the same," from Microsoft and Google, said Gene Munster, managing partner at Deepwater Asset Management, "but the difference was Microsoft investors wanted to see more."

Persons: Ben Bajarin, Ruth Porat, Scott Kessler, James Cordwell, Porat, Gene Munster, Stephen Nellis, Akash Sriram, Anna Tong, Max Cherney, Yuvraj Malik, Greg Bensinger, Sayantani Ghosh, Richard Chang Organizations: Microsoft, Nvidia Corp, Creative, Google, Deepwater Asset Management, Thomson Locations: Atlantic, San Francisco, Bengaluru, New York

July 24 (Reuters) - Worldcoin, a cryptocurrency project founded by OpenAI CEO Sam Altman, launched on Monday. Blockchains can store the World IDs in a way that preserves privacy and can't be controlled or shut down by any single entity, co-founder Alex Blania told Reuters. The project says World IDs will be necessary in the age of generative AI chatbots like ChatGPT, which produce remarkably humanlike language. Altman told Reuters Worldcoin also can help address how the economy will be reshaped by generative AI. Since only real people can have World IDs, it could be used to reduce fraud when deploying UBI.

Persons: Sam Altman, Alex Blania, Altman, Reuters Worldcoin, ”, UBI, Anna Tong, Juby Babu, Elizabeth Howcroft, Kenneth Li, Navaratnam, Philippa Fletcher Organizations: Humanity, Reuters, Thomson Locations: San Francisco, Berlin

"High level, we want this to become something like your personal AI friend," said developer Div Garg, whose company MultiOn is beta-testing an AI agent. The race towards increasingly autonomous AI agents has been supercharged by the March release of GPT-4 by developer OpenAI, a powerful upgrade of the model behind ChatGPT - the chatbot that became a sensation when released last November. GPT-4 facilitates the type of strategic and adaptable thinking required to navigate the unpredictable real world, said Vivian Cheng, an investor at venture capital firm CRV who has a focus on AI agents. OpenAI itself is very interested in AI agent technology, according to four people briefed on its plans. There are at least 100 serious projects working to commercialize agents, said Matt Schlicht, who writes a newsletter on AI.

Persons: Siri, Alexa, Tony Stark's, Kanjun Qiu, Reid Hoffman, Mustafa Suleyman, Qiu, OpenAI, Vivian Cheng, CRV, Aravind Srinivas, Jarvis, Yoshua Bengio, Satya Nadella, Apple's Siri, it's, Google, Edward Grefenstette, Jason Franklin, WVV Capital, Hesam Motlagh, Matt Schlicht, Anna Tong, Jeffrey Dastin, Kenneth Li Organizations: Microsoft, Google, U.S . Federal Trade Commission, Reuters, FTC, OpenAI's, Financial Times, Amazon, Alexa, Investors, WVV, Google Ventures, Entrepreneurs, Thomson Locations: Silicon, Jarvis, GPT, Cognosys, San Francisco, Palo Alto

July 14 (Reuters) - Roblox Chief Business Officer Craig Donato is leaving gaming and metaverse company Roblox (RBLX.N), the company told Reuters on Friday. Donato has been at Roblox nearly seven years and will be departing at the end of the summer, the company said. The company said it promoted Christina Wootton to Chief Partnerships Officer, who will oversee all the company's business relationships, in the wake of Donato's imminent departure. Wootton has been at the company since 2014 and has worked with large brands and corporations including Gucci, Nike, Netflix and Disney to develop a presence in the Roblox metaverse, the company said. "We firmly believe that all brands will eventually have a presence on Roblox," Wootton said in a statement.

Persons: Craig Donato, Donato, Christina Wootton, Wootton, Arvind KC, Anna Tong, Edmund Klamann Organizations: Reuters, Gucci, Nike, Netflix, Disney, People, Systems, Thomson Locations: Roblox, San Francisco

☆ Elon Musk launches AI firm xAI as he looks to take on OpenAI
▼ + stars: | 2023-07-13 | by ( ) www.reuters.com time to read: +3 min

In a Twitter Spaces event Wednesday evening, Musk explained his plan for building a safer AI. Rather than explicitly programming morality into its AI, xAI will seek to create a "maximally curious" AI, he said. Musk in March registered a firm named X.AI Corp, incorporated in Nevada, according to a state filing. The firm lists Musk as the sole director and Jared Birchall, the managing director of Musk's family office, as a secretary. Dan Hendrycks, who will advise the xAI team, is currently director of the Center for AI Safety and his work revolves around the risks of AI.

Persons: Elon Musk, Musk, xAI, that's, Igor Babuschkin, DeepMind, Tony Wu, Szegedy, Greg Yang, Jared Birchall, Google's Bard, Microsoft's, Bing, Bard, Dan Hendrycks, Tesla, Akash Sriram, Chavi Mehta, Yuvraj Malik, Aditya Soni, Anna Tong, Shailesh Kuber, Leslie Adler Organizations: SpaceX, Twitter, Microsoft, Google, X.AI Corp, Center, AI Safety, X Corp, Thomson Locations: OpenAI, Nevada, San Francisco Bay, Bengaluru, Anna, San Francisco

WASHINGTON, July 12 (Reuters) - Billionaire Elon Musk said on Wednesday he thinks China is interested in a cooperative international framework on artificial intelligence, from conversations he had when he visited China a few weeks ago. Musk made the remarks in a Twitter Space event with two U.S. congressmen, Democrat Ro Khanna and Republican Mike Gallagher. "China is definitely interested in working in a cooperative international framework for AI regulation," Musk said. He added that he has advocated for artificial intelligence regulations and oversight, including in his meetings in China. After meeting with officials during his China trip, Musk last month said the Chinese government would seek to initiate artificial intelligence regulations in China.

Persons: Billionaire Elon Musk, Musk, Ro Khanna, Mike Gallagher, Tesla, Ding Xuexiang, Kanishka Singh, Anna Tong, Sandra Maler, Leslie Adler Organizations: Billionaire, Regulators, Thomson Locations: China, Shanghai, Beijing, ChatGPT

Unlike past tech booms that have touched San Francisco, the generative AI craze brings fewer jobs, because AI firms excel at staying lean and automating work. "I think we should curb our optimism that San Francisco commercial real estate will bounce back because of AI," said Silicon Valley investor Jeremiah Owyang. Eleven of the country's top 20 AI companies are in San Francisco and have raised $15.7 billion collectively between 2008 and 2023. That amount is just 2.3% of the estimated 150,000 daily workers that downtown San Francisco lost during the pandemic. Reporting by Anna Tong in San Francisco; Editing by Sayantani Ghosh, Anna Driver and Matthew LewisOur Standards: The Thomson Reuters Trust Principles.

Persons: Carlos Barria, San, Jeremiah Owyang, Erin Price, Wright, OpenAI, Matt Schlicht, Mike Grabowski, Grabowski, Owyang, Lee Edwards, Daron Acemoglu, Anna Tong, Sayantani Ghosh, Anna Driver, Matthew Lewis Organizations: Intelligence, REUTERS, FRANCISCO, Reuters, Francisco, San Francisco Mayor London Breed's, San, Microsoft, Octane, Google, Nordstrom, Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Thomson Locations: San Francisco, California, U.S, Valley, NFX, Dubai

July 12 (Reuters) - Resemble AI, a San Francisco-based voice artificial intelligence startup, said on Wednesday it had raised $8 million in a funding round led by venture capital firm Javelin Ventures. Comcast Ventures (CMCSA.O) and existing investors Craft Ventures and Ubiquity Ventures also participated in the Series A round, it added. Resemble AI, which applies generative AI to clone voices, says that it has 1 million users, who use the company's product to clone their own voice. More than 200 business clients, ranging from music producers, game studios and voice actors use Resemble AI as well, CEO Zohaib Ahmed told Reuters. As voice cloning has been used for scams and other crimes, the company says it is focused on promoting safe and ethical use cases for voice cloning technology.

Persons: Zohaib Ahmed, Ahmed, Anna Tong, Jamie Freed Organizations: Javelin Ventures, Comcast Ventures, Craft Ventures, Ventures, Reuters, Wednesday, Thomson Locations: San Francisco

"Currently, we don't have a solution for steering or controlling a potentially superintelligent AI, and preventing it from going rogue." Superintelligent AI - systems more intelligent than humans - could arrive this decade, the blog post's authors predicted. The team's goal is to create a "human-level" AI alignment researcher, and then scale it through vast amounts of compute power. OpenAI says that means they will train AI systems using human feedback, train AI systems to assistant human evaluation, and then finally train AI systems to actually do the alignment research. AI safety advocate Connor Leahy said the plan was fundamentally flawed because the initial human-level AI could run amok and wreak havoc before it could be compelled to solve AI safety problems.

Persons: OpenAI, Ilya Sutskever, Jan Leike, Connor Leahy, Anna Tong, Kenneth Li, Rosalba O'Brien Organizations: Microsoft, Reuters, Thomson Locations: San Francisco

The Google parent has advised employees not to enter its confidential materials into AI chatbots, the people said and the company confirmed, citing long-standing policy on safeguarding information. Alphabet also alerted its engineers to avoid direct use of computer code that chatbots can generate, some of the people said. A growing number of businesses around the world have set up guardrails on AI chatbots, among them Samsung (005930.KS), Amazon.com (AMZN.O) and Deutsche Bank (DBKGn.DE), the companies told Reuters. By February, Google told staff testing Bard before its launch not to give it internal information, Insider reported. A Google privacy notice updated on June 1 also states: "Don’t include confidential or sensitive information in your Bard conversations."

Persons: Bard, ChatGPT, OpenAI, Harry Potter, Yusuf Mehdi, Mehdi, Bing, Matthew Prince, Jeffrey Dastin, Anna Tong, Kenneth Li, Nick Zieminski Organizations: FRANCISCO, Reuters, Google, ChatGPT, Microsoft Corp, Samsung, Deutsche Bank, Apple, Data Protection, Politico, EU, cyberattacks, Microsoft, Thomson Locations: Bard, San Francisco

June 8 - Legal AI company EvenUp has raised an additional $50.5 million in Series B funding from new investors including Bessemer Venture Partners and Bain Capital Ventures, the San Francisco-based company said Thursday, valuing the company at $325 million. EvenUp provides a product to personal injury law firms that automates the workflow for demand letters, using generative AI and a proprietary legal dataset. These have been boom times for the legal AI market, as legal firms have lined up to embrace generative AI. Law is an ideal use case for generative AI because what lawyers do – analyze content and then synthesize it in prose – is exactly what generative AI products like OpenAI’s ChatGPT, which was trained on reams of text, do best, said Bessemer partner Sameer Dholakia. He estimated there are about 300,000 personal injury attorneys and 20 million personal injury cases per year.

Persons: EvenUp, Rami Karabibar, Sameer Dholakia, Karabibar, Anna Tong, David Gregorio Our Organizations: Bessemer Venture Partners, Bain Capital Ventures, NFX, Reuters, Thomson Locations: San Francisco

The video does not disclose any potential AI use and the DeSantis campaign did not respond to a question about whether the images were fake or whether AI was used to create them. A person with knowledge of the DeSantis campaign operation said the Trump side had been "continuously posting fake images and false talking points to smear the governor." The Trump campaign did not immediately respond to a request for comment. Drexel professor Stamm's forensics analysis tool suggests the images were made using an AI model called a diffusion model, which underpin popular AI image generation products like DALL-E and Stability AI. "At some point the AI systems will be outputting images that have no differences from real images," said James O'Brien, a professor of computer science at the University of California, Berkeley.

Persons: Donald Trump, Russell Cheyne, Anthony Fauci, Trump, Fauci, Ron DeSantis, Matthew Stamm, Hany Farid, DeSantis, Drexel, Biden, James O'Brien, Alexandra Ulmer, Anna Tong, Seana Davis, Rosalba O'Brien, Stephen Coates Organizations: U.S, Republican, Aberdeen International Airport, REUTERS, FRANCISCO, Republican White, Twitter, Trump, Drexel University, University of California, Republican National Committee, RNC, Thomson Locations: Aberdeen, Scotland, Britain, Florida, Berkeley, U.S, China, Taiwan, San Francisco

loadingWhile major social media platforms like Facebook, Twitter, and YouTube have made efforts to prohibit and remove deepfakes, their effectiveness at policing such content varies. In total, about 500,000 video and voice deepfakes will be shared on social media sites globally in 2023, DeepMedia estimates. Jon Smith, Republican chair for Michigan's 5th Congressional district, is holding several educational meetings so his allies can learn to use AI for social media and ad generation. Political consultancies are also seeking to harness AI, further muddying the line between real and unreal. Democratic polling and strategy group Honan Strategy Group is meanwhile trying to develop an AI survey bot.

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