This week’s artificial intelligence (AI) news includes an incident in which OpenAI’s conversational AI program, GPT-4o, offended actress Scarlett Johansson by replicating her voice in its Sky feature. Johansson was shocked by the likeness, while OpenAI’s CEO, Sam Altman, insisted that it was a coincidence.
In an unexpected development, the Sony Music Group warned 700 companies, including Google, Microsoft, and OpenAI, against using its music content for AI training. It’s implied that these companies may have used copyrighted music without permission, leading to tension between AI companies and content creators. Meanwhile, researchers at the University of Texas have found a way to train AI models to create images without using copyrighted material.
In a controversial development in India, AI deep fakes are being used in political messaging ahead of the country’s elections. Although AI companies claim to have guardrails in place to prevent misuse, a UK government study found that all five Language Model systems tested were vulnerable to manipulations.
On the employment front, Microsoft unveiled AI-powered automation tools at its Build event, raising potential concerns about job security in the face of advancing technology.
Ilya Sutskever and Jan Leike, members of OpenAI’s “superalignment” team, reportedly left the company over safety concerns, raising questions about OpenAI’s leadership under Altman. This news comes as leading AI companies agree on voluntary safety measures at an AI summit in Seoul.
Google’s Frontier Safety Framework was released this week to address potential severe risks posed by AI technology. The document outlines hypothetical dangerous scenarios that reflect a sobering admission: there are dangers associated with AI that are impossible to anticipate.
The FRVR platform, which uses generative AI to create games from natural language, was highlighted as a notable example of contemporary AI application. Through FRVR.ai’s public beta, users can create their own games for free.
AI events this week included the 14th annual City Week conference in London, focusing on AI’s impact on the finance industry, and the Enterprise Generative AI Summit West Coast in Silicon Valley, which discussed integrating generative AI into businesses.
Other developments included Google’s AI Overviews search feature altering the internet, Microsoft’s relocation offer to AI staff in China amid U.S.-China tech tensions, AI’s encroachment on accounting jobs, and Geoffrey Hinton’s endorsement of Universal Basic Income in response to AI-induced job losses.
