In this week’s round-up of artificial intelligence (AI) news, quite a few intriguing developments have been highlighted. For starters, the question of AI security is heavily discussed, largely sparked by Microsoft’s revelation of a “Skeleton Key Jailbreak”. The discovery raises concerns over the potential misbehavior of AI models, emphasizing the need for safe integrations and collaboration between AI vendors.
The impact of AI on Google’s sustainability effort was another major point. Google, aiming to become carbon-neutral, faces challenges spurred by the high demand for AI technologies. Its sustainability report signifies rapid growth in greenhouse gas emissions between 2019 and 2023, highlighting an urgent necessity for greener AI.
In the land of controversy, Perplexity AI faces accusations of scraping news articles from established outlets and reproducing them without credit. In response, Perplexity’s CEO claims the allegations to be a misunderstanding. Likewise, the Detroit Police Department blames an AI ‘misunderstanding’ for an incident in which an innocent man was arrested for shoplifting.
Research at the University of Reading revealed the increasing sophistication of AI technology. The researchers created fake student profiles and submitted AI-generated answers to online psychology exams, with none of them being flagged.
In terms of auditory experiences, AI-generated voices are becoming more human-like and trickier to distinguish from real humans. ElevenLabs secured deals to use the voices of deceased celebrities in its Reader App, indicating a lurch forward in content consumption.
The UN has moved for wealthy nations to share AI technology with developing ones. Although the US backed the resolution, China alleges it has disregarded key commitments. This move raises questions about AI weapons defense implications and potential ethical ramifications.
Researchers at the University of Toronto have built a peptide prediction model, PepFlow, outperforming Google’s AlphaFold 2. This tool might expedite the design process for ground-breaking medicine. Meanwhile, a separate AI study unraveled birdwing butterfly evolution, contributing to the long-debated topic of evolution.
So, while voices from ElevenLabs’ Reader App read emails and books aloud, Google’s sustainability report casts a shadow on AI’s environmental effects. The hope is that AI will ultimately provide solutions for clean energy and quantum computing for a guilt-free future.
