Author: TechBrunch

One of the most arresting aspects of Morgan Neville's documentary about Anthony Bourdain, Roadrunner, was Neville's use of generative AI to recreate Bourdain's voice. Looking back, Neville told Wired that he thought this was a “fun” way to keep up. [Bourdain’s] There are voices in the movie. ” However, his approach drew heavy criticism. Although the synthetic Bourdain only read the words the real Bourdain actually wrote, Neville said many viewers thought, “Oh, they just made it up.” [expletive] above. ” “A lot of people said there were other documentary projects doing the same thing and everyone reacted. They should…

Is it possible to train an AI using only data generated by another AI? It may sound like a crazy idea. But this is data that has been around for quite some time and is gaining traction because new, real data is becoming increasingly difficult to obtain. Anthropic used some synthetic data to train one of its flagship models, Claude 3.5 Sonnet. Meta used AI-generated data to fine-tune the Llama 3.1 model. And OpenAI is said to be sourcing synthetic training data from o1, its “inference” model, for the upcoming Orion. But why does AI need data in the first…

The data center industry is rapidly expanding to keep up with the growth of the AI ​​flywheel. Although these data centers are the necessary AI infrastructure, they house AI companies' computing, are likely to be expensive to build and even operate, and consume significant amounts of energy. Startups are trying to make data centers more efficient and sustainable, but it's not that simple. The global data center market is estimated to be worth $301 billion and is projected to more than double to $622.4 billion by 2030, according to P&S Intelligence. Data centers currently consume approximately 4% of the total…

Few cybersecurity risks facing the United States today loom as large as the potential sabotage by Chinese-backed hackers, which U.S. officials have described as an “epoch-making threat.” are. In recent months, U.S. intelligence officials say hackers backed by the Chinese government have penetrated deep into the networks of critical U.S. infrastructure, including water, energy and transportation systems. Officials say the goal is to lay the groundwork for a potentially devastating cyberattack in the event of a future conflict between China and the United States, including over a possible Chinese invasion of Taiwan. . FBI Director Christopher Wray said earlier this…

It's hard to know where to focus when talking to Christoph Koestall. The contents of his jam-packed Palo Alto garage are drawing attention. Immediately to his right stands a tower of electrical components dotted with flashing lights. On the left side is the workbench and the top of the machine tool. Red industrial beams run through the ceiling above. For those who have spent time in a robotics lab, this element is immediately recognizable as the gantry system used to stabilize the robot during the testing phase. In fact, at its far end, the top of the robot's head is…

AI pioneer Yann LeCun doesn't think artificial intelligence is actually becoming intelligent. LeCun (professor at New York University, senior research fellow at Meta, and recipient of the prestigious AM Turning Award) has been outspoken about his skepticism, for example, before worrying about controlling superintelligent AI, saying, must do the following,” he tweeted. This is the beginning of tips for designing systems that are smarter than your cat. ” He elaborated on his opinion in an interview with the Wall Street Journal, responding to a question about AI becoming smart enough to pose a threat to humanity: ” LeCun argued that…

The dispute between WordPress founder Matt Mullenweg and hosting provider WP Engine continues, with Mullenweg announcing that WordPress is “forking” plugins developed by WP Engine. Specifically, Advanced Custom Fields, a plugin that helps WordPress users customize their editing experience, is leaving WP Engine and being updated as a new plugin called Secure Custom Fields. Mullenweg wrote that this step was necessary “to eliminate commercial upsells and resolve security issues.” The Advanced Custom Fields team explained to X that plugins “currently under development” were “unilaterally and forcibly taken away from their authors without their consent,” adding, Nothing like this had ever…

NPR and Kentucky Public Radio report that court documents show TikTok executives are aware the app could pose a risk to teens. Earlier this week, 14 U.S. attorneys general filed a lawsuit against TikTok, accusing it of harming the mental health of children. Much of the content in these lawsuits was redacted, but reporters were able to read some of it by copying and pasting. According to the Kentucky lawsuit, the company's own research shows that “compulsive use can lead to mental health problems, including loss of analytical skills, memory formation, situational thinking, depth of conversation, empathy, and increased anxiety.…

Last January, German biotech company BioNTech acquired African AI startup Instadeep for more than $550 million, with the deal completed in July of the same year. InstaDeep's exit from Africa is currently the largest, and it has only been operating for just over a year under the umbrella of a German pharmaceutical company. Now is a good time to look back at the company's performance since the acquisition. Instadeep uses advanced machine learning techniques to bring AI to enterprise applications. Its products range from GPU-accelerated insights to self-learning decision-making systems. Prior to last year's acquisition, the Tunis-born, Paris, London-headquartered enterprise…

Despite Japan's startup sector being one of the largest in the world, it lags behind other regions such as the US, China and UK in terms of the number of unicorns and the scale of venture capital investment. For years, an aging population, general economic deflation, and the tendency for salaried employees to work for traditional large corporations have made startup life unattractive to many. Background: According to a recent IMF report citing data from CB Insights, as of October 2023, there were approximately 661 unicorns in the US, 172 in China and 52 in the UK. did. There were…