We strive to inform readers not only about events in the bitcoin industry, but also to talk about what is happening in related technological areas – cybersecurity and in the world of artificial intelligence (AI).
bitcoinlinux AI collected the most important news from the world of AI over the past week.
- The American spent nine days in prison due to a bug in the facial recognition system.
- Waymo has started testing self-driving cars in Los Angeles.
- Nvidia has released an analogue of DLSS for video in browsers.
- Microsoft has added the ability to change the style of the conversation to Bing Chat.
- Artificial intelligence will replace the employees of the German newspapers Bild and Die Welt.
- Romanian Prime Minister Nicolae Chuca introduced the AI advisor.
- The most important AI deals of the last week.
American spent nine days in prison due to facial recognition error
54-year-old resident of Maryland (USA) Alonzo Sawyer spent nine days in jail due to a facial recognition bug.
In the spring of 2022, a man was charged with assaulting a bus driver and stealing his smartphone near Baltimore. An intelligence analyst using facial recognition software pointed to possible matches with a person seen on surveillance cameras. The police officer confirmed this.
However, according to Sawyer’s wife, they were sleeping at home at the time of the crime. She stated that her husband was taller than the suspect in the video and differed from the latter in age, the presence of facial hair and gaps between the teeth, as well as twisting his right leg when walking.
Later, the victim of the incident pointed to another person – Deon Ballard. He was 18 cm shorter and more than 20 years younger than Sawyer. Ballard’s mother and the police officer who arrested him confirmed the identification.
Maryland law enforcement has not commented on the incident. Baltimore County Deputy State Attorney John Cox declined to confirm that Ballard and Sawyer were arrested for the same crime.
Voice deepfake hacked phone banking
Motherboard journalist Joseph Cox “spoofed” a bank’s voice ID using a free speech synthesis AI service.
The reporter used software from ElevenLabs. He recorded about five minutes of speech reading sections of European data protection law.
Cox called the British Lloyds Bank, which uses the Voice ID system to identify customers by voice. He manually entered the answers to the robot operator’s questions, and then voiced them using the ElevenLabs algorithm. As a result, the reporter was able to bypass the institution’s software and find out the account balance.
Cox said he tested several AI voice services, but they had problems or limitations with recreating a British accent. The ElevenLabs system coped well with this task, the journalist added.
Waymo launches self-driving cars in Los Angeles
Waymo has started testing self-driving cars in Los Angeles.
Following a rigorous cycle of validation and safety readiness evaluation, @Waymo is starting fully-autonomous (no human driver) testing in LA. Thrilled by the data confirming, once again, how well our ML-based 5th-gen Driver generalizes across cities! pic.twitter.com/hd0XU5zecT
— Dmitri Dolgov (@dmitri_dolgov) February 27, 2023
So far, cars transport only employees of the company. Robocars will operate in Santa Monica “outside the traditional rush hour.”
The company also said that the drones drove more than 1.6 million kilometers on public roads without an insurer behind the wheel. During this time, there were two clashes and 18 “minor incidents”.
When this milestone was reached, there were no reports of injuries.
YouTube announces new AI tools for content creators
YouTube video hosting in the coming months will present generative AI tools for content creators.
According to the new head of the service, Neil Mohan, engineers develop new features with “thoughtful restrictions.” With the help of generative AI systems, content creators will be able to expand the storytelling in videos and increase their production value, he added.
YouTube will also implement safeguards to ensure the responsible use of artificial intelligence.
Nvidia has released an analogue of DLSS for video in browsers
Nvidia has released a new GeForce Game Ready graphics driver with AI support for RTX Video Super Resolution to improve video quality in browsers.
The feature only works with GeForce RTX 40 and 30 series accelerators in Microsoft Edge and Google Chrome. It enhances any web video by sharpening the edges of objects and reducing artifacts.
The technology supports video from 360p to 1440p at frame rates up to 144Hz, which can be scaled up to 4K. Previously, this feature was only available to Shield TV users.
Bing chat got a mood
Microsoft added in Bing Chat, the ability to change the style of the conversation.
Now the search engine offers three modes: creative, balanced and strict. The former allows the bot to produce more detailed, “original and creative” answers, the latter allows short, relevant and factual answers.
Microsoft has set balanced mode as the default. It strikes a balance between precision and creativity.
The company also increased the number of Bing chat requests to 100 during the day.
We have raised the daily cap for Bing Preview users to 100 turns based on your feedback. The limit of 6 turns per session remains in place for now, but we will continue to expand as time goes on. More announcements coming soon!
— Jordi Ribas (@JordiRib1) February 24, 2023
Xiaomi introduced an AR headset
Xiaomi has introduced a wireless lightweight augmented reality headset Wireless AR Glass Discovery Edition.
The device is powered by the Snapdragon XR2 Gen 1 chip, which is also used in the Meta Quest Pro. Weighing 126 grams, the AR glasses are made from magnesium-titanium alloy and carbon fiber.
The headset is equipped with two microOLED screens with a peak brightness of 1200 nits, connected to a pair of free-form light-guiding prisms. It is also equipped with electrochromic lenses that can adapt to different lighting conditions.
According to the company, the display resolution reaches 58 pixels per degree. This almost matches the capabilities of the human retina, which ceases to notice grain at a value of 60 pixels per degree.
Axel Springer will replace journalists with artificial intelligence
German media concern Axel Springer will replace employees of newspapers Bild and Die Welt by artificial intelligence.
The company took this step because of the desire to increase the income of publications. According to media group head Matthias Depfner, the cuts will come as automation and artificial intelligence are increasingly making many jobs redundant. Technology can improve independent journalism or replace it, the top manager is sure.
Depfner also added that AI tools like ChatGPT promise a “revolution” in the field of information and are able to “aggregate data” better than humans. The layoffs will not affect original content creators, he said.
There is no data on the extent of the reductions. However, Axel Springer promised not to fire reporters, writers of articles and specialized editors.
AI will help the Prime Minister of Romania “guess” the desires of citizens
Romanian Prime Minister Nicolae Chuca introduced the “first of its kind” government AI advisor Ion.
Developed by local researchers, the system with an audio interface can scan social networks and inform the authorities about the proposals and wishes of citizens in real time.
According to Chuca, the use of AI will become “not an opportunity, but an obligation” to make more informed decisions.
Study: Some companies are replacing employees with ChatGPT chatbot
Resumebuilder, a job-recommendation platform, found that some companies replace employees with the ChatGPT chatbot.
1,000 employers took part in the survey. About a quarter of respondents said that in their companies, the OpenAI algorithm has replaced employees in a number of tasks.
According to Resumebuilder, 66% of those surveyed use ChatGPT for coding, 58% for copywriting and content creation, 57% for customer support, and 52% for meeting summaries and other documents.
In recruiting, 77% of companies use chatbots to write job descriptions, 66% create interview invitations, and 65% respond to job applicants.
According to the report, most employers are impressed with ChatGPT. 55% of executives rate the performance of the algorithm as “excellent” and another 34% as “very good.”
The most important AI deals of the last week
From February 26 to March 4, 2023, AI startups raised over $150 million. Here are the most interesting transactions.
- type face received $65 million for the development of AI tools for creating marketing texts and images.
- Sesamm attracted $37 million to scale NLP algorithms to extract information from digital content.
- voice mod collected $14.5 million to expand technology for voice modification and synthesis.
- Developers of the universal MLOps-platform Qwak attracted $12 million
- Robin AI received $10.5 million to scale the AI contract editor.
- Creators of a marketing tool to collect video reviews and product ratings Indent collected $8.1 million
- Inarix attracted $3.3 million to scale the crop analysis platform.
Also on bitcoinlinux:
Found a mistake in the text? Select it and press CTRL+ENTER
bitcoinlinux Newsletters: Keep your finger on the pulse of the bitcoin industry!
