The Download: AI movie soundtracks, and DeepMind’s disease prediction tool
This is today's edition of The Download, our weekday newsletter that provides a daily dose of what's going on in the world of technology.
A Disney director tried—and failed—to use an AI Hans Zimmer to create a soundtrackWhen Gareth Edwards, the director of Rogue One: A Star Wars Story, was thinking about the soundtrack for his upcoming movie about artificial intelligence, The Creator, he decided to try composing it with AI—and was pretty impressed with the result.
Edwards asked an AI music company to use the tech to create a soundtrack in the style of Oscar-winning composer Hans Zimmer, he explained during a LinkedIn Live interview with MIT Technology Review.
Edwards’s experiment speaks to an issue at the heart of one of the biggest fights facing Hollywood today. Artists and creatives are up in arms over generative AI. But AI systems lack a fundamentally crucial skill for creating good art: taste. Read the full story.
—Melissa Heikkilä
DeepMind is using AI to pinpoint the causes of genetic disease
The news: Google DeepMind says it’s trained an artificial intelligence system that can predict which DNA variations in our genomes are likely to cause disease—predictions that could speed diagnosis of rare disorders and possibly yield clues for drug development.
The background: Back in 2021, DeepMind announced that its program AlphaFold was able to accurately predict the shape of proteins, a problem considered a “grand challenge” in biology. Now the company says it has fine-tuned that protein model to predict which misspellings found in human DNA are safe to ignore and which are likely to cause disease.
Why it matters: Although not intended to directly make diagnoses, computer predictions are already used by doctors to help locate the genetic causes of mysterious syndromes. But critics say the real test of modern artificial intelligence is whether it can lead to new cures, something that still hasn’t happened. Read the full story.
—Antonio Regalado
The deepfake avatars who want to sell you everything
If you don’t live in China, it’s hard to comprehend just how massively popular livestream e-commerce is. Over 500 million Chinese people are watching these streams regularly and they brokered $4.6 trillion in sales last year—meaning more than one-quarter of all purchases made online in China were from livestreams.
The appetite for livestream shopping still doesn’t exist in the US or other countries, but AI could help to change that.
Developers are creating countless deepfake streamers on China’s e-commerce platforms for brands, requiring just one minute of video for training purposes and around $1,000. And these streams of AI-generated avatars that can speak and act (almost) like real humans are already everywhere. Read the full story.
—Zeyi Yang
This story is from China Report, our weekly newsletter covering the latest tech developments in China. Sign up to receive it in your inbox every Tuesday.
The must-reads
I’ve combed the internet to find you today’s most fun/important/scary/fascinating stories about technology.
1 Google’s Bard AI is everywhere now
In your Gmail, YouTube, and Google Docs accounts, at least. (NYT $)
+ It’s a practical demonstration of how AI can boost Google’s biggest products. (Bloomberg $)
+ Google says it’s the first time a language model has truly integrated with personal data. (The Verge)
+ Google is throwing generative AI at everything. (MIT Technology Review)
2 The US Space Force wants to get satellites into space more quickly
Pressure from China is forcing them to speed things up. (WP $)
3 Federal prosecutors are investigating Elon Musk’s Tesla perks
Specifically his plans to build a large glass house near its Texas HQ. (WSJ $)
+ One of Musk’s other ventures, Neuralink, is recruiting for its first human clinical trial. (Bloomberg $)
4 Europe is critically dependent on China for rare earth minerals
They’re essential for the low-carbon technologies Europe needs to meet climate targets. (FT $)
+ A pro-China online influence campaign is targeting the rare-earths industry. (MIT Technology Review)
5 Huawei is shipping Chinese-made surveillance chips
It suggests the company has found new ways to dodge US sanctions. (Reuters)
+ The US doesn’t think China can make advanced chips at scale, though. (Bloomberg $)
+ Huawei’s new phone is powered by its own native chip. (FT $)
+ China just fought back in the semiconductor exports war. Here’s what you need to know. (MIT Technology Review)
6 Meet the world’s new arms dealers
North Korea’s arms industry has been boosted by the war in Ukraine. (Economist $)
+ How did a US fighter jet go missing for over a day, exactly? (NBC News)
+ Inside the messy ethics of making war with machines. (MIT Technology Review)
7 DNA fingerprinting is helping catch animal poachers red handed
The small but growing practice could interrupt organized crime rings. (Knowable Magazine)
8 Pakistan’s gig workers are risking their lives daily
Vulnerable drivers are at risk of armed robberies and assault. (Rest of World)
9 FTX is suing Sam Bankman-Fried’s parents
The disgraced founder lavished them with gifts that the company now wants back. (NY Mag $)
+ The legal case accuses the pair of siphoning off millions of dollars. (Ars Technica)
10 TikTok Shop is littered with fake products 🐌
Faux snail slime serums, anyone? (Wired $)
Quote of the day
“Swifties, the vault is jammed!”
—Google offers an explanation to enthusiastic Taylor Swift fans attempting to solve a new puzzle built into the search engine, which rapidly buckled under the influx of visitors.
The big story
What cities need now
Urban technology projects have long sought to manage the city. Again and again, these initiatives promise novel “solutions” to urban “problems.” Smart city projects are no different.
After a decade of pilots and flashy demonstrations, though, it’s still not clear whether smart city technologies can actually solve or even mitigate the challenges cities face. What is clear, however, is that technology companies are increasingly taking on administrative and infrastructure responsibilities that governments have long fulfilled.
If smart cities are to avoid exacerbating urban inequalities, we have to take a long, hard look at how cities have fared so far. Read the full story.
—Jennifer Clark
We can still have nice things
A place for comfort, fun and distraction in these weird times. (Got any ideas? Drop me a line or tweet 'em at me.)
+ Glen the cocker spaniel is a world-class mountain climber.
+ Now, this guy knows how to have a good time.
+ Let these owls stare deep into your soul 🦉
+ If you’re a fan of Succession, and who isn’t, you really should check out Peep Show.
+ This archive of Lego instruction manuals is amazing.
Google Bard September update: App extensions and new features
One of the biggest benefits of Bard, an experiment to collaborate with generative AI, is that it can tailor its responses to exactly what you need. For instance, you could ask Bard to start a trip planning Doc for you and your friends, draft up your online marketplace listing, or help explain a science topic to your kids. And now, Bard is getting even better at customizing its responses so you can easily bring your ideas to life.
Today we’re rolling out Bard’s most capable model yet. Bard now integrates with Google apps and services for more helpful responses. We’ve also improved the “Google it” feature to double-check Bard’s answers and expanded features to more places.
Connect to Google apps and services
Today we’re launching Bard Extensions in English, a completely new way to interact and collaborate with Bard. With Extensions, Bard can find and show you relevant information from the Google tools you use every day — like Gmail, Docs, Drive, Google Maps, YouTube, and Google Flights and hotels — even when the information you need is across multiple apps and services.
For example, if you’re planning a trip to the Grand Canyon (a project that takes up many tabs), you can now ask Bard to grab the dates that work for everyone from Gmail, look up real-time flight and hotel information, see Google Maps directions to the airport, and even watch YouTube videos of things to do there — all within one conversation.
Or, imagine you’re applying for a new job and using Bard to help with the process. You could ask Bard to “find my resume titled June 2023 from my Drive and summarize it to a short paragraph personal statement,” and continue collaborating on your new cover letter.
We're committed to protecting your personal information. If you choose to use the Workspace extensions, your content from Gmail, Docs and Drive is not seen by human reviewers, used by Bard to show you ads or used to train the Bard model. And of course, you’re always in control of your privacy settings when deciding how you want to use these extensions, and you can turn them off at any time.
Easily double-check responses and build on shared conversations
Starting today with responses in English, you can use Bard’s “Google it” button to more easily double-check its answers. When you click on the “G” icon, Bard will read the response and evaluate whether there is content across the web to substantiate it. When a statement can be evaluated, you can click the highlighted phrases and learn more about supporting or contradicting information found by Search.
We’re also making it easier to build on others’ conversations with Bard. Starting today, when someone shares a Bard chat with you through a public link, you can continue the conversation and ask Bard additional questions about that topic, or use it as a starting point for your own ideas.
Access features in more places
As we continue to build Bard responsibly, we’re now expanding access to existing English language features — such as the ability to upload images with Lens, get Search images in responses, and modify Bard’s responses — to more than 40 languages.
Try our most capable model yet
All of these new features are possible because of updates we’ve made to our PaLM 2 model, our most capable yet. Based on your feedback, we’ve applied state-of-the-art reinforcement learning techniques to train the model to be more intuitive and imaginative. So, whether you want to collaborate on something creative, start in one language and continue in one of 40+ others, or ask for in-depth coding assistance, Bard can now respond with even greater quality and accuracy.
With these latest updates, Bard is more equipped to help you get all your unique ideas off the ground. Try the latest features at bard.google.com.
No comments:
Post a Comment