AI Weekly Digest – August 19 2024

All the key points you need to know about recent events in the artificial intelligence sector. LinkedIn newsletter readers can also sign up to an enhanced email edition of the AI Weekly Digest - published every Friday. You can subscribe for free.

Musk throws down the gauntlet with new Grok models

Elon Musk's xAI has beta launched new models Grok-2 and Grok-2 mini, promising "frontier capabilities in chat, coding, and reasoning". The group said it will make both models available to developers through its enterprise API later this month. X said Grok2 is on a par with the AI models offered by Google, OpenAI and Anthropic, adding it is “more intuitive, steerable and versatile across a wide range of tasks, whether you’re seeking answers, collaborating on writing or solving coding tasks”. It will be available to users of X's paid tier.

Google rolling out AI Overviews to the UK

Google parent Alphabet is expanding the use of its AI-powered search results to six new countries, including the UK. The AI Overviews feature, which displays search results using AI-generated text and links based on information the search engine finds on the web, was made available to all US users in May. The results appear at the top of the search results page. As well as the UK, it will be rolled out to Brazil, India, Indonesia, Japan and Mexico, with local language support in each country. Hema Budaraju, senior director for product management at Google Search, said: “Since launching in the US, we’ve found people who use AI Overviews use Search more and are more satisfied with their results. People who are looking for help with complex topics are engaging more and keep coming back for AI Overviews. Additionally, we see even higher engagement from younger users, aged 18-24, when they use Search with AI Overviews.”

OpenAI test shows ChatGPT inadvertently clones voices

A report from OpenAI highlighting "key areas of risk" for the company's latest large language model revealed the ChatGPT technology has the ability to clone a voice and finish thoughts and sentences. OpenAI wrote in a report that during testing it "observed rare instances where the model would unintentionally generate an output emulating the user’s voice". OpenAI also said in the report that the risk of unintentional voice replication remains "minimal".

X offers concessions on AI training data

Elon Musk-owned X has agreed not to train its artificial intelligence systems using the personal data collected from EU users before they had the option to withdraw their consent, an Irish court heard. It comes as the country's Data Protection Commission has sought an order to suspend or restrict the social media platform from processing the data of users for the purposes of developing, training or refining its AI systems. A lawyer for X said data collected from EU users between May 7 and August 1 would not be used until proceedings on the Irish DPC order are decided by the court.

Analyst says AI could upend traditional search market

The AI search market is “hotting up”, according to Joseph Teasdale, head of tech at Enders Analysis. Teasdale said: “The risk from AI is . . . that general web search as a whole is made redundant by new ways of matching users with information, products and services. The 'big unknown', however, is whether it can be reliable enough for mainstream use. AI is stubbornly prone to confabulation. At the scale of billions of queries per day, serious failures are inevitable.”

Advertising giant WPP dials up AI commitment

WPP said it is committed to investing £250m every year in AI-driven technology, noting in its results that “it’s clear that AI is going to fundamentally change the way in which our clients reach consumers, the way in which we deliver and produce work and the way in which we operate as a company”.

ByteDance launches AI video-generation app

TikTok parent ByteDance is taking on OpenAI with the launch of a new app in China that can generate videos based on text prompts.

Start-up ProRata.ai raises $25m, signs licensing deals

AI start-up ProRata.ai has raised $25m in a Series A fundraising round from, among others, Mayfield and Idealab Studio. ProRata.ai also said a number of major news and music companies - the Financial Times, Axel Springer, The Atlantic, Fortune and Universal Music Group - have agreed to license their content to the generative AI start-up. It plans to split revenues from subscriptions with its content licensing partners. The Atlantic CEO Nicholas Thompson said: "We hope to see this approach to permissions, content controls, clear attribution, and fair value become the industry norm."

Perplexity AI pivots to search advertising model

Artificial intelligence search start-up Perplexity AI is pivoting its business model from subscriptions to advertising, bringing it into closer competition with Google, and challenging OpenAI's new SearchGPT. Speaking to the FT, chief business officer Dmitry Shevelenko said: "At the end of the day the smaller player in the space has two advantages: velocity and focus. Our users and team only think about one thing when it comes to Perplexity: a place you get your questions answered. Competition sharpens our focus even more.”

Copyright group hits out at 'fair use' claims

Creators’ Rights Alliance chair Nicola Solomon said AI groups' claims that fair use provisions enable them to train models on publicly available online content is based on a "very dubious" reading of US law, adding: "We haven’t seen anything within the UK’s very strong copyright regime that could genuinely make the AI companies believe they shouldn’t be paying for these uses of our creators’ works." The CRA issued an open letter last week urging tech giants "to agree terms on a commercial basis", and Solomon added: "It’s quite obvious that everything on the web is not freely available and copyright extends to work on the internet, whether or not it is behind a paywall. No lawyer would advise you that everything on the web is freely available."

OpenAI leads $60m Opal funding round

OpenAI is reported to be leading a $60m funding round for webcam company turned AI start-up Opal.

BuzzFeed accelerates AI product development

BuzzFeed posted second-quarter revenue down 24% on a year ago at $47m, as ad sales fell 19% to $23.8m and content 48% to $11.4m. CEO Jonah Peretti said: "Our strong performance in Q2 marks a turning point we’ve been working toward for the past two years. We are beginning to see the benefits of our investment in a differentiated technology platform that allows us to accelerate AI product development, make our sites and apps more interactive and personalised, and increase the amount of content our team and audience can create using AI-powered tools... Since the start of the year, we’ve built foundational capabilities with the help of AI that now power internal content development tools, like our AI copilots, as well as consumer facing experiences, like our AI-assisted content generators.”

AI groups face class action suit over images

A US judge has given a groups of artists permission to proceed with key parts of a claim against Stability, Runway and DeviantArt. The class action suit alleges the AI providers illegally trained their models on copyrighted works.

SoftBank 'explored Nvidia rival with Intel'

SoftBank is understood to have held talks with Intel about producing an AI chip to compete with Nvidia, but sources told the FT that the plan failed after the US chipmaker struggled to meet the Japanese group’s requirements. SoftBank CEO Masayoshi Son plans to invest billions in a bid to put the Arm owner at the centre of the AI boom. The FT reported that SoftBank is now focusing on discussions with Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co.

Huawei developing sanctions-busting AI chip

Huawei Technologies is understood to be close to introducing a new chip for artificial intelligence which would overcome US sanctions and challenge Nvidia in the local market. The Wall Street Journal reported that Chinese internet and telecom companies have been testing Huawei's latest processor, the Ascend 910C. Sources said Huawei told potential clients the new chip is comparable to Nvidia’s H100. The report suggested that TikTok parent ByteDance, Baidu and China Mobile are among those in early discussions about obtaining the new Huawei chip. Huawei reportedly aims to start shipping the chip as soon as October.

OpenAI adds Kolter to board

OpenAI has appointed Zico Kolter, director of the machine learning department at Carnegie Mellon University, to its board.