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Imagine a future where your phone pings with a message that your dead father’s “digital immortal” bot is ready. This promise of chatting with a virtual version of your loved one – perhaps through a virtual reality (VR) headset – is like stepping into a sci-fi movie, both thrilling and a bit eerie. As you interact with this digital dad, you find yourself on an emotional rollercoaster. You uncover secrets and stories you never knew, changing how you remember the real person. This is not a distant, hypothetical scenario. The digital afterlife industry is rapidly evolving. Several companies promise to create virtual reconstructions of dec...... Read Full article on GretAi

Artificial intelligence (AI), now an integral part of our everyday lives, is becoming increasingly accessible and ubiquitous. Consequently, there’s a growing trend of AI advancements being exploited for criminal activities. One significant concern is the ability AI provides to offenders to produce images and videos depicting real or deepfake child sexual exploitation material. This is particularly important here in Australia. The CyberSecurity Cooperative Research Centre has identified the country as the third-largest market for online sexual abuse material. So, how is AI being used to create child sexual exploitation material? Is...... Read Full article on GretAi

Caryn Marjorie is a social media influencer whose content has more than a billion views per month on Snapchat. She posts regularly, featuring everyday moments, travel memories, and selfies. Many of her followers are men, attracted by her girl-next-door aesthetic. In 2023, Marjorie released a “digital version” of herself. Fans could chat with CarynAI for US$1 per minute – and in the first week alone they spent US$70,000 doing just that. Less than eight months later, Marjorie shut the project down. Marjorie had anticipated that CarynAI would interact with her fans in much the same way she would herself, but things did not go to plan. ...... Read Full article on GretAi

Advances in artificial intelligence (AI) are disrupting many aspects of modern life, and the news industry is no exception. In a year with a record-breaking number of elections worldwide, there has been considerable soul searching about the potential effect of so-called “deepfakes”, and other synthetic content, on democracies. There have also been further disruptions to the business models and trust underpinning independent journalism. Most audiences are just starting to form opinions about AI and news, but in this year’s Digital News Report survey, which we produced at the University of Oxford’s Reuters Institute for the Study of Jour...... Read Full article on GretAi

As India concluded the world’s largest election on June 5, 2024, with over 640 million votes counted, observers could assess how the various parties and factions used artificial intelligence technologies – and what lessons that holds for the rest of the world. The campaigns made extensive use of AI, including deepfake impersonations of candidates, celebrities and dead politicians. By some estimates, millions of Indian voters viewed deepfakes. But, despite fears of widespread disinformation, for the most part the campaigns, candidates and activists used AI constructively in the election. They used AI for typical political activities,...... Read Full article on GretAi

Unlike “traditional” AI that relies on predetermined rules and patterns, generative AI is able to produce novel content – like text, video, images, and music. In a way, unlike old AI, generative AI can think outside the box. Its implications are profound and sprawling, with the potential to reshape virtually every branch of society. Conversations about AI often turn on whether it will be a net positive or negative for society, but our new research as part of an international team suggests that acknowledging AI’s apparent paradoxes can help us develop a clearer picture about its risks and potential benefits. We focused on four major ar...... Read Full article on GretAi

From government documents to news reports, commerce, music and social interactions, much of the world’s information is now online. And Google, founded in 1998 with the mission “to organize the world’s information and make it universally accessible and useful,” is the way we access this torrent of knowledge and culture. In April 2024, Google’s search engine accounted for 90 per cent of the Canadian search market. For academics, its specialized Google Scholar and Google Books are mainstays of our research lives. However, while Google Search is essential infrastructure, Google itself is recklessly sabotaging it in socially damaging ways...... Read Full article on GretAi

Nationwide demonstrations have erupted in Kenya over a controversial tax bill. The Finance Bill 2024, initially presented to parliament in May, has sparked discontent with an increase in an array of taxes and levies for Kenyans. The mass protests, initially organised in the capital city, Nairobi, have spread across the country. Demonstrations have taken place in almost every city and major town. Digital media and activism expert Job Mwaura shares his insights into how the protests were mobilised on online, and then onto the streets. How are Kenyans using the digital space in this movement? This is a powerful moment for digital activi...... Read Full article on GretAi

An advanced algorithm that has been developed by Google DeepMind has gone some way to cracking one of the biggest unsolved mysteries in biology. AlphaFold aims to predict the 3D structures of proteins from the “instruction code” in their building blocks. The latest upgrade has recently been released. The latest upgrade has recently been released. Proteins are essential parts of living organisms and take part in virtually every process in cells. But their shapes are often complex, and they are difficult to visualise. So being able to predict their 3D structures offers windows into the processes inside living things, including humans. ...... Read Full article on GretAi

Artificial intelligence is the big thing right now, with industries from finance to health care to retail scrambling to adopt AI or risk being left behind. But speaking as professors of business, we think some companies might be jumping the gun. Our recent research suggests that service providers shouldn’t automatically jump on the AI bandwagon. Instead, they should make a choice informed by their strategy. In short, when it comes to AI and service firms, more isn’t necessarily better. Why service providers face a different calculation Are you a manufacturer? Then if AI reduces your costs without lowering quality and gives you the r...... Read Full article on GretAi

Last week, the head of Australia’s election regulator warned the organisation “does not possess the legislative tools or internal technical capability to deter, detect or adequately deal with false AI-generated content concerning the election process”. This remark, made to a senate committee on adopting artificial intelligence (AI), is not an isolated comment. The relationship between AI and democracy is the topic of many, increasingly urgent conversations taking place around the world. More than 60 countries will head to the polls in 2024, in what has been dubbed “the biggest election year in history”. Australia is expecting to hold ...... Read Full article on GretAi

OpenAI, the makers of ChatGPT, and News Corp, the international media conglomerate, have signed a deal that will let OpenAI use and learn from News Corp’s content. In practical terms, this means when a user asks ChatGPT a question, the results might be informed by previous reporting in News Corp outlets, including Australian mastheads such as The Australian and The Daily Telegraph. It’s unclear whether the agreement includes only editorial or also opinion content. OpenAI has licensed News Corp content because generative artificial intelligence (AI) is a ravenous beast: it needs data to learn from and generate useful outputs in return....... Read Full article on GretAi

Google has rolled out its latest experimental search feature on Chrome, Firefox and the Google app browser to hundreds of millions of users. “AI Overviews” saves you clicking on links by using generative AI — the same technology that powers rival product ChatGPT — to provide summaries of the search results. Ask “how to keep bananas fresh for longer” and it uses AI to generate a useful summary of tips such as storing them in a cool, dark place and away from other fruits like apples. But ask it a left-field question and the results can be disastrous, or even dangerous. Google is currently scrambling to fix these problems one by one, but ...... Read Full article on GretAi

Actress Scarlett Johansson released a statement this week expressing anger and concern that OpenAI used a voice “eerily similar” to her own as a default voice for ChatGPT. The voice in question, called Sky, has been available to users since September 2023, but the resemblance to Johansson’s voice became clearer last week when OpenAI demoed an updated model called GPT-4o. Johansson claims that OpenAI’s CEO Sam Altman previously asked her if she would provide her voice for ChatGPT, and she had declined the invitation. The warm and playful tone of Sky’s voice bears a striking resemblance to the digital companion called Samantha in the f...... Read Full article on GretAi

  Smart toys with internet connections and AI-enabled robots, with capacities for sophisticated social interactions with children, are widely available today. This is no doubt driven by rapid development in Artificial Intelligence, with impacts being widely felt. Companies are looking to enhance productivity and revenue, while governments are considering safety measures in their AI strategies. Child-focused AI products include: Parents and professionals working with children may feel pressure to purchase these or other products as alternatives to in-person activities like play dates, therapy or games — or wonder about their u...... Read Full article on GretAi

Beauty brand Dove recently announced it would not use models generated by artificial intelligence (AI) in its advertising campaigns. But is this really an anti-AI stance or merely the marketing of “inclusive” and “realistic” AI-generated images? In other words, is Dove attempting to shape the beauty ideals AI shows consumers, rather than ditching its use entirely? Dove’s owner Unilever is one of the world’s largest multinational, fast-moving consumer goods companies. But the values of the brands it owns vary dramatically, as highlighted by legal action that Ben & Jerry’s brought against Unilever to object to its ice cream being “so...... Read Full article on GretAi

It’s been seven years since the launch of Replika, an artificially intelligent chatbot designed to be a friend to human users. Despite early warnings about the dangers of such AI friends, interest in friendships and even romantic relationships with AI is on the rise. The Google Play store shows more than 30 million total downloads of Replika and two of its major competitors since their respective launches. With one in four people around the world reporting being lonely, it is no wonder so many are drawn to the promise of a friend programmed to be “always here to listen and talk, always on your side”. But warnings about the perils to...... Read Full article on GretAi

You might have seen viral videos of Wendy’s drive-thru customers in the United States ordering their fast food from the firm’s generative AI bot Wendy’s FreshAI. Most show a very human-like transaction punctuated with cries of amazement at how fast, accurate and polite the system is. While the system and others like it are in their infancy, and some still rely heavily on human assistance, retailers are investing huge sums in AI to replace human workers. Why the rush to automate? It might seem like it’s all about slashing the wage bill, and straight AI-for-human swaps are indeed happening in many roles. But there is another force driv...... Read Full article on GretAi

OpenAI’s new “strategic partnership” and licensing agreement with the Financial Times (FT) follows similar deals between the US tech company and publishers such as Associated Press, German media giant Axel Springer and French newspaper Le Monde. OpenAI will licence the FT’s content to use as training data for its products, including successors to its AI chatbot ChatGPT. The AI systems developed by OpenAI are exposed to this data to help them improve their performance in terms of use of language, context and accuracy. The FT will receive an undisclosed payment as part of the deal. This is happening against a global backdrop of legal c...... Read Full article on GretAi

Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau recently announced a $2.4-billion investment in artificial intelligence. Part of the funding will create an AI Safety Institute. But what is AI safety? Many countries, including Canada, the United States and those in the European Union, have pushed to curtail AI’s harms. Most of them are focused on the deployment and effects of AI. Because AI systems are so pervasive and diverse, governments should approach safety by breaking down AI into its components — algorithms, data and computing resources known simply as “compute.” Innovation in compute and algorithms is lightning-quick; governance is not....... Read Full article on GretAi