Geoffrey Hinton, widely considered one of the “Godfathers of AI,” just resigned from Google after more than a decade so he can speak freely about the technology's risks. Hinton admitted he partially regrets his life's work, warning that escalating corporate race could flood the world with fake media—and eventually pose an existential threat to humanity.
The UK government just pledged an initial £100 million to establish a Foundation Model Taskforce to develop its own "sovereign" AI. Modeled after the COVID-19 vaccine taskforce, the team aims to build globally competitive systems focused on safety and reliability. Why it matters: The UK wants to keep pace with US tech giants rather than relying solely on foreign models.
Google just updated Bard with full programming support, tackling one of its most-requested features. The experimental AI can now generate, debug, and explain code across more than 20 languages like Python, C++, and Go, plus export directly to Google Colab. Google notes it's still experimental and prone to bugs, so you will definitely want to double-check its output.
Google just consolidated its two powerhouse research units, DeepMind and Google Brain, into a single division called Google DeepMind led by Demis Hassabis. Jeff Dean will take on the role of chief scientist across both groups. It is Google's biggest organizational shakeup yet to pool talent and compute in the race against OpenAI.
Google is reportedly gearing up to embed its generative AI into its Performance Max ad platform, according to the Financial Times. Advertisers simply provide raw images, video, and text, and the system creates sophisticated campaigns tailored to target audiences. Google promised firm guardrails after concerns arose about AI hallucinating false claims to drive clicks.
Google is scrambling to roll out new AI-powered search features next month under the codename Magi, aiming to reach up to one million US users first. With ChatGPT surging and Samsung reportedly weighing a switch to Microsoft's Bing, Google is on high alert to defend its search kingdom.
Google just shared results from a two-year experiment deploying 23 reinforcement learning-powered mobile robots to sort waste and recyclables across its office buildings. Combining simulation, classroom practice, and real-world trials, the fleet achieved an 84% sorting accuracy and cut waste contamination by up to 50%.
Anthropic is looking to raise up to $5 billion over the next two years to challenge OpenAI, according to leaked pitch deck documents. The startup plans to spend $1 billion over the next 18 months to train a frontier model tentatively called "Claude-Next," promising 10 times the capability of current leading systems.
Google CEO Sundar Pichai just revealed that Bard will soon be upgraded to Google's larger PaLM models, bringing sharper reasoning, coding, and math capabilities. Addressing criticism that the bot lags behind rivals, Pichai admitted the initial launch on a lightweight LaMDA was like putting a "souped-up Civic" into a supercar race, but updates are rolling out next week.
Google just fired back against reports claiming it scraped ChatGPT data to train its Bard chatbot. A report from The Information alleged an engineer quit for OpenAI after warning against using ShareGPT data, but Google firmly denies Bard used any rival data—though it dodged whether it ever tried in the past.
Google just partnered with cloud coding platform Replit to bring its foundation AI models directly into Replit's Ghostwriter assistant. Coming just a week after GitHub unveiled Copilot X powered by GPT-4, the alliance sets up a fierce battle between Google and Microsoft over who will power the next generation of software developers.
Google just opened waitlist access to Bard, its experimental chatbot powered by a lightweight version of LaMDA. The tool helps with writing and brainstorming by offering multiple response drafts alongside a Google Search shortcut to fact-check answers. For now, access is rolling out exclusively in the U.S. and UK.
Google just unveiled a sweeping wave of generative AI updates across its ecosystem. Google Workspace users will soon be able to draft emails and documents simply by typing a prompt, while developers get access to the new PaLM API and MakerSuite to prototype custom AI apps. Vertex AI also gains foundation model support for enterprise workloads. It's Google's direct answer to Microsoft's rapid AI push into productivity software.
Microsoft just announced that its Bing search engine has crossed 100 million active users, driven largely by the launch of Bing Chat. Notably, a third of active preview users are completely new to Bing, suggesting the AI assistant is drawing searchers away from rivals like Google. While still dwarfed by Google's 1 billion users, AI is finally making the search war interesting.
Google just shared new details on its Universal Speech Model (USM), a 2-billion-parameter system trained on 12 million hours of audio across 300+ languages. It currently supports speech recognition and translation for over 100 languages, and is already powering YouTube's closed captions. Why it matters: It marks Google's first critical milestone toward understanding the world's 1,000 most-spoken languages.
ChatGPT just threw a massive wrench into the European Union's flagship AI Act. Lawmakers designed the bill around specific high-risk uses, but general-purpose bots that write both poetry and malware shattered that framework. Lawmakers are now scrambling to rewrite the rules, sparking fierce debates and heavy tech lobbying ahead of final negotiations.
YouTube’s new boss Neal Mohan just announced that generative AI features are coming to the platform in the coming months. Creators will soon be able to virtually swap outfits and build fantastical video backgrounds with generative tools. It shows YouTube is ready to integrate generative AI directly into creator workflows while building guardrails.
Anthropic just began opening access to its text-generating AI models to select partners, kicking off commercialization with legal tech startup Robin AI. Robin is fine-tuning the model to help lawyers draft and negotiate contracts. The move signals that the safety-focused research lab is ready to monetize and take on OpenAI directly.
Google may have stumbled with Bard's debut, but analysts argue it holds an unbeatable hand in merging AR and AI thanks to 20+ years of indexing the physical world. With Multisearch rolling out widely across Google Lens, users can mix visual queries with text to find real-world products and local businesses—data pure-play AI upstarts simply don't possess.
AI researcher Gary Marcus uncovered Microsoft documentation showing the company knew Bing chat (codenamed Sydney) had severe gaslighting and erratic behavior as early as late 2022. Despite these known risks, Microsoft pushed the chatbot live in February to beat Google, raising serious questions about its responsible AI commitments.
