AI artwork wins art contest as OpenAI updates DALL-E 2 and other AI news

We aim to inform readers not only about developments in the Bitcoin industry but also about what is happening in related technology spheres — cybersecurity and the world of artificial intelligence (AI).

ForkLog AI has gathered the most important AI news of the past week.

Dell exits the Russian market

The computer hardware maker Dell exited Russia. The company has halted operations in the country and laid off local staff.

Employees of the Russian unit will receive eight to nine months’ pay as compensation depending on their role. They will also be able to take equipment for free, including monitors and phones, after first erasing data.

AMD unveils Ryzen 7000 processors

The company AMD unveiled Ryzen 7000 Zen 4 processors for desktop PCs.

The new generation is represented by four models:

• 16-core Ryzen 9 7950X;
• 12-core Ryzen 9 7900X;
• 8-core Ryzen 7 7700X;
• 6-core Ryzen 5 7600X.

The processors use the AM5 platform and are based on the Zen 4 architecture, delivering AI workload acceleration and supporting DDR5 and PCIe 5.0.

According to AMD, Ryzen 7000 chips are around 29% faster than Ryzen 5000 in single-threaded tasks, including games. In workloads using 16 cores, speed gains reach 49%, the company said.

The processors will go on sale on September 27, 2022.

Intel reveals XeSS as a competitor to Nvidia DLSS

The company discussed its AI upscaling technology XeSS.

The system boosts gaming performance by upscaling the original image from a low resolution to a higher one, while preserving quality as much as possible. The AI handles the restoration of object details.

According to Intel, developers will be able to integrate XeSS into game engines as easily and quickly as AMD FSR. The technology will deliver the best results on GPUs equipped with XMX matrix engines, the company added.

OpenAI updates the DALL-E 2 image generator with Outpainting

OpenAI introduced the Outpainting feature, allowing DALL-E 2 to generate images of any size.

Users can now extend the image, creating large-scale illustrations with customizable aspect ratios beyond the original image using textual prompts. When adding new objects, the system accounts for existing visual elements such as shadows, reflections and textures.

Waymo launches robotaxi in Arizona

Waymo launched a driverless robotaxi with no safety driver at the wheel in downtown Phoenix (Arizona, USA).

For now, only riders enrolled in the Trusted Tester program and invited by the company may request trips. They must first sign a nondisclosure agreement.

Waymo later plans to expand the service and attract regular customers who can share their experience of using the autonomous vehicles.

Mass data leak in China involving faces and license plates

A Chinese database containing millions of facial images and vehicle license plates was made publicly accessible.

According to TechCrunch, a dataset with more than 800 million high-quality records, belonging to Xinai Electronics, remained online for several months. The company is based in Hangzhou and develops AI systems for workplace access control.

Security researcher Anurag Sen found the information on a Chinese Alibaba server. In his words, the images were not password-protected and could be accessed by anyone directly from a web browser.

Also, the data fell into the hands of a ransomware attacker who demanded several hundred dollars in cryptocurrency to recover the information. At the time of writing, no ransom had been paid.

Study: robots better at identifying mental health issues in children

A team of engineers and psychiatrists from the University of Cambridge found that a robot more accurately identifies mental health problems in a child than traditional methods identify.

The researchers conducted an experiment with 28 children aged 8 to 13. They used a small humanoid robot, Nao, to pose a series of standard psychological questions to assess their emotional well-being.

According to the researchers, children trusted the gadget and shared information with it that they previously kept quiet and did not report in the questionnaires.

They emphasised that robots can be a useful tool for assessing mental health in minors but cannot replace human interaction.

Brain implant helps patients curb binge eating

Researchers developed a brain implant capable of stopping a person from overeating.

Researchers from the Perelman School of Medicine at the University of Pennsylvania surgically implanted the device in two patients suffering from compulsive overeating and severe obesity. The system in real time detects and blocks brain signals that drive overeating.

According to the researchers, after a year of testing the implant they did not observe any side effects.

Both patients reported a significant reduction in binge eating and a reduced sense of loss of control. They also noted losing 5 kg over six months without additional dieting.

AI artwork wins art contest

An enthusiast won first prize in a Colorado state fair fine arts competition with a piece created by an AI algorithm.

American Jason Allen took first place with Théâtre D’opéra Spatial, created using the Midjourney AI. He said it took weeks to fine-tune the prompt and more than a hundred generations to select the three best images, enhance them with Gigapixel AI, and print them on canvas.

Some online users argued that AI-generated drawings should not compete with human artists. Others noted that there is no issue with using Midjourney, as producing a high-quality image with a neural network takes considerable time.

American woman creates AI to track her cat’s trips to the litter box

An enthusiast taught AI to monitor how her cat uses its litter box.

The developer used a Raspberry Pi, sensors mounted above the litter box and an infrared camera pointed at it. She collected about 50,000 images of the animals during defecation, using them to teach the AI to distinguish her two cats and what they do in the litter box.

According to the researcher, the system helps monitor the health of her pet named Teddy, who often eats plastic.

The week’s most notable AI deals

From August 28 to September 3, 2022, AI startups raised over $378 million. Here are the most notable deals.

• OneSignal raised $50 million to develop its platform for automating mobile messaging.
• Tarci raised $17 million.
• Olive Diagnostics raised $1.5 million to develop an AI-powered urinalysis device.

Also on ForkLog:

• Microsoft and ByteDance launched a joint AI project.
• AI detected 20,000 undeclared pools in France.
• Google forced to resign a critic of the military AI contract with Israel.
• The United States restricted the supply of chips for AI development to China and Russia.
• DeepMind taught AI agents to play football.

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