We aim to inform readers not only about events in the bitcoin industry, but also to report on what is happening in adjacent technological spheres — cybersecurity and the world of artificial intelligence (AI).
ForkLog AI has collected the most important AI news from the past week.
- By the end of 2024, OpenAI expects revenue to reach $1 billion.
- Skype can translate and vocalise calls in the user’s voice in 10 languages.
- HTC announced the showing of a new VR headset at CES 2023.
- Kickstarter closed the campaign to fund an AI image generator for explicit images.
- A robot will greet Britons at Christmas in an alternative body form.
- An engineer created a talking AI-powered typewriter.
- Boston Dynamics published a video of robots decorating a Christmas tree.
- The week’s most notable AI deals.
OpenAI plans to earn $1 billion in the next two years
In 2023, the AI lab OpenAI plans to earn $200 million. By the end of 2024, the company expects revenue to reach $1 billion.
OpenAI was founded in 2015. A year later the company released its first commercial product, stating its commitment to advancing AI safely for humanity.
Currently the company is valued at $20 billion.
Skype can copy users’ voices
Microsoft says Skype can translate and vocalise calls in the user’s voice in 10 languages.
The TruVoice feature uses a combination of speech recognition and NLP technologies. It supports translation and vocalisation in English, Arabic, Brazilian Portuguese, Spanish, Italian, Chinese, German, Russian, French and Japanese.
The system works only in dialogues, but in the future Microsoft plans to add it to group chats and phone calls.
HTC announces VR/AR headset
On January 5 at CES 2023, HTC will showcase a flagship VR/AR headset.
A company representative said the new design makes the device lighter and promises a full VR and AR experience. The headset is equipped with front and side cameras capable of transmitting color imagery to the headset displays.
The system will be fully autonomous and will come with controllers with six degrees of freedom and hand-tracking.
The device will feature a depth sensor for effective recognition and more complex mapping of the user’s physical environment. It will also support a wider dynamic range and will be able to read text on a laptop or smartphone screen.
According to an HTC spokesperson, the headset is intended for entertainment, gaming, sports, and “even some of the most powerful use cases.”
Cruise launches robotaxi in Austin and Phoenix suburbs
Cruise launched fully autonomous robotaxis in Arizona and Texas (USA).
For now the robots carry “friends and family” of staff. When Cruise has enough robotcars to meet demand, it will open access to customers from the waitlist.
In Texas, the company offers rides in central Austin from Wednesday to Friday from 22:00 to 05:30. In Chandler, Arizona, from Monday to Friday 19:00 to 02:00.
Waymo launches robotaxi at Phoenix airport
Waymo launched passenger transport by robotaxi at Phoenix Sky Harbor Airport (USA). According to the company, they were the first in the world to implement such a service.
Waymo has doubled fully autonomous coverage area in the city. Now the robotaxi without safety drivers can transport customers from central Phoenix to the Sky Harbor airport.
Kickstarter closes AI porn generator campaign
The crowdfunding platform Kickstarter shut down the campaign by AI image generator Unstable Diffusion due to changes in website guidelines.
CEO Everett Taylor shared his view on AI-powered image work. He said Kickstarter must, and always will, side with human creativity.
Taylor said the platform is considering a new approach to hosting AI projects. This concerns prohibition of decisions that infringe copyrights, exploit communities and endanger anyone.
Developers of Unstable Diffusion refused to “give up,” despite the block. They say opponents of neural networks are trying to silence them and destroy the community.
On Kickstarter, Unstable Diffusion developers raised $56,000 from 867 backers. Since the campaign did not finish, the platform will refund all funds to contributors.
Free distributed network for running AI text generators introduced
The international team of BigScience developers created a free open-source distributed network for running text-generating AI Petals.
The system allows users to run algorithms such as ChatGPT by pooling compute from people over the internet. Anyone can donate hardware to perform part of the text generation workload.
To use Petals, developers must install an open-source library and follow the network connection instructions.
According to experts, the reliability of the system depends on the number of servers. If one fails, Petals can quickly restore sessions, causing a “slight delay” for end users.
There is no data on the size of the network. Since early December 2022, many users with GPUs of varying power joined.
An engineer created a talking AI-powered typewriter
Developer Arvind Sandhiv created a Ghostwriter, an AI-powered typewriter you can talk to.
For this, he used an electric typewriter Brother AX-325. By reengineering, the enthusiast wired the keyboard signals to a microcontroller Arduino. The latter sends data to a single-board computer Raspberry Pi, acting as a network interface to connect to the OpenAI GPT-3 API.
When Sandhiv types a message, Ghostwriter automatically outputs an AI-generated response.
Boston Dynamics decorates the Christmas tree with robot dogs
The company Boston Dynamics published a video of robots decorating a tree.
In the video a four-legged Spot with a manipulator cannot reach the top of the tree to attach a ribbon. So it brings up two robopups that act as steps.
At the end of the clip the company wished everyone a happy holiday season. It also showed an unsuccessful attempt by Spot to hang a bow.
According to Boston Dynamics, the robopups were operated by professional operators in the video.
British Channel 4 will release an alternative Christmas message with a robot
On December 25, 2022, the British Channel 4 will show the traditional alternative Christmas message generated by artificial intelligence.
According to media reports, the text of the message and its reading were entrusted to the humanoid robot Ameca. It will speak about the year’s ups and downs and ask people to “consider 2022 a lesson and an opportunity to change their views of the world.” The AI will also remind of the need to help those in need.
Channel 4’s content director said the robot would demonstrate the “power and limits of artificial intelligence.” He added that most viewers will likely understand that robots and algorithms cannot replace humans in the near future.
The week’s most notable AI deals
From December 18 to 24, 2022, AI startups raised over $195 million. Here are the most interesting deals.
- Dabbsson raised $75 million to develop a decentralized AI energy ecosystem for the home.
- Helm.ai raised $31 million to scale software for autonomous vehicles and robotics.
- ImagenAI raised $30 million for AI-powered photo editing and post-processing automation.
- South Park creators Deep Voodoo raised $20 million to expand the Deepfake studio.
- Biomica raised $20 million to advance its microbiome-based therapeutics pipeline.
- Mangomint raised $13 million to support a SaaS tool for automating booking processes in the beauty industry.
- Quris raised $9 million.
Also on ForkLog:
- Google taught AI to recognize doctors’ handwriting.
- TikTok has increased the transparency of recommendation algorithms.
- OpenAI introduced a 3D-generation model called POINT-E.
- AI was taught to identify gender stereotypes in films.
- Media: “Yandex” registered an AI-holding to circumvent sanctions.
- Google released the source code of the AI tool for video blurring Magritte.
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