BuzzFeed reporting profiles artists whose defecation-themed children's songs have earned streaming revenue, possibly driven by kids yelling 'poop' at Alexa devices. Oregon music teacher Dan Helpish earned over $10,000 from more than 10 million streams of 'Poopy Stupid Butt,' while Matt Farley says Amazon Music accounts for at least 30% of his income.
Jury selection began in San Francisco federal court for a trial accusing Elon Musk of manipulating Twitter's stock during his $44 billion acquisition. More than a third of prospective jurors were dismissed after saying they could not be impartial, while Musk's legal team objected to others with negative views of him remaining in the pool.
Philosopher and historian Émile Torres argues in The Washington Post that artificial superintelligence could cause human extinction because its actions would be unpredictable and uncontrollable. Torres calls for AI research to slow or pause, with governments stepping in if researchers do not act.
Google Flights is adding machine learning to predict flight delays using historical data, flagging only when at least 80% confident. The company still advises arriving on time, and the same technology is being applied in medical research and other fields.
Alibaba partnered with Dekon Group and Tequ Group in February 2018 to test an AI-powered system called ET Brain that monitors pigs using cameras, infrared temperature readings, and voice recognition. The system replaces RFID ear tags with tattooed ID numbers and, according to Alibaba, can reduce piglet death rates by 3 percent.
Thousands of contractors, including GlobalLogic workers earning $16–$21 hourly in the US, train Google's Gemini by moderating disturbing content and verifying complex medical and technical answers. Google disputes that raters directly affect its models, while workers describe inadequate warnings and pressure to work faster.
An apparently AI-generated band called The Velvet Sundown has accumulated over 550,000 Spotify streams this month, potentially earning thousands of dollars despite no verifiable members. The case highlights gaps in how streaming platforms detect and label AI content, with only Deezer and YouTube currently marking such tracks.
Elon Musk told Fox News host Tucker Carlson he is working on 'TruthGPT,' a 'maximum truth-seeking AI' he described as an alternative to ChatGPT. The announcement follows Musk's criticism of OpenAI and his earlier call for a moratorium on advanced AI development.
Twenty-six Meta employees filed a lawsuit alleging the company's internal AI platform, Checkpoint, used protected leave and disability status in selecting workers for layoffs. Meta disputes the claim, saying workforce decisions were made by people, not AI.
Dubai Police announced plans to add Tesla Cybertrucks to their luxury patrol fleet, according to Arabian Business. Commander-in-Chief Abdullah Khalifa Al Marri said the vehicles will enhance security presence in tourist destinations. The announcement follows Tesla CEO Elon Musk's tweet that the Cybertruck received 250,000 pre-orders.
Axon's Draft One, an AI tool using OpenAI's GPT-4 to generate police reports from body camera audio, is being tested by departments in Colorado, Indiana, and Oklahoma. Legal experts, including law professor Andrew Ferguson, warn that automation may reduce officer care in writing reports that anchor the legal system.
An Amazon patent granted in October describes technology that could let Alexa infer a user's health status or nation of origin from their voice. Privacy experts told The Intercept that governments could abuse such data, though there is no evidence Amazon has built the system or that governments have sought it.
Marina Smith, an 87-year-old British woman who died in June, appeared at her own funeral as a holographic conversational video created by StoryFile. The startup filmed her answering about 250 questions with 20 cameras before her death, allowing mourners to ask questions in real time. The event highlights a growing Silicon Valley push to use AI to recreate the dead.
NVIDIA opened an AI Robotics Research Lab in Seattle in November and appointed Dieter Fox to lead it. About a dozen projects are underway, with the main effort teaching a robotic arm to fetch and place items in an Ikea kitchen, aiming toward smart manipulators that work in open-ended environments.
Uber's AI lab developed an algorithm that, with human guidance, achieved high scores in the Atari games 'Pitfall!' and 'Montezuma's Revenge,' which have challenged reinforcement learning systems. The research suggests that complex problems may be best solved through human-AI collaboration.
An Arizona State University forensic analysis commissioned by NPR found ChatGPT's Sky voice more similar to Scarlett Johansson than 98 percent of about 600 actresses evaluated. The findings add weight to Johansson's claim that OpenAI mimicked her voice without permission, though researchers said the voices are similar but likely not identical.
Connecterra has developed an AI-powered cow monitoring system using neck-mounted motion sensors that it claims can detect illness 24 to 48 hours before visible symptoms appear. The system costs $79.99 per cow plus $3 monthly, prompting debate among farmers who rely on traditional observation skills.
A US Army RQ-7Bv2 Shadow drone lost communications with its ground control station after launch in southern Arizona in January 2017, then flew 632 miles north across three states before crashing near Denver. The incident highlights the risks of autonomous systems and the unresolved debate over armed robotic weapons.
Google X Life Sciences head Andrew Conrad announced a project to develop a pill delivering magnetic nanoparticles into the bloodstream and a wrist sensor to read diagnostic results. Stanford's Sam Gambhir says a doctor-approved product is at least five to seven years away, and interpreting results will require the separate Baseline health study.
Scarlett Johansson says she declined OpenAI's request to voice ChatGPT, then was shocked when a new voice called Sky sounded eerily similar to hers. OpenAI pulled the voice and CEO Sam Altman denied it was intended to resemble Johansson, but the episode has renewed scrutiny of consent and likeness in AI development.