Generative AI News - issue #7
Exploring AI’s potential and staying current with AI literacy
November 27, 2024
Hi everyone!
Welcome to all the new subscribers! (and people who’ve been on this list since 2014 when it was “Mobile Apps News.”) I’ve got quite a few links in today’s issue. There is just so much going on.
In this issue we’ll look at:
new developments with foundation models: such as ChatGPT Search and Claude’s computer use
the latest news about genAI for images, video, and music
some nuanced reporting that puts statistics about energy use of data centers in context: What’s the impact of artificial intelligence on energy demand? by Hannah Ritchie (author of the book Not the End of the World, which I recommend)
a beneficial use of deepfakes: Meet Daisy — the AI-generated granny helping to trap scammers
stories about genAI in education and in libraries
the usual “just for fun” section, and what’s coming in the future.
Enjoy!
Foundation model news
OpenAI
Introducing ChatGPT search - OpenAI
Plus and Team users for now, free users later.Advanced voice mode is now also rolling out on desktop web for paid users - OpenAI on X
OpenAI launches ChatGPT desktop integrations, rivaling Copilot - VentureBeat
”Some ChatGPT on Mac OS users can now open third-party applications directly from the app. ChatGPT Plus and Teams subscribers — with ChatGPT Enterprise and Edu users following soon after — can access VS Code, Xcode, Terminal and iTerm2 from a dropdown.”
Google Gemini
Google launches new Gemini app on iPhone with Gemini Live - 9to5 Google
Includes voice capabilities, similar to Advanced Voice Mode on ChatGPT. “…choose from one of 10 voices that applies to all Gemini responses. At launch, the following languages are supported: English, Spanish, French, German, Hindi, Portuguese, Arabic, Italian, Indonesian, Japanese, Turkish, and Vietnamese.”
Meta
Meta just beat Google and Apple in the race to put powerful AI on phones - VentureBeat
Meta makes its MobileLLM open for researchers, posting full weights - VentureBeat
Claude
Introducing the analysis tool in Claude.ai - Anthropic
”Think of the analysis tool as a built-in code sandbox, where Claude can do complex math, analyze data, and iterate on different ideas before sharing an answer. The ability to process information and run code means you get more accurate answers.”
Anthropic’s new AI can use computers like a human, redefining automation for enterprises - VentureBeat
”The new “Computer Use” feature allows AI to perform tasks that were previously handled only by human workers, such as opening applications, interacting with interfaces, and filling out forms.”
Commentary on Anthropic’s Computer Use
When you give a Claude a mouse - Ethan Mollick
Initial explorations of Anthropic’s new Computer Use capability - Simon Willison
Anthropic’s Computer Use mode shows strengths and limitations in new study - VentureBeat
An AI intern in your pocket - Azeem Azhar and Nathan Warren (paid)
”But the focus at this stage shouldn’t be on if it’s ready for production. It’s on identifying the direction in which we are heading.”
Other models
Mistral unleashes Pixtral Large and upgrades Le Chat into full-on ChatGPT competitor - VentureBeat
Try it here by signing up for a free account. It offers quite a few features for free.DeepSeek’s first reasoning model R1-Lite-Preview turns heads, beating OpenAI o1 performance - VentureBeat
“Known for its innovative contributions to the open-source AI ecosystem, DeepSeek’s new release aims to bring high-level reasoning capabilities to the public while maintaining its commitment to accessible and transparent AI.”
Images, video, music, and voices
Music
Timbaland Embraces AI Music Production, Announces Partnership with Start-Up Suno - Rolling Stone
"It's the new age of music creation and producing," says Timbaland, who spends 10 hours a day reworking beats on the AI platform.Introducing v4 - Suno
“Better audio, sharper lyrics, and more dynamic song structures now available in beta to Pro & Premier”The Beatles’ ‘Now and Then’ Makes History As First AI-Assisted Song to Earn Grammy Nomination - Billboard
Not a deepfake of John Lennon. Instead, it used “a form of AI known as ‘stem separation’ to help them clean up a 60-year-old, low-fidelity demo recorded by Lennon during his lifetime.”AI for Songwriters: How Ben Camp is Helping Songwriters Get Creative with Artificial Intelligence - Berklee Online
”Camp likens the curriculum of the courses to a creative playground—“There is a new technology around, and I want you to mess around with it and see what you can do with it creatively, what it inspires you to do creatively, and how you can break it.”—and is all about exploration.”
Images
AI startup Ideogram launches infinite Canvas for manipulating, combining generated images - VentureBeat
Can Adobe Turn Creators From AI Skeptics Into Believers? - Katelyn Chedraoui, CNET
“Adobe sets the tone: By integrating gen AI into its products, even as strategically as it is, Adobe is ensuring that AI will be part of the future. Creators will have to master this new digital AI literacy, Costin said. The unspoken "or else" is that non-AI-savvy creators will be left behind.”Recraft might be the most powerful AI image platform I’ve ever used – here’s why - Tom’s Guide
It works really well.Artists and AI: Shaping a Collaborative Future - ArtNews
Sponsored content from the Knight Foundation - but interesting anyway.Drawing Rooms: Digital images created with generative AI and edited in Lightroom, 2023. - Lev Manovich
“In short, by breaking historical human culture into fragments we get our new ‘generative AI’ culture. The fragments of you see in this image series - breaking from the celling, covering the floor, floating in space gathered in strange ‘clouds’ and so on - can be seen as a metaphor for this process.”The Ethics of the Remix: GenAI in Public Space - Nettrice Gaskins
”This new era of GenAI art (and design) creation is much more participatory and less focused on ownership. At the core of this process is having the ability or skill to remix almost anything into almost anything else.”
Video
‘This is a game changer’: Runway releases new AI facial expression motion capture feature Act-One - VentureBeat
Runway Unveils Act-One, Transforming Character Animation - AgeofLLMs
ByteDance’s AI can make your photos act out movie scenes — but is it too real? - VentureBeat
'Gladiator II' Director Ridley Scott Says He's 'Trying to Embrace AI' - Decrypt
“Initially wary of the technology, "Gladiator II" director Ridley Scott now says he sees the benefits of generative AI in filmmaking.”I was wrong. People love Coca-Cola’s AI remake of a Christmas classic - Andrew Tindall, the Drum
“But I reckon if you aren’t primed, you wouldn’t think this is AI. Just look at the consumer testing data. They either haven’t noticed or don’t care. And AI is only getting better from here. I wonder if the results would be different if we told people it was made by AI first. I reckon we’d get some angry people, and the whole thing would fall apart very quickly.”
Voices
Voice Design - ElevenLabs (new feature)
Describe the characteristics of a voice you want to create.How NotebookLM Was Made - Latent Space podcast
“Guests Raiza Martin and Usama Bin Shafqat, are the lead product manager and AI engineer behind the NotebookLM feature that gave us the first viral AI voice experience, the “Deep Dive” podcast.”Pushing the frontiers of audio generation - Google DeepMind
“To teach our model how to generate realistic exchanges between multiple speakers, we pretrained it on hundreds of thousands of hours of speech data. Then we finetuned it on a much smaller dataset of dialogue with high acoustic quality and precise speaker annotations, consisting of unscripted conversations from a number of voice actors and realistic disfluencies — the “umm”s and “aah”s of real conversation.”Jerry Garcia Estate Creates AI Model for Musician’s Voice with ElevenLabs - Relix
”Fans of the late Grateful Dead member can experience Garcia’s vocal presentation of audiobooks, articles, poems, PDFs, and more in 32 languages.”DeepL launches DeepL Voice, real-time, text-based translations from voices and videos - TechCrunch
“Now, as the hype for AI services continues to grow, DeepL is adding another mode to the platform: audio. Users will now be able to use DeepL Voice to listen to someone speaking in one language and automatically translate it to another, in real time.”
Tips
A Student's Guide to Using Perplexity Spaces - Perplexity
Claude can now view PDF images — here's how to enable it - Tom’s Guide
ChatGPT Advanced Voice just got a handy upgrade — here's what you can do now - Tom’s Guide
You can now share a snippet of an audio conversation.Midjourney launches AI image editor: how to use it - Carl Franzen, VentureBeat
Advanced Voice Mode is amazing - a conversation on Reddit with many examples of how people are using it.
Accessibility
Using Generative AI to Make Learning More Accessible: Insights from Ontario PSE Students and Staff - Higher Education Quality Council of Ontario
They “conducted a study to determine how GenAI can be used to make learning more accessible for all students, including those with disabilities, and the barriers to its use faced by students, instructors and staff.”
Disability community has long wrestled with ‘helpful’ technologies – lessons for everyone in dealing with AI - The Conversation
”Thinking of AI as an assistive technology, and learning from the disability community, can help to ensure that the AI systems of the future serve people’s needs – with people in the driver’s seat.”
Gen AI Champions Project - YouTube (12 min)
”A short narrative film by Max Jones exploring the N-TUTORR funded GenAI Champions project and impact. In February of 2024, 36 students with learning differences across the island of Ireland were brought together by a project to support students in higher education using Generative AI.”
What’s happening in education
How Generative AI Is Transforming Medical Education - The Magazine of Harvard Medical School
AI literacy course prepares ASU students to set cultural norms for new technology - ASU News
”Lance Gharavi, a professor in the School of Music, Dance and Theatre, has been teaching a new course this semester called “AI Literacy in Design and the Arts,” which covers the benefits, challenges and ethics surrounding AI. The course is designed to serve as a template for AI literacy courses in other disciplines. “The specific discipline content will come from whoever is teaching the course.”GLAT: The Generative AI Literacy Assessment Test - Yueqiao Jin, et al., Monash University, Australia
”Existing instruments often rely on self-reports, which may be biased. In this study, we present the GenAI Literacy Assessment Test (GLAT), a 20-item multiple-choice instrument developed following established procedures in psychological and educational measurement.”Writing assistant, workhorse, or accelerator? How academics are using GenAI - London School of Economics blog
”Carried out from January to February 2024, we invited all Danish researches (including PhD researchers) to participate in a survey to ascertain just how GenAI is being used in research and how the use of GenAI breaks down across different disciplines and demographics.”Designing Interactive Explainable AI Tools for Algorithmic Literacy and Transparency - Bhat & Long - DIS '24: Proceedings of the 2024 ACM Designing Interactive Systems Conference
“Designed according to learning sciences and user-centered design principles, these tools simplify complex AI concepts like edge detection, confidence thresholds, and sensitivity, making AI more understandable for beginners and facilitating reflection on ethical issues.”OpenAI releases a teacher’s guide to ChatGPT, but some educators are skeptical - TechCrunch
OpenScholar: The open-source A.I. that’s outperforming GPT-4o in scientific research - VentureBeat
“A new artificial intelligence system, called OpenScholar, is promising to rewrite the rules for how researchers access, evaluate, and synthesize scientific literature. Built by the Allen Institute for AI and the University of Washington, OpenScholar combines cutting-edge retrieval systems with a fine-tuned language model to deliver citation-backed, comprehensive answers to complex research questions.”Perspectives of Students with Different Majors on an Artificial Intelligence Literacy Course at a Korean University - Song and Lee, Athens Journal of Technology & Engineering (PDF)
A Third Transformation? Generative AI and Scholarly Publishing - Tracy Bergstrom, Dylan Ruediger, ITHAKA S+R
“We interviewed 12 leaders in stakeholder communities ranging from large publishers and technology disruptors to academic librarians and scholars. The consensus among the individuals with whom we spoke is that generative AI will enable efficiency gains across the publication process. Writing, reviewing, editing, and discovery will all become easier and faster. Both scholarly publishing and scientific discovery in turn will likely accelerate as a result of AI-enhanced research methods.”Is It AI? Peer Reviewers Struggle to Distinguish LLMs From Human Writing - Isabella Backman, Yale School of Medicine
“The study suggests that as LLMs advance, peer reviewers will have a diminishing capability to detect content written by AI. It also revealed the negative bias held by reviewers toward machine-generated content. As more content becomes AI-generated or a hybrid of human and AI writing, the study poses important questions about the role of AI in scientific content.”
What’s happening in libraries
Beyond the Binary: A Librarian's Journey into the AI Revolution - Carlo Iacono
”Perhaps we need to: embrace uncertainty as a feature, not a bug — view confusion as a sign of growth, not failure — and see complexity as truth, not obstacle.”AI should be foundational technology for libraries and institutions - Sharjah
“In his keynote address on Integrating AI into Library Services and Advancing AI Literacy, Dr Leo S. Lo, Dean of the University of New Mexico and President of the Association of College and Research Libraries (ACRL), outlined his vision for AI as a foundational technology for libraries and educational institutions, comparing it to other transformative inventions like fire and electricity.”Fostering AI literacy for future librarians - Subaveerapandiyan, A - College & Undergraduate Libraries
“This study assesses the artificial intelligence (AI) literacy and perceptions among Master of Library Science (MLS) students in India. It aims to identify the most relevant AI knowledge areas for library science, examine students’ attitudes toward AI’s potential impact on library services, and explores the importance of AI literacy for professional practice.”Could Artificial Intelligence Help Catalog Thousands of Digital Library Books? An Interview with Abigail Potter and Caroline Saccucci - Isabel Brador, Library of Congress
Artificial intelligence, real library - Final report for Project Laibro, Norwegian University of Science and Technology
Artifical Intelligence Literacy Framework - University of Adelaide Libraries
Just for fun
Pika 1.5 updates with three new Halloween-themed video AI Pikaffects - VentureBeat
Baby Secret Mattel doll - 1966 commercial spoof - Reddit
Creepy! The audio is a real ad of a real doll from 1966.Which AI Image Model Is the Best Speller? Let’s Find Out! - Daniel Next, Why Try AI?
Meta Puppet on LinkedIn.
”Very proud to share my newest film Mnemonade -- which won first prize at the Culver Cup competition.” A five-minute short AI-generated film that’s worth watching.How Did You Do On The AI Art Turing Test? - Astral Codex Ten
Results of a challenge to 11,000 people to classify fifty pictures as either human art or AI-generated images.The 'War of the Worlds' Panic was Anti-Radio Propaganda - Pessimists Archive
Each new media is a threat to the old.
Thought-provoking
What’s the impact of artificial intelligence on energy demand? - Hannah Ritchie
Finally some nuanced reporting that puts statistics in context.
”The public and media conversation on this has been poor. I lose track of the number of headlines and articles I’ve seen that quote random numbers—without context—to show how much energy or water AI already uses. The numbers are often fairly small but sound big because they’re not given with any context of how much energy or water we use for everything else.”Making it easier to verify an AI model’s responses - MIT News
”By allowing users to clearly see data referenced by a large language model, this tool speeds manual validation to help users spot AI errors.”The Authenticity Paradox: Why Everything We Think About AI and Education is Wrong - Carlo Iacono
”We pine for an era of "authentic" student work, conveniently forgetting that knowledge has always been collaborative, messy, and deeply entangled with our tools.”AI and Skills Loss: It’s Not That Simple - Leon Furze
Interesting questions: The more important question is not, will AI replace skills? But, why do we care if AI replaces skills?The Middle Path for AI - Daniel Jeffreis
“People love to spin tales of AI doom or AI utopia, but it's time to take a realistic look at AI. Reality is often stranger than fiction.”Simple science summaries written by AI help people understand research and trust scientists - David Markowitz, The Conversation
“This research points to a potential solution: using AI to simplify science communication. By making scientific content more approachable, this work demonstrates that AI-generated summaries may help to restore trust in scientists and, in turn, encourage greater public engagement with scientific issues. The question of trust is particularly important, as people often rely on science in their daily lives, from eating habits to medical choices.”Two: The Wild Robot, Pop Culture, and AI: Approaches to humanizing/not humanizing AI should vary by age - Mike Kentz
Interesting thoughts on anthropomorphizing AI.Interface Innovations: (Re)defining the user experience of AI - 5 Trends in generative AI and their impact on academic practice, Dominik Lukeš
”A comprehensive overview of how AI interfaces have transformed since ChatGPT's launch, highlighting key innovations, challenges, and future directions in human-AI interaction design.”Does AI improve doctors' diagnoses? Study puts it to the test - Science Daily
"Our study shows that AI alone can be an effective and powerful tool for diagnosis," said Parsons, who oversees the teaching of clinical skills to medical students at the University of Virginia School of Medicine and co-leads the Clinical Reasoning Research Collaborative. "We were surprised to find that adding a human physician to the mix actually reduced diagnostic accuracy though improved efficiency. These results likely mean that we need formal training in how best to use AI."Can AI review the scientific literature — and figure out what it all means? - Helen Pearson, Nature
“Five years later, Rodriques says he is closer to solving that problem using artificial intelligence (AI). In September, he and his team at the US start-up FutureHouse announced that an AI-based system they had built could, within minutes, produce syntheses of scientific knowledge that were more accurate than Wikipedia pages. The team promptly generated Wikipedia-style entries on around 17,000 human genes, most of which previously lacked a detailed page.”AI-generated poetry is indistinguishable from human-written poetry and is rated more favorably - Porter and Machery, Scientific Reports
“Notably, participants were more likely to judge AI-generated poems as human-authored than actual human-authored poems.”AI’s Underwhelming Impact on the 2024 Elections - Andrew R. Chow, Time
“Daniel Schiff, another researcher on the project, says many deepfakes are likely designed to reinforce the opinions of people who were already predisposed to believe their messaging. Other studies suggest that most forms of political persuasion have very small effects at best —and that voters actively dislike political messages that are personally tailored to them. That might render moot one of AI’s primary powers: to create targeted messages cheaply.”
Meet Daisy — the AI-generated granny helping to trap scammers - Tom’s Guide
A beneficial use of deepfakes.
Beneficial uses of AI
Google’s AI system could change the way we write: InkSight turns handwritten notes digital - VentureBeat
”Previous attempts to convert handwritten text to digital format relied heavily on analyzing the geometric properties of written strokes — essentially trying to trace the lines on the page. InkSight instead combines two sophisticated AI capabilities: the ability to read and understand text, and the ability to reproduce it naturally. The results are remarkable.”
Stanford RegLab, Princeton, and the County of Santa Clara Collaborate to Use AI to Identify and Map Racial Covenants from over 5 Million Deed Records - HAI Stanford University
”The approach paves the way for faster and more accurate compliance with California’s anti-discrimination law.”
Artificial Intelligence Was Put to the Test This Hurricane Season - Bloomberg
”Its forecasts hit the mark 12 hours faster than the US Global Weather Forecast System.”
Introducing NatureLM-audio: An Audio-Language Foundation Model for Bioacoustics - Earth Species Project
“For example, NatureLM-audio can classify or detect thousands of species across diverse taxa including birds, whales, and anurans – without the need to retrain the model for each new task and without machine learning and programming expertise.”
Could AI help save the planet? Four ways it’s already making a world of difference - Martin Wright, Positive News
AI is aiding conservation efforts by monitoring rainforests with drones to detect illegal logging, tracking endangered species like tigers and snow leopards through camera trap data, and providing low-income farmers with expert agricultural advice via smartphone applications.
Humanitarian Data Insights Project: Using generative AI - DataKind
“It enables individuals without extensive technical knowledge to directly query complex datasets using a conversational interface, conduct data analysis, and tailor information displays according to their needs – such as in graphs or tables. Users can simply ask a question, in natural language, and thus more easily explore multiple angles of their data, uncover trends, and make informed choices based on results generated through this intuitive process.”
A New Agenda for African Languages x AI: Everything, Everywhere, All At Once - Vukosi Marivate, Center for Digital Humanities at Princeton (recording of a talk)
”In his talk, Professor Marivate will discuss the crucial role of community building in developing technologies for African languages in the age of AI. He will touch upon the unique challenges and opportunities in fostering collaboration for African languages, developing technologies that respects and empowers communities, and his vision for the future of technology and community engagements in African languages.”
Goodbye cloud, Hello phone: Adobe’s SlimLM brings AI to mobile devices - VentureBeat
“The system, called SlimLM, represents a major shift in artificial intelligence deployment — away from massive cloud computing centers and onto the phones in users’ pockets. In tests on Samsung’s latest Galaxy S24, SlimLM demonstrated it could analyze documents, generate summaries, and answer complex questions while running entirely on the device’s hardware.”
Copyright
The Globalization of Copyright Exceptions for AI Training - Matthew Sag, Peter K. Yu
”A key lesson of our cross-country survey is that globally, the binary policy debate that assumes that text and data mining and AI training must be categorically condemned or applauded has been eclipsed by a more granular debate about the specific circumstances in which the unauthorized use of copyrighted works for AI training should be allowed or prohibited. Countries that have hesitated until now to modernize their copyright laws in the area of AI training have several templates open to them and little reason for hesitation.”
The AI-Copyright Trap - Carys J. Craig, Osgoode Hall Law School, York University, Toronto
“In their haste to act, however, they risk running headlong into the Copyright Trap: the mistaken conviction that copyright law is the best tool to support human creators and culture in our new technological reality (when in fact it is likely to do more harm than good). It is a trap in the sense that it may satisfy the wants of a small group of powerful stakeholders, but it will harm the interests of the more vulnerable actors who are, perhaps, most drawn to it.”
Librarian of Congress Expands DMCA Exemption for Text and Data Mining - Katherine Klosek, Association of Research Libraries
”The updated regulation clarifies that academic researchers can securely access research collections of literary works or motion pictures hosted by other institutions of higher education for purposes of collaboration, or to facilitate their own independent research projects.”
Artificial Intelligence Impacts on Copyright Law - Blaszczyk et al, Rand
Useful overview of all the issues.
Understanding CC Licenses and Generative AI - Kat Walsh, Creative Commons
”Neither copyright nor CC licenses can or should address all of the ways that AI might impact people. There are no easy solutions, but it is clear we need to step outside of copyright to work together on governance, regulatory frameworks, societal norms, and many other mechanisms to enable us to harness AI technologies and practices for good.”
Universal strikes AI data training deal, still suing AI companies for using its data - VentureBeat
”Music labels see they can’t stem the creation of AI-generated songs and prevent AI models from training on publicly released music. Through these deals with AI startups, labels like UMG, which owns other record labels that host artists like Taylor Swift and Chappell Roan, can make (even more) money from their copyrights.”
OpenAI’s data scraping wins big as Raw Story’s copyright lawsuit dismissed by NY court - VentureBeat
”Specifically, the judge found that the plaintiffs couldn’t demonstrate that they suffered a concrete, actual injury from OpenAI’s actions…
The judge noted that “the likelihood that ChatGPT would output plagiarized content from one of Plaintiffs’ articles seems remote.”
My offerings
Which generative AI tool for your task? - Nicole Hennig
People often ask, which AI tool can I use to do X? This aims to help. I don’t aim to be comprehensive (there are far too many tools available), but just to suggest some starting points.
Hype Detector on Poe - Nicole Hennig
I created this bot because many stories about AI are either full of positive hype or negative hype.
Give it a news story and it detects misleading language or rhetorical techniques.
Here’s an example of positive hype in an AI story with hype detected.
Here’s an example of negative hype in an AI story with hype detected.
Here’s an example of a mostly balanced story, but the bot still finds subtle elements that could shape reader perception.
Create a free account on Poe to try it yourself.
The future
OpenAI scientist Noam Brown stuns TED AI Conference: ’20 seconds of thinking worth 100,000x more data’ - VentureBeat
”He pointed to the need for AI to move beyond sheer data processing and into what he referred to as “system two thinking”—a slower, more deliberate form of reasoning that mirrors how humans approach complex problems.”
Enter the ‘Whisperverse’: How AI voice agents will guide us through our days - VentureBeat
Dystopian or useful? Seems likely to happen.
Introducing self-evolving models: The future of scalable AI - Waseem Alshikh, Writer Engineering
”These models are able to identify and learn new information in real time— adapting to changing circumstances without requiring a full retraining cycle.”
Liquid AI Is Redesigning the Neural Network - Wired
“Inspired by microscopic worms, Liquid AI’s founders developed a more adaptive, less energy-hungry kind of neural network. Now the MIT spin-off is revealing several new ultraefficient models.”
UC San Diego, Tsinghua University researchers just made AI way better at knowing when to ask for help - VentureBeat
“This research challenges the bigger-is-better paradigm that has dominated AI development. In demonstrating that a relatively small model can outperform its larger cousins by making smarter decisions about tool use, the team points toward a more sustainable and practical future for AI.”
And some history
A Brief History of Artificial Intelligence in Technology and Popular Culture - By heidiestrem; jasonblomquist; and lizalong, Pressbooks.
Learn more
If you want to learn more about generative AI, contact me about doing a webinar or course for your group.
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