Although Judy Garland never recorded herself reading ‘The Wonderful Wizard of Oz,’ fans will soon be able to hear her rendition thanks to a new app by ElevenLabs. The AI company has launched the Reader app, which can convert text into voice-overs using digitally produced voices of deceased celebrities, including Garland, James Dean, and Burt Reynolds. The app can transform articles, e-books, and other text formats into audio.
Dustin Blank, head of partnerships at ElevenLabs, emphasised the company’s respect for the legacies of these celebrities. The company has made agreements with the estates of the actors, though compensation details remain undisclosed. That initiative highlights AI’s potential in Hollywood, especially for creating content using synthetic voices, but it also raises important questions about the licensing and ethical use of AI.
The use of AI-generated celebrity voices comes amid growing concerns about authenticity and copyright in creative industries. ElevenLabs had previously faced scrutiny when its tool was reportedly used to create a fake robocall from President Joe Biden. Similar controversies have arisen, such as OpenAI’s introduction of a voice similar to Scarlett Johansson’s, which she publicly criticised.
As AI technology advances, media companies are increasingly utilising it for voiceovers. NBC recently announced the use of an AI version of sportscaster Al Michaels for Olympics recaps on its Peacock streaming platform, with Michaels receiving compensation. While the market for AI-generated voices remains uncertain, the demand for audiobooks narrated by recognisable voices suggests a promising future for this technology.
Australia is set to transfer its top-secret intelligence data to the cloud under a $2 billion agreement with Amazon Web Services to enhance defence interoperability with the United States. Defence Minister Richard Marles emphasised that the move to distributed, purpose-built facilities would bolster the resilience of data crucial for the defence force, ensuring continued operation even if individual servers fail.
The Director General of the Australian Signals Directorate, Rachel Noble, highlighted that the shift will also incorporate increased use of AI to analyse data. Noble stressed the importance of using AI ethically and with careful governance to understand its impact on data and its applications within the intelligence community.
Marles noted the significance of maintaining a common computing environment with US defence forces, especially as modern warfare increasingly relies on top-secret data, such as that used by F-35A joint strike fighter aircraft. He explained that data from sensors feeding into these platforms is vital for targeting, defence, and protection of other assets.
Prime Minister of Australia, Anthony Albanese, announced that the partnership with Amazon Web Services would enhance national security capabilities and create 2,000 local jobs. Director-General of National Intelligence Andrew Shearer reiterated that interoperability with security partners like the United States remains a top priority.
Meta is set to integrate more generative AI technology into its virtual, augmented, and mixed-reality games, aiming to boost its struggling metaverse strategy. According to a recent job listing, the company plans to create new gaming experiences that change with each playthrough and follow unpredictable paths. The initiative will initially focus on Horizon, Meta’s suite of metaverse games and applications, but could extend to other platforms like smartphones and PCs.
These developments are part of Meta’s broader effort to enhance its metaverse offerings and address the financial challenges faced by Reality Labs, the division responsible for its metaverse projects. Despite selling millions of Quest headsets, Meta has struggled to attract users to its Horizon platform and mitigate substantial operating losses. Recently, the company began allowing third-party manufacturers to license Quest software features and increased investment in metaverse gaming, spurred by CEO Mark Zuckerberg’s growing interest in the field.
Meta’s interest in generative AI is not new. In 2022, Zuckerberg demonstrated a prototype called Builder Bot, which allows users to create virtual worlds with simple prompts. Additionally, Meta’s CTO, Andrew Bosworth, has highlighted the potential of generative AI tools to democratise content creation within the metaverse, likening their impact to that of Instagram on personal content creation.
Generative AI is already making waves in game development, with companies like Disney-backed Inworld using the technology to enhance game dialogues and narratives. While some game creators are concerned about the impact on their jobs, Meta is committed to significant investments in generative AI, even though CEO Zuckerberg cautioned that it might take years for these investments to become profitable.
A French AI research lab, Kyutai, backed by billionaire Xavier Niel, unveiled a new voice assistant, Moshi, that can express 70 different emotions and styles. Revealed at an event in Paris, Moshi demonstrated capabilities such as offering advice on climbing Mt. Everest and reciting poems with a thick French accent. According to Kyutai’s CEO, Patrick Pérez, this assistant could revolutionise human-machine communication.
Moshi enters a competitive landscape dominated by OpenAI’s ChatGPT and other players like Google and Anthropic. Despite OpenAI’s recent delay in launching a similar voice assistant due to safety concerns, Kyutai plans to release Moshi as open-source technology, allowing free access to its code and research. Such a step aims to foster transparency and collaboration in AI development.
Funded with €300 million and led by former Google DeepMind and Meta Platforms researchers, Kyutai seeks to position Europe as a significant player in AI. During the event, Chief Science Officer Hervé Jégou addressed safety issues, ensuring that tools like indexing and watermarking will track AI-generated audio. The new voice assistant highlights Europe’s potential to advance AI technology globally.
China’s Ministry of Industry has announced the inclusion of 20 cities, including Beijing and Shanghai, in a pilot initiative focused on ‘vehicle-road-cloud integration’ for intelligent connected vehicles. The program aims to establish a standardised and unified system by 2026, facilitating the deployment of smart-connected vehicles across the nation, according to a statement released by the ministry on Wednesday.
Why does it matter?
Recently, China announced increased policy support to accelerate the development of smart connected vehicles, which experts believe could make the country the world’s largest market for self-driving cars. As part of these efforts, the Ministry of Industry and Information Technology plans to allocate 100 million 11-digit mobile network numbers to enhance communication among vehicles and with back-end management systems. According to McKinsey & Co., projections estimate that China’s autonomous vehicle market could exceed $500 billion in revenue by 2030.
Google’s annual sustainability report reveals a nearly 50% increase in greenhouse gas emissions from 2019 to 2024, primarily due to its data centres and supply chain. The 2024 Environmental Report indicates that Google emitted 14.3 million tons of CO2 equivalent last year, raising concerns about its goal to be net zero by 2030. The company expects emissions to rise further before declining, attributing this trend to the growing energy demands of AI integration and increased investment in technical infrastructure.
Efforts to make data centres more efficient, such as using a new generation of tensor processing units (TPUs), have been offset by the rising energy consumption required for AI. Scope 2 emissions, mainly from data centre electricity use, increased by 37% compared to 2022. The rise outpaced the company’s ability to implement carbon-free energy projects, particularly in the United States and Asia-Pacific region. Differences between Google’s global approach to carbon-free energy and the regional guidelines of the GHG Protocol have also contributed to this mismatch.
Scope 3 emissions, which account for 75% of Google’s overall emissions, rose by 8% year-on-year. These indirect emissions from the supply chain are expected to continue increasing due to capital expenditures and investments in AI-related infrastructure. A single generative AI query consumes nearly ten times the power of a regular Google search, highlighting the significant energy demands of AI technology.
Why does it matter?
Additionally, Google’s data centres consume more than three times the amount of water that Microsoft does to remain cool, underscoring the environmental challenges posed by the tech giant’s operations. The report suggests that while Google is making strides in efficiency, the rapid growth of AI and its associated infrastructure presents significant sustainability challenges.
A recent research paper from Google reveals that generative AI already distorts socio-political reality and scientific consensus. The paper, titled ‘Generative AI Misuse: A Taxonomy of Tactics and Insights from Real-World Data,’ was co-authored by researchers from Google DeepMind, Jigsaw, and Google.org.
It categorises various ways generative AI tools are misused, analysing around 200 incidents reported in the media and academic papers between January 2023 and March 2024. Unlike warnings about hypothetical future risks, this research focuses on the real harm generative AI is currently causing, such as flooding the internet with generated text, audio, images, and videos.
The researchers found that most AI misuse involves exploiting system capabilities rather than attacking the models themselves. However, this misuse blurs the lines between authentic and deceptive content, undermining public trust. AI-generated content is being used for impersonation, creating non-consensual intimate images, and amplifying harmful content. These activities often uphold the terms of service of AI tools, highlighting a significant challenge in regulating AI misuse.
Google’s research also emphasises the environmental impact of generative AI. The increasing integration of AI into various products drives energy consumption, making it difficult to reduce emissions. Despite efforts to improve data centre efficiency, the overall rise in AI use has outpaced these gains. The paper calls for a multi-faceted approach to mitigate AI misuse, involving collaboration between policymakers, researchers, industry leaders, and civil society.
According to Sabine Keller-Busse, head of the Swiss bank’s domestic business, UBS is experiencing a significant shift in AI-driven client interactions. She compared this change to patients visiting doctors with pre-formed ideas about their ailments, noting that clients now use AI to generate proposals for the bank.
Speaking at the Point Zero Forum in Zurich, Keller-Busse highlighted the impact of tools like ChatGPT in making more data available, emphasising that UBS must adapt to this new client behaviour.
The bank has been integrating AI into its services and products, launching a pilot programme last year for instant credit aimed at small and mid-sized businesses with urgent liquidity needs. However, this service allows the process to bypass credit officers, expediting the approval for standard credit products. Keller-Busse described this as the beginning of AI’s transformative potential in the banking industry.
As AI continues to evolve, UBS is keenly aware of its growing role in shaping client interactions and service delivery. The bank’s early adoption of AI-driven solutions demonstrates its commitment to leveraging technology to meet its clients’ changing needs, promising future innovations.
AI is revolutionising diagnostic testing by identifying diseases much earlier than traditional methods. AI’s ability to analyse vast amounts of data is uncovering new ways to detect previously undetectable diseases. For instance, researchers at Peking University have discovered that facial temperature patterns, detected with thermal cameras and AI, can indicate chronic illnesses like diabetes and high blood pressure.
Recent advancements highlight AI’s potential in diagnostics. University of British Columbia researchers found a new subtype of endometrial cancer, and another study revealed that AI could identify Parkinson’s disease up to seven years before symptoms appear. These breakthroughs demonstrate how AI can sift through large datasets to identify patterns and markers that traditional methods might miss.
Why does it matter?
The integration of AI in diagnostics is making testing more personalised and predictive. AI analyses data from individual patient records and real-time wearables to tailor diagnoses and treatment plans. Despite concerns about AI infringing on doctors’ roles, experts like John Halamka from the Mayo Clinic emphasise that AI enhances doctors’ capabilities rather than replacing them. However, ensuring data transparency and addressing biases in AI algorithms remain critical challenges.
As AI continues to evolve, patients can expect more personalised and early detection of diseases during routine tests. This technology promises to provide new insights and recommendations that can significantly impact healthcare outcomes.
Apple Inc. has secured an observer role on OpenAI’s board, further solidifying their growing partnership. Phil Schiller, head of Apple’s App Store and former marketing chief, will take on this position. As an observer, Schiller will attend board meetings without voting rights or other director powers. The development follows Apple’s announcement of integrating ChatGPT into its devices, such as the iPhone, iPad, and Mac, as part of its AI suite.
Aligning Apple with OpenAI’s principal backer, Microsoft Corp., the observer role offers Apple valuable insights into OpenAI’s decision-making processes. However, Microsoft and Apple’s rivalry might lead to Schiller’s exclusion from certain discussions, particularly those concerning future AI initiatives between OpenAI and Microsoft. Schiller’s extensive experience with Apple’s brand makes him a suitable candidate for this role, despite his lack of direct involvement in Apple’s AI projects.
The partnership with OpenAI is a key part of Apple’s broader AI strategy, which includes a variety of in-house features under Apple Intelligence. These features range from summarising articles and notifications to creating custom emojis and transcribing voice memos. The integration of OpenAI’s chatbot feature will meet current consumer demand, with a paid version of ChatGPT potentially generating App Store fees. No financial transactions are involved; OpenAI gains access to Apple’s vast user base while Apple benefits from the chatbot’s capabilities.
Apple is also in discussions with Alphabet Inc.’s Google, startup Anthropic, and Chinese companies Baidu Inc. and Alibaba Group Holding Ltd. to offer more chatbot options to its customers. Initially, Apple Intelligence will be available in American English, with plans for an international rollout. Furthermore, collbaoration like this marks a rare instance of an Apple executive joining the board of a major partner, highlighting the significance of this partnership in Apple’s AI strategy.
