Issue 46 2nd April 2024

Highlights

Navigating the Challenges and Opportunities of Synthetic Voices

We’re sharing lessons from a small scale preview of Voice Engine, a model for creating custom voices.

Women in AI: Brandie Nonnecke of UC Berkeley says investors should insist on responsible AI practices

To give AI-focused women academics and others their well-deserved — and overdue — time in the spotlight, TechCrunch is launching a series of interviews focusing on remarkable women who’ve contributed to the AI revolution.

New software enables blind and low-vision users to create interactive, accessible charts

Screen-reader users can upload a dataset and create customized data representations that combine visualization, textual description, and sonification.

New York City to test AI-enabled gun scanners in subway system

Mayor Eric Adams announced pilot program as part of effort to deter violence, with plans to evaluate scanners at some stations New York City officials announced a pilot program on Thursday to deploy portable gun scanners in the subway system, part of an effort to deter violence underground and to make the system feel safer. The scanners will be introduced in certain stations after a legally mandated 90-day waiting period, the mayor, Eric Adams, said. Continue reading...

Video

LLMOps with Azure - Global AI Notes

The LLMOps repository offers a structured pathway for organizations to navigate the complexities of implementing and scaling LLM applications. By understanding the distinction between application sophistication and operational maturity, organizations can make more informed decisions about how to progress through the levels of the model.

Rob Ferguson - Human Hearts Silicon Minds

Welcome to another episode of Human Hearts Silicon Minds! In this interview, we sit down with Rob Ferguson, the head of AI for Microsoft for startups, to uncover the fascinating intersection of AI and human innovation in the startup world. From his experience as a CTO of multiple startups to witnessing the evolution of machine learning over the past two decades, Rob shares insights on the unprecedented changes in AI and its impact on our lives. Join us to explore how AI is shaping the future of startups and the potential it holds for groundbreaking advancements.

Learn Live - Use Generative AI to create a Business Model for your startup

Full series information: https://aka.ms/learnlive-microsoft-learn-ai-skills-challengeMore info here: https://aka.ms/learnlive-microsoft-learn-ai-skills-chall...

Articles

AI Frontiers: Rethinking intelligence with Ashley Llorens and Ida Momennejad

Principal Researcher Ida Momennejad brings her expertise in cognitive neuroscience and computer science to this in-depth conversation about general intelligence and what the evolution of the brain across species can teach us about building AI.

The post AI Frontiers: Rethinking intelligence with Ashley Llorens and Ida Momennejad appeared first on Microsoft Research.

This Week in AI: Let us not forget the humble data annotator

Keeping up with an industry as fast-moving as AI is a tall order. So until an AI can do it for you, here’s a handy roundup of recent stories in the world of machine learning, along with notable research and experiments we didn’t cover on their own.

LLMs customization with Low-Rank Adaptation (LoRA)

Large Language Models (LLMs) such as GPT-4, Llama-2 and Mistral are featured by a huge amount of parameters (measured in hundred of…

These 61 robotics companies are hiring

It’s extremely heartening to see our little list effectively double since the last time we did one of these. While it’s true that layoffs continue to plague the tech industry at large, there are few better fields to be expert in at the moment than Robotics and AI. With more than 60 entries this week.

The Coming Copyright Reckoning for Generative AI

We are asking the courts to decide exactly how much and what kind of use of a copyrighted material is acceptable, and that is going to be challenging in this context — I tend to believe that using data for training should not be inherently problematic, but that the important question is how the model gets used and what effect that has.