AI News

Amazon / Futurism Amazon has infused its famed assistant Alexa with the power of artificial intelligence — an upgrade that’s apparently come with some serious drawbacks and headaches. As The Verge reports, the company is set to launch new hardware later this week as part of an effort to bring its new-and-improved Alexa Plus service to more customers. To test it, Verge senior reviewer Jennifer Pattison Tuohy was able to get early access to Alexa’s new ChatG

If you are majoring in computer science or computer engineering right now, good luck on finding a good job when you get your diploma — even if you graduate from a top program. That’s the sobering takeaway from Hany Farid, a deepfake expert at the University of California, Berkeley, who appeared on NOVA’s “Particles of Thought” podcast to talk the current state of AI, the tech job situation that’s been shredded by multiple lay offs, and how should tech grad

Noam Galai/Getty Images We’re not in the business of making financial recommendations, but CNBC personality Jim Cramer says there’s no bubble coming for the AI sector — which, given his track record, should probably make any AI investors just a bit nervous. Now that Cramer — whose calls have historically underperformed so much that he inspired an entire phenomenon of people betting against him, called the “Inverse Cramer” effect — has chimed in on the topi

Illustration by Tag Hartman-Simkins / Futurism. Source: Getty Images Need more evidence that the AI industry is unlike anything prior to it? Users across the world say they’re encountering supposedly conscious beings inside AI chatbots built by red-hot tech companies like OpenAI and Anthropic. Look no further than a Vox advice column in which reporter Sigal Samuel gamely answered a question from an avid user of OpenAI’s ChatGPT, who said they’d been commun

Maggie Harrison Dupré New York City’s expansive subway system is currently plastered with advertisements for an AI startup called Friend, which has spent more than a million dollars on over 11,000 subway cars ads, 1,000 platform posters, and 130 urban panels. Judging by the response, the campaign is earning the company very few friends among New Yorkers. Subway riders have been vandalizing and peeling the ads down since the campaign started last week. And

Kevin Dietsch / Getty OpenAI is said to be launching a TikTok-like app that recommends an endless stream of swipeable — and purely AI-generated — short-form videos. As Wired reports, the company is expected to launch the stand-alone app alongside its Sora 2 text-to-video AI-generation tool. The app will consist of a personalized video feed that closely resembles TikTok’s For You page, according to documents viewed by the magazine. The focus will exclusivel

OpenAI OpenAI has officially unveiled its latest text-to-video and audio AI generator, Sora 2. So far, we’re not quite convinced by the company’s marketing efforts. In an unsettling promotional clip, an algorithmically synthesized version of OpenAI’s CEO, Sam Altman, announces the company’s answer to Meta’s Vibes app — a TikTok-like experience designed to expose users to an endless deluge of AI slop. The issue? The AI-generated Altman suffers from chronic

Illustration by Tag Hartman-Simkins / Futurism. Source: Getty Images OpenAI just introduced a new shopping feature that allows people to buy items directly from online retailers from inside ChatGPT — a move that instantly attracted online jeers from critics who framed it as another effort to milk cash from a hugely unprofitable and at times flawed platform. “What on earth are you doing?” one X user wrote. “Aren’t you a large language model? Next up, food d

AI Generated Video The mass adoption of generative AI has given rise to some bizarre waves of incomprehensible slop. There was the “good ending,” a glut of AI generated images depicting Elon Musk and Mark Zuckerberg as starcrossed lovers, which surfaced as their public feud threatened to turn violent. Then of course there was “Shrimp Jesus,” followed closely by the “baby monk,” a disturbing series featuring babies clad in robes being eaten alive by fire an

Illustration by Tag Hartman-Simkins / Futurism. Source: Alex Wong / Getty Images University of Montreal professor Yoshua Bengio is considered one of the “godfathers of AI,” whose academic work set the groundwork for today’s red hot AI arms race. He’s also the founder and scientific adviser of Mila, an AI research institute in Quebec, and recently launched a nonprofit research organization called LawZero, where he plans on developing ways to build safe AI m

Illustration by Tag Hartman-Simkins / Futurism. Source: Justin Sullivan / Getty Images The nascent AI industry has attracted untold hundreds of billions of dollars in investment over the past few years, but it’s still operating in a near-total regulatory vacuum. That’s not to say it’s had no negative impact. The tech has been linked to a wave of mental health breakdowns, suicides and even murder — and that’s without getting into allegations about the secto

Particle6 Productions Are moviegoers ever going to accept films created using AI? And just as importantly, will the creatives who work in the industry be cool with letting the tech play a heavy role in the filmmaking process? The bitter response to a new “AI actress” suggests that the answer to both questions, at least for now, is a ringing “no.” On Sunday, the creator of the digital acting persona named “Tilly Norwood” defended her brainchild after pretty

Illustration by Tag Hartman-Simkins / Futurism. Source: AI Generated Footage Screenshot via YouTube / Cuomo for NYC Disgraced former governor Andrew Cuomo just doesn’t get it. After numerous sexual harassment claims, he was forced to resign from his post in August 2021. Then, after running a hopelessly out of date comeback campaign, he lost New York’s Democratic primary in July of this year. Yet the political nepo baby refuses to accept reality, continuing

Illustration by Tag Hartman-Simkins / Futurism. Source: AI Generated Video via Sora / Screenshots OpenAI CEO Sam Altman is getting a taste of his own medicine — or maybe he just enjoys being the butt of the joke. With the release of the company’s latest video generator Sora 2 this week, Altman’s fans have rushed to churn out absurd clips that either outright mock him, or place him in a medley of bizarre scenarios that feel broadcasted from a different real

Illustration by Tag Hartman-Simkins / Futurism. Source: Erik McGregor/LightRocket via Getty Images In an attempt to climb back up the leaderboard, Peloton just announced a flashy pivot to AI. To set the scene, the in-home fitness company hit its personal record in 2020 when its valuation skyrocketed from about $8 billion to nearly $50 billion. It was a clear winner in the pandemic economy — but ever since people were able to leave their homes again, it’s b

Andrea Iervolino Shortly after the announcement of an “AI actor” dubbed Tilly Norwood drew overwhelming criticism, Italian movie producer Andrea Iervolino has announced plans to take the trend to its logical conclusion. As Deadline reports, Iervolino unveiled what he claims will be the first film directed entirely by an AI entity, titled “The Sweet Idleness.” Iervolino is no joke; his credits include “Ferrari,” a 2023 action movie starring Adam Driver, and

This week, Amazon finally debuted a device that we in the gadget-reporting community had already assumed had been tossed onto the junk heap of bad ideas. Now that the Amazon Ring Drone Cam is real, and you can buy it starting in January, we do wish it would have remained on the refuse pile. This is not the first time Amazon has showcased its home drone. We’ve seen it crop up at several showcases, most recently at CES 2023, but only in the form of a limited

In 1820, a larger-than-life bronze boot was pulled from a Scottish bog. For centuries, experts assumed it was looted from a Roman settlement, perhaps as an odd spoil of war. But a new analysis challenges that theory, suggesting that Rome’s own soldiers deliberately dismantled the statue. In a recent statement, National Museums Scotland announced that its team had reconstructed the full statue that once included the boot known as the Milsington Leg. During