Found 44 bookmarks
Newest
Exclusive: Meta's AI chatbot to start speaking in the voices of Judi Dench, John Cena, others, source says
Exclusive: Meta's AI chatbot to start speaking in the voices of Judi Dench, John Cena, others, source says
Facebook owner Meta Platforms is planning to announce this week that it has secured deals with actors including Judi Dench, Kristen Bell and John Cena to give voice to its Meta AI chatbot, a source familiar with the company's plans told Reuters on Monday.
Exclusive: Meta's AI chatbot to start speaking in the voices of Judi Dench, John Cena, others, source says
Constellation to Launch Crane Clean Energy Center, Restoring Jobs and Carbon-Free Power to The Grid
Constellation to Launch Crane Clean Energy Center, Restoring Jobs and Carbon-Free Power to The Grid
Constellation announced today the signing of a 20-year power purchase agreement with Microsoft that will pave the way for the launch of the Crane Clean Energy Center (CCEC) and restart of Three Mile Island Unit 1, which operated at industry-leading levels of safety and reliability for decades before being shut down for economic reasons exactly five years ago today.
Constellation to Launch Crane Clean Energy Center, Restoring Jobs and Carbon-Free Power to The Grid
Microsoft’s Hypocrisy on AI
Microsoft’s Hypocrisy on AI
Can artificial intelligence really enrich fossil-fuel companies and fight climate change at the same time? The tech giant says yes.
Microsoft has continued to seek business from the fossil-fuel industry; documents related to its overall pitch strategy show that it has sought energy-industry business in part by marketing the abilities to optimize and automate drilling and to maximize oil and gas production
The idea that AI’s climate benefits will outpace its environmental costs is largely speculative, however, especially given that generative-AI tools are themselves tremendously resource-hungry
Microsoft has failed to reduce its annual emissions each year since then. Its latest environmental report, released this May, shows a 29 percent increase in emissions since 2020—a change that has been driven in no small part by recent AI development, as the company explains in the report. “All of Microsoft’s public statements and publications paint a beautiful picture of the uses of AI for sustainability,” Alpine told me. “But this focus on the positives is hiding the whole story, which is much darker.”
One slide deck from January 2022 that I obtained presented an analysis of how Microsoft’s tools could allow ExxonMobil to increase its annual revenue by $1.4 billion—$600 million of which would come from maximizing so-called sustainable production, or oil drilled using less energy.
An executive strategy memo from June 2023 indicated that Microsoft hoped to pitch Chevron on adopting OpenAI’s GPT-3.5 and GPT-4 to “deliver more business value.” A Chevron spokesperson told me that the company uses AI in part to “identify efficiencies in exploration and recovery and help reduce our environmental footprint.” There is the tension. On the one hand, AI may be able to help reduce drilling’s toll on the environment. On the other hand, it’s used for drilling.
“AI will solve more problems than it creates,” Willis told me. “A lot of the dilemmas that we’re facing with energy will be resolved because of the relationship with generative AI.”
Microsoft is reportedly planning a $100 billion supercomputer to support the next generations of OpenAI’s technologies; it could require as much energy annually as 4 million American homes
As Joppa told me: “This must be the most money we’ve ever spent in the least amount of time on something we fundamentally don’t understand.”
Microsoft’s Hypocrisy on AI
Dismantling public values, one data center at the time | Reimagining public values in algorithmic futures | University of Helsinki
Dismantling public values, one data center at the time | Reimagining public values in algorithmic futures | University of Helsinki
In this blog post Julia Velkova discusses the problematics related to data centres from the Nordic perspective: Are the Nordic States too reliant on tech giants to in the critical communication infrastructures of the Welfare state?
Dismantling public values, one data center at the time | Reimagining public values in algorithmic futures | University of Helsinki
eBay to Add AI-Powered Image-Based Listing Tool
eBay to Add AI-Powered Image-Based Listing Tool
eBay will be adding an image-based listing tool to its range of offerings powered by artificial intelligence (AI). This tool will allow sellers to simply take or upload a photo within the eBay app and watch as AI automatically fills in item information details, the company said in a Thursday (Sept. 7) article posted on its website. […]
eBay to Add AI-Powered Image-Based Listing Tool
Are We Watching The Internet Die?
Are We Watching The Internet Die?
Sometime this month, Reddit will go public at a valuation of $6.5bn. Select Redditors were offered the chance to buy stock at the initial listing price, which it hasn’t announced yet but is expected to be in the range of $31-34 per share. Regardless of the actual price,
Don't buy their lies. Generative AI might be steeped in the language of high fantasy, but it’s a tool, one that they will not admit is a terribly-flawed and unprofitable way to feed the growth-at-all-costs tech engine.
Are We Watching The Internet Die?