- AIML Newsletter
- Posts
- AI Trials, Data Pacts, Secret Innovations
AI Trials, Data Pacts, Secret Innovations
29 Feb 2024: AI's legal showdown, strategic data partnerships, tech giants' cloak-and-dagger tactics, dynamic pricing in fast food, global disinformation
Dive into the heart of AI's unfolding narrative where courtroom rulings, strategic alliances, and veiled innovations set the stage. Today's edition brings you face-to-face with the challenges and triumphs defining the AI journey, painting a vivid picture of a future in the making.
1-Minute Roundup
Chinese court fines AI for Ultraman image infringement.
Thomson Reuters, Tumblr & WordPress flirt with AI data deals.
Tech giants' secrecy could stifle AI innovation.
Collov AI and GoldenHome strike a $10M deal for AI in home furnishing.
Enkrypt AI secures $2.35M for AI security solutions.
Reveleer boosts healthcare AI with a $65M investment.
Baseimmune's AI vaccine research attracts €10.4M.
Photoroom captures $43M for AI photo editing.
Parspec's $11.5M seed round electrifies construction AI.
Intenseye's AI for workplace safety lands $64M.
Wendy's tests AI-driven surge pricing.
Microsoft's DirectSR to revolutionise image upscaling.
Google's AI content creation tool raises eyebrows.
Ukraine reports on Russia's AI-powered disinformation campaign.
Lightricks' LTX Studio to simplify filmmaking with AI.
Headlines
In a landmark legal battle that sounds like it's straight out of a sci-fi novel, a Chinese court has ruled against an AI service for creating images too close to the iconic Ultraman for comfort. This pioneering decision opens a can of worms in copyright law and signals a seismic shift in how AI-generated content might be policed globally.
Historic Verdict: For the first time, a court has found AI-generated images in breach of copyright, ruling in favour of the plaintiff with ties to Ultraman's legacy and slapping the AI company with a $1,400 fine
Legal Labyrinth: This ruling throws a spanner in the works, especially against a previous Beijing court decision that painted AI as a mere tool in the creative process.
Chilling Effect: Beyond the courtroom drama, this decision might break Chinese AI ventures, sparking fear that legal quagmires could outweigh the lure of innovation.
Traceability Tussle: AI-generated content authenticity remains a question mark without traceability in AI training materials, challenging copyright and creation.
With AI now in the hot seat for copyright infringement, where should the line be drawn between inspiration and imitation?
As Thomson Reuters mulls over AI collaborations, Tumblr & WordPress gears up to feed its eclectic content into AI's learning engines, the line between user-generated content and AI training material blurs, sparking both opportunity and unease in the digital realm.
Corporate Courtship: Thomson Reuters is eyeing AI partnerships, potentially offering its vast data repository to tech behemoths like OpenAI and Google, mirroring other publishers like Axel Springer in their quest to integrate with AI advancements.
Tumblr's Tumult: Tumblr, under Automattic's wing, plans to let AI sift through its treasure trove of posts, including the quirky and niche fandoms that define its community, albeit with an opt-out for the privacy-conscious.
Ethical Entanglements: These deals underscore the growing tension between the commercial aspirations of AI development and the ethical implications of using personal or copyrighted content without clear boundaries or consent.
Creative Conundrums: AI partnerships enrich understanding but raise questions on the originality and privacy of digital content, especially for expressive platforms like Tumblr.
As AI feasts on a buffet of data from news giants to niche blogs, where should we draw the line on privacy and creativity in the age of machine learning?
Tech companies are becoming more private about their AI breakthroughs, which is different from the past when they openly collaborated with academia. This shift may stifle innovation.
Academic Alarm: Jack Clark of Anthropic highlights a growing gap as tech companies' secrecy leaves academia—and thereby innovation—at risk without significant public investment in computational resources
Silent Giants: Google's recent advancements with its Gemini 1.5 model and OpenAI's peek into Sora illustrate the trend of tech behemoths keeping breakthroughs under wraps, disrupting the knowledge-sharing ecosystem that has propelled AI forward
Resource Rift: As Stanford's Daniel Zhang pointed out, the scarcity of computational resources in academia underscores the widening divide and the critical need for accessible AI infrastructure.
Call for Collaboration: Despite the commercial turn, the necessity for a collaborative ecosystem, underpinned by shared knowledge and resources, remains paramount to sustain AI's growth and ethical development.
With tech giants turning inward, what's the future of open innovation in AI?
Deals
Collov AI, in partnership with GoldenHome, lands a $10M Series A to revolutionise home furnishing, blending AI design magic across 3,000 stores and setting sights on a global home makeover.
Enkrypt AI nets $2.35M to fortify generative AI and LLMs with a pioneering security layer, ensuring enterprise adoption is smart but also safe, secure, and compliant.
Reveleer injects a healthy $65M dose into its AI-driven healthcare mission, striving to revolutionise patient care and operational efficiency with strategic expansions and innovative tech solutions.
Baseimmune's AI has secured €10.4M in Series A funding. The company strives to revolutionise vaccine research by using AI to predict pathogen mutations and combat diseases such as COVID-19 and malaria.
Photoroom, the Paris-based AI photo-editing wizard, just snapped up a flashy $43M, boosting its valuation to a picture-perfect $500M.
Parspec electrifies the construction industry with a groundbreaking $11.5M seed round, leveraging AI to overhaul the procurement of building materials, promising a future where efficiency and compliance are built-in.
Intenseye's $64M vision: Using AI to spot the unseen and safeguard the workspace, setting a new benchmark for zero workplace accidents.
Others
Wendy's CEO unveils a bold plan to introduce dynamic, demand-based pricing in U.S. outlets by 2025, powered by a $20 million investment in AI-driven digital menu boards.
Fast-food chain experiments with surge pricing, potentially setting a new trend in the industry.
Microsoft is set to unveil DirectSR, its new AI-driven image upscaling technology, at GDC 2024, potentially offering a universal solution amidst the fragmented landscape of GPU-specific upscaling methods.
DirectSR could offer a hardware-agnostic upscaling tool for Windows devices, enhancing game performance and image quality, thus bridging the gap between Nvidia's DLSS, Intel's XeSS, and AMD's FSR.
Google's new initiative pays publishers to use its unreleased AI tools for content creation, offering a five-figure sum to produce three stories daily.
Amidst potential benefits for under-resourced publishers, concerns loom over content originality and the broader impact on the digital publishing landscape.
Ukraine sounds the alarm on Russia's AI-powered disinformation machine, capable of spawning digital deceit on an industrial scale, seeking to sway elections and erode support for Ukraine among Western allies.
Amidst this digital skirmish, Russia's alleged $1.5 billion campaign fuels a barrage of bogus content, challenging the resilience of democracies and the integrity of the information landscape.
LTX Studio by Lightricks uses AI to aid filmmakers in the entire process, from scripting to storyboarding, ensuring a smooth journey from concept to clip.
Lightricks' new web-based studio aspires to democratise filmmaking and expand its AI expertise beyond consumer apps. Set for public release next month.
As AI continues to weave its intricate dance across legal boundaries, corporate boardrooms, and the digital battlefield, it's clear the future is here and complex.