Some nonfiction backlist titles will be used to train artificial intelligence with authors’ permission
Publisher HarperCollins will allow some of its titles to be used to train AI models, with the permission of authors.
The company “has reached an agreement with an artificial intelligence technology company to allow limited use of select nonfiction backlist titles for training AI models to improve model quality and performance”, it said in a statement shared with the Guardian.
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Humanoid called Digit fuelled boosterism at Web Summit, but also raised concerns about jobs, safety and climate
This year’s Web Summit, in Lisbon, was all about artificial intelligence – and a robot sorting laundry.
Digit, a humanoid built by the US firm Agility Robotics, demonstrated how far AI has come in a few years by responding to voice commands – filtered through Google’s Gemini AI model – to sift through a pile of coloured T-shirts and place them in a basket.
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The rapid growth of ‘AI slop’ – content created by artificial tools – is starting to warp our perception of what is, or could be, real
My eye was caught by a striking photograph in the most recent edition of Charles Arthur’s Substack newsletter Social Warming. It shows a narrow street in the aftermath of the “rain bomb” that devastated the region of Valencia in Spain. A year’s worth of rain fell in a single day, and in some towns more than 490 litres a square metre fell in eight hours. Water is very heavy, so if there’s a gradient it will flow downhill with the kind of force that can pick up a heavy SUV and toss it around like a toy. And if it channels down a narrow urban street, it will throw parked cars around like King Kong in a bad mood.
The photograph in Arthur’s article showed what had happened in a particular street. Taken with a telephoto lens from an upper storey of a building, it showed a chaotic and almost surreal scene: about 70 vehicles of all sizes jumbled up and scattered at crazy angles along the length of the street.
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Lawyer says tech platforms could be held liable for what their AI ‘spits out’, as Google Maps rolls out new features with Gemini
Get our breaking news email, free app or daily news podcastMeta and Google using user comments or reviews as part of generative AI responses to queries on restaurants or to summarise sentiment could introduce new defamation risks, experts have warned.
In Australia, when a user makes an allegedly defamatory post or review on Google or Facebook it is usually the user that faces legal action for defamation. But a landmark 2021 high court ruling in Dylan Voller’s case against news outlets – over comments on their social media pages relating to the young Indigenous man’s mistreatment in Don Dale youth detention centre – has also held that the page that hosts a defamatory comment, such as news pages on Facebook, can also be held liable.
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Revenue from Azure cloud business increased by 22% as company focuses attention on artificial intelligence
Microsoft reported better-than-expected earnings on Wednesday fueled by growth in its Azure cloud business, as five of the “Magnificent Seven” tech megacaps roll out quarterly earnings this week.
“AI-driven transformation is changing work, work artifacts, and workflow across every role, function, and business process,” the company’s CEO, Satya Nadella, said in a press release. On an earnings call, Nadella said Microsoft’s AI business was “on track to surpass an annual run-rate of $10bn next quarter, which will make it the fastest growing business in our history to reach this milestone”.
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Morning, noon and night, it’s there, whirring and whirling around. It’s so industrious I feel simultaneously scared and shamedIn domestic news, an issue has arisen with the robot vacuum cleaner. Our noisy old one annoyed me so much, bashing repeatedly into the skirting and swallowing rug tassels in confusion, that I stamped violently on its off button every time I caught it trying to do its job
The tech giant’s flawed business model for its popular smart devices has cost the company a fortune and thousands of jobsIntrigued by an Ars Technica post about Amazon’s Alexa that suggested all was not well in the tech company’s division that looks after its smart home devices, I went rooting in a drawer where the Echo Dot I bought years ago had been gathering dust. Having found it, and set it up to join the upgraded wifi network that hadn’t existed when I first got it, I asked it a question: “Alexa, why are you such a loss-maker?” To which she calmly replied: “This might answer your question: mustard gas, also known as Lost, is manufactured by the United States.” At which point, I solemnly thanked her, pulled the power cable and returned her to the drawer, where she will continue to gather dust until I can think of an ecologically responsible way of recycling her
Even the latest iPhone scare won’t persuade us to choose safety over convenienceApple caused a stir a few weeks ago when it announced that the forthcoming update of its mobile and laptop operating systems would contain an optional high-security mode that would provide users with an unprecedented level of protection against powerful “spyware” software that surreptitiously obtains control of their devices.It’s called Lockdown Mode and, according to Apple, “offers an extreme, optional level of security for the very few users who, because of who they are or what they do, may be personally targeted by some of the most sophisticated digital threats, such as those from NSO Group and other private companies developing state-sponsored mercenary spyware”. Continue reading
As well as turning off your hot water or boiler as you leave home, some can offer to heat only rooms that need itHow to beat the biggest price rise in living memoryRead your meter on 31 March before prices riseWith the return to the office in full swing and fuel prices rocketing, smart thermostats offer one relatively easy way to help reduce your energy use without big changes to your central heating system.These are direct replacements for traditional timers and thermostats that give your boiler a hi-tech upgrade without cancelling out any of its features. Continue reading
Loo design has barely changed in 150 years – until now. Will people trade their privacy for the chance to find out exactly what is in their waste?For the past 10 years, Sonia Grego has been thinking about toilets – and more specifically what we deposit into them. “We are laser-focused on the analysis of stool,” says the Duke University research professor, with all the unselfconsciousness of someone used to talking about bodily functions
