Daring Ed Tech

The creators of a revolutionary AI system that can write news stories and works of fiction – dubbed “deepfakes for text” – have taken the unusual step of not releasing their research publicly, for fear of potential misuse.

OpenAI, an nonprofit research company backed by Elon Musk, Reid Hoffman, Sam Altman, and others, says its new AI model, called GPT2 is so good and the risk of malicious use so high that it is breaking from its normal practice of releasing the full research to the public in order to allow more time to discuss the ramifications of the technological breakthrough.

Via John Evans

If you happen to live in one of the six million US homes that have so far purchased an Amazon Echo, you may think Alexa is just a voice emanating from a cylindrical speaker that knows a couple of tricks. It plays the Beatles on command. It can order more toilet paper. It has jokes, some of which are even kind of funny.

In fact, that’s only the start. Just as Apple taught us that a small portable phone could be a more powerful computing method than our lumbering desktops, Amazon is introducing us to a new computing interface — a voice devoid of a screen—that will eventually grow to be more ubiquitous and more useful than our smartphones.

 

Forget the onerous process of pulling your Pixel or iPhone from your pocket, unlocking it, opening apps, and tapping your desires onto a screen. (Ugh!) Soon, you’ll speak your wants into the air — anywhere — and a woman’s warm voice with a mid-Atlantic accent will talk back to you, ready to fulfill your commands....

Via Jeff Domansky