More amazing AI stories from week 21
After last week, it was expected that the pace would slow down a bit. That simply didn’t happen! It was another week with a surprising amount of news. Read along here:
Microsoft launches AI PCs
This week it was Microsoft’s turn to demonstrate their plans for the future. They did so at their big developer conference called Microsoft Build.
For 2.5 hours, Satya Nadella and his team went through all of Microsoft’s news and plans, and the big focal point is called Copilot. Along the way, they had both Sal Khan (the man behind Khan Academy) and Sam Altman on stage.
The day before, they launched their next generation of laptops, which have full AI integration, their own Copilot button on the keyboard and are set to become the most powerful laptop computer on the market.
Read about the new type of PC here: https://blogs.microsoft.com/blog/2024/05/20/introducing-copilot-pcs/
Watch the full Microsoft Build keynote here: https://build.microsoft.com/en-US/sessions/b49feb31-afcd-4217-a538-d3ca1d171198?source=/schedule
ViVa Tech in Paris with wild news
One of Europe’s biggest tech conferences took place last week in Paris: Viva Technologies — https://vivatechnology.com/
A very impressive line-up of tech gurus and politicians were gathered.
But one of the most interesting demos was from OpenAI, who showed live on stage how you can make a film directly with prompt techniques. It was a new person from Open AI who got to do the demo: Roman HUET, Head of Developer Experience.
You can watch his impressive live demo here: https://www.linkedin.com/posts/kaspersaugmann_vild-ny-demo-fra-openai-der-kombinerer-video-activity-7199865697420656640-QLxJ?utm_source=share&utm_medium=member_desktop
Or the full keynote here: https://vimeo.com/949419199
Buy your own Humanoid for $16,000
Another Humanoid has seen the light of day and it is truly impressive. It’s from the company Unitree and is called G1. But they actually sell it — and at a price that makes it accessible to many companies.
Exactly what you can do with it and what you need it for is still unknown, but we’re getting closer to commercialization all the time.
Check out their site here: https://www.unitree.com/g1/
Or watch their demo video here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GzX1qOIO1bE
Has Open AI stolen Scartlett Johansson’s voice?
One of the big stories of the week came as a follow-up to last week’s release of GPT 4o, which went into full “Her” mode (watch the film on Netflix).
The launch of their voice interface and the voice called Sky caused many to draw comparisons to the film. But maybe they got too close to the film? In any case, they got actress Scarlett Johansson out of her chair when she felt Open AI had “stolen” her voice.
Open AI chose to “switch off” Sky until the matter has been better clarified. They have apparently been in dialogue about the possibility of working with her, but the voice is based on an actor they hired for the job. Only time will tell where we end up, but it demonstrates very well some of the new dilemmas that arise as AI becomes more advanced.
Here are a few links to the story: https://www.theverge.com/2024/5/20/24161253/scarlett-johansson-openai-altman-legal-action
