More from From ChatGPT to Gemini: how AI is rewriting the internet
Nobody wants AI companies to scrape their data. Not artists, not writers, not social media companies, not news outlets. There are many ways parts of the internet are pushing back against AI data scraping, says The New York Times:
Their protests have taken different forms. Writers and artists are locking their files to protect their work or are boycotting certain websites that publish A.I.-generated content, while companies like Reddit want to charge for access to their data. At least 10 lawsuits have been filed this year against A.I. companies, accusing them of training their systems on artists’ creative work without consent.
That’s to say nothing of the numerous strikes going on in Hollywood over, in large part, the growing use of AI in entertainment.
[The New York Times]
Seriously! Sadly, the company has apparently deprioritized the work on the project, according to CNBC. I guess I’ll just have to ask Bard to respond to me in a Gen Z way instead.
Google invented a lot of core AI technology, and now the company’s turning to Demis to get back in front of the AI race for AI breakthroughs.
However, as James Vincent noted previously:
According to OpenAI’s critics, this talk of regulating superintelligence, otherwise known as artificial general intelligence, or AGI, is a rhetorical feint — a way for Altman to pull attention away from the current harms of AI systems and keep lawmakers and the public distracted with sci-fi scenarios.
Also today, CNBC reported SensorTower data shows ChatGPT and Bing app installs dropped 38 percent in June, while SimilarWeb data shows worldwide traffic to its website dropped 9.7 percent in June, along with a similar decline in minutes spent on the site.
Is it because kids are out of school and don’t need the bot to do their homework, or has the AI trend already found a peak for now?
Personally, I think it would be more effective for the government to deal with the proliferation of spam calls that have made most of us stop picking up our phones, but this is fun too:
Whitebeard stalls for time at the start of phone calls, using chatbot inanities about TV remotes and the like to give a couple of minutes for GPT-4, the OpenAI software, to process the telemarketer’s spiel and generate responses. Once ready, the AI text is fed into a voice cloner, which carries on the conversation.
Apparently users could get around paywalls by using ChatGPT’s Bing integration, which the company just introduced in May (via Windows Central). Today, OpenAI announced it was disabling the beta integration so it could fix the issue:
We have learned that the ChatGPT Browse beta can occasionally display content in ways we don’t want. For example, if a user specifically asks for a URL’s full text, it might inadvertently fulfill this request.
As of July 3, 2023, we’ve disabled the Browse with Bing beta feature... while we fix this in order to do right by content owners. We are working to bring the beta back as quickly as possible...
Oh, Bing. You’re always a good time.
what about machine unlearning?
Since larger AI models “tend to memorize details of their training set,” including information that may have been deleted from the database they’re trained on, Google wants to find ways for AI to “forget” certain things.
That’s why the company is holding a machine unlearning challenge, in which researchers must make AI systems forget “a certain subset of the training images... to protect the privacy or rights of the individuals concerned.”
[ai.googleblog.com]
On May 31st, a group of six AI chatbot trainers employed by Google subcontractor Appen were fired after they spoke out about how their poor working conditions could make Google’s Bard chatbot dangerous.
The Alphabet Workers Union now says the workers’ jobs have been reinstated with backpay. AWU provided The Verge with a copy of the email from Appen’s RaterLabs explaining the decision:
Based on our continuing consideration and review of our business needs, we have determined that some recent reductions of our workforce were not necessary and can be reversed. Consequently, we are pleased to offer you the option to return to work with RaterLabs.
Internal complaints about Bard previously called it “a pathological liar” and begged the company not to launch it.
Google is rolling out an AI feature for Sheets that auto-builds custom templates based on a text prompt, but it’s only coming to Workspace Labs users to start (via 9to5Google).
Last month, the company showed off Duet AI, its answer to Microsoft’s Copilot (and perhaps Clippy), which contains a set of generative AI tools to help users write email responses in Gmail, create images from text in Google Slides, proofread documents in Google Docs, and more.
The sanctions for both lawyers involved are in, and they’re pretty embarrassing: a $5,000 fine, plus they have to send a letter to every real judge named in the made-up cases. For what it’s worth, Steven Schwartz says he thought ChatGPT was just a “super search engine.”
