TechCrunch AI Newsletter: Disrupt 2024 Preview and All the Latest AI News
Welcome to TechCrunch’s weekly AI newsletter! This week, we’re live from TechCrunch Disrupt 2024 in San Francisco, bringing you insights from leading experts in AI, academia, and policy.
AI heavyweights at Disrupt
Expect an exciting lineup of speakers at Disrupt this year. The AI landscape is buzzing, and we’ve got you covered with interviews, panels, and fireside chats featuring industry giants. Here’s a sneak peek:
- My colleague Devin Coldewey will be interviewing Perplexity CEO Aravind Srinivas. Perplexity, an AI-powered search engine, is gaining traction with over 100 million queries served weekly, but the company is also facing legal challenges from News Corp’s Dow Jones over alleged content theft.
- Kirsten Korosec, TechCrunch’s transportation editor, will chat with Zoox co-founder and CTO Jesse Levinson about Amazon’s robotaxi ambitions and the future of autonomous vehicles.
- Join us for a panel discussion on AI-generated disinformation, featuring Meta Oversight Board member Pamela San Martin, Center for Countering Digital Hate CEO Imran Ahmed, and UC Berkeley CITRIS Policy Lab founder Brandie Nonnecke. They’ll delve into the risks and implications of generative AI tools being misused for malicious purposes.
- Cara CEO Jingna Zhang, AI Now Institute co-executive director Sarah Myers West, and ElevenLabs’ Aleksandra Pedraszewska will explore the legal and ethical minefields surrounding AI. They’ll discuss the challenges posed to developers, companies, and workers within this rapidly evolving field.
This is just a taste of what’s to come at Disrupt 2024. Expect to hear from other AI experts like U.S. AI Safety Institute director Elizabeth Kelly, California senator Scott Wiener, Berkeley AI policy hub co-director Jessica Newman, Luma AI CEO Amit Jain, Suno CEO Mikey Shulman, and Splice CEO Kakul Srivastava.
AI News Roundup
Beyond the excitement of Disrupt, the world of AI continues to move at breakneck speed. Here are some of the latest headlines:
- Apple Intelligence Launches: iPhone, iPad, and Mac users can now access Apple’s AI-powered features through a free software update.
- Bret Taylor’s Startup Raises New Funding: Sierra, co-founded by OpenAI chairman Bret Taylor, has secured $175 million in funding, valuing the startup at $4.5 billion.
- Google Expands AI Overviews: Google Search’s AI Overviews, which provide snapshots of information at the top of results pages, are rolling out to over 100 countries and territories.
- Generative AI and E-Waste: Research projects a potential e-waste crisis, with AI models generating the equivalent of over 10 billion iPhones discarded annually by 2030.
- Open Source AI Defined: The Open Source Initiative has released version 1.0 of its definition of open-source AI.
- Meta Releases Its Own Podcast Generator: Meta has released an “open” implementation of the viral podcast generation feature from Google’s NotebookLM.
- AI Transcription Tool Has Hallucinations: OpenAI’s Whisper transcription tool has been found to introduce factual inaccuracies and even offensive content into transcripts.
Research Paper of the Week
Google has developed a new model called InkSight that can convert photos of handwriting into digital ink. Inspired by how humans learn from different teachers, Google trained InkSight using a technique called “data arbitrage.” This involved selecting capable multilingual models to generate synthetic training data. The results show promise, but it remains to be seen if this technology can overcome the limitations associated with synthetic data.
