Mark Zuckerberg announced in April that the company would make huge capital expenditures in the coming year to keep up in the race to develop cutting-edge artificial intelligence. He made good on that promise last week with a $15bn \u201cAI superintelligence\u201d team that would feature reported nine-figure salaries and a 49% investment in Scale AI. Meta also hired Scale\u2019s 28-year-old founder, Alexandr Wang, a former roommate of OpenAI\u2019s Sam Altman.<\/p>\n
Before Meta\u2019s investment, Scale counted most of the major players in AI among its clients, and some of them were less than thrilled with the development. Bloomberg<\/a> puts it succinctly: Scale AI\u2019s Wang Brings to Meta Knowledge of What Everyone Else is Doing. Google, Scale\u2019s largest customer, got scared. The tech giant told the startup that their working relationship would end in response to the deal, Reuters<\/a> reported on Friday.<\/p>\n My colleague Robert Booth has more:<\/p>\n One Silicon Valley analyst described the announcement as the action of \u201ca wartime CEO\u201d.<\/p>\n Superintelligence is described as a type of AI that can perform better than humans at all tasks. Currently AI cannot reach the same level as humans in all tasks, a state known as artificial general intelligence (AGI).<\/p>\n Meta\u2019s attempt to leapfrog the current state of progress and target superintelligence is seen by observers as an attempt by the company to regain the initiative over AI after significant advances by competitors including Sam Altman\u2019s OpenAI and Google and after Meta\u2019s huge investment in the concept of the Metaverse flopped.<\/p>\n The financial magnitude of the move may seem like taking command of the AI race, but Meta is playing catchup. Its most recent AI models are less capable than those of rivals. In April, the company published a model designed with features tailored to gaming a popular benchmark<\/a>, a desperate move. With its mammoth investment and the formation of a new team, particularly one helmed by a key industry player, the tech giant is buying its way in.<\/p>\n Read more about Meta\u2019s superintelligence team here<\/a>.<\/strong><\/p>\n The week in AI newsWikipedia, vital to AI, takes pains to highlight human contributions Photograph: Blake Montgomery<\/p>\n Last week, Wikipedia<\/a> halted a test of a new AI-powered article summarizer in response to a backlash from its editors, the volunteers who contribute new information to the online encyclopedia\u2019s articles and evaluate the quality of others\u2019 additions. The site had introduced summaries of articles, generated by artificial intelligence, that would appear at the top of those pages above the introduction to the subject, written by humans. The test ran for two weeks for about 10% users of the mobile version of Wikipedia who opted into it.<\/p>\n The feedback was, in the words of Wikipedia\u2019s nonprofit parent, \u201cstrongly negative\u201d. One editor wrote in the public forum<\/a>: \u201cA truly ghastly idea.\u201d Another: \u201cKeep AI out of Wikipedia.\u201d And: \u201cI am going to join the chorus of editors saying that this is a uniquely bad idea.\u201d Some argued in favor of the introduction of summaries by AI, making the point that technical articles on Wikipedia prioritize depth and complexity over accessibility. Most, though, argued that any hallucinations and mistakes would degrade Wikipedia\u2019s reputation of reliability.<\/p>\n The general sentiment among editors read thusly: \u201cYuck\u201d.<\/p>\n \u201cWe\u2019re trying to figure out the balance between AI and Wikipedia. There are AI integrations that do happen on Wikipedia but are very minimal. Little things that make it easier for editors to do their work or readers to get the content they need,\u201d said Pacita Rudder, executive director of Wikimedia New York City, a local chapter affiliated with the foundation. \u201c\u2018Where\u2019s the line between human output and robotic output?\u2019 is a debate that\u2019s constantly happening within the Wikipedia community. There are some people who are for it, some against it, but as with anything with Wikipedia, we have to come to a consensus.\u201d<\/p>\n Contrast Wikipedia\u2019s deferential response with Reddit\u2019s. The social network began charging for access to its application programming interface in 2023. Reddit\u2019s library of posts is extremely valuable to AI companies, which need enormous collections of text written by contemporary human beings to train large language models like ChatGPT. Reddit execs intended to extract money from AI companies using the company\u2019s library. They succeeded. They also rendered many users\u2019 experiences worse by crippling popular extensions. In response, users, particularly forums\u2019 volunteer moderators, revolted en masse, blacking out forums with tens of millions of members and demanding reversion. Executives refused. They chose dollars from AI companies over their users\u2019 concerns, the opposite of Wikipedia. A coda to the story, though: two years later, Reddit largely functions as before.<\/p>\n Several days after Wikipedia rolled back its AI test, the Wikimedia Foundation hosted an in-person \u201cedit-a-thon\u201d at the United Nations, an event dedicated to creating and updating pages about the history of the international body, complete with a work list. The conclave of information custodians \u2013 a 50\/50 balance of new and experienced editors, according to Rudder \u2013 was part of the UN\u2019s Open Source Week and occurred alongside an open source hackathon. It was in-person only.<\/p>\n The edit-a-thon stands in contrast to the stereotypical tableau of curating Wikipedia articles: a single person online, communicating sterilely with others via a glaring white screen. At the event, though, editors convened in groups of five around a single laptop to converse excitedly and collaborate in as many languages throughout a large, buzzing auditorium. Italian and Sri Lankan envoys lionized the work of the editors in speeches, as well as the open source community at large. An executive from the Wikimedia Foundation thanked them for their work, as did the UN under-secretary-general for digital and emerging technologies. It was an energetic scene.<\/p>\n Asked why she felt it was important to host an in-person-only event, Rudder said: \u201cIt\u2019s community, right? There\u2019s this misconception that a lot of Wikipedia editors are alone in their basements, typing away, but that\u2019s not the case,\u201d said Rudder. Wikimedia NYC hosted the event at the UN. Rudder said the chapter\u2019s role is to bring editors and members of the online community together. She said she felt most energized by meeting new editors.<\/p>\n As with Reddit, Wikipedia\u2019s huge text corpus is part of the foundational training data for most, if not all, large language models. And like the white alien company, Wikipedia charges for smooth access to it, though less than Reddit, Rudder said. The organization launched Wikimedia Enterprise in 2021 with an eye towards corporate customers. Reddit is a for-profit business, whereas the Wikimedia Foundation is a non-profit. Wikipedia\u2019s data is free, but using it easily may cost you.<\/p>\n Unlike Reddit, Wikipedia is emphasizing the human labor necessary to maintain its site and the content there by rolling back features in response to community outcry and convening editors in person.<\/p>\n skip past newsletter promotion<\/a><\/p>\n A weekly dive in to how technology is shaping our lives<\/p>\n Privacy Notice: <\/strong>Newsletters may contain info about charities, online ads, and content funded by outside parties. For more information see our Privacy Policy<\/a>. We use Google reCaptcha to protect our website and the Google Privacy Policy<\/a> and Terms of Service<\/a> apply.<\/p>\n after newsletter promotion<\/p>\n The tech angle on the Los Angeles anti-deportation protestsApple\u2019s walled garden turns from Eden to a pen Photograph: Apple Corps Ltd.<\/p>\n A week ago, Apple hosted its annual developers\u2019 conference, WWDC. The biggest announcement was a redesign of the iPhone<\/a> Operating System (iOS) nicknamed \u201cliquid glass\u201d. Virtual buttons on iPhone screens will appear transparent, with the images behind them passing through with a slight warp like a magnifying glass. The aesthetic recalls the colorful Macs of old, housed in translucent, whimsical plastic.<\/p>\n The refreshed design is pretty! It is also boring. Machines are fabricating entire movies<\/a> and predicting hurricanes<\/a>. Who cares what color my phone\u2019s controls are?<\/p>\n There were other updates, of course. Apple<\/a> is adding live translation to FaceTime calls, for instance. I can imagine many calls with distant family and friends that will run smoother with that feature. How nice.<\/p>\n On the whole, though, the updates failed to inspire. For many years, updates to iPhones have seemed far more incremental than, for example, the addition of speedy 3G connectivity in 2008 with the second generation. Apple\u2019s updates have failed to keep pace with the freewheeling Android ecosystem. I met a venture capitalist in San Francisco in 2019 who did not know what version of the iPhone he was holding<\/a> in his hand as we spoke.<\/p>\n Apple showcased little in the way of new AI features, unlike its peers. Google and Samsung are integrating AI into their mobile experiences at a breakneck pace. Case in point: live translation is a feature that has been part of the Android operating system for several years. Google\u2019s Pixel Bud headphones can translate the speech of a person talking to you, which Airpods cannot do. Google seems to release a fascinating, if sometimes bizarre, AI feature every week. As recently as Friday, the Verge reported<\/a>: Google says it is testing Audio Overviews for certain Search queries, available for Labs users in English in the US<\/a>.<\/p>\n After the demonstration, Gizmodo argued<\/a>: Apple Knows AI Isn\u2019t What People Really Want, but It Can\u2019t Say That. Even if that is true, though \u2013 and ChatGPT\u2019s 500m monthly users might disagree \u2013 the announcements showed little in the way of flair. If Apple wants users to stay within the iPhone\u2019s ecosystem, it needs to offer them something equally appealing and enthralling or even more so.<\/p>\n Google pushed a new, updated version of the operating system and last week. Samsung teased new features of the next version of its folding phone, per Android Central<\/a>. Did you hear about them? It is axiomatic in tech journalism that stories about Apple and iPhones will always garner more clicks than stories about Android phones, though a far higher percentage of the world\u2019s phones use Android. I have many guesses as to why that is, but it is a topic for another day. I only mention it because many fewer people spent the week discussing the Android updates<\/a> as did Apple\u2019s Liquid Glass interface. Apple\u2019s change amounts to only a cosmetic upgrade \u2013 and it\u2019s debatable whether it will be better at all \u2013 but it inspired many more jokes<\/a>.<\/p>\n Samsung\u2019s seventh version of its folding phone, while novel, begs the question: as I complain about new iPhones\u2019 lack of thrills, what do I want my phone to do? I do not need a folding phone. I had one, a Motorola Razr, and it did facilitate vital communication; however, that did not arise from the form factor.<\/p>\n Google\u2019s new AI features pose the same question. There may not be consensus on what the majority of users want from an AI-enhanced phone, but if you are not trying something new with technology, you are in decline. It doesn\u2019t feel like Apple is offering surprising features that I would not have thought of. I may not need an audio summary feature for my Google search results, but I am intrigued by it. Also, what a gift to the visually impaired! Siri, by contrast, still struggles to control Spotify and botches notification summaries.<\/p>\n I have used an iPhone as my primary device for about 15 years now. This inflection point would be the moment to switch to Android to try out its shiny toybox of new features, but I am enclosed in Apple\u2019s ecosystem of hardware and apps, a walled garden that is starting to feel less like a bountiful Eden and more like a pen.<\/p>\n The wider TechScape<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Mark Zuckerberg announced in April that the company would make huge capital expenditures in the coming year to…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":191964,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3163],"tags":[323,1942,53,16,15],"class_list":{"0":"post-191963","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-artificial-intelligence","8":"tag-ai","9":"tag-artificial-intelligence","10":"tag-technology","11":"tag-uk","12":"tag-united-kingdom"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@uk\/114699345906759928","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/191963","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=191963"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/191963\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/191964"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=191963"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=191963"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=191963"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}