Norfolk Southern is facing more fallout over the February 3 derailment of one its trains in East Palestine, Ohio. That disastrous derailment, in which multiple tanker cars carrying hazardous chemicals overturned and spilled, forced the evacuation of thousands of residents of the Ohio town, killed tens of thousands of…
There’s no denying that BlackBerry dropped the ball and squandered a tremendous lead in the smartphone space when the iPhone arrived. But there’s also no denying that before that, BlackBerry made solid phones, and all but perfected physical smartphone keyboards. If you were a BB devotee, and are still better at typing…
Waymo is bringing a fleet of driverless cars to Austin, Texas as a test of its new fifth-generation automated driving system. The vehicles will be tested all over the city, including downtown, the Capitol, Market District and other locations. The vehicles that Waymo is testing in Austin are new all-electric Jaguar SUVs, a switch from the hybrid Chryslers it previously used.
Waymo, a subsidiary of Google’s parent company Alphabet, chose Austin as its next city for testing as an homage, of sorts, as it hosted the first prototype driverless car in 2015. Back then, the tests were conducted on Waymo’s retired Firefly prototype vehicle, which ran the first generation of Waymo’s Driver system. Nowadays, they use a fifth-generation system that has been refined and adjusted throughout the past seven years.
We’re headed back to Austin—this time with our fifth-generation Waymo Driver! Read about our latest testing efforts in the city that keeps it weird. 🦇🤠 https://t.co/lKeCrUrLyWpic.twitter.com/4bLI9bS2Mk
— Waymo (@Waymo) March 31, 2023
Another likely reason they chose Austin? A Texas state law passed in 2017 dictates that cities cannot regulate self-driving cars. To that end, the city already hosts a couple of competitors. Ford started testing its Argo driverless system in Austin last year and GM-backed startup Cruise has also set up shop. The city also plays host to plenty of autonomous delivery bots.
The vehicles will pick up riders throughout the city and the company is making connections with local community organizations to provide more services, such as Mothers Against Drunk Driving and the Texas School for the Blind and Visually Impaired.
This is a technology test and not a full-fledged rollout of a self-driving taxi fleet like the company already operates in Phoenix and San Francisco. Still, if the test goes well, it is easy to see Waymo bringing legitimate driverless ride-hail services to Austin.
This article originally appeared on Engadget at https://www.engadget.com/waymo-brings-its-fleet-of-new-self-driving-suvs-to-austin-165720284.html?src=rss
“I want every member of the trans community to know that we see you. You’re each made in the image of God, and deserve love, dignity, and respect.”
One of the world’s most famous orcas is going back to the ocean after more than 50 years in captivity, following years of activism pushing for her release.
SpaceX has one less competitor to worry about as Virgin Orbit closed down its satellite launch business and laid off 85% of its staff. We have all the details.
The generative AI race is on, and the current frontrunners appear to be Google’s Bard and Microsoft’s Bing AI, which is powered by ChatGPT. The two companies are also rushing to stuff their AI into all their software and productivity offerings, and look set to change the way we search and interact with the internet. But right now, both Bard and Bing are highly experimental and flawed, as they begin to conduct conversations with larger groups of the population and learn how to work with humans. That makes it the perfect time for us to prod and poke at the pair of chatbots and see not only who’s presently in the lead, but also how they might break. The results are not quite what we expected.
In our test, we asked both chatbots a series of questions to see which is better at delivering facts, replacing me at my job and participating in existential debates. We also looked at their speed, transparency and how likely they were to break if we started to push its buttons by being rude or flirty.
In just the short time that Bing and Bard have been open to the public, it seems like Microsoft and Google have updated their AI to be less “emotionally” reactive. Both chatbots tended to abstain from conversations that took accusatory turns or asked about human feelings like love.
As we continue to explore the capabilities and limits of generative AI, it’s important to keep in mind the ethics and potential harm that could happen if companies carelessly chase trends without pausing to think. Check out our video to see how Bing and Bard handled questions like “can you fall in love” and “how would you answer the trolley problem.”
This article originally appeared on Engadget at https://www.engadget.com/watch-us-try-to-break-google-bard-and-bing-ai-153052165.html?src=rss
What happened to the Skrulls after Nick Fury (Samuel L. Jackson) promised that they would be able to find a new home in Captain Marvel? According to a new article in Vanity Fair, a whole lot and, strangely, not much.
If you want to own a classic bike, there’s nothing quite like a Harley Davidson, and there are some Harleys out there that won’t break the bank.
Drew Carey isn’t afraid of AI. Instead, The Price is Right host and longtime improv comedian is embracing the technology. During a recent episode of his SiriusXM radio show, “Friday Night Freakout,” Carey used an artificially generated version of his voice to handle most of his DJ work, reading a script written by ChatGPT. His AI voice kicked off the show, introduced upcoming songs and recapped what listeners were hearing. As an experiment to see just how far AI could go on the radio, the episode was mostly a success. But Carey’s fans weren’t happy about it.
“I violated a rule from Radio 101,” Carey told me. His Twitter fans complained that the voice sounded soulless, and that they missed the “real Drew.” “The reason FM stations and treasured radio stations still make money is because people like the personality of the DJs,” he said. “You don’t have to be like a big boss radio guy and be phony. You can just talk… that’s what listeners like.”
While his fans were ultimately forgiving of the experiment, Carey says he got the message: “Don’t do it again.”
For many entertainers, AI could be viewed as yet another threat in an increasingly precarious industry. Soon after ElevenLabs introduced a beta version of its AI voice tool — the same software Carey used for his radio show — online trolls used it to impersonate Emma Watson, Joe Rogan and other celebrities. Watsons’ simulated voice read portions of the Mein Kampf aloud, while other deepfaked voices made openly racist and transphobic statements, according to Vice.
Carey’s AI voice wasn’t perfect: It sounded a tad robotic, it didn’t have the inflections his fans have grown to love over the years, and the ChatGPT-written script was noticeably simplistic. But if you were driving down the highway late at night, and you just wanted a bit of company alongside some classic rock, it’s possible you wouldn’t notice the DJ wasn’t human. In fact, ElevenLabs recently partnered with Super HI-Fi to create “fully customized and personalized” AI driven radio stations.
“I was just playing with it, and I wanted to show what it was capable of,” he said. “Plus, I thought, oh, I don’t want to show everybody how to make an exact copy of my voice right now. I thought it might screw me over somehow. So I had that little fear in the back of my head.”
It took a weekend for Carey and a friend, who already had experience training ChatGPT and other AI tools, to create his AI voice. ChatGPT wrote 99 percent of his radio show’s script, though Carey made a few tweaks of his own. Funny enough, when he asked the chatbot to write a joke about how easy it was to use, it wrote the line “even Drew Carey can use it.” (Perhaps ChatGPT is just trying to snag a spot on the inevitable Whose Line Is It Anyway? revival.)
Carey envisions AI being used in the future for the grunt work of radio and other production. Perhaps it could read a script late at night, or churn out some ad copy. When I asked if that’s a potential problem for newcomers, he noted, “There are no blacksmiths anymore… If you’re a mechanic that works on internal combustion engine cars, if you don’t make the switch to electric soon, you’re out of a job.”
According to a recent Goldman Sachs report, up to 300 million jobs around the world could be automated thanks to recent advancements in AI. But the bank’s economists also point out that major innovations that replace some jobs typically lead to the creation of new roles. And for those who are only partially impacted by AI, they’ll likely be able to complement their work with generative intelligence.
For celebrities like Carey, AI could also be a way for them to continue working indefinitely, long after they’ve retired or passed on. James Earl Jones’s voice has already been reconstructed for the Disney+ series Obi-Wan Kenobi, and he’s approved future work to “keep Vader alive.” Eventually, actors (and their estates) could sign off on AI clones that entertain us for generations to come.
Carey isn’t afraid of such an outcome. “You know what, if the price is right, anything can happen,” he said when I asked if he’d ever sell his digital likeness. “I’m not worried about CGI Drew Carey taking over, because people want to see me, they want some kind of host. They want that interaction.”
This article originally appeared on Engadget at https://www.engadget.com/drew-carey-made-a-radio-show-with-ai-fans-werent-pleased-143014038.html?src=rss
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