Insider's Edit: Drake in Hot Water Over AI Tupac
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Here are this week's top stories on AI Business:
Tupac Estate Threatens Lawsuit Over AI-Generated Drake Track
Canadian rapper Drake is being threatened with legal action by the estate of Tupac Shakur for using an AI-generated version of the rapper’s voice in a new song without permission.
Drake released “Taylor Made Freestyle,” a diss track aimed at fellow rapper Kendric Lamar. The song featured synthetic versions of Tupac and Snoop Dogg. Tupac was shot and killed in 1996.
Lawyers on behalf of Tupac’s estate wrote the family was “deeply dismayed and disappointed” by the unauthorized use of the late rapper’s voice in the song.
The legal notice demands the song be removed from streaming platforms where it is publicly available.
“Not only is the record a flagrant violation of Tupac’s publicity and the estate’s legal rights, it is also a blatant abuse of the legacy of one of the greatest hip-hop artists of all time,” according to the cease and desist letter.
In the song, Tupac can be heard encouraging Lamar to respond to Drake, saying: “You seem a little nervous about all the publicity. You asked for the smoke, now it seems you too busy for the smoke."
Tupac’s estate has threatened a lawsuit if the track is not deleted.
Coca-Cola Inks $1.1B Deal to Tap Microsoft’s AI, Cloud Tech
The Coca-Cola Company is tapping generative AI solutions from Microsoft to accelerate its digital transformation efforts.
The beverage company signed a five-year strategic partnership with Microsoft worth $1.1 billion to use its cloud and AI technologies, bigger than the one the companies struck in 2020 worth $250 million.
“This new agreement builds on the success of Coca-Cola’s partnership strategy with Microsoft, showing our commitment to ongoing digital transformation,” said John Murphy, Coca-Cola’s president and chief financial officer.
Coca-Cola has since migrated all of its applications to Azure and will explore using generative AI-powered digital assistants via the Azure OpenAI Service. The company is looking to build assistants that support customer-facing staff and streamline operations.
The partnership will also see the pair jointly test new technology solutions to create new generative AI use cases.
“Through our long-term partnership, we have made significant progress to accelerate system-wide AI Transformation across The Coca-Cola Company and its network of independent bottlers worldwide,” said Judson Althoff, Microsoft’s chief commercial officer.
Intel Develops World's Largest Neuromorphic Computer System for Advancing AI Research
Intel has developed the world's largest neuromorphic computer system, a hardware stack modeled after the complexities of the human brain.
Named Hala Point, the computing system is designed to support researchers attempting to build next-generation AI models.
The computer was deployed at Sandia National Laboratories in Albuquerque, New Mexico.
Hala Point contains 1,152 Loihi 2 processors that support up to 1.15 billion neurons and 128 billion synapses distributed over 140,544 neuromorphic processing cores.
The hardware is capable of supporting up to 20 quadrillion operations per second, or 20 petaops and achieves up to 12 times higher performance compared to Intel’s initial neuromorphic system, Pohoiki Springs.
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Such power exceeds that achieved by GPU and CPU-based systems while using 100 times less energy despite being 50 times faster than conventional hardware.
Intel said Hala Point “could enable future real-time continuous learning for AI applications” like AI agents, large language models and smart city infrastructure management.
Meta Ray-Ban Smart Glasses Get AI Boost
Meta is enhancing its Ray-Ban smart glasses with an integrated AI assistant, offering voice-activated information access.
Priced at $300, the glasses feature Meta's conversational AI assistant Meta AI built right into the frame, enabling users to access information with just their voice.
Users can now get responses from the AI via the integrated speaker system by saying "Hey Meta" followed by their query.
By utilizing the Look and Ask AI feature, the glasses offer wearers information about the objects they are observing.This includes translating foreign signs for tourists, however, Meta AI currently only supports English, Spanish, Italian, French and German.
The glasses are available now but its Meta AI features are in beta, limited to its smart glasses users in the U.S. and Canada.
A wider launch of Meta AI for smart glasses is “coming soon,” according to a Meta blog post celebrating 10 years of Reality Labs (formerly Oculus).
During the recent launch of Meta AI for its social media apps, the company stated that it will provide more information on the AI assistant for its smart glasses and its Quest line of virtual reality headsets in the coming weeks.
A wider launch of Meta AI for smart glasses is “coming soon,” according to a Meta blog post celebrating 10 years of Reality Labs (formerly Oculus).
Generative AI Funding Hits $25.2 Billion in 2023, Report Reveals
Funding in the generative AI space surged dramatically in 2023 as major players including OpenAI and Anthropic recorded substantial increases in capital, according to a new report from Stanford University.
Stanford’s 2024 AI Index revealed a nearly eightfold increase in funding for generative AI firms, soaring to $25.2 billion in 2023.
The report found that generative AI accounted for more than one-quarter of all AI-related private investment in 2023.
Last year’s major investments included Microsoft’s $10 billion OpenAI deal, Cohere’s $270 million raise in June 2023 and Mistral’s $415 million funding round in December among a host of others.
Stanford’s report noted, however, that corporate spending on AI dropped in 2023, decreasing by 20% to $189.2 billion.
The report attributed the dip to a reduction in mergers and acquisitions which fell 31.2% from the previous year. Despite the drop, nearly 80% of earnings calls for Fortune 500 firms mentioned AI.
Investments were dominated by firms from the U.S., with $67.2 billion invested, almost nine times greater than the amount invested by the second-highest spender, China with $7.8 billion.
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