Scarlett Johansson also expressed “shock, anger and disbelief” following OpenAI's first public demo of GPT-4o.
News Corp, which owns major news media titles such as The Wall Street Journal, The New York Post, Barron's and The Daily Telegraph, has signed a multi-year licensing agreement with Open AI, the two companies announced jointly on Wednesday.
OpenAI recently signed similar content deals with Dotdash Meredith and The Financial Times.
The agreement gives OpenAI permission to use content from News Corp-owned publications to train large-scale language models. ChatGPT users will also be able to see content from these publications in response to relevant queries.
“We believe this historic agreement will establish a new standard for truth, virtue and values in the digital age,” News Corp CEO Robert Thomson said in a statement. “We are pleased to have found a principled partner in Sam Altman and his trusted, talented team, who understand the commercial and societal importance of journalists and journalism.”
Thomson said the two organisations are “committed to jointly generating and delivering immediate insight and honesty.”
Financial terms of the deal were not disclosed. The Wall Street Journal, citing anonymous sources, reported that it could be worth more than $250 million over five years.
UK Government's AI Safety Taskforce Opens San Francisco Office
The UK's AI Safety Institute (AISI), which is responsible for assessing the risks posed by new AI systems, is opening a second base in the US tech capital, San Francisco.
The launch of AISI in November coincided with an AI Safety Summit held in the UK that led to the so-called Bletchley Declaration, and boosted Chancellor Rishi Sunak's ambitions to make the UK a centre for AI research and safety.
“This expansion shows UK leadership in AI in action,” Michelle Donnellan, UK Secretary of State for Science, Innovation and Technology, said in a statement. “It marks a pivotal moment in the UK's ability to research both the risks and opportunities of AI from a global perspective, strengthening our partnership with the US and paving the way for other countries to tap into UK expertise as the UK continues to lead the world in AI safety.”
The institute's new San Francisco office is scheduled to open this summer.
Scarlett Johansson responds to OpenAI
Earlier this week, actress Scarlett Johansson reacted to the first public demo of OpenAI's new GPT-4o, a model that can interact with users using a variety of human-like voices, one of which some say sounds a lot like the Avengers actress.
In a statement, Johansson claimed that OpenAI CEO Sam Altman had contacted her twice ahead of GPT-4o's public release to ask if she would be willing to voice the model. Johansson declined both times, saying she was “shocked, angered, and in disbelief” to hear the nuances of GPT-4o's new voice, Skye, “eerie similarity.”
Shortly after Johansson's statement was published on X by NPR reporter Bobby Allyn, Altman wrote in his own statement that the company had decided to suspend Sky “out of respect for Johansson.”
OpenAI also claimed in a blog post that the voice of Sky was provided by a different voice actor, a claim that was later backed up by a Washington Post report, which also revealed that the voice actor had been hired months before Altman first contacted Johansson.
Snap teases future AI and ML investment plans
Snap Inc., the owner of Snapchat, plans to step up its investments in AI and machine learning, primarily to build stronger, more enjoyable user experiences and more personalized ad campaigns for brands that want to reach their audience on the app.
Snap has been overhauling its advertising business in recent years, driven by pandemic-era economic pressures and user tracking changes rolled out across Apple devices. “Since 2022, Snapchat has been primarily focused on improving its down-funnel ad serving and measurement capabilities for advertisers,” Minda Smiley, senior analyst specializing in the social media industry at eMarketer, told The Drum.
These changes appear to be paying off: At the end of the first quarter of 2024, Snap reported double-digit revenue growth for the first time in six consecutive quarters.
Google unveils new AI features for advertisers
At a press conference in New York City this week, Google executives demoed a range of new AI-powered advertising features announced at the company's annual event, Google Marketing Live (GML).
One of the new features will place ads above, within or below relevant response summaries generated by Google's experimental Search Generative Response feature, while the other will allow marketers to generate short, simple video animations based on a single image of their product.
Each of the new features announced at this week's GML event marks the tech giant's continuing efforts to become a leading creative force in AI, a mission that began when the company was blindsided by the release of OpenAI's ChatGPT in late 2022.
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