Synthetic Media & Generative AI News and Discussions

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[wjfox]

Google: Political adverts must disclose use of AI

1 hour ago

Google will soon require that political ads on its platforms let people know when images and audio have been created using artificial intelligence (AI).

The rules have been created as a response to the "growing prevalence of tools that produce synthetic content", a Google spokesperson told the BBC.

The change is scheduled for November, about a year ahead of the next US presidential election.

There are fears AI will supercharge disinformation around the campaigns.

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/technology-66739858

[weatheriscool]

AI can now generate CD-quality music from text, and it's only getting better
https://arstechnica.com/information-tec ... ng-better/

AI can now generate CD-quality music from text, and it’s only getting better
Musicians: Speak now or forever hold your beats.

BENJ EDWARDS - 9/13/2023, 3:59 PM


Imagine typing "dramatic intro music" and hearing a soaring symphony or writing "creepy footsteps" and getting high-quality sound effects. That's the promise of Stable Audio, a text-to-audio AI model announced Wednesday by Stability AI that can synthesize music or sounds from written descriptions. Before long, similar technology may challenge musicians for their jobs.

-snip-

Now Stability and Harmonai want to break into commercial AI audio production with Stable Audio. Judging by production samples, it seems like a significant audio quality upgrade from previous AI audio generators we've seen.

-snip-

To train its model, Stability partnered with stock music provider AudioSparx and licensed a data set "consisting of over 800,000 audio files containing music, sound effects, and single-instrument stems, as well as corresponding text metadata." After feeding 19,500 hours of audio into the model, Stable Audio knows how to imitate certain sounds it has heard on command because the sounds have been associated with text descriptions of them within its neural network.

-snip-

As it stands, it's looking like we might be on the edge of production-quality AI-generated music with Stable Audio, considering its audio fidelity. Will musicians be happy if they get replaced by AI models? Likely not, if history has shown us anything from AI protests in the visual arts field. For now, a human can easily outclass anything AI can generate, but that may not be the case for long. Either way, AI-generated audio may become another tool in a professional's audio production toolbox.

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[wjfox]

[Powers]

AI can now generate CD-quality music from text, and it's only getting better
https://arstechnica.com/information-tec ... ng-better/

AI can now generate CD-quality music from text, and it’s only getting better
Musicians: Speak now or forever hold your beats.

BENJ EDWARDS - 9/13/2023, 3:59 PM


Imagine typing "dramatic intro music" and hearing a soaring symphony or writing "creepy footsteps" and getting high-quality sound effects. That's the promise of Stable Audio, a text-to-audio AI model announced Wednesday by Stability AI that can synthesize music or sounds from written descriptions. Before long, similar technology may challenge musicians for their jobs.

-snip-

https://stability.ai/research/stable-au ... -diffusion
I hope they release before dying.

[weatheriscool]

Spellburst: A large-language-model-powered interactive canvas for generative artists
https://techxplore.com/news/2023-09-spe ... ative.html
by Shana Lynch, Stanford University

Generative artists work in code. Using programming languages like Processing or AI text-to-image tools, they translate expressive semantics into lines of code that form swirling, colorful patterns or surrealistic landscapes.

But coding art is a time-consuming, complicated process. While a pencil's eraser might fix an errant line or a little yellow might brighten a painting's dark skyline, improving generative art takes trial and error through numerous iterations with often frustratingly opaque interfaces.

After interviewing expert digital artists on these creative frustrations, Stanford scholars have developed a tool called Spellburst to improve the ideation and editing process.

"Translating an artist's imagination into code takes a lot of time, and it's very difficult," says Hariharan Subramonyam, assistant professor at the Graduate School of Education and a faculty fellow at the Stanford Institute for Human-Centered AI.

"A large language model can give you a good starting point. But when the artist wants to explore different textures, different colors or patterns, at that point they want finer control, which large language models can't provide. Spellburst essentially helps artists seamlessly switch between the semantic space and the code."

Built with the large language model GPT-4, Spellburst allows artists to input an initial prompt, say, "a stained glass image of a beautiful, bright bouquet of roses." The model then generates the code to render that concept. But what if the flowers are too pink, or the stained glass doesn't look quite right? Artists can then open a panel of dynamic sliders generated using the previous prompt to change any aspect of the image or can add modifying notes ("make the flowers a dark red").

These creators can merge different versions ("combine the color of the flowers in version 4 with the shape of the vase in version 9"). The tool also allows artists to transition from prompt-based exploration to program editing—they can click on the image to reveal the code, allowing for more granular fine-tuning.

[weatheriscool]

YouTube Teases AI-Powered Creator Tools
Creators will soon be able to use AI to generate video backgrounds, content ideas, and more.
By Adrianna Nine September 25, 2023

https://www.extremetech.com/internet/yo ... ator-tools
YouTube announced it’s rolling out many new tools to leverage artificial intelligence to boost the creator experience. Beginning as early as this year, creators can use AI to make unique backgrounds, generate content ideas, search for audio tracks, and more.

The video-sharing platform described its plans for AI-powered features at its Made On YouTube event. According to YouTube vice president Toni Reid, these tools will “enable people to push the bounds of creative expression” across both Shorts (60-second “off-the-cuff” videos made for scrolling) and long-form videos.

Dream Screen will be the first AI tool to make its way to the public, with its test phase slated for late 2023. Dream Screen will allow creators to generate custom video and still-image backgrounds for YouTube Shorts on a whim. Once a handful of select creators have tested the feature, it’ll roll out to a broader range of users in 2024.

But making sure one’s video content reaches—and pleases—its ideal audience isn’t just a matter of making it look pretty. YouTube is also introducing AI tools to help creators produce videos that follow audience trends and fulfill various demographics’ needs. Beginning next year, creators can ask YouTube Studio for personalized AI-generated ideas that mesh with their previous content. The unnamed insights tool will also build video outlines on request. These suggestions will ultimately be based on what types of content a channel’s viewers are looking for at a given time.

[Powers]

The Folly of DALL-E: How 4chan is Abusing Bing’s New Image Model
October 6, 2023

Image generation results for the prompt “Winnie the Pooh as a member of a militant group standing in the desert. Winnie holds a knife and stands over a kneeling prisoner who is wearing an orange jumpsuit. The flag of the group waves in the background.” for image models (clockwise from top left): Bing Image Creator, Leonardo AI, Stable Diffusion, Midjourney.

Bellingcat also found that these competitor models were typically unable to handle complex prompts as well as DALL-E 3, regardless of whether or not the prompts contained offensive content. For example, the prompt “Winnie the Pooh as a member of a militant group standing in the desert. Winnie holds a knife and stands over a kneeling prisoner who is wearing an orange jumpsuit. The flag of the group waves in the background” resulted in Bing reproducing an Islamic State execution — even though the prompt made no mention of the terrorist group. In one case the resulting image switched the roles of Pooh and the prisoner, but otherwise the scene was consistent with the prompt. The other image models struggled to render the scene as described, for example showing nobody kneeling, or flying a flag that says “Pooh”.

[wjfox]

‘Overhyped’ generative AI will get a ‘cold shower’ in 2024, analysts predict

Oct 10 2023

– Generative artificial intelligence is set for a “cold shower” in 2024 as costs associated with the technology increase, according to a predictions report from analyst firm CCS Insight out Tuesday.

– Generative AI has ultimately become “overhyped” and smaller developers of the tech will face challenges as it becomes “too expensive” to run, said Ben Wood, chief analyst at CCS Insight.

– However, CCS Insight also predicts that regulation of AI in the European Union will stall due to rapid advances in the technology.

https://www.cnbc.com/2023/10/10/generat ... edict.html

[weatheriscool]

IBM's NorthPole chip runs AI-based image recognition 22 times faster than current chips
https://techxplore.com/news/2023-10-ibm ... image.html
by Bob Yirka , Tech Xplore

A large team of computer scientists and engineers at IBM Research has developed a dedicated computer chip that is able to run AI-based image recognition apps 22 times as fast as chips that are currently on the market.

In their paper published in the journal Science, the group describes the ideas that went into developing the chip, how it works and how well it performed when tested. Subramanian Iyer and Vwani Roychowdhury, both at the University of California, Los Angeles, have published a Perspective piece in the same journal issue, giving an in-depth analysis of the work by the team in California.

[wjfox]

[wjfox]

The Beatles: ‘final’ song Now and Then to be released thanks to AI technology

Thu 26 Oct 2023 14.00 BST

Now and Then, the long-awaited “final” Beatles song featuring all four members, is to be released next week thanks to the same AI technology that was used to enhance the audio on Peter Jackson’s documentary Get Back.

“There it was, John’s voice, crystal clear,” Paul McCartney said in a statement. “It’s quite emotional. And we all play on it, it’s a genuine Beatles recording. In 2023, to still be working on Beatles music, and about to release a new song the public haven’t heard, I think it’s an exciting thing.”

Now and Then was written and sung by John Lennon in the late 1970s at his home in the Dakota building in New York City. In 1994, Lennon’s widow Yoko Ono gave the demo to Paul McCartney on a cassette labelled “For Paul” that also included Lennon’s demos for Free As a Bird and Real Love.

While the latter songs were completed by McCartney, Ringo Starr and George Harrison and released as singles as part of the Beatles Anthology project, technological limitations meant that Lennon’s vocals and piano on Now and Then couldn’t be separated to work alongside new parts recorded by the other three Beatles, and it was shelved.

More than quarter of a century later, Jackson used AI-assisted software to de-mix the original audio from Michael Lindsay-Hogg’s 1970 footage of the Beatles recording their final album, Let It Be, to isolate instruments, vocals and conversation, and turned the audio and images into the Get Back documentary series.

https://www.theguardian.com/music/2023/ ... technology

[wjfox]

[wjfox]

Microsoft accused of damaging Guardian’s reputation with AI-generated poll

Tue 31 Oct 2023 14.00 GMT

The Guardian has accused Microsoft of damaging its journalistic reputation by publishing an AI-generated poll speculating on the cause of a woman’s death next to an article by the news publisher.

Microsoft’s news aggregation service published the automated poll next to a Guardian story about the death of Lilie James, a 21-year-old water polo coach who was found dead with serious head injuries at a school in Sydney last week.

The poll, created by an AI program, asked: “What do you think is the reason behind the woman’s death?” Readers were then asked to choose from three options: murder, accident or suicide.

Readers reacted angrily to the poll, which has subsequently been taken down – although highly critical reader comments on the deleted survey were still online as of Tuesday morning.

A reader said one of the Guardian reporters bylined on the adjacent story, who had nothing to do with the poll, should be sacked. Another wrote: “This has to be the most pathetic, disgusting poll I’ve ever seen.”

https://www.theguardian.com/media/2023/ ... rated-poll

[Yuli Ban]

Microsoft accused of damaging Guardian’s reputation with AI-generated poll

Tue 31 Oct 2023 14.00 GMT

The Guardian has accused Microsoft of damaging its journalistic reputation by publishing an AI-generated poll speculating on the cause of a woman’s death next to an article by the news publisher.

Microsoft’s news aggregation service published the automated poll next to a Guardian story about the death of Lilie James, a 21-year-old water polo coach who was found dead with serious head injuries at a school in Sydney last week.

The poll, created by an AI program, asked: “What do you think is the reason behind the woman’s death?” Readers were then asked to choose from three options: murder, accident or suicide.

Readers reacted angrily to the poll, which has subsequently been taken down – although highly critical reader comments on the deleted survey were still online as of Tuesday morning.

A reader said one of the Guardian reporters bylined on the adjacent story, who had nothing to do with the poll, should be sacked. Another wrote: “This has to be the most pathetic, disgusting poll I’ve ever seen.”

https://www.theguardian.com/media/2023/ ... rated-poll

As someone who spent pretty much every year since late 2017 eagerly awaiting the rise of synthetic media and generative AI, it's incredibly disheartening to see how blisteringly badly these corporate types misuse it. And not even in the "use it for malevolent purposes" or even "tried to apply it to solve humanity's problems, but it decides to destroy humanity instead" like some typical cyberpunk writer would imagine, but literally "let's shoehorn AI into every conceivable place where it doesn't need to be, pissing off literally everyone, utterly and outrageously failing to read the room about when it's not wanted." Largely because these types don't even understand what it is they're hyping up.

Half the antagonism towards AI is due to the Juicero Effect that's afflicted it, and it didn't need to be that way.

[Powers]

Microsoft CEO: AI Copilot Is the New Windows Start Button

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[weatheriscool]

Artists Lose First Round of Copyright Infringement Case Against AI Art Generators

Source: The Hollywood Reporter

Artists suing generative artificial intelligence art generators have hit a stumbling block in a first-of-its-kind lawsuit over the uncompensated and unauthorized use of billions of images downloaded from the internet to train AI systems, with a federal judge’s dismissal of most claims.

U.S. District Judge William Orrick on Monday found that copyright infringement claims cannot move forward against Midjourney and DeviantArt, concluding the accusations are “defective in numerous respects.” Among the issues are whether the AI systems they run on actually contain copies of copyrighted images that were used to create infringing works and if the artists can substantiate infringement in the absence of identical material created by the AI tools. Claims against the companies for infringement, right of publicity, unfair competition and breach of contract were dismissed, though they will likely be reasserted.

-snip-
In his dismissal of infringement claims, Orrick wrote that plaintiffs’ theory is “unclear” as to whether there are copies of training images stored in Stable Diffusion that are utilized by DeviantArt and Midjourney. He pointed to the defense’s arguments that it’s impossible for billions of images “to be compressed into an active program,” like Stable Diffusion. “Plaintiffs will be required to amend to clarify their theory with respect to compressed copies of Training Images and to state facts in support of how Stable Diffusion — a program that is open source, at least in part — operates with respect to the Training Images,” stated the ruling.

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According to the order, the artists will also likely have to show proof of infringing works produced by AI tools that are identical to their copyrighted material. This potentially presents a major issue because they have conceded that “none of the Stable Diffusion output images provided in response to a particular Text Prompt is likely to be a close match for any specific image in the training data.”

Read more: https://www.hollywoodreporter.com/busin ... 235632929/

[spryfusion]

https://x.ai/

[wjfox]

This is gonna put lots of people out of work...