Recent public interest in tools like ChatGPT has raised an old question in the artificial intelligence community: is artificial general intelligence (in this case, AI that performs at human level) achievable? An online preprint this week has added to the hype, suggesting the latest advanced large language model, GPT-4, is at the early stages of… Read more »
Elon Musk, Steve Wozniak, and over 1300 academics, tech and business luminaries have signed a Future of Life Institute (FLI) open letter calling for a 6-month freeze on “out-of-control” AI development that, they say, poses “profound risks to society and humanity.” That development has accelerated at a furious rate since last November’s release of GPT-3… Read more »
You may have heard the buzz about ChatGPT, a type of chatbot that uses artificial intelligence (AI) to write essays, turn computer novices into programmers and help people communicate. ChatGPT might also have a role in helping people make sense of medical information. Although ChatGPT won’t replace talking to your doctor any time soon, our… Read more »
Most people are familiar with the deluge of artificial intelligence (AI) apps that seem designed to make us more efficient and creative. We’ve got apps that take text prompts and generate art, and the controversial ChatGPT, which raises serious questions about originality, misinformation and plagiarism. Despite these concerns, AI is becoming ever more pervasive and… Read more »
The five largest tech giants may be using ‘dark patterns’ to prevent consumers from adopting online services from competitors, the ACCC has warned as it solicits feedback on a new issues paper exploring the companies’ entrance into a diverse range of markets. Recent years have seen Amazon, Apple, Facebook parent company Meta, Microsoft, and Google… Read more »
One day in mid-2013, four people, including two police officers and a social worker, arrived unannounced at the home of Chicago resident Robert McDaniel. McDaniel had only ever had minor run-ins with the law – street gambling, marijuana possession, nothing even remotely violent. But his visitors informed him that a computer program had determined that… Read more »
As the “chatbot wars” rage in Silicon Valley, the growing proliferation of artificial intelligence (AI) tools specifically designed to generate human-like text has left many baffled. Educators in particular are scrambling to adjust to the availability of software that can produce a moderately competent essay on any topic at a moment’s notice. Should we go… Read more »
Media intelligence startup Truescope has raised $6.2 million ahead of a push into the US market. The round was led by Sydney VCs Investible and Jelix Ventures, with additional support from private investors. The funds will be used to launch and support Truescope’s United States market entry and accelerate engineering and technology innovations in the… Read more »
Aussie “GiveTech” startup Dataro has raised $2.5 million in a seed round to help charities improve their fundraising capacity. The raise was led by Basis Set Ventures, Black Sheep Capital, and Save The Children Dataro uses AI-driven technology to transform how charity fundraising works. Its machine learning algorithms analyse patterns in a charity’s entire history of… Read more »
An artificial intelligence startup making AI accessible to smaller companies has raised A$2.75 million (US$2m) in a pre-series A round. Pi.Exchange describes itself as an AI-as-a-Service provider and is targeting the banking and retail to professional services sectors with its product. Investors included AI-dedicated VC Boab AI, Artesian, Nextrans and Vision Creator, alongside additional support… Read more »
Most of us benefit every day from the fact computers can now “understand” us when we speak or write. Yet few of us have paused to consider the potentially damaging ways this same technology may be shaping our culture. Human language is full of ambiguity and double meanings. For instance, consider the potential meaning of… Read more »
Product and customer support teams of software companies are having to adapt and move faster than ever before. But as they race to compete with the ever-growing industry, teams lack the data to quickly prioritise software bugs or have manual processes that make personal customer service inefficient. To help software companies scale great customer experiences,… Read more »
Researchers from Data61, the CSIRO’s data and digital specialist arm, have developed techniques they claim will effectively ‘vaccinate’ algorithms against adversarial attack, meaning it will prevent malevolent actors from hijacking machine learning. Dr Richard Nock, Data61 machine learning group leader, explained that algorithms ‘learn’ from the data they are trained on to create a… Read more »
Australia is spending a fraction of its GDP on artificial intelligence and machine learning, compared to its international rivals, and will lose jobs without increased investment in the technology, experts says. Analysis by the University of Adelaide’s Australian Institute for Machine Learning (AIML), which is pushing to establish a National Centre of Excellence in Machine… Read more »
While millions of people the world over are fearing the disruption of the fourth industrial revolution, one Harbour City Labs’ startup, Gronade, is touting its benefits for all to hear.
Is there a bit of nark and envy creeping into Australian venture when it comes to Blackbird? 
Blackbird backs generative AI startup Leonardo.Ai in $47 million raise 
Billionaire investor Charlie Munger had some choice things to say about VCs and crypto 
The federal government is offering $18.5 million to set up a quantum growth centre 
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