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Hard Numbers: Sutskever’s easy billion, OpenAI gets expensive, Getting AI out of the immigration system, Voice actors strike a deal
1 billion: OpenAI cofounder Ilya Sutskever has raised $1 billion for his new AI startup Safe Superintelligence, which has promised to deliver a highly advanced AI model without the distraction of short- or medium-term product launches. The company only has 10 employees so far, but it has already raised that sum from eager investors, including Andreessen Horowitz and Sequoia Capital.
2,000: OpenAI is reportedly considering a $2,000 per month subscription for its forthcoming large language models, Strawberry and Orion. Its current top model, GPT-4, is free for limited usage and $20 per month for increased usage and extra features. It’s still unclear what the new models will cost when they’re released later this fall — or, if they’re costly, whether consumers will be willing to spend that much.
141: A group of 141 organizations, including the Electronic Frontier Foundation, sent a letter to the Department of Homeland Security urging it to stop using AI tools in the immigration system and to comply with federal rules around protecting civil rights and avoiding algorithmic errors. The groups requested transparency around how the department uses AI to make immigration and asylum decisions, as well as biometric surveillance of migrants at the border.
80: Voice actors reached an agreement with the producers of 80 video games last week, after striking for two months. SAG-AFTRA, the actor’s union, won new protections against “exploitative uses” of AI. That said, it’s still striking against most of the larger video game studios, including Electronic Arts, as well as Walt Disney and Warner Bros.’s game studios.Hollywood’s voices are coming to a chatbot near you
While the purpose of these voices is still unclear, Bloomberg suggested that they could power a Siri or Alexa-like personal assistant.
Meta has begun incorporating its generative AI model, Llama, into its apps: Facebook, Instagram, Messenger, and WhatsApp. But its negotiations with Hollywood talent could rouse new tensions between actors — especially voice actors — and AI companies. Just last year, actors and writers went on strike against Hollywood studios over their use of AI, and video game voice actors just started striking last week.
Hard Numbers: Professor ChatGPT, SoftBank’s search engine play, Nokia goes shopping, Voice actors are worried
10: Generative AI is sweeping academic research. According to one estimate, about 10% of all academic articles published this year will contain some artificial intelligence-generated text. That’s about 150,000 papers per year.
3 billion: The AI startup Perplexity is getting a cash infusion. The Japanese investment company SoftBank is investing $10-20 million based on a $3 billion valuation. The company, which styles its product as a search engine, has recently come under fire for allegations of ripping off news articles without permission.
2.3 billion: Finnish telecommunications company Nokia has bought into the AI race with a $2.3 billion purchase of California-based Infinera, whose technology helps power data centers crucial for running and training AI applications.
5,000: The Australian Association of Voice Actors told a parliamentary committee that AI could put more than 5,000 voice actors in the country out of work. The group called for fair rules and protections for its members. In the US, voice actors have already sued AI firms for improperly using their voices.