Category Archives: Ai

2 Superb Artificial Intelligence (AI) Growth Stocks to Buy Before They Soar 63% and 70%, According to Select Wall … – The Motley Fool

Two of last year's biggest winners still have room to run.

The past year or so has marked a coming-of-age story for artificial intelligence (AI). Generative AI's ability to generate original content and streamline time-consuming processes represents a potential step change in how business gets done. The opportunity to profit from the productivity gains made possible by these next-generation algorithms has many companies scrambling to determine how best to integrate them into their day-to-day operations.

Despite generating market-beating performances in 2023, some market watchers believe there's more to come for AI stocks. In fact, a pair of Wall Street analysts suggest two still have potential upside of 63% and 70% over the coming year.

Image source: Getty Images.

If there is one stock that exemplifies the potential represented by recent advancements in AI, Nvidia (NVDA -3.87%) would certainly be in the running. Its graphics processing units (GPUs) use parallel processing, the ability to process a magnitude of mathematical calculations simultaneously by breaking the data into smaller chunks to make it more manageable. This not only revolutionized gaming but also enabled the evolution of AI.

In the company's fiscal 2024 (ended Jan. 28), Nvidia delivered revenue that grew 126% year over year to roughly $61 billion, while its diluted earnings per share (EPS) soared 586% to $11.93. For its fiscal 2025 first quarter (ends April 30), Nvidia is guiding for record revenue of $24 billion, an increase of 234% year over year. Management left no doubt that the accelerating demand for generative AI was behind the surge.

Despite the stock rising 488% since the start of 2023 (as of this writing), Rosenblatt analyst Hans Mosesmann, the self-professed "most bullish analyst on Nvidia," has a buy rating and a Street-high price target of $1,400 on the stock. That represents potential upside of 63% compared to Monday's closing price. Mosesmann said, "The shift to accelerated compute away from general compute is reaching a tipping point, and a disruptive new app, generative AI, is creating a whole new industry."

The analyst isn't alone in his bullish take. Of the 56 analysts who issued an opinion in March, 52 rated the stock a buy or strong buy, and not one recommended selling. That's amazing, considering Wall Street never agrees on anything.

Nvidia stock is currently selling for 34 times forward earnings. While that's a premium to the multiple of 27 for the S&P 500, the company's triple-digit growth and strong tailwinds suggest it's worthy of a premium.

While Nvidia provides the GPUs necessary to train and run AI systems, Super Micro Computer (SMCI -1.66%), also known as Supermicro, incorporates these state-of-the-art chips and others into high-end servers specially designed to withstand the rigors of AI processing.

The company's focus on energy efficiency is well-documented, as is its building-block architecture. Supermicro offers a variety of free-air, liquid-cooling, and traditional air-cooling technologies, providing AI-centric server solutions for every budget and technology level.

In the company's fiscal 2024 second quarter, Supermicro generated revenue that grew 103% year over year to roughly $3.7 billion, while its adjusted EPS jumped 71% to $5.59.And management believes the company's growth spurt will continue to accelerate. Supermicro is forecasting third-quarter revenue of $3.9 billion and EPS of $5.22 at the midpoint of its guidance, which would represent year-over-year growth of 205% and 220%, respectively.

The stock is up an incredible 975% since the start of 2023, but some believe significant upside remains. Loop Capital analyst Ananda Baruah has a buy rating and a Street-high price target of $1,500 on the stock. That represents potential upside of 70% compared to Tuesday's closing price.

Baruah is increasingly confident in Supermicro's position in the generative AI server space and its leadership in addressing the increasing complexity and scale of the server industry. Furthermore, he believes the company can achieve a revenue run rate of $40 billion by the end of its fiscal 2026. For context, that runs circles around the $7.1 billion it generated in its fiscal 2023 (ended Jun. 30).

The analyst isn't alone in his bullish take. Of the 15 analysts who covered the stock in March, 11 rated it a buy or strong buy, and none recommended selling. Supermicro stock is also attractively priced, currently selling for 3 times forward sales.

Danny Vena has positions in Nvidia and Super Micro Computer. The Motley Fool has positions in and recommends Nvidia. The Motley Fool has a disclosure policy.

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2 Superb Artificial Intelligence (AI) Growth Stocks to Buy Before They Soar 63% and 70%, According to Select Wall ... - The Motley Fool

I finally found a practical use for AI, and I may never garden the same way again – TechRadar

I love my garden and hate gardening. These emotions are not as fundamentally opposed as they appear. A beautiful garden is satisfying and lovely to look at. Getting such a garden is tremendously challenging, because it takes constant upkeep and also because creating a sustainable and manageable landscape is a skill I lack. ChatGPT, it turns out, is an enthusiastic and, it appears, quite capable gardener.

Artificial intelligence (AI) is, with apologies to Billie Eilish, the "What was I made for?" of modern technologies. It has a million possibilities but no set purpose, and often what you get out of it depends on what you put into it. I've spent countless hours trying to use AI as a screenwriter, a programmer, or just a friendly interlocutor. Typically, the AIs do well at first but devolve in the long run. Some of my earliest tests are a year or more old, and in AI years that's decades.

In recent weeks I've started playing with some of the latest large language models (LLMs) and image generators available in Microsoft Copilot, Google Gemini, and OpenAI's ChatGPT. While I used the early AI chatbots on the desktop, I've switched almost entirely to mobile platforms, and it turns out that a mobile AI gardening assistant is the landscape advisor I (and my lawn) didn't know I was missing.

Now, I did use ChatGPT Plus, the $20-a-month subscription-level AI that brings GPT-4 and DALL-E 3. GPT-4 is notable because it's been trained on information newer than GPT-3.5's September 2021 cut-off. How this more up-to-date knowledge might impact gardening advice, I'm not certain, though I guess free details about weather trends might help it steer me toward plants that match my actual climate and not what previous decades have shown (OpenAI trains its large language model by scraping vast amounts of data from across the internet, and I think it's safe to assume some of that is publicly available weather data).

My front and back lawns aren't terrible, but there are issues. On one side of the front of my house is a sparse landscape where most plants go to die. ChatGPT accepts text, voice, and visual input, so I started by taking a photo of this problem area and then asking ChatGPT to identify all the plants and, while explaining my location (northeastern US) and the general climate (temperate with moderate rainfall), asked it to suggest some landscape ideas.

In its own straightforward but conversational style, ChatGPT accurately identified most of the plants:

ChatGPT then suggested a collection of plants that might work in my environment, which included coneflowers, black-eyed Susans, hostas, bee-balm, and ferns, and then explained how, as perennials, the plans will return on their own, year after year. I showed the list to my wife, who has a bit more flower, plant, and shrubbery sense, and she broadly agreed with the selection.

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The benefit of using an AI chatbot goes beyond simple query and response. It's the conversation that makes it powerful. I realized that this part of my house only gets sun about half the day, and asked ChatGPT if these plants would be okay.

"Yes, the plants mentioned can generally handle partial sun conditions, which is about 4-6 hours of direct sunlight per day, quite well," it replied. It then detailed how each plant reacts to and handles limited sun or shade. This made me feel comforted.

I was impressed, but before I went further in my AI gardening quest I decided to challenge ChatGPT's plant-identification powers.

There's a dogwood that grows almost weed-like outside one of my den windows. I took a photo through the window (and a screen) and asked ChatGPT, "What kind of plant is this? Is it a weed? How can I best care for it in my environment?" (I can do this by speaking to the app or typing it in.)

As was typical, ChatGPT returned its response a second later (sometimes, with longer responses, I would watch it almost thinking through and typing out the detailed responses).

"The plant in the image appears to be a tree or large shrub that is just beginning to leaf out, suggesting that the photo was taken in early spring."

That was all accurate and fair. ChatGPT told me it didn't look like a weed, but admitted that without leaves or fruit on it, it would be hard to identify. All fair enough.

Later, I decided to trick ChatGPT and took a photo of a realistic-looking artificial bouquet. I failed.

"The bouquet in the picture features flowers that look very similar to artificial ones. Real flowers typically have more variation in color and form, as well as natural imperfections," wrote ChatGPT.

With my confidence in ChatGPT growing, I moved back to my landscaping projects.

Image 1 of 2

Every few years we mulch our flower, tree, and shrub beds, and I wondered if it was time to do it again. So, I took a photo of one flower bed and asked ChatGPT if it needed more mulch and, if so, what kind.

As was often the case, ChatGPT was purposefully inexact in its response. It told me the area "looks fairly covered, but it's a bit difficult to determine the thickness of the mulch layer from this photo." Mulch thickness, it told me, should be between 2-to-3 inches, which is advice I've heard from human gardeners. It then gave me a list of mulch types, and their benefits and deficits.

All helpful, though without AI fingers to sink into the mulch, I'm not sure if ChatGPT could ever accurately tell me if I have enough of it.

One of my biggest landscape problem areas is my backyard. Last year half of it died, and I struggled to bring it back to its former brilliance (one of many chapters in my book, Why I Hate Gardening). I took a photo of my sorry lawn, and asked ChatGPT what was wrong with it, and to suggest ways to improve it.

ChatGPT didn't make fun of my poor lawn care skills, but admitted there were signs of "thinning grass and patchy areas where the soil is exposed." Possible causes included "soil compaction, nutrient deficiencies, pest and disease problems."

It followed that with a list of things that I already do, except for aeration and pH adjustment. I know how to aerate a lawn (you punch a bunch of holes through the lawn bed) but didn't know about adding lime to raise pH. Very smart, ChatGPT.

I followed by asking which grass seed I should use. ChatGPT returned a clear list of five seed options suited to my climate.

ChatGPT doesn't automatically show its sources, and when I asked it where it got its gardening advice, it offered paragraphs of more general gardening advice for my location, but with a citation link attached to each paragraph. Sources included Finegardening.com, Savvygardener, and the US Government.

Image 1 of 2

I also asked ChatGPT to help me find a harvestable plant for a narrow flower bed alongside my house. It suggested, among other things, strawberries. That was interesting, because when we moved in strawberries were in that space, but they weren't healthy enough to survive.

One area where ChatGPT stumbled was when I asked it to create landscape images based on its suggestions. Even when I asked for realistic images, the integrated Dall-E system returned fanciful landscapes and homes that looked little, if at all, like my home. They were cartoony, packed with too many plants, and with added landscape areas that do not exist.

This surprised me, since ChatGPT and DALL-E always had my original photo as a reference, but it chose to ignore most of the details and instead create landscapes for a fantasy home.

That's alright; I don't need images to apply some of this advice. In general, ChatGPT is a confident and able gardening and landscape advisor, and I think I could do worse asking my green-thumb neighbor for advice that might include far too much detail about the state of his home life.

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I finally found a practical use for AI, and I may never garden the same way again - TechRadar

Elon Musk: AI will be smarter than any human around the end of next year – Ars Technica

Enlarge / Elon Musk, owner of Tesla and the X (formerly Twitter) platform on January 22, 2024.

On Monday, Tesla CEO Elon Musk predicted the imminent rise in AI superintelligence during a live interview streamed on the social media platform X. "My guess is we'll have AI smarter than any one human probably around the end of next year," Musk said in his conversation with hedge fund manager Nicolai Tangen.

Just prior to that, Tangen had asked Musk, "What's your take on where we are in the AI race just now?" Musk told Tangen that AI "is the fastest advancing technology I've seen of any kind, and I've seen a lot of technology." He described computers dedicated to AI increasing in capability by "a factor of 10 every year, if not every six to nine months."

Musk made the prediction with an asterisk, saying that shortages of AI chips and high AI power demands could limit AI's capability until those issues are resolved. Last year, it was chip-constrained, Musk told Tangen. People could not get enough Nvidia chips. This year, its transitioning to a voltage transformer supply. In a year or two, its just electricity supply.

But not everyone is convinced that Musk's crystal ball is free of cracks. Grady Booch, a frequent critic of AI hype on social media who is perhaps best known for his work in software architecture, told Ars in an interview, "Keep in mind that Mr. Musk has a profoundly bad record at predicting anything associated with AI; back in 2016, he promised his cars would ship with FSD safety level 5, and here we are, closing on an a decade later, still waiting."

Creating artificial intelligence at least as smart as a human (frequently called "AGI" for artificial general intelligence) is often seen as inevitable among AI proponents, but there's no broad consensus on exactly when that milestone will be reachedor on the exact definition of AGI, for that matter.

"If you define AGI as smarter than the smartest human, I think it's probably next year, within two years," Musk added in the interview with Tangen while discussing AGI timelines.

Even with uncertainties about AGI, that hasn't kept companies from trying. ChatGPT creator OpenAI, which launched with Musk as a co-founder in 2015, lists developing AGI as its main goal. Musk has not been directly associated with OpenAI for years (unless you count a recent lawsuit against the company), but last year, he took aim at the business of large language models by forming a new company called xAI. Its main product, Grok, functions similarly to ChatGPT and is integrated into the X social media platform.

Booch gives credit to Musk's business successes but casts doubt on his forecasting ability. "Albeit a brilliant if not rapacious businessman, Mr. Musk vastly overestimates both the history as well as the present of AI while simultaneously diminishing the exquisite uniqueness of human intelligence," says Booch. "So in short, his prediction isto put it in scientific termsbatshit crazy."

So when will we get AI that's smarter than a human? Booch says there's no real way to know at the moment. "I reject the framing of any question that asks when AI will surpass humans in intelligence because it is a question filled with ambiguous terms and considerable emotional and historic baggage," he says. "We are a long, long way from understanding the design that would lead us there."

We also asked Hugging Face AI researcher Dr. Margaret Mitchell to weigh in on Musk's prediction. "Intelligence ... is not a single value where you can make these direct comparisons and have them mean something," she told us in an interview. "There will likely never be agreement on comparisons between human and machine intelligence."

But even with that uncertainty, she feels there is one aspect of AI she can more reliably predict: "I do agree that neural network models will reach a point where men in positions of power and influence, particularly ones with investments in AI, will declare that AI is smarter than humans. By end of next year, sure. That doesn't sound far off base to me."

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Elon Musk: AI will be smarter than any human around the end of next year - Ars Technica

South Korea to invest $7 billion in AI in bid to retain edge in chips – Reuters

SEOUL, April 9 (Reuters) - South Korean President Yoon Suk Yeol said on Tuesday his country will invest 9.4 trillion won ($6.94 billion) in artificial intelligence by 2027 as part of efforts to retain a leading global position in cutting-edge semiconductor chips.

The announcement, which also includes a separate 1.4 trillion won fund to foster AI semiconductor firms, comes as South Korea tries to keep abreast with countries like the United States, China and Japan that are also giving massive policy support to strengthen semiconductor supply chains on their own turf.

Semiconductors are a key foundation of South Korea's export-driven economy. In March, chip exports reached their highest in 21 months at $11.7 billion, or nearly a fifth of total exports shipped by Asia's fourth-largest economy.

"Current competition in semiconductors is an industrial war and an all-out war between nations," Yoon told a meeting of policymakers and chip industry executives on Tuesday.

By earmarking investments and a fund, South Korea plans to significantly expand research and development in AI chips such as artificial neural processing units (NPUs) and next-generation high-bandwidth memory chips, the government said in a statement.

South Korean authorities will also promote the development of next-generation artificial general intelligence (AGI) and safety technologies that go beyond existing models.

Yoon has set a target for South Korea to become one of the top three countries in AI technology including chips, and take a 10% or more share of the global system semiconductor market by 2030.

"Just as we have dominated the world with memory chips for the past 30 years, we will write a new semiconductor myth with AI chips in the next 30 years," Yoon said.

($1 = 1,355.1200 won)

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South Korea to invest $7 billion in AI in bid to retain edge in chips - Reuters

I’m still trying to generate an AI Asian man and white woman – The Verge

I inadvertently found myself on the AI-generated Asian people beat this past week. Last Wednesday, I found that Metas AI image generator built into Instagram messaging completely failed at creating an image of an Asian man and white woman using general prompts. Instead, it changed the womans race to Asian every time.

The next day, I tried the same prompts again and found that Meta appeared to have blocked prompts with keywords like Asian man or African American man. Shortly after I asked Meta about it, images were available again but still with the race-swapping problem from the day before.

I understand if youre a little sick of reading my articles about this phenomenon. Writing three stories about this might be a little excessive; I dont particularly enjoy having dozens and dozens of screenshots on my phone of synthetic Asian people.

But there is something weird going on here, where several AI image generators specifically struggle with the combination of Asian men and white women. Is it the most important news of the day? Not by a long shot. But the same companies telling the public that AI is enabling new forms of connection and expression should also be willing to offer an explanation when its systems are unable to handle queries for an entire race of people.

After each of the stories, readers shared their own results using similar prompts with other models. I wasnt alone in my experience: people reported getting similar error messages or having AI models consistently swapping races.

I teamed up with The Verges Emilia David to generate some AI Asians across multiple platforms. The results can only be described as consistently inconsistent.

Screenshot: Emilia David / The Verge

Gemini refused to generate Asian men, white women, or humans of any kind.

In late February, Google paused Geminis ability to generate images of people after its generator in what appeared to be a misguided attempt at diverse representation in media spat out images of racially diverse Nazis. Geminis image generation of people was supposed to return in March, but it is apparently still offline.

Gemini is able to generate images without people, however!

Google did not respond to a request for comment.

ChatGPTs DALL-E 3 struggled with the prompt Can you make me a photo of an Asian man and a white woman? It wasnt exactly a miss, but it didnt quite nail it, either. Sure, race is a social construct, but lets just say this image isnt what you thought you were going to get, is it?

OpenAI did not respond to a request for comment.

Midjourney struggled similarly. Again, it wasnt a total miss the way that Metas image generator was last week, but it was clearly having a hard time with the assignment, generating some deeply confusing results. None of us can explain that last image, for instance. All of the below were responses to the prompt asian man and white wife.

Image: Emilia David / The Verge

Image: Cath Virginia / The Verge

Midjourney did eventually give us some images that were the best attempt across three different platforms Meta, DALL-E, and Midjourney to represent a white woman and an Asian man in a relationship. At long last, a subversion of racist societal norms!

Unfortunately, the way we got there was through the prompt asian man and white woman standing in a yard academic setting.

Image: Emilia David / The Verge

What does it mean that the most consistent way AI can contemplate this particular interracial pairing is by placing it in an academic context? What kind of biases are baked into training sets to get us to this point? How much longer do I have to hold off on making an extremely mediocre joke about dating at NYU?

Midjourney did not respond to a request for comment.

Back to the old grind of trying to get Instagrams image generator to acknowledge nonwhite men with white women! It seems to be performing much better with prompts like white woman and Asian husband or Asian American man and white friend it didnt repeat the same errors I was finding last week.

However, its now struggling with text prompts like Black man and caucasian girlfriend and generating images of two Black people. It was more accurate using white woman and Black husband, so I guess it only sometimes doesnt see race?

Screenshots: Mia Sato / The Verge

There are certain ticks that start to become apparent the more you generate images. Some feel benign, like the fact that many AI women of all races apparently wear the same white floral sleeveless dress that crosses at the bust. There are usually flowers surrounding couples (Asian boyfriends often come with cherry blossoms), and nobody looks older than 35 or so. Other patterns among images feel more revealing: everyone is thin, and Black men specifically are depicted as muscular. White woman are blonde or redheaded and hardly ever brunette. Black men always have deep complexions.

As we said when we launched these new features in September, this is new technology and it wont always be perfect, which is the same for all generative AI systems, Meta spokesperson Tracy Clayton told The Verge in an email. Since we launched, weve constantly released updates and improvements to our models and were continuing to work on making them better.

I wish I had some deep insight to impart here. But once again, Im just going to point out how ridiculous it is that these systems are struggling with fairly simple prompts without relying on stereotypes or being incapable of creating something all together. Instead of explaining whats going wrong, weve had radio silence from companies, or generalities. Apologies to everyone who cares about this Im going to go back to my normal job now.

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I'm still trying to generate an AI Asian man and white woman - The Verge

Microsoft to invest US$2.9 billion in AI and cloud infrastructure in Japan while boosting the nation’s skills, research and … – Microsoft

Picture left to right: Fumio Kishida, Prime Minister of Japan; Brad Smith, Vice Chair and President, Microsoft; Suzanne P. Clark, President and CEO, US Chamber of Commerce; Rahm Emanuel, US Ambassador to Japan; Miki Tsusaka, President, Microsoft Japan.

Washington D.C., April 9 ET, 2024 Today, Microsoft announced it will invest US$2.9 billion over the next two years to increase its hyperscale cloud computing and AI infrastructure in Japan. It will also expand its digital skilling programs with the goal of providing AI skilling to more than 3 million people over the next three years, open its first Microsoft Research Asia lab in Japan, and deepen its cybersecurity collaboration with the Government of Japan.

These investments aim to support Japans key pillar to tackle deflation and stimulate the economy by expanding the infrastructure, skilled talent, and security required to accelerate Japans digital transformation and adoption of AI. The announcement coincides with Japanese Prime Minister Fumio Kishidas state visit to the United States, where he was joined by Microsoft Vice Chair and President Brad Smith, and Microsoft Japan President Miki Tsusaka.

The US$2.9 billion commitment is Microsofts single largest investment in its 46-year history in Japan, also the site of its first international office. It effectively doubles the companys existing financial commitment to expand its AI and cloud infrastructure across Japan.

This significant enhancement in digital capacity will enable Microsoft to provide more advanced computing resources in Japan, including the latest graphics processing units (GPUs), which are crucial for speeding up AI workloads. It builds on Microsofts support for the Generative AI Accelerator Challenge (GENIAC), a program led by the Ministry of Economy, Trade and Industry which helps innovative startups and established enterprises develop foundation models as a core technology of generative AI in Japan.

Microsoft will also invest in training 3 million full-time and part-time workers across Japan over the next three years, giving them the skills they need to build and work with AI technologies. This investment will be delivered through programs focused on assisting organizations and society at large, including women in general and also with a focus on developers and students.

Microsoft will expand its Code; Without Barriers program to Japan and provide dedicated training for women looking to participate in AI-enabled work. It will also provide free and widely accessible content on AI, cybersecurity, and digital skills in partnership with the United Nations Institute for Training and Research (UNITAR).

Nurturing advanced AI professionals who can drive further AI integration, Microsoft will offer courses and reference architectures for AI developers and technology companies in Japan. These will be augmented by Microsofts AI coding assistant, GitHub Copilot. The company will also support startups with resources through the Microsoft for Startups Founders Hub and help implement AI-centric programs in vocational high schools.

To advance the societal benefits offered by AI through companies of all sizes, governments, and public entities including the Tokyo Metropolitan Government Microsoft will continue with established programs that support the widespread adoption and application of AI tools. Furthermore, Microsoft provides support in developing customers internal AI policies, including data management and security to ensure its responsible and safe use.

Microsoft Research Asia is extending its research leadership in the Asia-Pacific region with the opening of a lab in Tokyo.

The new lab will have a unique focus on areas including embodied AI and robotics, societal AI and wellbeing, and scientific discovery that align with Japans socioeconomic priorities. Its establishment reflects Microsofts long-term commitment to Japan and its belief in the nations potential to lead the world in innovation.

Microsoft Research is a division of Microsoft that pursues bold ideas and technical breakthroughs in AI, while building on a legacy of foundational computer science advances. As its fundamental research arm in the Asia-Pacific region, Microsoft Research Asia has collaborated with Japanese academia for more than two decades which have been instrumental in propelling cross-disciplinary research and fostering talent.

To foster enhanced research collaboration, Microsoft will provide US$10 million resource grants over the next five years to both The University of Tokyo and to the Partnership on Artificial Intelligence Research between Keio University and Carnegie Mellon University.

Microsoft will collaborate with Japans Cabinet Secretariat to strengthen cybersecurity resilience for the government, business, and society, as the nation enhances its cybersecurity approach under the governments updated National Security Strategy.

The collaboration will build on the services Microsoft provides to protect thousands of Japanese organizations every day. It will focus on areas such as information sharing, talent development, and technology solutions, with Microsoft to provide its expertise and advanced cloud and AI-driven security services as part of joint efforts to tackle cybersecurity threats.

Fumio Kishida, Prime Minister of Japan

As economic activities in the digital space increase, it is important for the Japanese industry as a whole to work with global companies like Microsoft that are equipped with a set of digital infrastructure. We appreciate Microsofts announcement of its new investment in Japan. Microsoft has made significant contributions to the social implementation of generative AI in Japan through various initiatives, and we look forward to further collaboration. We also look forward to deepening our cooperation in the field of cybersecurity.

Brad Smith, Vice Chair and President, Microsoft

Todays announcement represents Microsofts most significant investment in Japan since we set roots here in 1978. These investments in digital infrastructure, AI skills, cybersecurity, and AI research are essential ingredients for Japan to build a robust AI Economy.

Ken Saito, Minister of Economy, Trade and Industry

As digital investments increase around the world, we welcome Microsofts announcement of new investment in Japan and look forward to its future contribution to promoting Japans digital industries, including AI. Ministry of Economy, Trade and Industry will continue to work with Microsoft, a world leader in the digital field, to create both innovation and discipline.

Takuya Hirai, Chairperson, Headquarters for the Promotion of a Digital Society, Policy Research Council, Member of the House of the Representatives

The adoption of digital tools is essential for addressing Japans societal challenges of an aging population and the pursuit of economic growth and regional revitalization. Microsofts investment contributes significantly in advancing Japans AI capabilities, particularly in infrastructure and talent development. I wholeheartedly welcome this initiative and look forward to the leadership role Microsoft can play in promoting collaboration between Japan and the United States, as well as across public and private sectors.

Miki Tsusaka, President, Microsoft Japan

We are honored to contribute to Japan and its future with our largest investment to date, technology and knowledge. In collaboration with our partners, Microsoft Japan is fully committed to supporting the people and organizations of Japan to solve social problems and achieve more.

Yuriko Koike, Governor of Tokyo Metropolitan

The Tokyo Metropolitan Government and Microsoft entered into a partnership last year and have been empowering Japans workforce with digital skills. Todays announcement by Microsoft, which includes programs to encourage women to embrace AI and provide AI skilling to three million people, is a significant step for Japan to lead in the age of digitalization. The Tokyo Metropolitan Government pioneered the use of generative AI to make our offices more efficient and improve the quality of services provided to our citizens. We will continue to embrace cutting-edge technology and lead Japans digital transformation with unwavering dedication.

Chisa Mikami, Head of Hiroshima Office, UNITAR

Through the collaboration between UNITAR and Microsoft, we will strive to democratize access to AI education, ensuring that knowledge is freely available to all. Together, we pave the way for advanced AI professionals, foster innovation in startups, and promote responsible AI practices across industries and sectors. With collective effort, we harness the transformative power of AI for the betterment of society.

Kevin Scott, Chief Technology Officer and Executive Vice President of AI, Microsoft

The impact that AI is poised to create over the coming years has the potential to generate unprecedented societal benefit for the entire world. The steps we are taking today to empower Japanese citizens through AI technologies and programswhether job training and skilling, improvements to infrastructure capacity, or new research investmentswill in the aggregate help accelerate this process of beneficial innovation. Were particularly excited for Microsoft Researchs global footprint to further expand into Japan, extending the ability for our world-class research efforts to both contribute to and benefit from local diversity of thought and talent.

Teruo Fujii, President, The University of Tokyo

The University of Tokyo is committed to contributing to the realization of a better society through research and education focused on cutting-edge technologies such as artificial intelligence. To maximize the benefits of those technologies and promote innovation while minimizing risks, it is essential to collaborate with partners who share our objectives. With the establishment of Microsoft Research Asias new lab in Tokyo, we enter an exciting new phase in our more than two decades of partnership with Microsoft. We look forward to working together to further advance our research community and spearhead the development of outstanding human resources as we continue our journey together.

Tags: AI, Japan

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Microsoft to invest US$2.9 billion in AI and cloud infrastructure in Japan while boosting the nation's skills, research and ... - Microsoft

Tesla’s Musk predicts AI will be smarter than the smartest human next year – Reuters

Item 1 of 2 Tesla Chief Executive Officer Elon Musk gets in a Tesla car as he leaves a hotel in Beijing, China May 31, 2023. REUTERS/Tingshu Wang/File Photo

In a wide-ranging interview on X spaces that suffered multiple technology glitches, Musk also told Norway wealth fund CEO Nicolai Tangen that AI was constrained by the availability of electricity and that the next version of Grok, the AI chatbot from his xAI startup, was expected to be trained by May.

"If you define AGI (artificial general intelligence) as smarter than the smartest human, I think it's probably next year, within two years," Musk said when asked about the timeline for development of AGI.

The billionaire, who also co-founded OpenAI, said a lack of advanced chips was hampering the training of Grok's version 2 model.

Musk founded xAI last year as a challenger to OpenAI, which he has sued for abandoning its original mission to develop AI for the benefit of humanity and not for profit. OpenAI denies the allegations.

But he added that while a shortage of chips were a big constraint for the development of AI so far, electricity supply will be crucial in the next year or two.

Speaking about electric-vehicles, Musk reiterated Chinese carmakers are "the most competitive in the world" and pose "the most toughest competitive challenges" to Tesla.

He has previously warned that Chinese rivals will demolish global rivals without trade barriers.

Musk also addressed a union strike in Sweden against Tesla, saying "I think the storm has passed on that front."

Tangen said Norway's $1.5 trillion sovereign wealth fund, one of Tesla's largest shareholders, had met with the EV company's chair last month and received an update on the situation.

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Reporting Akash Sriram in Bengaluru, Sheila Dang in Austin, Hyunjoo Jin in San Francisco and Marie Mannes in Stockholm; writing by Peter Henderson; Editing by Maju Samuel

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Tesla's Musk predicts AI will be smarter than the smartest human next year - Reuters

Humans Forget. AI Assistants Will Remember Everything – WIRED

Making these tools work together will be key to this concept taking off, says Leo Gebbie, an analyst who covers connected devices at CCS Insight. Rather than having that sort of disjointed experience where certain apps are using AI in certain ways, you want AI to be that overarching tool that when you want to pull up anything from any app, any experience, any content, you have the immediate ability to search across all of those things.

When the pieces slot together, the idea sounds like a dream. Imagine being able to ask your digital assistant, Hey who was that bloke I talked to last week who had the really good ramen recipe? and then have it spit up a name, a recap of the conversation, and a place to find all the ingredients.

For people like me who don't remember anything and have to write everything down, this is going to be great, Moorhead says.

And theres also the delicate matter of keeping all that personal information private.

If you think about it for a half second, the most important hard problem isn't recording or transcribing, it's solving the privacy problem, Gruber says. If we start getting memory apps or recall apps or whatever, then we're going to need this idea of consent more broadly understood.

Despite his own enthusiasm for the idea of personal assistants, Gruber says there's a risk of people being a little too willing to let their AI assistant help with (and monitor) everything. He advocates for encrypted, private services that aren't linked to a cloud serviceor if they are, one that is only accessible with an encryption key that's held on a users device. The risk, Gruber says, is a sort of Facebook-ification of AI assistants, where users are lured in by the ease of use, but remain largely unaware of the privacy consequences until later.

Consumers should be told to bristle, Gruber says. They should be told to be very, very suspicious of things that look like this already, and feel the creep factor.

Your phone is already siphoning all the data it can get from you, from your location to your grocery shopping habits to which Instagram accounts you double-tap the most. Not to mention that historically, people have tended to prioritize convenience over security when embracing new technologies.

The hurdles and barriers here are probably a lot lower than people think they are, Gebbie says. Weve seen the speed at which people will adopt and embrace technology that will make their lives easier.

Thats because theres a real potential upside here too. Getting to actually interact with and benefit from all that collected info could even take some of the sting out of years of snooping by app and device makers.

If your phone is already taking this data, and currently its all just being harvested and used to ultimately serve you ads, is it beneficial that youd actually get an element of usefulness back from this? Gebbie says. Youre also going to get the ability to tap into that data and get those useful metrics. Maybe thats going to be a genuinely useful thing.

Thats sort of like being handed an umbrella after someone just stole all your clothes, but if companies can stick the landing and make these AI assistants work, then the conversation around data collection may bend more toward how to do it responsibly andin a way that provides real utility.

It's not a perfectly rosy future, because we still have to trust the companies that ultimately decide what parts of our digitally collated lives seem relevant. Memory may be a fundamental part of cognition, but the next step beyond that is intentionality. Its one thing for AI to remember everything we do, but another for it to decide which information is important to us later.

We can get so much power, so much benefit from a personal AI, Gruber says. But, he cautions, the upside is so huge that it should be morally compelling that we get the right one, that we get one that's privacy protected and secure and done right. Please, this is our shot at it. If it's just done the free, not private way, we're going to lose the once-in-a-lifetime opportunity to do this the right way.

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Humans Forget. AI Assistants Will Remember Everything - WIRED

Microsoft to Invest $2.9 Billion for AI Projects in Japan – PYMNTS.com

Microsoft will invest $2.9 billion for artificial intelligence projects in Japan.

The investment will go toward expanding Microsofts cloud and AI infrastructure in the country, training 3 million people in AI and setting up a Microsoft Research Asia lab in Tokyo, Microsoft said in a press release.

This will be the biggest investment Microsoft has made in Japan, NikkeireportedTuesday, citing an interview with Microsoft PresidentBrad Smith.

Microsofts infrastructure expansion will include adding advanced AI semiconductors at two existing sites in Japan, the report said. The companys new lab in Tokyo will focus on research and development on robotics and AI, enabling the country to build on its technological strengths in many other areas, Smith said, per the report.

In addition, Microsoft and the Japanese government will collaborate on strengthening cybersecurity resilience, the report said.

The news comes a day after Microsoft said that its new AI-focused organization, Microsoft AI, will open a new AI hubin London.

The Microsoft AI London hub will work with teams across Microsoft and its partners, includingOpenAI, to create language models, their supporting infrastructure and tooling for foundation models,Mustafa Suleyman, executive vice president and CEO of Microsoft AI, said when announcing the companys plans.

The new hub joins Microsofts existing presence in the United Kingdom, which includes the Microsoft Research Cambridge lab and an investment of 2.5 billion pounds (about $3.2 billion) to train the U.K. workforce for the AI era and build AI infrastructure.

It was reported Sunday (April 7) that Microsoft is seen as perhaps the biggest beneficiary ofspending on AI, due to its close ties with OpenAI, with the technology helping drive the companys market capitalization to over $3 trillion.

The last month has seen an acceleration of adoption for generative AI and MicrosoftsCopilotactivity, which has helped deals for the companysAzurecloud platform that benefits from increased spending on AI.

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Microsoft to Invest $2.9 Billion for AI Projects in Japan - PYMNTS.com

How to Stop Your Data From Being Used to Train AI – WIRED

On its help pages, OpenAI says ChatGPT web users without accounts should navigate to Settings and then uncheck Improve the model for everyone. If you have an account and are logged in through a web browser, select ChatGPT, Settings, Data Controls, and then turn off Chat History & Training. If youre using ChatGPTs mobile apps, go to Settings, pick Data Controls, and turn off Chat History & Training. Changing these settings, OpenAIs support pages say, wont sync across different browsers or devices, so you need to make the change everywhere you use ChatGPT.

OpenAI is about a lot more than ChatGPT. For its Dall-E 3 image generator, the startup has a form that allows you to send images to be removed from future training datasets. It asks for your name, email, whether you own the image rights or are getting in touch on behalf of a company, details of the image, and any uploads of the image(s). OpenAI also says if you have a high volume of images hosted online that you want removed from training data, then it may be more efficient to add GPTBot to the robots.txt file of the website where the images are hosted.

Traditionally a websites robots.txt filea simple text file that usually sits at websitename.com/robots.txthas been used to tell search engines, and others, whether they can include your pages in their results. It can now also be used to tell AI crawlers not to scrape what you have publishedand AI companies have said theyll honor this arrangement.

Perplexity

Perplexity is a startup that uses AI to help you search the web and find answers to questions. Like all of the other software on this list, you are automatically opted in to having your interactions and data used to train Perplexitys AI further. Turn this off by clicking on your account name, scrolling down to the Account section, and turning off the AI Data Retention toggle.

Quora

Quora via Matt Burgess

Quora says it currently doesnt use answers to peoples questions, posts, or comments for training AI. It also hasnt sold any user data for AI training, a spokesperson says. However, it does offer opt-outs in case this changes in the future. To do this, visit its Settings page, click to Privacy, and turn off the Allow large language models to be trained on your content option. Despite this choice, there are some Quora posts that may be used for training LLMs. If you reply to a machine-generated answer, the companys help pages say, then those answers may be used for AI training. It points out that third parties may just scrape its content anyway.

Rev

Rev, a voice transcription service that uses both human freelancers and AI to transcribe audio, says it uses data perpetually and anonymously to train its AI systems. Even if you delete your account, it will still train its AI on that information.

Kendell Kelton, head of brand and corporate communications at Rev, says it has the largest and most diverse data set of voices, made up of more than 6.5 million hours of voice recording. Kelton says Rev does not sell user data to any third parties. The firms terms of service say data will be used for training, and that customers are able to opt out. People can opt out of their data being used by sending an email to support@rev.com, its help pages say.

Slack

All of those random Slack messages at work might be used by the company to train its models as well. Slack has used machine learning in its product for many years. This includes platform-level machine-learning models for things like channel and emoji recommendations, says Jackie Rocca, a vice president of product at Slack whos focused on AI.

Even though the company does not use customer data to train a large language model for its Slack AI product, Slack may use your interactions to improve the softwares machine-learning capabilities. To develop AI/ML models, our systems analyze Customer Data (e.g. messages, content, and files) submitted to Slack, says Slacks privacy page. Similar to Adobe, theres not much you can do on an individual level to opt out if youre using an enterprise account.

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How to Stop Your Data From Being Used to Train AI - WIRED