Author: Art Ryan

MLCommons, a nonprofit AI safety working group, has teamed up with AI dev platform Hugging Face to release one of the world’s largest collections of public domain voice recordings for AI research. The dataset, called Unsupervised People’s Speech, contains more than a million hours of audio spanning at least 89 languages. MLCommons says it was motivated to create it by a desire to support R&D in “various areas of speech technology.” “Supporting broader natural language processing research for languages other than English helps bring communication technologies to more people globally,” the organization wrote in a blog post Thursday. “We anticipate several avenues for…

DeepSeek took the U.S. by storm this week: The Chinese company’s chatbot rose to the top of the Apple and Play stores, while major U.S. cloud providers like Microsoft began offering it on their platforms. But “hundreds” of companies — especially ones with ties to government — have blocked the service, Bloomberg reported based on interviews with executives from cybersecurity firms Armis and Netskope. “The biggest concern is the AI model’s potential data leakage to the Chinese government,” Armis’ CTO Nadir Izrael said. Bloomberg Law separately reported that a San Francisco law firm, Fox Rothschild, has blocked DeepSeek as well. According to DeepSeek’s privacy policy, the company stores all user data in China,…

Anthropic CEO Dario Amodei is trying to avoid being deposed in a copyright lawsuit against OpenAI, according to new court filings. In response, lawyers for the plaintiff — the Authors Guild — have filed a motion to compel testimony from Amodei and his Anthropic co-founder, Benjamin Mann. Authors Guild’s lawyers claim that Amodei and Mann, who both used to work at OpenAI, possess “unique, firsthand knowledge of information highly relevant to this case.” The Authors Guild — which is representing writers like John Grisham, George R.R. Martin, and Sylvia Day in the suit — sent subpoenas to Amodei and Mann in 2024 seeking testimony…

Recent agreements aim to equip one million talents with skills to drive economic growth and innovation. Indonesia is ambitiously positioning itself as a leader in digital innovation within Southeast Asia, particularly through advancements in artificial intelligence (AI). During the Accelerated Indonesia’s Economic Growth discussion, Communication and Digital Affairs Minister Meutya Hafid emphasized the nation’s potential, remarking, “Indonesia has big potential to become…a leader and center of AI innovation…with the growing digital economy.” The backdrop of this assertion is Indonesia’s rapid digital transformation, where its digital economy is projected to reach approximately 90 billion USD by 2024. Aligned with this vision,…

Artificial intelligence may not take employees’ jobs, but it could play a major role in teaching them how to do their jobs more effectively. Already, over half of American employees use AI to complete mandatory work training assigned to them, according to a recent report from online education platform Moodle. Twenty-one percent use AI to answer more difficult questions they are unsure about, and 12% even use the technology to complete the entire training for them. Making AI part of the process from the beginning, however, could be a good solution for employers. “We’re watching new tools come out every day and we’re…

Technology is at the heart of our accelerating evolution, and we are all now beginning to recognize that AI is the next generation of advancement. The world around us is evolving faster and faster thanks to technological advancements. The ground beneath our feet is moving, literally. Impressive human developments like the Three Gorges Dam in China have the potential to slow the planet’s rotation, and even the Earth’s magnetic poles are shifting. Technology is at the heart of our accelerating evolution, and we are all now beginning to recognize that AI is the next generation of advancement that will revolutionize our world and usher in…

Microsoft says that it’s creating a new unit, the Advanced Planning Unit (APU), within its Microsoft AI business division that will help the company understand the societal, health, and work implications of AI the company hopes to build. Microsoft AI, which encompasses Microsoft’s Copilot, Bing, and Edge products, is becoming core to Microsoft’s growth strategy — much to the chagrin of some shareholders. This week, the company reported that its capex for Q4 2024 topped $22.6 billion, a new record high, which CEO Satya Nadella said was necessary to meet demand for Microsoft’s AI and cloud offerings. “As AI becomes more…

in the company’s o family of reasoning models. OpenAI first previewed the model in December alongside a more capable system called o3, but the launch comes at a pivotal moment for the company, whose ambitions — and challenges — are seemingly growing by the day. OpenAI is battling the perception that it’s ceding ground in the AI race to Chinese companies like DeepSeek, which OpenAI alleges might have stolen its IP. Nonetheless, the ChatGPT maker has managed to win over scores of developers, and it’s been trying to shore up its relationship with Washington as it simultaneously pursues an ambitious data center project. It’s reportedly also laying the…

Semiconductor giant Intel Corporation has already received $2.2 billion in federal grants from the U.S. Department of Commerce through the U.S. CHIPS and Science Act, the company shared during its Thursday earnings call. Dave Zinsner, Intel’s co-interim CEO, executive vice president, and CFO, said the Silicon Valley-based company received the first tranche of $1.1 billion in federal grants at the end of 2024 and an additional $1.1 billion in January 2025. These grants are based on reaching certain milestones, Zinsner added. Another $5.66 billion has yet to be dispersed. The company was awarded a total of $7.86 billion in federal grants to…

Apple CEO Tim Cook said DeepSeek’s AI models represent “innovation that drives efficiency” during an earnings call Thursday while fielding questions from analysts about the iPhone maker’s AI ambitions. “In general, I think innovation that drives efficiency is a good thing. And, you know, that’s what you see in that model,” said Cook, responding to an analyst’s question about how DeepSeek’s AI models would impact Apple’s margins. Cook went on to note that Apple leverages a hybrid model for its AI, in which it runs some simple tasks locally — using its own AI models on its device’s custom silicon chips. Meanwhile,…

Update: Some users on social media report that the changelog has been updated to remove mention of Gemini 2.0 Pro Experimental. The references have disappeared for this reporter as well. A Google spokesperson told TechCrunch that an “out-of-date release note” was “published in error.” The original story follows: Google took the low-key route for the launch of its next-gen flagship AI model, Gemini 2.0 Pro Experimental. Instead of a splashy announcement, the company revealed the model in a changelog for its Gemini chatbot app. The launch of Gemini 2.0 Pro Experimental — the successor to the Gemini 1.5 Pro model that Google launched last February — comes…

Intel is effectively killing Falcon Shores, its next-generation GPU for high-performance computing and AI workloads. The move comes as Intel tries to correct course after a number of disappointing product launches and historic losses, while competitors like AMD and Nvidia gain ground. Intel co-CEO Michelle Johnston Holthaus said during the company’s fourth-quarter earnings call Thursday that Intel will “leverage Falcon Shores as an internal test chip, without bringing it to market.” “AI data center … is an attractive market for us,” Holthaus said during the call. “[B]ut I am not happy with where we are today. We’re not yet participating in the…

Case Western Reserve University has unveiled the AI in Education initiative hub, a resource that serves as a one-stop shop for all things artificial intelligence (AI) at CWRU. The hub centralizes resources, highlights news and events, and provides updates on how AI is being integrated into the university’s educational mission and research initiatives. Empowering the campus community and beyond As AI reshapes industries and academia, CWRU is taking steps to ensure its community is equipped to navigate this transformation. The hub provides access to courses, programs, and tools that build AI skills for users at all experience levels. “AI is all…

Apple’s latest earnings were a mixed bag, with slipping iPhone sales countered by rising revenue. Reporting after the bell Thursday, the iPhone maker’s overall revenue in the first quarter of 2025 beat Wall Street expectations, with a 4% bump to $124.3 billion over the same time last year. Apple reported net income of $36.33 billion, up 7.1% from $33.92 billion in the same year-ago period. The increase came even as the company missed iPhone estimates, with an 11.1% sales drop in China knocking revenue down to $18.51 billion. It’s the largest drop in this key region since a nearly 13%…

Hackers hiding in plain sight, avatars being used in novel attacks, and even perpetual 2FA-bypass threats against Google users have been reported. What a time to be alive if you are a criminal hacker, although calling this latest scary hacker alive is a stretch: be warned, this malicious AI wants your Gmail credentials. Victim Calls Latest Gmail Threat ‘The Most Sophisticated Phishing Attack I’ve Ever Seen’ Imagine getting a call from a number with a Google caller ID from an American support technician warning you that someone had compromised your Google account, which had now been temporarily blocked. Imagine that support person then sending an email…

Why the future of business lies in augmented intelligence, ethical innovation, and hyper-personalised customer experiences. The rapid rise of artificial intelligence (AI) has left no industry untouched, reshaping the way businesses operate and shifting the expectations of customers worldwide. But beyond the buzzwords, what does AI really mean for the future of business operations? Two leading voices in the AI space – Uday Jose, Chief of Revenue and Growth at London based process orchestration platform Enate, and Mart Parve, co-founder of visual AI e-commerce search solution Miros – offer valuable insights into how AI is changing the entrepreneurial landscape For many, the fear…

Report on how AI is redefining market landscape – The global call center artificial intelligence (AI) market size is estimated to grow by USD 4.3 billion from 2024-2028, according to Technavio. The market is estimated to grow at a CAGR of  27.17%  during the forecast period. Rising adoption of cloud-based call centers is driving market growth, with a trend towards integration of chatbots for better turnaround times. However, integration issues between front-end and back-end knowledge bases poses a challenge. Key market players include Alphabet Inc., Amazon.com Inc., Artificial Solutions International AB, Avaamo Inc., Avaya LLC, Conversica Inc., Creative Virtual Ltd., EdgeVerve Systems Ltd., Inbenta Holdings Inc., Jio Haptik Technologies…

OpenAI may have billions of dollars in the bank. But it’s gearing up to raise billions more, according to a report from The Wall Street Journal. Per The WSJ, OpenAI is in talks to secure up to $40 billion in a funding round that would value the startup at $340 billion. SoftBank would lead the round, pouring between $15 billion to $25 billion into the ChatGPT maker, according to The WSJ. Should OpenAI successfully close the round, it’d be a remarkable feat for the startup, which was valued at $157 billion in October. The WSJ says that OpenAI would use the capital…

At an event in New York City on Thursday, Microsoft unveiled two additions to the Surface line of PCs. The new Surface Pro and Surface Laptop both arrive with Copilot+ PC certification. Announced in May 2024, the program aims to identify business-focused devices that are designed specifically for the company’s AI platform, Copilot. It’s a bid to integrate Microsoft’s AI play more deeply into the Windows 11 experience. The new Surfaces arrive amid a post-CES flood of Copilot+ PCs, including those from Acer, Asus, Dell, HP, and Lenovo. Copilot+ specifically refers to the inclusion of a neural processing unit (NPU), which allows for…

Jared Zhao originally got interested in data analytics during his time at UC Berkeley because he was drawn to how it could turn raw data into a story. Zhao founded his first data analytics startup Polyture in 2021. But advancements in generative AI just a year later made Zhao realize what Polyture was building was too complicated for what users would be looking for in a post-ChatGPT world, and decided to change course. The result was Athenic AI, a company that uses AI to run data analytics for enterprises across all of their data sources. Zhao, the founder and CEO, said…