This Carol-Writing Neural Network Wants to Wish You a Very 'Hurry Christmas'

Revenue from Azure cloud business increased by 22% as company focuses attention on artificial intelligenceMicrosoft reported better-than-expected earnings on Wednesday fueled by growth in its Azure cloud business, as five of the “Magnificent Seven” tech megacaps roll out quarterly earnings this week.“AI-driven transformation is changing work, work artifacts, and workflow across every role, function, and business process,” the company’s CEO, Satya Nadella, said in a

The Guardian’s North of England correspondent Hannah Al-Othman recounts the case of Hugh Nelson, sentenced to 18 years in prison this week for creating child abuse images with AI. Prof Clare McGlynn charts the rise of this material on the web and discusses what can be done to stop itAt Bolton crown court on Monday, Hugh Nelson was sentenced to 18 years in prison for using AI to generate sexually abusive images of children – based on real photos of real children.The Guardian’s N

As a new show co-created by an AI performer opens in France, industry leaders including Wayne McGregor, Tamara Rojo and Jonzi D contemplate the technology’s possibilities and perils‘I think AI’s going to change everything,” Tamara Rojo, artistic director of San Francisco Ballet, told me earlier this year. “We just don’t know quite how.” The impact of artificial intelligence on the creative industries can already be seen across film, television and music,

The actor who will be returning to the MCU as Doctor Doom said he believed Marvel would ‘never’ recreate him on screen without his permissionRobert Downey Jr has said he will instruct his lawyers to sue future executives who attempt to create digital replicas of him using AI.Speaking on the On With Kara Swisher podcast, he said: “I would like to here state that I intend to sue all future executives just on spec.” Continue reading...

Talking back to animated digital representation of a distressing voice can cut the frequency it is heardDigital characters – avatars – could help people with psychosis hear voices less often and reduce the distress caused, research suggests.The therapy involves a series of guided sessions during which patients are able to have a conversation with an animated digital representation of their distressing voice. Continue reading...

Hugh Nelson, 27, from Bolton, jailed after transforming normal pictures of children into sexual abuse imageryA man who used AI to create child abuse images using photographs of real children has been sentenced to 18 years in prison.In the first prosecution of its kind in the UK, Hugh Nelson, 27, from Bolton, was convicted of 16 child sexual abuse offences in August, after an investigation by Greater Manchester police (GMP). Continue reading...

PM says content creators must be paid and vows to ensure technology ‘does not begin to chip away’ at press freedomsKeir Starmer has said media outlets should have control over – and be paid for – their work as artificial intelligence technology transforms the economy and the UK.Calling journalism the “lifeblood of democracy”, the prime minister vowed to “champion press freedoms” and ensure that “the growing power of digital technology does no

BBC among those opposing plan that would see AI models trained on content from publishers and artists by defaultMinisters are facing a major backlash over plans that would allow artificial intelligence companies to scrape content from publishers and artists, amid claims that the government risks “giving in” to the tech giants.The BBC is among the organisations opposing a plan that would allow tech companies to train artificial intelligence models using online content by default, unle

Child actor Kaylin Hayman fought back after she learned that a man had used AI to make child sex abuse materials from images on her Instagram pageLast year, Kaylin Hayman walked into a Pittsburgh court to testify against a man she’d never met who had used her face to make pornographic pictures with artificial intelligence technology.Kaylin, 16, is a child actress who starred in the Disney show Just Roll With It from 2019 to 2021. The perpetrator, a 57-year-old man named James Smelko, had t

The chatshow star’s son says digital replica will interview a new generation of starsAppearing on a major British television chatshow could make a showbiz career in the 1970s and 80s – and end one too. It was more than simply joining a line-up of famous faces with a fresh project to promote.Sir Michael Parkinson was the first to give Billy Connolly, an unknown Scottish comic, a chance on his BBC show in 1975. A year later, Parkinson’s tussle with Rod Hull’s Emu puppet mad

Video Friday is your weekly selection of awesome robotics videos, collected by your friends at IEEE Spectrum robotics. We also post a weekly calendar of upcoming robotics events for the next few months. Please send us your events for inclusion.
Humanoids 2024: 22–24 November 2024, NANCY, FRANCEEnjoy today’s videos! Swiss-Mile’s robot (which is really any robot that meets the hardware requirement to run their software) is faster than “most humans.” So what does that

Media mogul and leading artists join fight to stop tech firms using creative works for free as training dataIt is an unlikely alliance: the billionaire media mogul Rupert Murdoch and a panoply of leading artists including the Radiohead singer, Thom Yorke, the actors Kevin Bacon and Julianne Moore, and the author Kazuo Ishiguro.This week, they began two very public fights with artificial intelligence companies, accusing them of using their intellectual property without permission to build the inc

Marina Umaschi Bers has long been at the forefront of technological innovation for kids. In the 2010s, while teaching at Tufts University, in Massachusetts, she codeveloped the ScratchJr programming language and KIBO robotics kits, both intended for young children in STEM programs. Now head of the DevTech research group at Boston College, she continues to design learning technologies that promote computational thinking and cultivate a culture of engineering in kids. What was the inspiration behi

Collaboration between leading garden designer and Microsoft to go on display at Chelsea flower show 2025Hardcore gardeners sometimes, when no one else is listening, talk quietly to their prize blooms. But at next year’s Chelsea flower show, visitors will be encouraged to have a chat with its first ever AI-powered garden.The garden designer Tom Massey has partnered with Microsoft to create the Avanade “intelligent” garden. Sensors in the soil are partnered with an AI trained on

‘Superhuman’ technology known as Aire can detect potential problems doctors cannot see from ECG resultsThe NHS in England is to trial a “superhuman” artificial intelligence tool that predicts a patient’s risk of disease and dying early.The new technology, known as AI-ECG risk estimation, or Aire, is trained to read the results of electrocardiogram (ECG) tests, which record the electrical activity of the heart and are used to check for problems. Continue reading...

Megan Garcia said Sewell, 14, used Character.ai obsessively before his death and alleges negligence and wrongful deathThe mother of a teenager who killed himself after becoming obsessed with an artificial intelligence-powered chatbot now accuses its maker of complicity in his death.Megan Garcia filed a civil suit against Character.ai, which makes a customizable chatbot for role-playing, in Florida federal court on Wednesday, alleging negligence, wrongful death and deceptive trade practices. Her

Anthropic says model is able to carry out computer tasks – as fears mount such technology will replace workersAn artificial intelligence startup backed by Amazon and Google says it has created an AI agent that can carry out tasks on the computer such as moving a mouse cursor and typing text.US company Anthropic said its AI model, called Claude, could now perform computing tasks including filling out forms, planning an outing and building a website. Continue reading...

Statement comes as tech firms try to use creative professionals’ work to train AI modelsAbba’s Björn Ulvaeus, the actor Julianne Moore and the Radiohead singer Thom Yorke are among 10,500 signatories of a statement from the creative industries warning artificial intelligence companies that unlicensed use of their work is a “major, unjust threat” to artists’ livelihoods.The statement comes amid legal battles between creative professionals and tech firms over the

Simone Giertz came to fame in the 2010s by becoming the self-proclaimed “queen of shitty robots.” On YouTube she demonstrated a hilarious series of self-built mechanized devices that worked perfectly for ridiculous applications, such as a headboard-mounted alarm clock with a rubber hand to slap the user awake. But Giertz has parlayed her Internet renown into Yetch, a design company that makes commercial consumer products. (The company name comes from how Giertz’s Swedish name i

The water column is hazy as an unusual remotely operated vehicle glides over the seafloor in search of a delicate tilt meter deployed three years ago off the west side of Vancouver Island. The sensor measures shaking and shifting in continental plates that will eventually unleash another of the region’s 9.0-scale earthquakes (the last was in 1700), and dwindling charge in the instruments’ data loggers threatens the continuity of the data. The 4-metric-ton, C$8-million (US $5.8-millio

X-ray add-on at estimated £1 a scan aimed at reducing missed diagnoses in initial assessmentMillions of patients in England with suspected broken bones could have their X-rays checked with a £1 artificial intelligence scan to help NHS doctors avoid missing fractures.Overlooked broken bones are among the most common mistakes made in A&E units and urgent care centres, with as many as 10% of fracture cases either not spotted at all by medical professionals or diagnosed late. Continu

Publishers file suit against Perplexity AI, accusing startup of ‘brazen scheme’ and ‘freeriding on valuable content’The media baron Rupert Murdoch’s Dow Jones and the New York Post filed a lawsuit against Perplexity AI on Monday, claiming the artificial intelligence startup engages in a “massive amount of illegal copying” of their copyrighted work.The lawsuit is the latest salvo in a bitter ongoing battle between publishers and tech companies over how th

US company gives customers the ability to build own virtual agents as well as releasing 10 off-the-shelf botsMicrosoft is introducing autonomous artificial intelligence agents, or virtual employees, that can perform tasks such as handling client queries and identifying sales leads, as the tech sector strives to show investors that the AI boom can produce indispensable products.The US tech company is giving customers the ability to build their own AI agents as well as releasing 10 off-the-shelf b