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GitHub Copilot Moves Beyond OpenAI Models To Support Claude 3.5, Gemini

Slashdot - Tue, 10/29/2024 - 8:02pm
GitHub Copilot will switch from using exclusively OpenAI's GPT models to a multi-model approach, adding Anthropic's Claude 3.5 Sonnet and Google's Gemini 1.5 Pro. Ars Technica reports: First, Anthropic's Claude 3.5 Sonnet will roll out to Copilot Chat's web and VS Code interfaces over the next few weeks. Google's Gemini 1.5 Pro will come a bit later. Additionally, GitHub will soon add support for a wider range of OpenAI models, including GPT o1-preview and o1-mini, which are intended to be stronger at advanced reasoning than GPT-4, which Copilot has used until now. Developers will be able to switch between the models (even mid-conversation) to tailor the model to fit their needs -- and organizations will be able to choose which models will be usable by team members. The new approach makes sense for users, as certain models are better at certain languages or types of tasks. "There is no one model to rule every scenario," wrote [GitHub CEO Thomas Dohmke]. "It is clear the next phase of AI code generation will not only be defined by multi-model functionality, but by multi-model choice." It starts with the web-based and VS Code Copilot Chat interfaces, but it won't stop there. "From Copilot Workspace to multi-file editing to code review, security autofix, and the CLI, we will bring multi-model choice across many of GitHub Copilot's surface areas and functions soon," Dohmke wrote. There are a handful of additional changes coming to GitHub Copilot, too, including extensions, the ability to manipulate multiple files at once from a chat with VS Code, and a preview of Xcode support. GitHub also introduced "Spark," a natural language-based app development tool that enables both non-coders and coders to create and refine applications using conversational prompts. It's currently in an early preview phase, with a waitlist available for those who are interested.

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How X users can earn thousands from US election misinformation and AI images

BBC Tech News - Tue, 10/29/2024 - 7:42pm
The accounts are part of pro-Trump and pro-Harris networks sharing each other’s content multiple times a day.

How X users can earn thousands from US election misinformation and AI images

BBC Tech News - Tue, 10/29/2024 - 7:42pm
The accounts are part of pro-Trump and pro-Harris networks sharing each other’s content multiple times a day.

More Than a Quarter of New Code At Google Is Generated By AI

Slashdot - Tue, 10/29/2024 - 7:20pm
Google has integrated AI deeply across its operations, with over 25% of its new code generated by AI. CEO Sundar Pichai announced the milestone during the company's third quarter 2024 earnings call. The Verge reports: AI is helping Google make money as well. Alphabet reported $88.3 billion in revenue for the quarter, with Google Services (which includes Search) revenue of $76.5 billion, up 13 percent year-over-year, and Google Cloud (which includes its AI infrastructure products for other companies) revenue of $11.4 billion, up 35 percent year-over-year. Operating incomes were also strong. Google Services hit $30.9 billion, up from $23.9 billion last year, and Google Cloud hit $1.95 billion, significantly up from last year's $270 million. "In Search, our new AI features are expanding what people can search for and how they search for it," CEO Sundar Pichai says in a statement. "In Cloud, our AI solutions are helping drive deeper product adoption with existing customers, attract new customers and win larger deals. And YouTube's total ads and subscription revenues surpassed $50 billion over the past four quarters for the first time."

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SoftBank's Son Says Artificial Super Intelligence To Exist By 2035

Slashdot - Tue, 10/29/2024 - 6:40pm
An anonymous reader quotes a report from Reuters: SoftBank CEO Masayoshi Son reiterated his belief in the coming of artificial super intelligence (ASI) on Tuesday, saying it would require hundreds of billions of dollars of investment to realize. Artificial super intelligence will be 10,000 times smarter than a human brain and will exist by 2035, Son told an audience of global business, technology and finance leaders at a conference in Riyadh, Saudi Arabia. Son said he is saving up funds "so I can make the next big move," but did not provide any details as to his investment plans. He predicted that generative AI will require $900 trillion dollars in cumulative capital expenditure in data centers and chips in the future, adding that he thought chip maker Nvidia was undervalued on this basis.

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Local Privilege Escalation Vulnerability Affecting X.Org Server For 18 Years

Slashdot - Tue, 10/29/2024 - 6:00pm
Phoronix's Michael Larabel reports: CVE-2024-9632 was made public today as the latest security vulnerability affecting the X.Org Server. The CVE-2024-9632 security issue has been present in the codebase now for 18 years and can lead to local privilege escalation. Introduced in the X.Org Server 1.1.1 release back in 2006, CVE-2024-9632 affects the X.Org Server as well as XWayland too. By providing a modified bitmap to the X.Org Server, a heap-based buffer overflow privilege escalation can occur. This security issue is within _XkbSetCompatMap() and stems from not updating the heap size properly and can lead to local privilege escalation if the server is run as root or as a remote code execution with X11 over SSH. You can read the security advisory announcement here.

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OpenAI Builds First Chip With Broadcom and TSMC, Scales Back Foundry Ambition

Slashdot - Tue, 10/29/2024 - 5:20pm
OpenAI is partnering with Broadcom and TSMC to design its first in-house AI chip while supplementing its infrastructure with AMD chips, aiming to diversify its reliance on Nvidia GPUs. "The company has dropped the ambitious foundry plans for now due to the costs and time needed to build a network, and plans instead to focus on in-house chip design effort," adds Reuters. From the report: OpenAI has been working for months with Broadcom to build its first AI chip focusing on inference, according to sources. Demand right now is greater for training chips, but analysts have predicted the need for inference chips could surpass them as more AI applications are deployed. Broadcom helps companies including Alphabet unit Google fine-tune chip designs for manufacturing and also supplies parts of the design that help move information on and off the chips quickly. This is important in AI systems where tens of thousands of chips are strung together to work in tandem. OpenAI is still determining whether to develop or acquire other elements for its chip design, and may engage additional partners, said two of the sources. The company has assembled a chip team of about 20 people, led by top engineers who have previously built Tensor Processing Units (TPUs) at Google, including Thomas Norrie and Richard Ho. Sources said that through Broadcom, OpenAI has secured manufacturing capacity with Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Company to make its first custom-designed chip in 2026. They said the timeline could change. Currently, Nvidia's GPUs hold over 80% market share. But shortages and rising costs have led major customers like Microsoft, Meta, and now OpenAI, to explore in-house or external alternatives.

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LinkedIn Launches Its First AI Agent To Take On the Role of Job Recruiters

Slashdot - Tue, 10/29/2024 - 4:40pm
An anonymous reader quotes a report from TechCrunch: LinkedIn, the social platform used by professionals to connect with others in their field, hunt for jobs, and develop skills, is taking the wraps off its latest effort to build artificial intelligence tools for users. Hiring Assistant is a new product designed to take on a wide array of recruitment tasks, from ingesting scrappy notes and thoughts to turn into longer job descriptions, through to sourcing candidates and engaging with them. LinkedIn is describing Hiring Assistant as a milestone in its AI trajectory: it is, per the Microsoft-owned company, its first "AI agent" And one that happens to be targeting one of LinkedIn's most lucrative categories of users (recruiters). LinkedIn said the AI assistant is now live with a "select group" of customers (large enterprises such as AMD, Canva, Siemens and Zurich Insurance among them). It's slated to be rolling out more widely in the coming months. [...] "It's designed to take on a recruiter's most repetitive task so they can spend more time on the most impactful part of their jobs," Hari Srinivasan, LinkedIn's VP of product, said in an interview -- "a big statement," he admitted. The product includes the ability to upload full job descriptions, or just note what you want it to have, along with job postings that you like the look of from other companies or roles. In turn, that becomes a list of qualifications you're looking for, as well as an initial pipeline of candidates that you can interact with -- to look for more potential hires that are similar to some, or less like others -- with algorithms designed to search based on skills rather than other indicators (such as where a person lives or went to school), per Srinivasan. The AI assistant also integrates with third-party application tracking systems, although ultimately, the whole system is trained on LinkedIn data, which spans 1 billion users, 68 million companies and 41,000 skills. LinkedIn said Hiring Assistant is due to get more features soon, such as messaging and scheduling support for interviews, as well as handle follow-ups when candidates have questions before or after interviews. Basically the aim is for it to cover a lot of (time-consuming) admin-style tasks, plus take on some of the thinking, that recruiters have to do daily. Second, unlike many of the other AI features that LinkedIn has released, Hiring Assistant is very squarely aimed at LinkedIn's B2B business, the products it sells to the recruitment industry. "We're really focused on making Hiring Assistant great," said Erran Berger, VP of engineering, in an interview. "This is all bleeding edge, and I mean everything from the experience and how our users are going to interact with it, to the technology that backs it. And so we're really focused on nailing that a lot of the technology we've built is applicable to problems that we're trying to solve for our members and customers. But right now, you know, we really just want to nail this, and then we can figure out where we go from there."

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FCC Chair: Mobile Dead Spots Will End When Space-Based and Ground Comms Merge

Slashdot - Tue, 10/29/2024 - 4:01pm
Federal Communications Commission Chair Jessica Rosenworcel outlined a vision for universal connectivity last week that merges satellite and ground-based networks. The FCC recently became the first regulator to establish a framework for supplemental coverage from space (SCS). "Satellites may be in our skies, but they are the anchor tenant in our communications future," said Rosenworcel, calling for seamless integration of fiber, cellular, wireless, and satellite infrastructure into a unified network. The vision comes as the FCC's Affordable Connectivity Program recently ended due to funding depletion.

Read more of this story at Slashdot.

Crypto Firm Consensys To Cut 20% of Workforce Amid Regulatory Headwinds

Slashdot - Tue, 10/29/2024 - 3:22pm
Cryptocurrency firm Consensys said on Tuesday it would cut 20% of its total workforce, citing broader macroeconomic pressures and ongoing regulatory challenges facing the industry. From a report: The decision will impact 162 of a total of 828 employees at the company, Consensys CEO Joseph Lubin told Reuters in a mailed statement. Crypto companies have frequently accused the Securities and Exchange Commission of regulatory overreach and exceeding its jurisdiction, while the agency argues that the industry is disregarding securities laws designed to protect investors and other market participants. "Multiple cases with the SEC, including ours, represent meaningful jobs and productive investment lost due to the SEC's abuse of power and Congress's inability to rectify the problem," Lubin said in a blog post, opens new tab. "Such attacks from the U.S. government will end up costing many companies that have been investigated, sued, or sent Wells Notices, many millions of dollars," he added.

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Apple Moves the M4 Mac Mini's Power Button To the Bottom

Slashdot - Tue, 10/29/2024 - 2:44pm
Apple has moved the power button on its new M4 Mac mini to an awkward spot underneath the device, requiring users to lift or tip the computer to turn it on. The button now sits near the left rear corner, raised slightly by cooling vents, instead of its previous accessible position on the back panel. The change, absent from Apple's marketing materials, complicates basic operations like power-cycling the machine - especially with cables attached. Further reading: Apple's New Mouse Retains Flawed Charging Design.

Read more of this story at Slashdot.

AI Slop Is Flooding Medium

Slashdot - Tue, 10/29/2024 - 2:05pm
AI slop is flowing onto every major platform where people post online -- and Medium is no exception. Wired: The 12-year-old publishing platform has undertaken a dizzying number of pivots over the years. It's finally on a financial upswing, having turned a monthly profit for the first time this summer. Medium CEO Tony Stubblebine and other executives at the company have described the platform as "a home for human writing." But there is evidence that robot bloggers are increasingly flocking to the platform, too. Earlier this year, WIRED asked AI detection startup Pangram Labs to analyze Medium. It took a sampling of 274,466 recent posts over a six-week period and estimated that over 47 percent were likely AI-generated. "This is a couple orders of magnitude more than what I see on the rest of the internet," says Pangram CEO Max Spero. (The company's analysis of one day of global news sites this summer found 7 percent as likely AI-generated.) The strain of slop on Medium tends toward the banal, especially compared with the dadaist flotsam clogging Facebook. Instead of Shrimp Jesus, one is more apt to see vacant dispatches about cryptocurrency. The tags with the most likely AI-generated content included "NFT" -- out of 5,712 articles tagged with this phrase over the last several months, Pangram found that 4,492, or around 78 percent, came back as likely AI-generated -- as well as "web3," "ethereum," "AI," and, for whatever reason, "pets."

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Rapid7 is — once again — exploring PE takeover interest, says report

Mass High Tech News - Tue, 10/29/2024 - 2:01pm
Similar rumors started circulating about the cybersecurity firm in 2023. At that time, the cybersecurity firm was reportedly evaluating overtures from multiple parties, including private equity.

Robert Downey Jr. Threatens To Sue Over AI Recreations of His Likeness

Slashdot - Tue, 10/29/2024 - 1:20pm
Oscar winner Robert Downey Jr. has threatened legal action against future studio executives who attempt to recreate his likeness using AI. "I intend to sue all future executives just on spec," Downey said when asked about potential AI recreations of his performances. He dismissed concerns about Marvel Studios using his likeness without permission, citing trust in their leadership. During the interview, he criticized tech executives who position themselves as AI gatekeepers, calling it "a massive fucking error."

Read more of this story at Slashdot.

Lewiston reseller’s Pickle Juice lawsuit settled out of court

Portland Press Herald Business - Tue, 10/29/2024 - 12:53pm
The case centered around claims made by a Texas company that a Lewiston company was selling counterfeit juice, claims the Lewiston company said that Amazon itself determined were fraudulent and which had hindered the company's ability to resell the pickle-tasting product.

Apple Shrinks Mac Mini, Adds M4 Power Boost in Major Redesign

Slashdot - Tue, 10/29/2024 - 12:41pm
Apple launched a dramatically smaller Mac Mini desktop computer on Tuesday, powered by its new M4 processor and featuring ray tracing capabilities for the first time. The redesigned Mini measures just 5 inches square, roughly half the size of its predecessor, while delivering up to 1.8 times faster CPU performance compared to the M1 model. The base version starts at $599, while the more powerful M4 Pro variant begins at $1,399. The M4 Pro model sports 14 CPU cores and 20 GPU cores, with support for up to 64GB of RAM and 8TB storage. It introduces Thunderbolt 5 connectivity, offering data transfer speeds up to 120 Gb/s. Apple has revamped the port configuration, adding front-facing USB-C ports and a headphone jack. The rear features Ethernet, HDMI, and three Thunderbolt ports, though USB-A ports have been eliminated. The new Mini supports up to three 6K displays with the M4 Pro chip.

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Two companies bid $22 million for right to develop wind energy in Gulf of Maine

Portland Press Herald Business - Tue, 10/29/2024 - 12:24pm
Avangrid Renewables LLC and Invenergy NE Offshore Wind LLC have won the right to put floating turbines in the Gulf of Maine, bringing the state a big step closer to launching its own wind energy industry.

YouTube Tests New Homepage That Hides Video Upload Date, View Count

Slashdot - Tue, 10/29/2024 - 12:01pm
An anonymous reader shares a report: YouTube is reportedly testing a new website layout that removes the date when a video was uploaded and the amount of views it has. [...] On Monday, October 28, VidIQ reported in a post on X that YouTube is testing a new homepage layout that removes view counts and dates.

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Linus Torvalds Dismisses AI Industry as '90% Marketing'

Slashdot - Tue, 10/29/2024 - 11:21am
Linux creator Linus Torvalds has blasted the AI industry as "90% marketing and 10% reality" even as he acknowledged AI's transformative potential. Speaking to TFiR, Torvalds said he would "basically ignore" AI until the hype subsides, predicting meaningful applications would emerge in five years. The Finnish software pioneer singled out ChatGPT and graphic design as current practical use cases. His criticism follows Baidu CEO's recent warning of an impending AI bubble burst, claiming only 1% of companies would survive the fallout. "I think AI is really interesting, and I think it is going to change the world. And, at the same time, I hate the hype cycle so much that I really don't want to go there," Torvalds said.

Read more of this story at Slashdot.

This startup wants you to read the classics with the help of AI

Mass High Tech News - Tue, 10/29/2024 - 11:06am
A Boston-based startup called Rebind plans to use AI to make reading harder, not easier.

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