AI Innovations

A secret is percolating through the salons and dinner parties of New York City’s elite. It’s a whispered name, a coveted piece of technology that has become the ultimate status symbol for those in the know. The name is Fortell. At its core, Fortell is a hearing aid, one that claims to use AI to provide a dramatically superior aural experience [1]. But it’s much more than that. Through an exclusive beta program featuring high-profile testers like Steve Martin, it has achieved a mystique akin to a limited-edition Birkin bag. The device’s allure stems from its promise to conquer the infamous ‘Cocktail Party Problem,’ isolating speech with stunning clarity in the most chaotic environments. This fusion of groundbreaking AI, social...

A sprawling surveillance network is being trained by a hidden, global workforce. A recent investigation has found that Flock, the prominent Flock ALPR system and AI-powered camera company, uses overseas workers from Upwork to train its machine learning algorithms [3]. License plate readers (ALPRs) use cameras and software to automatically read and store vehicle license plate information, and Flock has deployed this technology in thousands of US communities. The system’s accuracy depends on machine learning, a topic whose privacy implications we’ve discussed in ‘Chatbot Companions and the Future of AI Privacy’ [1]. These machine learning algorithms are sets of rules that computer systems use to learn from data and identify patterns. To teach its AI, Flock relies on gig workers...

For the first time, Washington is seriously grappling with how to govern artificial intelligence [4]. Yet, the most significant fight brewing is not about the technology itself, but about who holds the power to regulate it. In the vacuum of federal leadership, a significant federal vs. state conflict is emerging over this very authority. States have stepped up, introducing dozens of bills, including new deepfake laws by state, to shield consumers from AI-related harms. This legislative surge has triggered a fierce backlash from the tech industry, which fears a complex and restrictive ‘patchwork’ of regulations that could stifle innovation. The entire debate now pivots on the concept of ‘preemption’ in AI regulation laws – the aggressive push by federal actors...

As millions of Americans were absorbed in the familiar rituals of Thanksgiving – the meticulous basting of turkeys, the strategic planning of Black Friday excursions, the delicate navigation of family dynamics – a far less traditional and infinitely more volatile drama was escalating in the digital ether. While the nation prepared for a feast, Dr. Michael Burry, the iconoclastic investor immortalized by Christian Bale in the film ‘The Big Short,’ was sharpening his knives for a different kind of carving. His target: Nvidia, the undisputed titan of the artificial intelligence revolution, a company whose meteoric rise has become synonymous with the future of technology itself. This was not a quiet, behind-the-scenes financial maneuver. This was the public declaration of a...