Japanese eSports gamer Mashiro is blind and often relies on a companion to get around Tokyo — but he hopes that artificial intelligence, hailed as a promising tool for people with disabilities, can help him travel alone.

The 26-year-old ‘Street Fighter’ player put the latest version of AI chatbot ChatGPT to the test on his way to a stadium for a recent Para eSports meet-up.

“I can’t participate in an event like this without someone to rely on,” he told AFP. “Also, sometimes I just want to get around by myself without speaking to other people.

“So if I can use technology like ChatGPT to design my own special needs support, that would be great.”

This year, the US firm OpenAI, released GPT-4o, which understands voice, text and image commands in several languages.

The generative gadget, along with others such as Google’s Gemini, is part of a fast-growing field that experts say could make education, employment and everyday services more accessible.

Following the streets’ tactile paving, Masahiro Fujimoto – who goes by his online handle Mashiro – used his stick adorned with a small monkey mascot to find his way from the station.

As he went, he spoke to GPT-4o like a friend, receiving its answers through an earpiece in one ear, leaving the other side free to listen out for cars.

Having asked for basic directions, he added: “In fact, I am blind, so could you give me further details for blind people?”

“Of course,” the bot replied. “You might notice an increase in crowd noise and the sound of activities as you get closer.”

The journey, 20 minutes for sighted people, took Mashiro around four times as long with several U-turns.

When it started to rain heavily, he requested help from his friend, who is partially sighted, to finish the journey.

“Arrival!” finally shouted Mashiro, who has microphthalmos and has been blind since birth, using only sound to demolish his opponents on ‘Street Fighter 6’.

AI can cater to specific needs better than “one-size-fits-all” assistive products and technologies, said Youngjun Cho, an associate professor in computer science at University College London (UCL).

“Its potential is enormous,” said Cho, who also works at UCL’s Global Disability Innovation Hub.

“I envisage that this can empower many individuals and promote independence.”

People with hearing loss can, for example, use AI speech-to-text transcription, while chatbots can help format a resume for someone with learning disabilities.

Some tools for visually impaired people, such as Seeing AI, Envision AI and TapTapSee, describe phone camera images.

Danish app Be My Eyes, where real-life volunteers help via live chat, is working with OpenAI to develop a “digital visual assistant”.

But Masahide Ishiki, a Japanese expert in disability and digital accessibility, warned it can be “tricky” to catch mistakes from ChatGPT, which “replies so naturally”.

“The next objective (for generative AI) is to improve the accuracy of real-time visual recognition, to ultimately reach capabilities close to that of a human eye,” said Ishiki, who is blind.

Marc Goblot of the Tech for Disability group also cautioned that AI is trained on “very mainstream datasets” which are “not representative of the full spectrum of people’s perceptions and especially the margins”.

Mashiro said ChatGPT’s limited recognition of Japanese words and locations made his AI-assisted journey more challenging.

Although the experiment was “a lot of fun”, it would have been easier if ChatGPT was connected to a map tool, said the gamer, who travelled around Europe last year using Google Maps and help from those around him.

He has already decided on his next travel destination: Yakushima rainforest island in southern Japan.

“I want to experience whatever happens when travelling somewhere like that,” he said.

Reserve Bank of India Governor Shaktikanta Das. File
| Photo Credit: PTI

RBI Governor Shaktikanta Das on Friday emphasised on the need to eliminate biases in algorithms as the use of artificial intelligence (AI) and machine learning (ML) is on the rise.

Delivering the inaugural address at the 18th Statistics Day Conference organised by the RBI, he said the use of statistics had been ever growing as a preferred tool for drawing inferences in diverse fields and the discipline had moved beyond collection of facts to focusing more on interpretation and drawing inferences, taking into account the level of uncertainty.

The Reserve Bank of India (RBI) has ventured into AI/ML analytics in multiple areas. Under the RBI’s aspirational goals for RBI@100, Mr. Das said the central bank was aiming to develop cutting-edge systems for high frequency and real-time data monitoring and analysis.

For a few days, AI chip juggernaut Nvidia sat on the throne as the world’s biggest company, but behind its staggering success are questions on whether new entrants can stake a claim to the artificial intelligence bonanza.

Nvidia, which makes the processors that are the only option to train generative AI’s large language models, is now Big Tech’s newest member and its stock market takeoff has lifted the whole sector.

Even tech’s second rung on Wall Street has ridden on Nvidia’s coattails with Oracle, Broadcom, HP and a spate of others seeing their stock valuations surge, despite sometimes shaky earnings.

Amid the champagne popping, startups seeking the attention of Silicon Valley venture capitalists are being asked to innovate — but without a clear indication of where the next chapter of AI will be written.

When it comes to generative AI, doubts persist on what exactly will be left for companies that are not existing model makers, a field dominated by Microsoft-backed OpenAI, Google and Anthropic.

Most agree that competing with them head-on could be a fool’s errand.

“I don’t think that there’s a great opportunity to start a foundational AI company at this point in time,” said Mike Myer, founder and CEO of tech firm Quiq, at the Collision technology conference in Toronto.

Some have tried to build applications that use or mimic the powers of the existing big models, but this is being slapped down by Silicon Valley’s biggest players.

“What I find disturbing is that people are not differentiating between those applications which are roadkill for the models as they progress in their capabilities, and those that are really adding value and will be here 10 years from now,” said venture capital veteran Vinod Khosla.

– ‘Won’t keep up’ –

The tough-talking Khosla is one of OpenAI’s earliest investors.

“Grammarly won’t keep up,” Khosla predicted of the spelling and grammar checking app, and others similar to it.

He said these companies, which put only a “thin wrapper” around what the AI models can offer, are doomed.

One of the fields ripe for the taking is chip design, Khosla said, with AI demanding ever more specialized processors that provide highly specific powers.

“If you look across the chip history, we really have for the most part focused on more general chips,” Rebecca Parsons, CTO at tech consultancy Thoughtworks, told AFP.

Providing more specialized processing for the many demands of AI is an opportunity seized by Groq, a hot startup that has built chips for the deployment of AI as opposed to its training, or inference — the specialty of Nvidia’s world-dominating GPUs.

Groq CEO Jonathan Ross told AFP that Nvidia won’t be the best at everything, even if they are uncontested for generative AI training.

“Nvidia and (its CEO) Jensen Huang are like Michael Jordan… the greatest of all time in basketball. But inference is baseball, and we try and forget the time where Michael Jordan tried to play baseball and wasn’t very good at it,” he said.

Another opportunity will come from highly specialized AI that will provide expertise and know-how based on proprietary data which won’t be co-opted by voracious big tech.

“Open AI and Google aren’t going to build a structural engineer. They’re not going to build products like a primary care doctor or a mental health therapist,” said Khosla.

Profiting from highly specialized data is the basis of Cohere, another of Silicon Valley’s hottest startups that pitches specifically-made models to businesses that are skittish about AI veering out of their control.

“Enterprises are skeptical of technology, and they’re risk-averse, and so we need to win their trust and to prove to them that there’s a way to adopt this technology that’s reliable, trustworthy and secure,” Cohere CEO Aidan Gomez told AFP.

When he was just 20 and working at Google, Gomez co-authored the seminal paper “Attention Is All You Need,” which introduced Transformer, the architecture behind popular large language models like OpenAI’s GPT-4.

The company has received funding from Nvidia and Salesforce Ventures and is valued in the billions of dollars.

(This story has not been edited by NDTV staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.)

Oil tanker SCF Primorye, owned by Russian state shipping company Sovcomflot, transits the Bosphorus in Istanbul, Turkey, April 29, 2024.
| Photo Credit: Reuters

The global commercial shipping industry could cut down its carbon emissions by 47 million tonnes per year by deploying artificial intelligence for sea navigation, a study by autonomous shipping startup Orca AI showed on Tuesday.

The use of the technology could reduce the need for maneuvers and route deviation from close encounters with high-risk marine targets such as vessels, buoys and sea mammals by alerting the crew in real time, according to the report.

Why it is important?

Shipping, responsible for moving about 90% of global trade, contributes nearly 3% to the world’s carbon dioxide emissions. This share is anticipated to rise in the coming years unless stricter pollution control measures are implemented.

The International Maritime Organization aims to cut emissions by 20% by 2030, a target under threat from the ongoing Red Sea crisis.

Key Quote

“In the short term, it can lead to fewer crew members on the bridge, while those who are on the bridge will have a reduced workload and more attention to tackle complex navigational tasks, optimizing the voyage and reducing fuel and emissions,” Orca AI CEO Yarden Gross told Reuters.

“In the long term, it will open the door to fully autonomous shipping.”

Context

Global carbon dioxide shipping emissions reached an estimated 858 million tonnes in 2022, a marginal rise from the previous year, according to the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development.

An average of 2,976 marine incidents are reported per year, Orca AI’s study showed.

By the numbers

The reduction in route deviations could help ships shave off 38.2 million nautical miles per year from their travel, saving an average of $100,000 in fuel costs per vessel, according to Orca AI’s report.

AI could also lower close encounters by 33% in open waters, it said.

New Delhi:

Amid consternation and outrage over a series of deepfake videos, actor Alia Bhatt has fallen prey to the technology yet again.

Alia Bhatt’s new deepfake shows her taking part in the ‘get ready with me’ trend in a video shared on Instagram. The video shows her getting ready in a black kurta and putting the makeup on.

This is not the first time that a deepfake video of Alia has gone viral on social media.

Earlier, a deepfake video of Alia Bhatt’s face merged with actor Wamiqa Gabbi’s had also gone viral. Her another deepfake showed a woman with the morphed face of Alia Bhatt making obscene gestures.

Several Instagram users have reacted to Alia Bhatt’s deepfake video expressing concern over the misuse of Artificial Intelligence (AI).

“AI is getting dangerous day by day,” a user said. A second user said, “I am getting scared of AI now.” “I really hope you have consent for using the AI that uses real human faces,” said another Alia Bhatt friend.

Deepfakes are a form of synthetic media crafted using artificial intelligence, employing sophisticated algorithms to manipulate both visual and audio elements.

Deepfakes of several celebrities – including Rashmika Mandanna, Kajol, Katrina Kaif, Aamir Khan, Ranveer Singh and Sara Tendulkar – had earlier surfaced on the internet.

The government has advised all intermediaries – referring to social media platforms like Instagram and X – to ensure users “do not violate the prohibited content” rule of the IT Act, as it bids to combat the worrying trend of deepfakes.

The Centre has said that the creation and circulation of deepfakes carry a strong penalty Rs 1 lakh in fine and three years in jail.

Prime Minister Narendra Modi had also flagged the misuse of AI for creating deepfake videos and called it a “big concern.” “During the times of Artificial Intelligence, it is important that technology should be used responsibly,” he cautioned.

Pope Francis speaks during a working session on Artificial Intelligence (AI), Energy, Africa-Mediterranean, on day two of the 50th G7 summit at Borgo Egnazia, southern Italy, on June 14, 2024
| Photo Credit: AP

Pope Francis called on June 14 for a ban on “lethal autonomous weapons”, when he addressed the G7 leaders’ summit in Italy on the perils of artificial intelligence.

“In light of the tragedy that is armed conflict, it is urgent to reconsider the development and use of devices like the so-called ‘lethal autonomous weapons’ and ultimately ban their use,” the Pope said.

“This starts from an effective and concrete commitment to introduce ever greater and proper human control. No machine should ever choose to take the life of a human being,” he said.

G7 drops summit commitment to abortion access: draft statement 

Pope Francis, the first head of the Catholic Church to ever attend a Group of Seven summit, has repeatedly denounced the arms industry and those he says profit from wars and death.

AI is already being used on the battlefield and its move into modern warfare is raising concerns about the risks of escalation and the role of humans in decision making.

AI has shown itself to be faster but not necessarily safer or more ethical, and the development of weapons systems that could kill without human intervention poses ethical and legal challenges.

Pope Francis told the leaders gathered in the southern Italian region of Puglia: “Artificial intelligence (is) at the same time an exciting and fearsome tool.”

“We would condemn humanity to a future without hope if we took away people’s ability to make decisions about themselves and their lives, by dooming them to depend on the choices of machines,” he warned.

The G7, which brings together Britain, Canada, France, Germany, Italy, Japan and the United States, said on Friday that AI “can play a crucial role in promoting progress and development in our societies”.

“We recognise the impact of AI on the military domain and the need for a framework for responsible development and use,” the leaders said in a draft statement seen by AFP.

At a strategic level, AI will produce models of battlefields and propose how to respond to attacks, maybe even including the use of nuclear weapons.

“We need to ensure and safeguard a space for proper human control over the choices made by artificial intelligence programs: human dignity itself depends on it,” Pope Francis said.

The Argentine pontiff was speaking after a series of bilaterals, including with Ukraine’s President Volodymr Zelensky, French President Emmanuel Macron and Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau.

Geneva:

Humanity is in a race against time to harness the colossal emerging power of artificial intelligence for the good of all, while averting dire risks, a top UN official said Thursday.

“We’ve let the genie out of the bottle,” said Doreen Bogdan-Martin, head of the United Nations’ International Telecommunications Union (ITU).

“We are in a race against time,” she told the opening of a two-day AI for Good Global Summit in Geneva.

“Recent developments in AI have been nothing short of extraordinary.”

The thousands gathered at the conference heard how advances in generative AI are already speeding up efforts to solve some of the world’s most pressing problems, such as climate change, hunger and social care.

“I believe we have a once-in-a-generation opportunity to guide AI to benefit all the world’s people,” Bogdan-Martin told AFP in an email ahead of the summit.

But she lamented Thursday that one-third of humanity still remains completely offline, and is “excluded from the AI revolution without a voice”.

“This digital and technological divide is no longer acceptable.”

Bogdan-Martin highlighted that AI holds “immense potential for both good and bad”, stressing that it was vital to “make AI systems safe”.

She said that was especially important now, given that “2024 is the biggest election year in history”, with votes in dozens of countries, including in the United States.

And “with the rise of sophisticated deep fakes disinformation campaigns, it’s also the most contentious one,” she said.

“Not only does this misuse of AI threaten democracy, it also endangers young people’s mental health and compromises cyber-security.”

In an address to a separate event focused on AI governance this week, the ITU chief said that “the power of AI is concentrated in the hands of too few”.

Bogdan-Martin hailed that governments and others had become more focused on regulation and protections around the use of AI.

For instance, on Wednesday the European Union announced the creation of an AI Office to regulate artificial intelligence under a sweeping new law.

“It’s our responsibility to write the next chapter in the great story of humanity, and technology, and to make it safe, to make it inclusive and to make it sustainable,” Bogdan-Martin said.

(Except for the headline, this story has not been edited by NDTV staff and is published from a syndicated feed.)

The advent of artificial intelligence (AI) has undoubtedly encouraged productivity and innovation globally. But for one small Caribbean Island, it has proved to be transformational. 

Anguilla, a British overseas territory in the Caribbean, witnessed a boom to such an extent that now it generates around a third of its government’s revenue from AI, reported Forbes. Surprisingly, this money is being generated even without a single line of code.

A member of the Eastern Caribbean Currency Union, Anguilla is making a fortune by collecting a fee from every registration for internet addresses that end in “.ai”

This is because “.ai” happens to be the domain name assigned to the island, similar to “.jp” for Japan and “.fr” for France. “

Anguilla’s .ai domain registrations surged from 144,000 in 2022 to 354,000 in 2023, generating over 20% of the government’s total revenue for the year. Find out in our Country Focus how this helps diversify the economy, making it more resilient to shocks. https://t.co/ULk3V6oVybpic.twitter.com/qgMdCa4aYo

— IMF (@IMFNews) May 24, 2024

The official report by the International Monetary Fund (IMF) states that Anguilla’s country code “.ai” has become a favourite among technology companies across the globe.

The IMF revealed that since the launch of ChatGPT, in November 2022, the registrations for the .ai domain name have surged dramatically.

It added that the registrations soared from 144,000 in 2022 to 354,000 in 2023.

The IMF noted, “They (AI) have also generated an unusual boom in Anguilla, a British overseas territory and member of the Eastern Caribbean Currency Union, whose .ai country-code internet domain has become a favourite among technology companies across the world. Since the launch of ChatGPT in November 2022, registrations of .ai domain names have skyrocketed—surging from 144,000 registrations in 2022 to 354,000 in 2023.”

Talking about the revenue being generated, the IMF revealed that last year “.ai domain registrations generated EC$87 million.”

It must be noted that this is 20 per cent more than the Anguillan government’s total revenue generation last year.

The IMF added, “In 2023 alone, this surge in .ai domain registrations generated EC$87 million in revenue (approximately $32 million)—just over 20 per cent of the government’s total revenue for the year.”

It continued, “This marks a dramatic increase from previous years when revenue from .ai domain registrations hovered around 5 per cent. Looking ahead, the government expects revenue from .ai domain registrations to stabilize at around 15 per cent of total government revenue, as the initial rush of registrations gradually slows.”

The IMF noted that Anguilla is heavily dependent on tourism activities that account for 37 per cent of its GDP.  The growing trend of .ai domain registrations is now playing a crucial role in diversifying its economy.

Whitney Wolfe Herd, founder of the dating app Bumble, said that artificial intelligence (AI) could revolutionise the way people connect online.

Speaking at Bloomberg Tech in San Francisco, Ms Herd said that the women-focused dating app is embracing AI. She added that the use of AI is necessary “to help create healthier and more equitable” dating experiences.

Talking about why the involvement of AI is necessary, Ms Herd said that “dating is exhausting” and she wishes Bumble to be “the best place on the internet for women”.

She also gave an insight into how modern dating could look like with the growing use of AI. Ms Herd also admitted to the fact that a person could be talking to an “AI dating concierge” in future.

Ms Herd added, “Loneliness is actually killing us. And social media, while it has its benefits, it is not social media. It is anti-social media. So I think there is something really powerful about the technology that we are building to really connect us, go online, to get offline. And that is going to be absolutely critical for the next generation, the current generation, and for bringing us closer together.”

Talking about women making first move through Bumble, Ms Herd said, “What we heard from over 70 per cent of the women that we spoke to was ‘we love making the first move, but we don’t love how we make the first move.’ Sending a message to 70 matches is exhausting. Women already have so much work every day. We kept talking to all these women of all ages. They are like ‘Dating is exhausting’.”

Ms Herd said, “So we heard from them that we wanted to preserve the safety and the original inspiration behind making the first move, which was to put women in the driver’s seat and also to remove a lot of rejection from men. Dating was a broken system.”

She added that Bumble’s new CEO Lidiane Jones will help in making way for AI integration in the app.

Ms Heard added, “We are obsessed with our customers. For several years, I read every single email. They went to my phone. I was the feedback person. So no one realised that the CEO was responding to them. I was essentially the first line of communication. And we still do that. And so what we are doing is we are leaning into the things people don’t like, the things that are stressing them. And we are saying, how do we be the best place on the internet for women? So with Lidiane’s expertise in AI and her unbelievable technology background, we are just going to innovate.”

On Bumble’s future with AI’s involvement, Ms Herd said, “If you want to get really out there, there is a world where your [AI] dating concierge could go and date for you with other dating concierges.”

She added, “No. No. Truly. And then you don’t have to talk to 600 people. It could scan all of San Francisco for you and say, ‘These are the three people you really ought to meet.’ And so that is the power of AI if harnessed the right way.”

New Delhi:

The number of people using AI has nearly doubled in the last 6 months and around 75 per cent of global knowledge workers are using AI at workplaces, according to “2024 Work Trend Index Annual Report” by Microsoft and LinkedIn.

The report highlights the increasing reliance on personal AI tools by employees, who are grappling with the overwhelming pace and volume of work.

However, while leaders recognize the importance of AI for business, many feel their organizations lack a clear strategy to effectively leverage AI to drive bottom-line results.

The pressure to demonstrate immediate return on investment is also causing some leaders to hesitate, despite the inevitability of AI integration.

The survey in the report highlights that 90 per cent of AI users stated it helped them save time, 85 per cent were able to focus on their most crucial tasks, 84 per cent of AI users felt more creative, and 83 percent enjoyed their work more after using the AI.

In terms of the company leaders around 79 per cent agree that AI adoption is necessary for competitiveness, 59 per cent express concerns about quantifying its productivity gains.

Interestingly, AI users are no longer limited to younger generations or tech enthusiasts, with employees across all age groups embracing AI tools. The survey of the workforce in knowledge-based work indicates that Gen Z (age group- 18-28) leads with 85 per cent usage, followed by Millennials (age group 29-43) at 78 per cent, and Gen X (age group 44-57) at 76 per cent.

The survey shows that even older people have adopted AI and using the tool according to their requirements.

Despite concerns about AI and job displacement, the report offers a nuanced perspective. While 45 per cent of employees worry about AI replacing their jobs, an almost equal share (46 per cent) are considering quitting jobs as they are getting better opportunities.

Additionally, LinkedIn studies in the US indicate a 14 per cent increase in job applications per role since last fall, with 85 per cent of professionals contemplating a job change this year.

Employers and company leaders are also increasingly recognizing the importance of AI skills, with 66 per cent in the survey stating that they would not hire someone lacking these skills.

Furthermore, 71 per cent express a preference for hiring less experienced candidates with AI skills over more experienced ones without them. Additionally, 77 per cent believe that AI will enable early-career talent to take on greater responsibilities.

In the end, the report points out that AI is helping people be more creative and productive, and giving job seekers an edge. Over time, it will change every aspect of work, and companies that face the challenge head-on will surge ahead.

(Except for the headline, this story has not been edited by NDTV staff and is published from a syndicated feed.)