Techmeme
May 21, 2024, 12:30 PM

Top News

Kat Tenbarge / NBC News:
Scarlett Johansson says she declined OpenAI's ChatGPT voice offer and was “shocked, angered” that Sam Altman would pursue Sky, a voice “eerily similar” to hers  —  The “Her” actor released a statement following OpenAI pulling its “Sky” voice from ChatGPT, which many people said sounded like her.
More: NPR, Platformer, Washington Post, Gizmodo, Reuters, OSnews, E! Online, Engadget, Vanity Fair, Wired, MobileSyrup, CNBC, The Verge, The Wrap, Variety, Proactive, USA Today, Quartz, Sherwood News, PC Gamer, Mercury News, Tom's Guide, New York Times, Cointelegraph, MEDIANAMA, TweakTown, The Decoder, The Hill, 9to5Google, CCN.com, Cybernews.com, and The Stack
Bloomberg:
Microsoft Developer on YouTube:
A live stream of Microsoft's Build 2024 keynote  —  For the full event experience, please head to ➡️ https://aka.ms/MSBuild2024EventJoin us for Day 1 of Microsoft Build 2024 Microsoft Build is for developers, ...
Kevin Okemwa / Windows Central:
Microsoft ships Azure AI Studio in broad availability, adds support for OpenAI's GPT-4o, and announces a new multimodal model in its lightweight Phi-3 family  —  Azure AI will now ship with GPT-4o and Microsoft's Phi-3 family of small AI models to help developers build custom Copilot apps responsibly and safely.
Todd Bishop / GeekWire:
Joanna Stern / Wall Street Journal:
Kris Holt / Engadget:
Tom Warren / The Verge:
Lawrence Bonk / Engadget:
Bloomberg:
Sources: in the event that China invades Taiwan, ASML and TSMC have ways to disable their sophisticated chipmaking machines; ASML reassured Dutch officials  —  - Firms can remotely shut off advanced EUV chip-making machines  — US officials concerned over risk of conflict to chip industry
Reuters:
EU countries vote to approve the landmark EU AI Act, agreed in December 2023, to ensure “trust, transparency, and accountability”, taking effect in June 2024  —  Europe's landmark rules on artificial intelligence will enter into force next month after EU countries endorsed …
Wired:
How Indian politicians are using deepfakes for voter outreach; an estimated 50M+ AI voice calls were made in the two months before the elections in April 2024  —  India's elections are a glimpse of the AI-driven future of democracy.  Politicians are using audio and video deepfakes of themselves …
Hannah Ellis-Petersen / The Guardian:
Mike Scarcella / Reuters:
US v. Google: Google has preemptively paid damages to the US government, an unusual move aimed at avoiding a jury trial in the DOJ's antitrust lawsuit  —  Alphabet's (GOOGL.O) Google has preemptively paid damages to the U.S. government, an unusual move aimed at avoiding a jury trial …
Joyce Lee / Reuters:
Google, Meta, Microsoft, OpenAI, Amazon, IBM, and 10 other companies commit to safe AI development at the AI Seoul Summit 2024, hosted by South Korea and the UK  —  Sixteen companies involved in AI including Alphabet's Google (GOOGL.O), Meta (META.O), Microsoft (MSFT.O) and OpenAI …
Financial Times:
AI data labeling startup Scale AI raised $1B led by Accel at a ~$14B valuation, up from $7.3B in April 2021; a source says Scale AI had ~$700M in 2023 revenue  —  Alexandr Wang's company brings in $1bn in latest fundraising round as investors bet that data is the new oil

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Earlier Picks

Los Angeles Times:
X: @latimes, @latimes, and @rverrier
LinkedIn: Tony Knopp and Agnes M. SokolForums: r/TechLA
Julia Love / Bloomberg:
Samantha Cole / 404 Media:
David Heaney / UploadVR:
Juli Clover / MacRumors: