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- OpenAI strikes back against NYT
OpenAI strikes back against NYT
PLUS Duolingo lays off contractors, Walmart rolls out new shopping features
Jack Shields
January 10, 2024
Welcome back!
Lots of big news on deck today so let’s get straight to it.
In today’s Daily Update:
🗞️ OpenAI strikes back against NYT
🤖 Duolingo lays off contractors as it leans on AI
📸 Walmart rolls out new AI shopping features
🚨 AI Roundup: Four quick hits
Read time: 2 minutes
TOP STORY
🗞️ OpenAI strikes back against NYT
Source: OpenAI
OpenAI just released a public blog post in response to The New York Times’ recent lawsuit alleging copyright infringement.
The details:
OpenAI says the NYT adopted its opt-out process for publishers in August 2023, preventing OpenAI tools from accessing NYT sites.
The company behind ChatGPT also claims that the NYT used prompts intentionally designed to trigger the regurgitation of its articles.
Training AI models on publicly available internet materials is fair use according to OpenAI.
The blog post concludes by accusing the NYT of hiding details about OpenAI’s compliance with the news organization’s concerns.
The bottom line: OpenAI regards The New York Times’ lawsuit to be without merit, although it did concede that regurgitation is a rare bug that it hopes to eliminate.
JOB DISPLACEMENT
🤖 Duolingo lays off contractors as it leans on AI
Source: Duolingo
Duolingo has laid off 10% of its contract workers amidst a growing push to rely on AI for translation.
Key points:
No full-time employees were involved in the layoffs and Duolingo says it attempted to find alternate roles for those being let go.
The educational technology app says AI will be used to create sentences for courses, produce lists of acceptable translations and review user error reports.
Duolingo still uses humans to check AI-completed work.
The company is still facing backlash on social media as fears about AI replacing jobs rise.
The bigger picture: Duolingo is just one of many companies opting to cut jobs in favor of AI. Experts stress that AI will create more jobs than it takes away, but there’s no doubt that noteworthy job displacement is already occurring.
BUSINESS SPOTLIGHT
📸 Walmart rolls out new AI shopping features
Source: Walmart
Yesterday Walmart announced two new AI-powered tools for its mobile app that aim to improve customers’ shopping experience.
What you should know:
A new AI search feature will allow users to view products across different categories by typing in a use case rather than individual items.
For example, a customer could enter “football watch party” instead of individually searching for chips, wings, drinks, etc.
Walmart also previewed an upcoming AI feature for its InHome delivery service. The new feature can automatically place orders for delivery as it predicts certain household items may be running low.
Why it matters: Walmart is pioneering an innovative online shopping experience that could offer unmatched convenience to consumers. Automated shopping would be a huge time saver for many families across the U.S.
MORE TRENDING NEWS
🚨 AI Roundup: Four quick hits
Generated by Adobe Firefly
Loom is reportedly working on deepfake technology that can generate videos with audio directly from text.
AI photo editing app PhotoRoom is raising between $50 million and $60 million.
X (formerly Twitter) promises AI advancements in 2024 as it transforms into an “everything app.”
Amazon is adding new generative AI-powered experiences to Alexa.
THAT’S ALL FOR TODAY