Tag Archives: Setback

Sirius Setback: Apple’s AI Chief Steps Down Amid Growing Competition

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Apple’s artificial intelligence lead, John Gianandrea, is departing the company. This decision comes as the Silicon Valley titan trails behind competitors in launching generative AI features, especially regarding the voice assistant Siri. Apple made the announcement on Monday, expressing gratitude for Mr. Gianandrea’s seven years of service.

CEO Tim Cook noted that his fellow executives played a crucial role in “building and advancing the company’s AI initiatives,” paving the way for continual innovation. Amar Subramanya, a seasoned AI researcher, will take over Gianandrea’s role.

In June 2024, Apple launched its significant AI product suite, Apple Intelligence, but it has been slow to integrate generative AI into its offerings compared to rivals like Google. While Apple has added features such as real-time language translation on its new AirPod earbuds—a capability Google introduced in 2017—and an AI-driven fitness app that uses AI-generated voices during workouts, substantial updates are still forthcoming.

The company has been hinting at AI-powered enhancements for Siri for over a year, yet the release has faced multiple delays.

“For Siri, we required additional time to achieve that high quality,” remarked Craig Federighi, Apple’s vice president of software engineering, during the company’s developer conference in June.

In a subsequent earnings call, Cook emphasized that Apple was “on track to create a more personalized Siri” with a launch targeted for the following year.

The appointment of Subramanya indicates a stronger focus on Apple’s AI strategy. Previously, he was Vice President of AI at Microsoft and spent 16 years at Google, where he led engineering for Gemini AI Assistant, recognized as a benchmark in the industry. Subramanya will report to Craig Federighi, who has expanded his involvement in the company’s AI initiatives in recent years.

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On Monday, Cook shared that Federighi is “helping us advance our AI efforts, including overseeing our initiatives to deliver a personalized Siri experience to our users starting next year.” In their announcement, Apple stated that this marks a “new chapter” for the company as it “intensifies its efforts” in AI.

Source: www.theguardian.com

The Setback of Halting Psychedelic Research in the 1970s for Science

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“Before the 1970s’ war on drugs, there was a variety of promising research into therapeutic psychedelics.”

Adrià Voltà

In the early 1950s, notable figures in science, philosophy, culture, and politics—such as Albert Einstein, Carl Jung, and Graham Greene—were part of an initiative called “outsights” aimed at exploring powerful psychedelics. Although circumstances shifted, I find myself captivated by what could have been.

I’ve been delving into psychedelics in the new trip series on BBC Radio 4. I previously shared my experiences of vivid hallucinations while in a coma from Covid-19. This sparked my curiosity to understand why individuals actively pursue psychedelic experiences, navigate legal challenges, take risks at home, seek healing, and address unmet needs.

There has yet to be a global consensus banning psychedelics. Responding to inquiries by scientist Humphrey Davy, who researched suboxidized oxides in 1799, Humphrey Osmond, coining the term psychedelic in the 1950s, expressed that the study of chemically induced altered states merits rigorous and thoughtful research.

Before the U.S.-led drug war commenced in the 1970s, extensive and promising research into psychedelics as potential treatments was underway, alongside their longstanding use in sacred and ritual contexts by Indigenous cultures. Unfortunately, rather than permitting this exploration, it was driven underground, leaving many to view substances such as fungi and plants, or their lab-created variants, as otherworldly. This otherness surprised me.

Currently, psychedelic research is investigating their therapeutic potential for conditions like depression, addiction, PTSD, eating disorders, dementia, and intergenerational trauma, gaining momentum globally. Studies explore their possible use in extending the recovery window following strokes, enhancing rehabilitation, and even unraveling the nature of consciousness.

Conversations with researchers who meticulously examine substances like psilocybin and DMT in clinical environments feel worlds apart from the psychedelic narratives prevalent in popular culture. These molecules profoundly and enduringly influence our minds and perceptions. It’s perplexing how we opted to stifle a broader inquiry and obstruct our brightest minds from discovering their true potential.

Today’s discussions among researchers are as engaging as they come, yet I can’t help but linger on the “what if?” In light of the global mental health crisis, governments and health systems are eager for new treatment alternatives. Public funding is dwindling and faces threats in many areas, while large corporations driven by profit show substantial interest in the accessibility of new therapies. Changes are happening rapidly.

Examining humanity’s history with psychedelic substances reveals a narrative marked by significant self-inflicted wounds. Ultimately, the funds for the outsight initiative never materialized, leading to a drastically different chapter in history. The war on drugs has stalled research across numerous substances for decades and continues to cast a shadow today.

The narratives surrounding these substances serve as warnings. Politics should never obstruct scientific breakthroughs. In light of today’s world, it feels like an urgent moral imperative to safeguard and nurture the conditions necessary for science to thrive. The stakes are too high.

Source: www.newscientist.com

“Miss AI: A supposed advancement that proves to be a major setback” – Arwa Mahdawi

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M
I eat Madame Potato. Although she doesn’t actually exist, she will hopefully become the world’s first “Miss AI”. I recently created an image of her on her website that generates AI faces and entered it into a beauty pageant. Now I’m sitting in hopes of winning $20,000 in prize money.

What kind of fresh hell is this? Well, unfortunately, AI beauty pageants are now trendy. A company called Fanvue, a subscription-based content creator platform similar to OnlyFans, recently partnered with the World AI Creator Awards (WAICA) to create the world’s first Miss AI” contest. A team of judges consisting of two humans and two virtual models will classify the AI-generated photos of women and select one woman to be crowned “Miss AI.” Winners will receive cash prizes and the chance to monetize their work on Fanvue.



How will the winner be chosen? Apparently so. However, the judges will also consider the size of a character’s fan base and their “personality.” This application contains questions such as: “If your AI models could talk, what would be their one dream to make the world a better place?” The technical skill behind the character’s creation will also be considered by the judges.

A WAICA press release said the contest “represents a monumental leap forward, nearly 200 years after the world’s first actual beauty pageant was held in the 1880s.”

But it feels more like a monumental setback than a “step forward.” Rather than destroying traditional beauty standards, AI models exaggerate them. They take all the toxic gendered beauty norms and package them up in a completely unrealistic package.

For example, let’s take a look at two AI models that are judging a contest. Aitana Lopez and Emily Pellegrini. Pellegrini was designed by an anonymous creator who told Chat GPT that he asked the average man what his dream was in a woman and designed the model along those lines. That means long hair, big breasts, perfect skin, and a sculpted body. Pelligrini is still a completely digital work, but she reportedly earns thousands of dollars from fan views and famous soccer players use her Instagram because they think she’s a real person. It seems like he’s going to slide into Gram’s DMs.

Another judge, López, who is touted as “Spain’s first AI model” and can apparently “earn up to €10,000 a month” with modeling work for brands, is also on the same page. The creators of Lopez AI modeling office A group called “The Clueless” rejected criticism of her sexual appearance, claiming they were merely reacting to market forces. “If we don’t follow this aesthetic, brands won’t be interested.” one of the creators he told reporters. “To change this system, we need to change our brand vision. The entire world is sexualized.”

So is this the future? Will human models be completely replaced by AI? The folks at The Clueless certainly seem to hope so. “[Brands] We want to have an image that represents the values of the brand, not a real person, so that if we have to lay someone off or we can no longer rely on them, there will be continuity issues,” says founder Ruben Cruz. he told Euronews. And it all makes sense. Why wouldn’t brands want to use a model that never ages and has full control?