With the rise of AI language models and tools like ChatGPT and Bard, we’ve heard warnings from people involved, like Elon Musk, about the risks posed by AI. Now, a group of high-profile industry leaders has issued a one-sentence statement: “Mitigating the risk of extinction from AI should be a global priority alongside other societal-scale risks such as pandemics and nuclear war.”
That’s… heavy. It was posted to the Center for AI Safety, an organization with the mission “to reduce societal-scale risks from artificial intelligence,” according to its website. Signatories include OpenAI chief executive Sam Altman and Google DeepMind head Demis Hassabis. Turing Award-winning researchers Geoffrey Hinton and Yoshua Bengio, the godfathers of modern AI, also put their names to it. Hinton recently left Google over ethical concerns.
It’s not the first statement like this. In March, Elon Musk, Steve Wozniak and more than 1,000 others called for a six-month pause on AI to allow industry and the public to effectively catch up to the technology. “Recent months have seen AI labs locked in an out-of-control race to develop and deploy ever more powerful digital minds that no one – not even their creators – can understand, predict or reliably control,” the letter stated. No specific scenarios elaborate on how AI could threaten humanity, but there’s been more than enough science fiction to make me think of worst cases. Thanks, The Matrix.
– Mat Smith
The Morning After isn’t just a newsletter – it’s also a daily podcast. Get our daily audio briefings, Monday through Friday, by subscribing right here.
The biggest stories you might have missed
Twitter is testing Community Notes for images
Apple Music’s dedicated classical app arrives on Android
Sony’s new WH-CH720N wireless headphones drop to $128 on Amazon
The best Nintendo Switch controllers for every player level
The best mobile microphones for 2023
A mechanically perfect romp through a shallow world.
Blizzard
The story of Diablo IV opens decades after the end of Diablo III, with the world still reeling from the events of that game. Your character is in pursuit of Lilith, the daughter of Mephisto, one of the Prime Evils you defeated in Diablo II. Sometimes, you’ll discover some interesting lore or a named enemy that will drop an item with unique flavor text. Still, those moments are few and far between, according to Engadget’s Igor Bonifacic. Diablo IV will be available on PC, PlayStation and Xbox on June 6th.
You can no longer set an alarm or order Tide Pods with Melissa McCarthy.
Amazon is ditching all of its Alexa-enabled celebrity voices, including Shaquille O’Neal, Melissa McCarthy and Samuel L. Jackson. The celebrity voice assistant features were fairly limited when compared to Alexa’s full feature set as the celebs won’t do reminders and don’t integrate with many skills. They do, however, tell jokes, answer questions and complete simple voice-assisted tasks. Why get rid of the voices now? Reports suggest Amazon is building its own large language model (LLM), like ChatGPT, to transform Alexa radically, and celebrity voices may no longer fit that setup.
The Hammerhead Pro HyperSpeed lets you skip Bluetooth.
Razer has introduced Hammerhead Pro HyperSpeed buds that include a 2.4GHz RF adapter to plug into the USB-C port (there’s an included USB-A adapter) on your computer or console. This expands support to more devices, of course, but it also drops latency to 40ms versus 60ms for the Bluetooth-based Gaming Mode. The Hammerhead Pro Hyperspeed earbuds are available now for $200.
A switch to a Snapdragon chip could solve complaints about longevity.
engadget
A report from 9to5Google claims the Pixel Watch 2 will switch from Samsung’s 2018-era Exynos 9110 to one of Qualcomm’s much newer Snapdragon W5 models. Although the battery in the new smartwatch isn’t significantly bigger, the longevity is supposed to be much improved. Reportedly, it can last over a day with the always-on display enabled. The Pixel Watch 2 could also house the same health sensors as the Fitbit Sense 2 – Google owns Fitbit now, remember? That could introduce ways to measure stress, skin temperature and other metrics. When might we see it? Well, a previous rumor hinted the Pixel Watch 2 will debut alongside the Pixel 8 this fall.
This story originally appeared on Engadget
