Latest news with #AI
Express Tribune
an hour ago
- Business
- Express Tribune
Meta wins copyright lawsuit
A US judge on Wednesday handed Meta a victory over authors who accused the tech giant of violating copyright law by training Llama artificial intelligence on their creations without permission. District Court Judge Vince Chhabria in San Francisco ruled that Meta's use of the works to train its AI model was "transformative" enough to constitute "fair use" under copyright law, in the second such courtroom triumph for AI firms this week. However, it came with a caveat that the authors could have pitched a winning argument that by training powerful generative AI with copyrighted works, tech firms are creating a tool that could let a sea of users compete with them in the literary marketplace. "No matter how transformative (generative AI) training may be, it's hard to imagine that it can be fair use to use copyrighted books to develop a tool to make billions or trillions of dollars while enabling the creation of a potentially endless stream of competing works that could significantly harm the market for those books," Chhabria said in his ruling. Tremendous amounts of data are needed to train large language models powering generative AI. Musicians, book authors, visual artists and news publications have sued various AI companies that used their data without permission or payment. AI companies generally defend their practices by claiming fair use, arguing that training AI on large datasets fundamentally transforms the original content and is necessary for innovation. "We appreciate today's decision from the court," a Meta spokesperson said in response to an AFP inquiry. "Open-source AI models are powering transformative innovations, productivity and creativity for individuals and companies, and fair use of copyright material is a vital legal framework for building this transformative technology." In the case before Chhabria, a group of authors sued Meta for downloading pirated copies of their works and using them to train the open-source Llama generative AI, according to court documents. Books involved in the suit include Sarah Silverman's comic memoir The Bedwetter and Junot Diaz's Pulitzer Prizewinning novel The Brief Wondrous Life of Oscar Wao, the documents showed. "This ruling does not stand for the proposition that Meta's use of copyrighted materials to train its language models is lawful," the judge stated. "It stands only for the proposition that these plaintiffs made the wrong arguments and failed to develop a record in support of the right one." Market harming? A different federal judge in San Francisco on Monday sided with AI firm Anthropic regarding training its models on copyrighted books without authors' permission. District Court Judge William Alsup ruled that the company's training of its Claude AI models with books bought or pirated was allowed under the "fair use" doctrine in the US Copyright Act. "Use of the books at issue to train Claude and its precursors was exceedingly transformative and was a fair use," Alsup wrote in his decision. "The technology at issue was among the most transformative many of us will see in our lifetimes," Alsup added in his decision, comparing AI training to how humans learn by reading books. The ruling stems from a class-action lawsuit filed by authors Andrea Bartz, Charles Graeber, and Kirk Wallace Johnson, who accused Anthropic of illegally copying their books to train chatbot Claude, the company's ChatGPT rival. Alsup rejected Anthropic's bid for blanket protection, ruling that the company's practice of downloading millions of pirated books to build a permanent digital library was not justified by fair use protections.
Yahoo
an hour ago
- Science
- Yahoo
60-Foot Rogue Wave Captured in Pacific Ocean (Video)
When thinking of rogue waves breaking out in the middle of the ocean, for surfers at least, one liquid monstrosity comes to mind – Cortes Bank, the mythical big wave gauntlet breaking some 100 miles off the California coast. As it turns out, however, these abnormally gigantic waves are breaking elsewhere in the world's oceans, too; and a team of scientists set out to explore them. Specifically, the scientists looked at rogue waves being documented in the Pacific Ocean off Canada. They described: 'Once dismissed as a maritime myth, rogue waves are now increasingly being recorded in Canadian waters. A network of AI-powered buoys off the coast of B.C. is capturing these giants in real time. Johanna Wagstaffe meets the engineer developing new tools to understand — and maybe one day forecast — their chaotic nature.' One in particular, which they detected back in 2020, was taller than a six-story building. 'So, this rogue wave was measured off near Tofino [Vancouver Island, Canada],' said Scott Beatty, CEO of MarineLabs Data Systems. 'There was a 17.5 meter [57 .4 feet] wave that came by. For context, that's about six stories. But the unusual thing about it, was that in the background the waves were six meters. It was the highest ever recorded. So, we had to go back and double, and triple check that.' Unlike Cortes Bank, these waves are random. They happen sporadically, in the middle of the ocean, and are difficult to detect. When there's the right swell – and there's a crew willing to risk it all to motor out to Cortes, and attempt to surf it – things can be somewhat predictable. And they know where to find it. But these, open-ocean rogue waves are way more how the scientists describe them: 'These waves are at least twice as tall as the surrounding waves. They're unpredictable. They can come from unexpected directions, often against prevailing winds and swells. You need a whole cocktail of factors to come together – wind, swell, current. It's a chaotic, nonlinear wave interaction, where one wave will suddenly gather energy from others and explode in size.' Rare and terrifying, yet fascinating. Makes one wonder about all the untapped big wave surf spot potential just hiding out in the vast, open oceans.60-Foot Rogue Wave Captured in Pacific Ocean (Video) first appeared on Surfer on Jun 27, 2025
Yahoo
an hour ago
- Business
- Yahoo
It's not just Gen Z: This baby-boomer bank CEO says his MBA was a waste—and the skills he learned have ‘degraded, degraded, degraded' since college
CEO of the $26 billion bank Standard Chartered, Bill Winters, admits that his MBA was 'a waste of time,' and that the skills he learned at college have 'degraded, degraded, degraded' over the last 40 years. The executive says that soft skills like communication, curiosity, and empathy are more important as AI takes over grunt technical work. A LinkedIn careers exec agrees that human touch is the new in-demand talent capability. Attending college has long been seen as a rite of passage for success, but now student-loan-ridden Gen Z is calling their worth into question. They're not alone. The CEO of $26 billion bank Standard Chartered has just admitted that his time at Wharton Business School wasn't necessary. 'I studied international relations and history. I got an MBA later, but that was a waste of time,' Bill Winters told Bloomberg in a recent interview. 'I learned how to think at university, and for the 40 years since I left university, those skills have been degraded, degraded, degraded.' The banking chief executive may hold degrees from Colgate University and the University of Pennsylvania, but getting an Ivy League degree doesn't equate to being a valuable worker. Winters says that AI has had a major impact on the relevance of skills; now that chatbots can compile documents, create meeting slideshows, and even write code, many hard capabilities like software engineering skills once seen as a career gold mine are now being rendered redundant. Instead, human soft skills like curiosity, communication, and critical thinking are incredibly important in leadership and work, according to the 63-year-old CEO. And those are skills that don't require a college degree to pick up. In discussing the skills of tomorrow and what advice he has for young people, the Standard Chartered CEO says that soft skills are making a 'comeback' thanks to AI—which can already rival professionals with PhDs. 'The technical skills are being provided by the machine, or by very competent people in other parts of the world who have really nailed the technical skills at a relatively low cost,' Winters said. One key soft skill that's missing, Winters suggests, is real human connection—and AI is actually making communication worse, not better. It's become so bad that managers are complaining that Gen Z candidates can't hold a conversation without a chatbot, and begging them not to use them in job applications. 'I really think in the age of AI, that it's critical that you know how to think and communicate,' Winters continued. 'Not communicate better than ChatGPT, but actually, I'm going to go back to curiosity and empathy.' While the banking CEO admits that some degree of hard skills are still needed, they'll only continue to wane in importance as AI takes over more workplace functions. As technology takes over all the heavy lifting, people will have to increasingly engage their human expertise on the job. 'Of course, technical skills are required at some level, but less and less as the machines take out,' Winters said. Fortune reached out to Standard Chartered for comment. While some CEOs like OpenAI's Sam Altman still advise young people to learn up on AI tools, there's growing urgency for soft skills across industries. The number one in-demand skill that companies wanted out of employees last year was good communication, according to a LinkedIn study. And the employment platform's chief economic opportunity officer, Aneesh Raman, echoed that AI has renewed a need for communication, empathy, and critical listening. Plus, it's not just Gen Z grads who will need to practice talking in the mirror to get the job. Emotional intelligence has even become more important when assessing for management hires too. This perhaps explains why staffers across the board want training with these skills; employees ranked teamwork (65%), communication (61%), and leadership (56%) as the most valuable when it comes to training workplace skills, according to a 2024 study from Deloitte. Technical skills like coding or data analysis were ranked lower, at 54%. This story was originally featured on Error in retrieving data Sign in to access your portfolio Error in retrieving data Error in retrieving data Error in retrieving data Error in retrieving data
Yahoo
an hour ago
- Business
- Yahoo
Suno snaps up WavTool for its AI music editing tools amid ongoing dispute with music labels
Suno, the AI music company currently in a legal battle with music labels, announced on Thursday the acquisition of WavTool, a browser-based AI digital audio workstation (DAW). This acquisition aims to improve Suno's editing capabilities for songwriters and producers. WavTool, launched in 2023, offers several tools to musicians, such as stem separation, AI audio generation, and an AI music assistant. Suno will integrate WavTool's technology into its new editing interface, which launched this month. The terms of the deal have not been disclosed. A company spokesperson noted that 'most' of the WavTool employees moved to Suno's product and engineering teams, although the exact number of those who did not make the move wasn't revealed. The acquisition comes on the heels of yet another lawsuit against the company. Country musician Tony Justice and his music label, 5th Wheel Records, filed a lawsuit against Suno earlier this month, alleging that Suno used copyrighted sound recordings to train its AI music generator. This allegation is similar to lawsuits filed last year by Universal Music Group, Warner Music Group, and Sony Music Entertainment against Suno for copyright infringement. According to Bloomberg, the major music labels are in licensing talks with Suno. Suno acquired WavTool a few months ago, with the browser-based DAW going offline in November. Timing the announcement for this week seems intentional, possibly aimed at diverting attention from the lawsuit. Legal disputes often shake investor confidence, so the announcement of this acquisition may serve as a way to reassure them that the company remains committed to growth. The AI startup secured $125 million in funding this past May. Inicia sesión para acceder a tu portafolio
CNA
2 hours ago
- Business
- CNA
OpenAI turns to Google's AI chips to power its products, source says
OpenAI has recently begun renting Google's artificial intelligence chips to power ChatGPT and its other products, a source close to the matter told Reuters on Friday. The ChatGPT maker is one of the largest purchasers of Nvidia's graphics processing units (GPUs), using the AI chips to train models and also for inference computing, a process in which an AI model uses its trained knowledge to make predictions or decisions based on new information. OpenAI planned to add Google Cloud service to meet its growing needs for computing capacity, Reuters had exclusively reported earlier this month, marking a surprising collaboration between two prominent competitors in the AI sector. For Google, the deal comes as it is expanding external availability of its in-house tensor processing units (TPUs), which were historically reserved for internal use. That helped Google win customers including Big Tech player Apple as well as startups like Anthropic and Safe Superintelligence, two ChatGPT-maker competitors launched by former OpenAI leaders. The move to rent Google's TPUs signals the first time OpenAI has used non-Nvidia chips meaningfully and shows the Sam Altman-led company's shift away from relying on backer Microsoft's data centers. It could potentially boost TPUs as a cheaper alternative to Nvidia's GPUs, according to the Information, which reported the development earlier. OpenAI hopes the TPUs, which it rents through Google Cloud, will help lower the cost of inference, according to the report. However, Google, an OpenAI competitor in the AI race, is not renting its most powerful TPUs to its rival, The Information said, citing a Google Cloud employee. Google declined to comment while OpenAI did not immediately respond to Reuters when contacted. Google's addition of OpenAI to its customer list shows how the tech giant has capitalized on its in-house AI technology from hardware to software to accelerate the growth of its cloud business.
