Midjourney Creates a Feature to Advance Image Consistency

Artificial intelligence imaging service Midjourney has been embraced by storytellers who have also been clamoring for a feature that enables characters to regenerate consistently across new requests. Now Midjourney is delivering that functionality with the addition of the new “–cref” tag (short for Character Reference), available for those who are using Midjourney v6 on the Discord server. Users can achieve the effect by adding the tag to the end of text prompts, followed by a URL that contains the master image subsequent generations should match. Midjourney will then attempt to repeat the particulars of a character’s face, body and clothing characteristics. Continue reading Midjourney Creates a Feature to Advance Image Consistency

Researchers Call for Safe Harbor for the Evaluation of AI Tools

Artificial intelligence stakeholders are calling for safe harbor legal and technical protections that will allow them access to conduct “good-faith” evaluations of various AI products and services without fear of reprisal. More than 300 researchers, academics, creatives, journalists and legal professionals had as of last week signed an open letter calling on companies including Meta Platforms, OpenAI and Google to allow access for safety testing and red teaming of systems they say are shrouded in opaque rules and secrecy despite the fact that millions of consumers are already using them. Continue reading Researchers Call for Safe Harbor for the Evaluation of AI Tools

Standalone Image Generator Is Among New AI Tools by Meta

Meta Platforms is moving Imagine with Meta from its test bed as a generative AI experience in chats to a standalone experience on the Web that allows users to create high-resolution images using natural language text prompts. That is one of more than 20 generative AI features Meta is deploying to create new business opportunities globally leveraging AI across search, ads, business messaging and more. While most will wind up on Facebook, Instagram, Messenger and WhatsApp, some say Meta’s popular Facebook and Instagram platforms have plateaued at 2 to 3 billion users per month, circumscribing ad growth. Continue reading Standalone Image Generator Is Among New AI Tools by Meta

Stability AI Intros Real-Time Text-to-Image Generation Model

Stability AI, developer of Stable Diffusion (one of the leading visual content generators, alongside Midjourney and DALL-E), has introduced SDXL Turbo — a new AI model that demonstrates more of the latent possibilities of the common diffusion generation approach: images that update in real time as the user’s prompt updates. This feature was always a possibility even with previous diffusion models given text and images are comprehended differently across linear time, but increased efficiency of generation algorithms and the steady accretion of GPUs and TPUs in a developer’s data center makes the experience more magical. Continue reading Stability AI Intros Real-Time Text-to-Image Generation Model

Stability AI Adds Apps to Draft 3D Models, Fine-Tune Objects

Stability AI is rolling out next-generation enterprise tools for its Stable Diffusion text-to-image generator. Leading the pack is Stable 3D, geared toward game developers and  graphic designers, with results that integrate with popular 3D platforms including Blender, Maya, Unreal Engine and Unity, according to Stability. Now in private preview, Stable 3D enables non-experts to generate “thousands of 3D objects per day” by selecting an image or illustration or writing a text prompt. Another preview app, Stable FineTuning, provides the ability to quickly fine-tune pictures, objects and styles. A third tool, Sky Replacer, is available now. Continue reading Stability AI Adds Apps to Draft 3D Models, Fine-Tune Objects

Shutterstock Offers AI Image Editor for Massive Stock Library

Creative image platform Shutterstock has added AI-powered editing features that provide “the potential for infinite options to refine and perfect images” in the company’s library of more than 700 million stock selections. A go-to source for brand marketers and digital media companies, Shutterstock is offering six signature AI capabilities as well as secondary features such as a virtual AI design assistant and advanced filters under the umbrella Creative AI. What’s more, Shutterstock says it will compensate its licensed artists when their images are edited with AI. Continue reading Shutterstock Offers AI Image Editor for Massive Stock Library

Nightshade Data Poisoning Tool Targets AI to Protect Artist IP

A new tool called Nightshade offers creators a way to fend off artificial intelligence models attempting to train on visual artwork without permission. Created by a University of Chicago team led by Professor Ben Zhao, Nightshade makes it possible to include an instruction set that can cause AI models to “break” during unauthorized scraping. It does this by inserting “invisible pixels.” As a result, popular AI models including DALL-E, Midjourney and Stable Diffusion will subsequently render erratic results, turning dogs into cats and cars into cows, and so forth. Continue reading Nightshade Data Poisoning Tool Targets AI to Protect Artist IP

OpenAI Developing ‘Provenance Classifier’ for GenAI Images

OpenAI is developing an AI tool that can identify images created by artificial intelligence — specifically those made in whole or part by its Dall-E 3 image generator. Calling it a “provenance classifier,” company CTO Mira Murati began publicly discussing the detection app last week but said not to expect it in general release anytime soon. This, despite Murati’s claim it is “almost 99 percent reliable.” That is still not good enough for OpenAI, which knows there is much at stake when the public perception of artists’ work can be impacted by a filter applied by AI, which is notoriously capricious. Continue reading OpenAI Developing ‘Provenance Classifier’ for GenAI Images

OpenAI’s Latest Version of DALL-E Integrates with ChatGPT

OpenAI has released the DALL-E 3 generative AI imaging platform in research preview. The latest iteration features more safety options and integrates with OpenAI’s ChatGPT, currently driven by the now seasoned large language model GPT-4. That is the ChatGPT version to which Plus subscribers and enterprise customers have access — the same who will be able to preview DALL-E 3. The free chatbot is built around GPT-3.5. OpenAI says GPT-4 makes for better contextual understanding by DALL-E, which even in version 2 evidenced some glaring comprehension glitches. Continue reading OpenAI’s Latest Version of DALL-E Integrates with ChatGPT

Samsung Next Invests in Irreverent Labs’ Text-to-Video Tech

Seattle-area startup Irreverent Labs has shifted its focus from blockchain-based video games and NFTs to artificial intelligence. Specifically, it wants to build foundation models for text-to-video generation and related content creation tools. Text-to-video is being explored by several companies but is still in development. Samsung Next was intrigued enough with the proposition to invest an undisclosed sum in Irreverent. While there are several apps that output cartoonish results, ambitious efforts are limited. Animations that aim for photorealism, such as Meta’s Make-a-Video and Runway’s Gen-2, can output only four or five seconds of video at a time. Continue reading Samsung Next Invests in Irreverent Labs’ Text-to-Video Tech

News Orgs Calling for IP Protection Against AI Model Training

A group of news organizations, including Gannett, Getty Images and the Associated Press, have joined forces to call for copyright protection with regard to artificial intelligence training data. The 10 outlets signed an open letter charging foundation models are trained using media content without permission that is then disseminated “without any consideration of, remuneration to, or attribution to the original creators.” The group is demanding laws to protect journalism from AI, which if left unregulated they claim “can threaten the sustainability of the media ecosystem” by eroding the public’s trust and undermining financial viability. Continue reading News Orgs Calling for IP Protection Against AI Model Training

RIAA Alleges Popular ‘AI Hub’ on Discord Violates Copyright

The AI Hub server on Discord has drawn attention from the Recording Industry Association of America, which sent a DMCA takedown notice and is alleging copyright infringement. The users are said to share a wide range of AI voice models, including some based on recognizable performers. Those that may sound familiar are in the style of Stevie Wonder, Frank Sinatra, Rihanna and Bruno Mars. AI Hub reportedly has more than 142,000 members that engage in sharing topical information, such as guides. One point that is getting a lot of attention is the RIAA demand that Discord identify the accused infringers. Continue reading RIAA Alleges Popular ‘AI Hub’ on Discord Violates Copyright

Altman Calls on China to Participate in Global AI Rulemaking

Sam Altman continues to call for coordinated international regulation of artificial intelligence. The OpenAI co-founder and CEO visited Seoul this past weekend to meet with South Korean President Yoon Suk Yeol, who issued a statement saying it is important to act “with a sense of speed” in establishing international standards or face unwanted “side effects.” Altman also virtually delivered a keynote address to Chinese AI researchers at an annual conference hosted by the Beijing Academy of Artificial Intelligence, calling on China to participate in global rulemaking. Continue reading Altman Calls on China to Participate in Global AI Rulemaking

Mixed Reactions to ‘Pause’ on AI Models Larger than GPT-4

Respected members of the advanced tech community are going on record opposing the faction calling for a “pause” in large-model artificial intelligence development. Meta Platforms chief AI scientist Yann LeCun and DeepLearning.AI founder and CEO Andrew Ng, formerly at Alphabet where he helped launch Google Brain, were joined this past week by Bill Gates and former Google CEO Eric Schmidt in opposing the proposed six-month halt to development of AI models more advanced than OpenAI’s GPT-4, which is said to train on a trillion parameters — more than 500 times that of GPT-3. Continue reading Mixed Reactions to ‘Pause’ on AI Models Larger than GPT-4

Report: Enterprise Supplants Academia as Driving Force of AI

After many years of academia leading the way in the development of artificial intelligence, the tides have shifted and industry has taken over, according to the 2023 AI Index, a report created by Stanford University with help from companies including Google, Anthropic and Hugging Face. “In 2022, there were 32 significant industry-produced machine learning models compared to just three produced by academia,” the report says. The shift in influence is attributed mainly to the large resource demands — in staff, computing power and training data — required to create state of the art AI systems. Continue reading Report: Enterprise Supplants Academia as Driving Force of AI