OpenAI is inconsistent in a lot of things — is it a non-profit or a for-profit? Is Sam Altman fit to be CEO or not? But one thing the company has always been consistent about is its belief that it requires access to copyrighted material for AI training. Now, despite the many voices that disagree, OpenAI wants the U.S. government to approve such unrestricted access by ruling it as “fair use.”
The company argues that the U.S. will fall behind China in the AI race if companies don’t have the freedom to train their models on copyrighted material — claiming that “overly burdensome state laws” will slow the process and affect results.
If you’re a creator, this could impact you, too. Artists, writers, programmers, photographers, and filmmakers with online portfolios, for example, all own their work but if this plan goes through, you’ll have no grounds to complain when your content is used to train AI. Even more physical creative pursuits like fashion design, jewelry-making, or sculpting aren’t safe if you post photos of your work online.
It seems like a cruel joke that OpenAI wants AI training to count as “fair” use of copyrighted work when the products it develops will be used to generate new mangled versions of personal creations. A particularly direct example of this happened just last month when the French cast of Apex Legends was reportedly asked to participate in training an AI model that would eventually be used to generate voice lines for the game.
There are a lot of commercial uses for various kinds of creative content but the better AI models get at mimicking it, the harder it will be to make money as a creator. Companies have quite the track record of choosing the least expensive option in any situation, and there’s little reason to believe this will change any time soon.
It’s hard to imagine what the solution will be for creators in this situation. Individuals who really care about protecting their work might start password-protecting their online portfolios, sacrificing just a few old examples to the training sets, and only sharing the rest upon human request.
There would definitely be demand for a proper solution too — some kind of new portfolio or creative sharing platform that only humans can access. It would need to have a pretty hardcore authentication process but there are definitely people out there who care enough about this to sacrifice some convenience.
The White House hasn’t responded to OpenAI’s plan yet, so we’ll have to wait and see how this develops.
The absolutely absurd idea of putting a touchscreen display on a mouse isn't exactly new. Turtle Beach already did it with its Command Series MC7, which features a 2.25-inch control screen. But apparently, even that wasn't ridiculous enough for Arctic Fox Technologies. Its new Super Mouse looks like someone took the chunky old Atari ST mouse, slapped a touchscreen and scroll wheel on it, and called it an upgrade.
The result is a rather unusual-looking mouse that is now on Kickstarter, starting at $199. And as ridiculous as it looks, some of its features are genuinely intriguing.
Apple is less than a day away from launching its highly anticipated OLED MacBook Pro with a touch-sensitive screen. But it appears that the upgrade is going to cost a pretty penny. According to a report by Bloomberg, Apple is reportedly eyeing a starting price of $2,899 for the 14-inch MacBook Pro, while the 16-inch version could start at $3,399 in the US.
"At $2,899, the 14-inch model would mark the highest starting price for a new MacBook Pro model, surpassing the $2,799 Apple charged for a 17-inch version introduced in 2006," says the report. The report claims that Apple is targeting a minimum price hike of $400 for its upcoming redesigned 14-inch and 16-inch MacBook Pro models.
I've spent a good amount of time digging into the spec sheet of the new M6 MacBook Pro (14-inch), and for all intents and purposes, this is a classic Apple "chip and connectivity" refresh. It's not a full redesign. The chassis, Liquid Retina XDR panel, speakers, ports, and battery, all of them carry over unchanged.
However, the M6 brings more cores, stronger on-device AI, higher memory bandwidth on the larger configs, and modern wireless. Here’s the practical rundown of what actually improved, and whether those gains are worth your money.