Biden-Harris Administration Secures AI Commitments from Major Tech Companies

In today’s press release from the White House, the Biden-Harris Administration announced that it has secured voluntary commitments from eight more artificial intelligence (AI) companies to manage the risks associated with AI. This move builds upon the commitments from seven AI companies obtained in July.

Companies Involved

The latest round of commitments includes major tech players such as Adobe, Cohere, IBM, Nvidia, Palantir, Salesforce, Scale AI, and Stability. These companies have pledged to drive the safe, secure, and trustworthy development of AI technology.

Nature of Commitments: The commitments emphasize three core principles for AI’s future: safety, security, and trust. The companies have agreed to:

  1. Ensure AI products undergo both internal and external security testing before public release.
  2. Share information on managing AI risks with the industry, governments, civil society, and academia.
  3. Prioritize cybersecurity and protect proprietary AI system components.
  4. Develop mechanisms to inform users when content is AI-generated, such as watermarking.
  5. Publicly report on their AI systems’ capabilities, limitations, and areas of use.
  6. Prioritize research on societal risks posed by AI, including bias, discrimination, and privacy concerns.
  7. Develop AI systems to address societal challenges, ranging from cancer prevention to climate change mitigation.

Government Action

These voluntary commitments are seen as a bridge to forthcoming government action. The Biden-Harris Administration is in the process of developing an Executive Order on AI to ensure the rights and safety of Americans. The Administration is also pursuing bipartisan legislation to position America as a leader in responsible AI development.

International Collaboration: The Administration has consulted with numerous countries, including Australia, Brazil, Canada, France, Germany, India, Japan, and the UK, among others, in developing these commitments. This international collaboration complements initiatives like Japan’s G-7 Hiroshima Process and the United Kingdom’s Summit on AI Safety.

Previous Initiatives

The Biden-Harris Administration has been proactive in addressing AI’s challenges and opportunities. Notable actions include:

  1. Launching the “AI Cyber Challenge” in August to use AI in protecting crucial US software.
  2. Meetings with consumer protection, labor, and civil rights leaders to discuss AI risks.
  3. Engagements with top AI experts and CEOs from companies like Google, Microsoft, and OpenAI.
  4. Publishing a Blueprint for an AI Bill of Rights and ramping up efforts to protect Americans from AI risks, including algorithmic bias.
  5. Investing $140 million to establish seven new National AI Research Institutes.

The Administration’s consistent efforts underscore its commitment to ensuring that AI is developed safely and responsibly, safeguarding Americans’ rights and safety, and protecting them from potential harm and discrimination.

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NVIDIA Doubles Down on Investing Metaverse by Launching New Developer Tools

American technology giant NVIDIA is doubling down on its bet on the metaverse and is empowering creators with the launch of a new set of advanced tools. 

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With lots of updates to the Nvidia Omniverse platform, best used for real-time 3D design collaboration and world simulation, the company has announced its push to facilitate the redesign of Avatars through the help of Artificial Intelligence.

With the metaverse notably an innovation that is growing in momentum by the day, innovators are exploring avenues to introduce new models that can increase the hyperrealism that defines social interactions in virtual worlds. While the current metaverse tools do not give a picture-perfect representation of digital avatars, creators can pitch tents with Nvidia’s key tools, including Audio2Emotion, Full-Face Animation, and Character setup tools.

According to Nvidia, the Audio2Emotion tool is a new feature allowing avatar-emotion controls to be automatically keyed by AI that infers emotion from an audio clip. 

The Full-Face Animation tool is designed to enable Omniverse users to direct the eye, teeth, and tongue motion, in addition to the avatar’s skin, for more complete facial animation, while the Character Transfer retargeting tool now supports full-face animation with easy-to-use tools to define meshes that make up the eyes, teeth, and tongue.

Many tech companies and investors are exploring new opportunities and utilities in the metaverse. While most blockchain startups are focused on the software aspect, technology giants like Nvidia, Microsoft, and Meta Platforms Oculus are committed to developing the hardware infrastructures.

While adopting the metaverse may currently be slow-paced, there is a great projection that the industry will dominate social interactions in less than a decade. Nvidia acknowledges that its developer tools are still evolving, and the expectation is that this evolution will help steer the industry’s growth as a whole.

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Nvidia Agrees to Pay $5.5 Million to SEC Fine for Failure to Crypto Mining Disclosures

Nvidia Corporation, a pioneer provider of graphics processors and related software, has agreed to pay a $5.5 million fine to settle the United States Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) over allegations that the company failed to adequately disclose revenue from cryptocurrency mining. The Commission made the announcement on Friday.

According to the SEC, during two consecutive quarters in 2018, Nvidia did not make it clear that demand from crypto miners was responsible for a significant part of the rise in sales of its gaming graphics processing units (GPUs).

Nvidia’s powerful processors designed for handling video-game graphics are considered well-suitable for handling mining cryptocurrencies such as Bitcoin and Ethereum. Nvidia, the leading chipmaker in the US, agreed to the penalty without admitting or denying the regulator’s findings.

The SEC stated that Nvidia omitted the information about rising demand from crypto miners while making statements about how cryptocurrencies were affecting other business lines.

In a statement, Kristina Littman, head of the SEC’s crypto enforcement team, said: “All issuers, including those that pursue opportunities involving emerging technology, must ensure that their disclosures are timely, complete, and accurate.”

The charges claim that Nvidia misled investors by reporting a boost in revenue associated with gaming activities but hide to reveal how much of such success was contributed by the volatile crypto market.

Based on Nvidia’s financial reports for the 2018 fiscal year, the SEC noted that Nvidia witnessed a massive increase in crypto mining-related sales in 2017, at a time when the rewards for mining Ethereum rose significantly.

Crypto mining was identified as the reason behind the scarcity of gaming GPUs in recent times. As a result, Nvidia launched a separate Cryptocurrency Mining Processor (CMP) line for mining in order to prevent shortages of the gaming GPUs.

However, many of Nvidia’s gaming GPUs were still being sold to miners as there was a significant rise in demand for such products from miners.

The commission stated that Nvidia didn’t mention mining-related sales as a factor in the success of its gaming division. The regulator said that Nvidia mentioned cryptocurrency as an important factor in other markets. This suggested to the SEC that Nvidia was being deceptive deliberately.

Considering crypto’s boom-and-bust nature, this implied that Nvidia’s sales figures didn’t indicate reliable growth for the future, making investing riskier.

“NVIDIA’s analysts and investors were interested in understanding the extent to which the company’s Gaming revenue was impacted by crypto mining and routinely asked senior management about the extent to which increases in gaming revenue during this time frame were driven by crypto mining,” the SEC stated.

Investor anxiety became real as a crypto crash in late 2018 compelled Nvidia to slash its quarterly revenues projections by a whopping $500 million and prompted a shareholder lawsuit.

 

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New ProShares Metaverse ETF to track Apple, Meta, Nvidia

ProShares, the first company in the United States to launch a Bitcoin (BTC) exchange-traded fund (ETF), is diving into metaverse as it now plans to launch a new metaverse-focused ETF.

ProShares on Tuesday filed with the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) for an ETF focused on metaverse, called the ProShares Metaverse Theme ETF.

Subject to approval by the SEC, the proposed ETF will track the performance of the Solactive Metaverse Theme Index (SOMETAV), consisting of firms providing or using metaverse-related technologies, including data processing and metaverse devices, the ETF prospectus reads.

The index includes U.S. companies that are listed on the New York Stock Exchange or The Nasdaq Stock Market and meets certain market capitalization and liquidity requirements, ProShares said. Electronics giants like Apple and Nvidia as well as social media like ​​Meta Platforms, or former Facebook, are reportedly among the index’s top components.

ProShares’ metaverse ETF filing comes amid global companies increasingly venturing into the metaverse and nonfungible tokens (NFT) industry.

On Nov. 29, two Canadian companies, Evolve Funds Group and Horizons ETFs Management, started trading their metaverse ETFs on the Toronto Stock Exchange. Similar to the ProShares Metaverse Theme ETF, the Horizons Global Metaverse Index ETF is tracking SOMETAV.

Related: Virtual land in the metaverse dominated NFT sales over past week

Metaverse has been increasingly emerging as one of the biggest technology trends in 2021 amid Facebook officially announcing its metaverse strategy by rebranding its product to Meta in October. The concept of the Metaverse is based on an online virtual environment featuring a broad range of functions like communicating, gaming, trading digital collectibles and NFTs, attending events and others, facilitated via common devices or virtual and augmented reality headsets.

According to a study by Reports and Data, the global metaverse market was worth $48 billion in 2020 and is expected to reach $872 billion in 2028, posting a revenue at the compound annual growth rate of 44%.