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Gujarat, Google ink deal to realise Digital India dream

Gujarat Chief Minister said that while Gujarat is a hub for young entrepreneurs, Google is eager to take the world by storm with this partnership with Gujarat…reports Asian Lite News

The Gujarat government on Wednesday signed an important strategic Memorandum of Understanding with global technology major Google, through which they will jointly equip Gujarat’s rural women, school-going children and young entrepreneurs for socio-economic transformation through the use of information technology and internet access.

The memorandum was signed in the presence of Gujarat Chief Minister Bhupendra Patel and Vijay Nehra, Secretary, Science Technology and Sanjay Gupta, Vice President and Country Head of Google. Approximately fifty thousand people will be provided training every year.

“Not only this, training sessions will be organized to increase the capacity building-skill of children-students and youth along with increasing digital literacy among rural women,” a release said.

Chief Minister Bhupendra Patel said that Gujarat has a strong ICT (information and communications technology) infrastructure which has been developed due to the new IT and ITES Policy 2022-2027. The chief minister said that Prime Minister Narendra Modi has brought the best in the world to Gujarat and the state government has realized it through various policy initiatives.

Gujarat CM also assured full support of the state government to Google to associate the name of Google with Gujarat and to ensure that Gujarat, which the CM termed as the growth engine of the country.

It is necessary to point out here that the Department of Science and Technology of the Government of Gujarat has signed 3 MoU with Google in the past and more than 10 thousand women, school children, young developers have benefited from these training programs.

On the occasion, Sanjay Gupta, Country Head and Vice President of Google, appreciated the overall development in the IT sector in the state and especially the activities of Science City.

He said that while Gujarat is a hub for young entrepreneurs, Google is eager to take the world by storm with this partnership with Gujarat.

Gupta called children and women as the foundation of a bright future and also said that IT has extended to the rural level in Gujarat will give new direction to this strategic

ALSO READ: Meet 2 Indian entrepreneurs making their mark in 2023

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WhatsApp rolling out new updates for ‘communities’

WhatsApp also moved the community icon from the bottom bar to the chat header in order to improve the user interface and maintain consistency with other chats…reports Asian Lite News

To make it more user-friendly, Meta-owned WhatsApp has rolled out new updates to the community feature by introducing some changes to the interface of the “announcement group” for users on iOS and Android.

According to WABetaInfo, the company has renamed the announcement group to “Home” on WhatsApp beta for Android, and its new name is “Updates” on WhatsApp beta for iOS.

The community feature on WhatsApp allows users to create and join groups of people who share similar interests or hobbies.

The report said that this renaming decision may have been made because the announcement group is typically a read-only conversation to which only community admins have access, and it may not fit the traditional definition of a group.

WhatsApp also moved the community icon from the bottom bar to the chat header in order to improve the user interface and maintain consistency with other chats.

In addition, the latest WhatsApp Communities update for iOS and Android provides community admins with a more bug-free experience when posting messages to their community.

The new WhatsApp Communities update is now available to some users who have installed the latest versions of WhatsApp beta for iOS and Android, and it will be available to even more people in the coming days, the report said.

Meanwhile, WhatsApp is reportedly working on a redesigned chat attachment menu for Android beta.

The tweaked chat attachment menu is more clearer and offers a better user-friendly experience.

ALSO READ-Lulu unveils AI-powered customer experiences on WhatsApp

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Tech Lite

‘ChatGPT to eliminate a lot of current jobs’

OpenAI announced that ChatGPT Plus, the subscription service to access its text-generating AI, is now available in India…reports Asian Lite News

Sam Altman, CEO of OpenAI, the company that created ChatGPT, believes that artificial intelligence technology will reshape society as we know it, adding that he worries that AI chatbots could “eliminate a lot of current jobs”.

He believes it comes with real dangers, but can also be “the greatest technology humanity has yet developed” to drastically improve our lives.

“We’ve got to be careful here. I think people should be happy that we are a little bit scared of this,” Altman was quoted as saying.

When asked why he was “scared” about forming his company, he said that if he wasn’t, “you should either not trust me or be very unhappy that I’m in this job”.

“It is going to eliminate a lot of current jobs, that’s true. We can make much better ones. The reason to develop AI at all, in terms of impact on our lives and improving our lives and upside, this will be the greatest technology humanity has yet developed,” said OpenAI CEO.

In addition, he discussed the possible effects of chatbots powered by AI on education, including their potential to encourage laziness among students.

“Education is going to have to change. But it’s happened many other times with technology. When we got the calculator, the way we taught math and what we tested students on totally changed”.

Moreover, Altman and his team want users to think of ChatGPT as a “co-pilot,” in any field, someone who can help you write complex computer code or solve problems, said the report.

Last week, OpenAI announced that ChatGPT Plus, the subscription service to access its text-generating AI, is now available in India.

“Great news! ChatGPT Plus subscriptions are now available in India. Get early access to new features, including GPT-4 today,” OpenAI said in a tweet.

ALSO READ-GM may bring ChatGPT-like digital assistant for cars

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Tech Lite

Learning social skills next target for AI

Fan said that ASI requires the ability to interpret latent social cues, such as eye-rolling or yawning, to understand other agents’ mental states, such as belief and intent, and to cooperate in a shared task…reports Asian Lite News

Siri and Google Assistant may be able to schedule meetings on request, but so far they don’t have the social understanding to independently prioritise the appointments.

According to researchers based in China, Artificial Intelligence (AI) is smart, but it is stunted by a lack of social skills.

“Artificial intelligence has changed our society and our daily life,” first author Lifeng Fan, from Beijing Institute for General Artificial Intelligence (BIGAI) said.

“What is the next important challenge for AI in the future? We argue that Artificial Social Intelligence (ASI) is the next big frontier,” Fan said.

In a paper, published in the CAAI Artificial Intelligence Research, the team explained that ASI comprises multiple siloed subfields, including social perception, theory of Mind — the understanding that others think from their own point of view — and social interaction.

By using cognitive science and computational modelling to identify the gap between AI systems and human social intelligence, as well as current issues and future directions, Fan said the field will be better equipped to advance.

“ASI is distinct and challenging compared to our physical understanding of the work; it is highly context-dependent,” Fan said.

“Here, context could be as large as culture and common sense or as little as two friends’ shared experience. This unique challenge prohibits standard algorithms from tackling ASI problems in real-world environments, which are frequently complex, ambiguous, dynamic, stochastic, partially observable and multi-agent.”

Fan said that ASI requires the ability to interpret latent social cues, such as eye-rolling or yawning, to understand other agents’ mental states, such as belief and intent, and to cooperate in a shared task.

According to Fan, the best approach is a more holistic one, mimicking how humans interface with one another and the world around them. This requires an open-ended and interactive environment, as well as consideration for how to introduce better human-like biases into ASI models.

“To accelerate the future progress of ASI, we recommend taking a more holistic approach just as humans do, to utilise different learning methods such as lifelong learning, multi-task learning, one-/few-shot learning, meta-learning, etc.,” Fan said.

“We need to define new problems, create new environments and datasets, set up new evaluation protocols, and build new computational models. The ultimate goal is to equip AI with high-level ASI and lift human well-being with the help of Artificial Social Intelligence.”

ALSO READ-Apple Focuses on Artificial Intelligence

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YouTube TV’s ‘multiview’ feature rolling out to all users

Commenting on the announcement, one user asked, “Any chance it’ll ever be more than two screens? I have only ever seen that since yesterday.”..reports Asian Lite News

Video-sharing platform YouTube on Saturday announced that it is rolling out its streaming television service’s new “multiview” feature to all usersAthat allows subscribers to watch up to four different programs at the same time.

The company tweeted from its YouTube TV account: “Wow! We hear ya! We’re rolling out multiview streams to ALL users for the rest of the tournament.”

“We didn’t plan to release this beyond our test group so soon. Please be patient while we fine tune and fix known issues. Enjoy multiview early as we prep for a biiig fall.”

Commenting on the announcement, one user asked, “Any chance it’ll ever be more than two screens? I have only ever seen that since yesterday.”

To this, the platform replied, “since this is a pilot feature, we’re still figuring out the best configurations. you may see anywhere from 2 to 4 streams shown together based on the timing of when games are scheduled to begin and end.”

Earlier this week, the company had announced the “multiview” feature andAsaid that early access to multiview will roll out to all YouTube TV members over the next few months.

ALSO READ-UK govt to look into Youtube gathering child data  

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Tech Lite USA

Why AI fails to reproduce human vision

Previous studies have shown that deep learning cannot perfectly reproduce human visual recognition, but few have attempted to establish which aspects of human vision deep learning fails to emulate…reports Asian Lite News

While computers may be able to spot a familiar face or an oncoming vehicle faster than the human brain, their accuracy is questionable.

Computers can be taught to process incoming data, like observing faces and cars, using artificial intelligence (AI) known as deep neural networks or deep learning. This type of machine learning process uses interconnected nodes or neurons in a layered structure that resembles the human brain.

The key word is “resembles” as computers, despite the power and promise of deep learning, have yet to master human calculations and crucially, the communication and connection found between the body and the brain, specifically when it comes to visual recognition, according to a study led by Marieke Mur, a neuroimaging expert at Western University in Canada.

“While promising, deep neural networks are far from being perfect computational models of human vision,” said Mur.

Previous studies have shown that deep learning cannot perfectly reproduce human visual recognition, but few have attempted to establish which aspects of human vision deep learning fails to emulate.

The team used a non-invasive medical test called magnetoencephalography (MEG) that measures the magnetic fields produced by a brain’s electrical currents. Using MEG data acquired from human observers during object viewing, Mur and her team detected one key point of failure.

They found that readily nameable parts of objects, such as “eye,” “wheel,” and “face,” can account for variance in human neural dynamics over and above what deep learning can deliver.

“These findings suggest that deep neural networks and humans may in part rely on different object features for visual recognition and provide guidelines for model improvement,” said Mur.

The study shows deep neural networks cannot fully account for neural responses measured in human observers while individuals are viewing photos of objects, including faces and animals, and has major implications for the use of deep learning models in real-world settings, such as self-driving vehicles.

“This discovery provides clues about what neural networks are failing to understand in images, namely visual features that are indicative of ecologically relevant object categories such as faces and animals,” said Mur.

“We suggest that neural networks can be improved as models of the brain by giving them a more human-like learning experience, like a training regime that more strongly emphasises behavioural pressures that humans are subjected to during development.”

For example, it is important for humans to quickly identify whether an object is an approaching animal or not, and if so, to predict its next consequential move. Integrating these pressures during training may benefit the ability of deep learning approaches to model human vision.

The work is published in The Journal of Neuroscience.

ALSO READ-Apple Focuses on Artificial Intelligence

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Science Tech Lite UK News

OneWeb’s satellites fitted inside Indian rocket’s heat shield

A couple of days back, OneWeb had launched 40 satellites through SpaceX’s rocket…reports Asian Lite News

The second batch of 36 satellites belonging to the UK-based Network Access Associated Ltd (OneWeb) has been fitted inside the Indian rocket LVM3’s heatshield.

In a tweet, OneWeb said: “Exciting news from India as we confirm the encapsulation of our 36 satellites ahead of #OneWebLaunch18; our final launch which will complete our Gen 1 constellation. Thanks to our OneWebbers on site, as well as our colleagues at @isro Aand NSIL_India.”

The Indian rocket is expected to fly off with the OneWeb satellites this month end.

The first batch of 36 satellites was launched on October 23, 2022 from Sriharikota rocket port in Andhra Pradesh with LVM3 rocket formerly known as Geosynchronous Satellite Launch Vehicle MkIII (GSLV MkIII).

ISRO’s commercial arm NewSpace India Ltd (NSIL) has signed a contract with OneWeb to launch 72 satellites in two phases for a launch fee of over Rs 1,000 crore, OneWeb Chairman Sunil Bharti Mittal had said last October.

A couple of days back, OneWeb had launched 40 satellites through SpaceX’s rocket.

OneWeb has 582 satellites now in orbit. Once Indian rocket LVM3 puts into orbit 36 satellites then the total number of OneWeb’s low earth orbit satellites will go up to 618.

The company backed by India’s telecom major Bharti Group will complete global footprint of its Gen 1 constellation with a launch set to take place later this month with ISRO/NSIL.

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GM may bring ChatGPT-like digital assistant for cars

Announced internally, the cuts affected about 500 positions across the company’s various functions, reports CNBC, citing sources…reports Asian Lite News

Automaker General Motors (GM) is reportedly working on a virtual personal assistant based on the same machine learning models that power ChatGPT.

According to Semafor, citing sources, the voice-activated chatbot will be powered by Microsoft’s Azure cloud service, which owns the OpenAI tech that powers ChatGPT.

In addition, Scott Miller, GM’s vice president of software-defined vehicle and operating system, confirmed that the company is developing an artificial intelligence assistant in order to go beyond current voice commands.

For instance, if a driver gets a flat tyre, they can ask the car to show them how to change it, which may result in the car playing an instructional video on an internal display.

Moreover, the report mentioned that the version of AI assistant in GM cars will behave differently than ChatGPT or Bing Chat because the automaker is working on adding another, more car-specific layer on top of the OpenAI models known for answering any question, often with unpredictable results.

Meanwhile, General Motors has laid off hundreds of workers from the company as it follows other major companies, including competitors, in downsizing headcounts to preserve cash and boost profits.

Announced internally, the cuts affected about 500 positions across the company’s various functions, reports CNBC, citing sources.

ALSO READ-AI chatbot ChatGPT unable to clear UPSC exams

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Meta fires 10K more employees, shuts 5K open roles

In a small number of cases, it may take through the end of the year to complete these changes, he added…reports Asian Lite News

Meta Founder and CEO Mark Zuckerberg on Tuesday announced to sack an additional 10,000 employees via several job cut rounds in the coming months.

In a Facebook post, Zuckerberg said overall, “we expect to reduce our team size by around 10,000 people and to close around 5,000 additional open roles that we haven’t yet hired” in the company’s “year of efficiency”.

In a separate filing with the US SEC, Meta said the new job cuts will lower the high end of its expense guidance for the year by $3 billion.

Over the next couple of months, organisation leaders will announce restructuring plans focused on flattening the organisations, cancelling lower priority projects, and reducing hiring rates.

“We will let recruiting team members know tomorrow whether they’re impacted. We expect to announce restructurings and layoffs in our tech groups in late April, and then our business groups in late May,” the Meta CEO said.

In a small number of cases, it may take through the end of the year to complete these changes, he added.

“Our timelines for international teams will also look different, and local leaders will follow up with more details,” said Zuckerberg.

The fresh cuts come just four months after he laid off 11,000 employees, or 13 per cent of the company, in November last year.

Zuckerberg said that after restructuring, Meta plans to lift hiring and transfer freezes in each group.

“Other relevant efficiency timelines include targeting this summer to complete our analysis from our hybrid work year of learning so we can further refine our distributed work model. We also aim to have a steady stream of developer productivity enhancements and process improvements throughout the year,” he added.

In its ‘Year of Efficiency’, Meta will make the organisation flatter by removing multiple layers of management.

“As part of this, we will ask many managers to become individual contributors. We’ll also have individual contributors report into almost every level — not just the bottom — so information flow between people doing the work and management will be faster,” Zuckerberg noted.

ALSO READ-More layoffs likely in Meta

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India News Tech Lite

Microsoft to unveil GPT-4 next week with AI videos

ChatGPT and other GPT-3.5-powered technologies are currently limited to text-based responses. However, Braun’s comments imply that this may change with the release of GPT-4…reports Asian Lite News

Microsoft plans to release GPT-4 as early as next week, with the ability to create AI-generated videos from simple text prompts.

Andreas Braun, Chief Technology Officer at Microsoft Germany, recently confirmed that GPT-4 will be unveiled next week at an event called — AI in Focus — Digital Kickoff, reports Windows Central.

“We will introduce GPT-4 next week, where we have multimodal models that will offer completely different possibilities – for example, videos,” Braun was quoted as saying.

The report said that GPT-4 is the next iteration of OpenAI’s Large Language Model (LLM), and it should be significantly more powerful than GPT-3.5, which powers the current version of ChatGPT.

ChatGPT and other GPT-3.5-powered technologies are currently limited to text-based responses. However, Braun’s comments imply that this may change with the release of GPT-4.

The multimodal models of the LLM could pave the way for video production and other types of content, according to the report.

Meanwhile, the AI-powered Bing search engine has surpassed 100 million daily active users, as ChatGPT’s integration into Bing has helped the company grow its usage within a month like never before.

Its rival Google Search engine has more than 1 billion daily active users. Roughly one-third of daily Bing preview users are using AI chat daily.

Meanwhile, Microsoft’s annual developer conference called ‘Build’ is likely to be held in Seattle, the US, from May 23-25, as the Satya Nadella-run company doubles down on AI and ChatGPT driven products.

A Twitter leaker published a marketing image of Microsoft Build dates that is slated to be in-person this time.

The company was yet to make the dates of its flagship event official.

Last year, Microsoft’s annual developer conference Build was limited in-person as well as in full virtual format. Microsoft Build is where developers, architects, start-ups, and students learn, connect, and code together, sharing knowledge and expanding their skillset, while exploring new ways of innovating for tomorrow.

With so much buzz around AI chatbots, Microsoft is set to showcase more innovations in AI. Microsoft has already introduced its new Bing powered by “next-generation” ChatGPT AI, and also updated its Edge browser with new AI capabilities.

ALSO READ-Microsoft job cuts hits employees in supply chain, Cloud, IoT biz