Tech
Blurred lines: "Photoshopped" is about to get a whole new meaning

Blurred lines: "Photoshopped" is about to get a whole new meaning

David Crowther

Wings and lassos‍

‍Adobe is the latest company to jump on the AI bandwagon, announcing last week that it's integrating the technology into its editing software Photoshop. The new tool will work similarly to other generative AI technologies, such as Midjourney and DALL-E, allowing users to quickly create, extend or edit images with simple prompts. Examples demonstrated included replacing a cowboy's lasso with strands of spaghetti, adding wings to a jumping dog, and more mundane edits like extending images or replacing backgrounds.

Integrating AI into its products makes a lot of sense for Adobe — the company’s share price is up 14% since the news — turning what could have been an existential threat into another feature of its flagship design software. Those tools will also have to stay fresh. Adobe’s business is now overwhelmingly subscriptions, rather than one-off sales, a shift that means more predictable revenue for Adobe, but also pressure to keep delivering product updates in a fast-moving industry. Last year the company splurged $20bn buying startup Figma (a deal that’s still being held up by UK regulators), this time the company seems more comfortable building its latest features in house.

‍Can’t trust your eyes

‍With Photoshop embracing AI, discussions will intensify about the risks posed by AI-generated fake images, like one of the Pentagon from last week. Interestingly, Adobe is including a free tool that will encode AI generated images with invisible digital signatures to separate the organic from the algorithmic. The company hasn't addressed concerns around job losses quite so convincingly, however — merely describing the tool as a “co-pilot” rather than a replacement for human designers.

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Rani Molla
5h
Microsoft falls as it lays out plan for “Humanist Superintelligence” without OpenAI

Microsoft AI’s CEO explained its vision for superintelligence that prioritizes human control.

Microsoft Celebrates Its 50th Anniversary With Copilot AI Event
tech
Jon Keegan

Meta projected 10% of 2024 revenue came from scams and banned goods, Reuters reports

Meta has been making billions of dollars per year from scam ads and sales of banned goods, according internal Meta documents seen by Reuters.

The new report quantifies the scale of fraud taking place on Meta’s platforms, and how much the company profited from them.

Per the report, Meta internal projections from late last year said that 10% of the company’s total 2024 revenue would come from scammy ads and sales of banned goods — which works out to $16 billion.

Discussions within Meta acknowledged the steep fines likely to be levied against the company for not stopping the fraudulent behavior on its platforms, and the company prioritized enforcement in regions where the penalties would be steepest, the reporting found. The cost of lost revenue from clamping down on the scams was weighed against the cost of fines from regulators.

The documents reportedly show that Meta did aim to significantly reduce the fraudulent behavior, but cuts to its moderation team left the vast majority of user-reported violations to be ignored or rejected.

Meta spokesperson Andy Stone told Reuters the documents were a “selective view” of internal enforcement:

“We aggressively fight fraud and scams because people on our platforms don’t want this content, legitimate advertisers don’t want it, and we don’t want it either.”

Meta is earning a fortune on a deluge of fraudulent ads, documents show

Meta is earning a fortune on a deluge of fraudulent ads, documents show

Per the report, Meta internal projections from late last year said that 10% of the company’s total 2024 revenue would come from scammy ads and sales of banned goods — which works out to $16 billion.

Discussions within Meta acknowledged the steep fines likely to be levied against the company for not stopping the fraudulent behavior on its platforms, and the company prioritized enforcement in regions where the penalties would be steepest, the reporting found. The cost of lost revenue from clamping down on the scams was weighed against the cost of fines from regulators.

The documents reportedly show that Meta did aim to significantly reduce the fraudulent behavior, but cuts to its moderation team left the vast majority of user-reported violations to be ignored or rejected.

Meta spokesperson Andy Stone told Reuters the documents were a “selective view” of internal enforcement:

“We aggressively fight fraud and scams because people on our platforms don’t want this content, legitimate advertisers don’t want it, and we don’t want it either.”

Rani Molla
AIs Wide Shut
7h
OpenAI says its AI device will be “multimodal” but doesn’t give many more details

Here’s what we know about the Jony Ive and OpenAI device so far.

Jony Ive and Sam Altman
$350B
Rani Molla

Google wants to invest even more money into Anthropic, with the search giant in talks for a new funding round that could value the AI startup at $350 billion, Business Insider reports. That’s about double its valuation from two months ago, but still shy of competitor OpenAI’s $500 billion valuation.

Citing sources familiar with the matter, Business Insider said the new deal “could also take the form of a strategic investment where Google provides additional cloud computing services to Anthropic, a convertible note, or a priced funding round early next year.”

In October, Google, which has a 14% stake in Anthropic, announced that it had inked a deal worth “tens of billions” for Anthropic to access Google’s AI compute to train and serve its Claude model.

tech
Rani Molla

Apple to pay Google $1 billion a year for access to AI model for Siri

Apple plans to pay Google about $1 billion a year to use the search giant’s AI model for Siri, Bloomberg reports. Google’s model — at 1.2 trillion parameters — is way bigger than Apple’s current models.

The deal aims to help the iPhone maker improve its lagging AI efforts, powering a new Siri slated to come out this spring.

Apple had previously been considering using OpenAI’s ChatGPT and Anthropic’s Claude, but decided in the end to go with Google as it works toward improving its own internal models. Google, which makes a much less widely sold phone, the Pixel, has succeeded in bringing consumer AI to smartphone users where Apple has failed.

Google’s antitrust ruling in September helped safeguard the two companies’ partnerships — including the more than $20 billion Google pays Apple each year to be the default search engine on its devices — as long as they aren’t exclusive.

Apple Plans to Use 1.2 Trillion Parameter Google Gemini Model to Run New Siri

Apple Plans to Use 1.2 Trillion Parameter Google Gemini Model to Run New Siri

Apple had previously been considering using OpenAI’s ChatGPT and Anthropic’s Claude, but decided in the end to go with Google as it works toward improving its own internal models. Google, which makes a much less widely sold phone, the Pixel, has succeeded in bringing consumer AI to smartphone users where Apple has failed.

Google’s antitrust ruling in September helped safeguard the two companies’ partnerships — including the more than $20 billion Google pays Apple each year to be the default search engine on its devices — as long as they aren’t exclusive.

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