Month: March 2023
India Hunts For Spyware That Rivals Controversial Pegasus System
India is hunting for new spyware with a lower profile than the controversial Pegasus system blacklisted by the US government, with rival surveillance software makers preparing bids on lucrative deals being offered by Narendra Modi’s government. Financial Times: Defence and intelligence officials from the South Asian country have decided to acquire spyware from less exposed competitors to the NSO Group, the Israeli makers of Pegasus, according to people familiar with the move, seeking to spend up to $120mn through new spyware contracts. About a dozen competitors are expected to join the bidding process, according to two people with knowledge of the talks, stepping into the void created by the pressure on NSO from human rights groups and the administration of US President Joe Biden.
India’s move shows how demand for this sophisticated — and largely unregulated — technology remains strong despite growing evidence that governments worldwide have abused spyware by targeting dissidents and critics. India has never publicly acknowledged being a customer of NSO. However, the company’s malware has been found on the phones of journalists, left-leaning academics and opposition leaders around India, sparking a political crisis. Pegasus can turn phones into surveillance devices and can hoover up encrypted WhatsApp and Signal messages surreptitiously. Modi government officials have grown concerned about the “PR problem” caused by the ability of human rights groups to forensically trace Pegasus, as well as warnings from Apple and WhatsApp to those who have been targeted, according to two people familiar with the discussions.
Read more of this story at Slashdot.
India is hunting for new spyware with a lower profile than the controversial Pegasus system blacklisted by the US government, with rival surveillance software makers preparing bids on lucrative deals being offered by Narendra Modi’s government. Financial Times: Defence and intelligence officials from the South Asian country have decided to acquire spyware from less exposed competitors to the NSO Group, the Israeli makers of Pegasus, according to people familiar with the move, seeking to spend up to $120mn through new spyware contracts. About a dozen competitors are expected to join the bidding process, according to two people with knowledge of the talks, stepping into the void created by the pressure on NSO from human rights groups and the administration of US President Joe Biden.
India’s move shows how demand for this sophisticated — and largely unregulated — technology remains strong despite growing evidence that governments worldwide have abused spyware by targeting dissidents and critics. India has never publicly acknowledged being a customer of NSO. However, the company’s malware has been found on the phones of journalists, left-leaning academics and opposition leaders around India, sparking a political crisis. Pegasus can turn phones into surveillance devices and can hoover up encrypted WhatsApp and Signal messages surreptitiously. Modi government officials have grown concerned about the “PR problem” caused by the ability of human rights groups to forensically trace Pegasus, as well as warnings from Apple and WhatsApp to those who have been targeted, according to two people familiar with the discussions.
Read more of this story at Slashdot.
Drew Carey made a radio show with AI. Fans weren’t pleased.
Drew Carey isn’t afraid of AI. Instead, The Price is Right host and longtime improv comedian is embracing the technology. During a recent episode of his SiriusXM radio show, “Friday Night Freakout,” Carey used an artificially generated version of his voice to handle most of his DJ work, reading a script written by ChatGPT. His AI voice kicked off the show, introduced upcoming songs and recapped what listeners were hearing. As an experiment to see just how far AI could go on the radio, the episode was mostly a success. But Carey’s fans weren’t happy about it.
“I violated a rule from Radio 101,” Carey told me. His Twitter fans complained that the voice sounded soulless, and that they missed the “real Drew.” “The reason FM stations and treasured radio stations still make money is because people like the personality of the DJs,” he said. “You don’t have to be like a big boss radio guy and be phony. You can just talk… that’s what listeners like.”
While his fans were ultimately forgiving of the experiment, Carey says he got the message: “Don’t do it again.”
For many entertainers, AI could be viewed as yet another threat in an increasingly precarious industry. Soon after ElevenLabs introduced a beta version of its AI voice tool — the same software Carey used for his radio show — online trolls used it to impersonate Emma Watson, Joe Rogan and other celebrities. Watsons’ simulated voice read portions of the Mein Kampf aloud, while other deepfaked voices made openly racist and transphobic statements, according to Vice.
Carey’s AI voice wasn’t perfect: It sounded a tad robotic, it didn’t have the inflections his fans have grown to love over the years, and the ChatGPT-written script was noticeably simplistic. But if you were driving down the highway late at night, and you just wanted a bit of company alongside some classic rock, it’s possible you wouldn’t notice the DJ wasn’t human. In fact, ElevenLabs recently partnered with Super HI-Fi to create “fully customized and personalized” AI driven radio stations.
“I was just playing with it, and I wanted to show what it was capable of,” he said. “Plus, I thought, oh, I don’t want to show everybody how to make an exact copy of my voice right now. I thought it might screw me over somehow. So I had that little fear in the back of my head.”
It took a weekend for Carey and a friend, who already had experience training ChatGPT and other AI tools, to create his AI voice. ChatGPT wrote 99 percent of his radio show’s script, though Carey made a few tweaks of his own. Funny enough, when he asked the chatbot to write a joke about how easy it was to use, it wrote the line “even Drew Carey can use it.” (Perhaps ChatGPT is just trying to snag a spot on the inevitable Whose Line Is It Anyway? revival.)
Carey envisions AI being used in the future for the grunt work of radio and other production. Perhaps it could read a script late at night, or churn out some ad copy. When I asked if that’s a potential problem for newcomers, he noted, “There are no blacksmiths anymore… If you’re a mechanic that works on internal combustion engine cars, if you don’t make the switch to electric soon, you’re out of a job.”
According to a recent Goldman Sachs report, up to 300 million jobs around the world could be automated thanks to recent advancements in AI. But the bank’s economists also point out that major innovations that replace some jobs typically lead to the creation of new roles. And for those who are only partially impacted by AI, they’ll likely be able to complement their work with generative intelligence.
For celebrities like Carey, AI could also be a way for them to continue working indefinitely, long after they’ve retired or passed on. James Earl Jones’s voice has already been reconstructed for the Disney+ series Obi-Wan Kenobi, and he’s approved future work to “keep Vader alive.” Eventually, actors (and their estates) could sign off on AI clones that entertain us for generations to come.
Carey isn’t afraid of such an outcome. “You know what, if the price is right, anything can happen,” he said when I asked if he’d ever sell his digital likeness. “I’m not worried about CGI Drew Carey taking over, because people want to see me, they want some kind of host. They want that interaction.”This article originally appeared on Engadget at https://www.engadget.com/drew-carey-made-a-radio-show-with-ai-fans-werent-pleased-143014038.html?src=rss
Drew Carey isn’t afraid of AI. Instead, The Price is Right host and longtime improv comedian is embracing the technology. During a recent episode of his SiriusXM radio show, “Friday Night Freakout,” Carey used an artificially generated version of his voice to handle most of his DJ work, reading a script written by ChatGPT. His AI voice kicked off the show, introduced upcoming songs and recapped what listeners were hearing. As an experiment to see just how far AI could go on the radio, the episode was mostly a success. But Carey’s fans weren’t happy about it.
“I violated a rule from Radio 101,” Carey told me. His Twitter fans complained that the voice sounded soulless, and that they missed the “real Drew.” “The reason FM stations and treasured radio stations still make money is because people like the personality of the DJs,” he said. “You don’t have to be like a big boss radio guy and be phony. You can just talk… that’s what listeners like.”
While his fans were ultimately forgiving of the experiment, Carey says he got the message: “Don’t do it again.”
For many entertainers, AI could be viewed as yet another threat in an increasingly precarious industry. Soon after ElevenLabs introduced a beta version of its AI voice tool — the same software Carey used for his radio show — online trolls used it to impersonate Emma Watson, Joe Rogan and other celebrities. Watsons’ simulated voice read portions of the Mein Kampf aloud, while other deepfaked voices made openly racist and transphobic statements, according to Vice.
Carey’s AI voice wasn’t perfect: It sounded a tad robotic, it didn’t have the inflections his fans have grown to love over the years, and the ChatGPT-written script was noticeably simplistic. But if you were driving down the highway late at night, and you just wanted a bit of company alongside some classic rock, it’s possible you wouldn’t notice the DJ wasn’t human. In fact, ElevenLabs recently partnered with Super HI-Fi to create “fully customized and personalized” AI driven radio stations.
“I was just playing with it, and I wanted to show what it was capable of,” he said. “Plus, I thought, oh, I don’t want to show everybody how to make an exact copy of my voice right now. I thought it might screw me over somehow. So I had that little fear in the back of my head.”
It took a weekend for Carey and a friend, who already had experience training ChatGPT and other AI tools, to create his AI voice. ChatGPT wrote 99 percent of his radio show’s script, though Carey made a few tweaks of his own. Funny enough, when he asked the chatbot to write a joke about how easy it was to use, it wrote the line “even Drew Carey can use it.” (Perhaps ChatGPT is just trying to snag a spot on the inevitable Whose Line Is It Anyway? revival.)
Carey envisions AI being used in the future for the grunt work of radio and other production. Perhaps it could read a script late at night, or churn out some ad copy. When I asked if that’s a potential problem for newcomers, he noted, “There are no blacksmiths anymore… If you’re a mechanic that works on internal combustion engine cars, if you don’t make the switch to electric soon, you’re out of a job.”
According to a recent Goldman Sachs report, up to 300 million jobs around the world could be automated thanks to recent advancements in AI. But the bank’s economists also point out that major innovations that replace some jobs typically lead to the creation of new roles. And for those who are only partially impacted by AI, they’ll likely be able to complement their work with generative intelligence.
For celebrities like Carey, AI could also be a way for them to continue working indefinitely, long after they’ve retired or passed on. James Earl Jones’s voice has already been reconstructed for the Disney+ series Obi-Wan Kenobi, and he’s approved future work to “keep Vader alive.” Eventually, actors (and their estates) could sign off on AI clones that entertain us for generations to come.
Carey isn’t afraid of such an outcome. “You know what, if the price is right, anything can happen,” he said when I asked if he’d ever sell his digital likeness. “I’m not worried about CGI Drew Carey taking over, because people want to see me, they want some kind of host. They want that interaction.”
This article originally appeared on Engadget at https://www.engadget.com/drew-carey-made-a-radio-show-with-ai-fans-werent-pleased-143014038.html?src=rss
US investors slash Byju’s and Swiggy valuation
Some of the biggest Indian startups are taking a haircut in their valuations — at least in the eyes of their investors — as some backers adjust their estimates amid the weakening global economy. BlackRock has cut the valuation of Byju’s, which is India’s most valuable startup at $22 billion, to nearly half at $11.5
US investors slash Byju’s and Swiggy valuation by Manish Singh originally published on TechCrunch
Some of the biggest Indian startups are taking a haircut in their valuations — at least in the eyes of their investors — as some backers adjust their estimates amid the weakening global economy.
BlackRock has cut the valuation of Byju’s, which is India’s most valuable startup at $22 billion, to nearly half at $11.5 billion, according to filings seen by TechCrunch. Indian news outlet The Arc first reported about the valuation cut.
Swiggy, India’s most valuable food delivery startup at $10.7 billion, has been marked down to a valuation of about $8 billion by Invesco, according to disclosures by the U.S. fund seen by TechCrunch.
Byju’s raised capital last year at a valuation of $22 billion and has topped up more financing in recent quarters on a convertible note with the previous valuation set as the cap, according to people familiar with the matter. BlackRock made the disclosure about its valuation adjustment on the Indian edtech giant in its 2022 annual report to shareholders.
Swiggy climbed to $10.7 billion valuation in a round led by Invesco itself in January 2022. By the end of October, the Atlanta-headquartered firm had slashed the value of its Swiggy holdings and valued the firm at about $8 billion, filings showed.
The valuation cuts add a new dimension to the impact of the dwindling market conditions on the Indian startups. Funding activity in the Indian startup ecosystem slowed down last year but because many of the larger startups raised capital on convertible notes or did not raise capital at all, their last valuations have largely remained unchallenged.
It’s important to note however that investors value equity of their existing portfolio startups in different ways and one investor’s value adjustment, however noteworthy, does not necessarily represent the views of other backers — and sometimes those of the startups themselves.
US investors slash Byju’s and Swiggy valuation by Manish Singh originally published on TechCrunch
PGA Tour-LIV Golf Rivalry Could Make for a Tense Masters Dinner
Players from the competing tours will be shoulder to shoulder at the traditional Champions Dinner. Feelings about that are mixed.
Players from the competing tours will be shoulder to shoulder at the traditional Champions Dinner. Feelings about that are mixed.