AI Foundation

AI Foundation is an American artificial intelligence company founded by Lars Buttler and Rob Meadows, developing ethical artificial intelligent agents individuals can train. The company has offices in San Francisco and in Las Vegas; it was started in 2017 and has been operating in stealth until it was first publicly reported in September 2018 by Variety[1] and VentureBeat.[2] The publications note the company closed a $10 million funding round to commercialize AI products that benefit humanity.

AI Foundation
Private
IndustryArtificial intelligence
Founded2017
FounderLars Buttler and Rob Meadows
Websiteaifoundation.com

Since its founding, the company has hired many high-profile AI researchers and has partnered with Technical University of Munich (TUM).[3]

Company overview

According to the company's overview on Crunchbase,[4] AI Foundation is working on:

"Revolutionary new interfaces between humans and AI open up a whole new universe of AI-powered jobs. Truly personal AI requires deep interactions between users and AI for collaboration and training, which must be natural and more like hobby or play."

AI Foundation has several big name investors from Peter Thiel’s Founders Fund venture-capital firm to marketing-tech company You & Mr Jones, as well as Endeavor and Twitter co-founder Biz Stone.[5][6][7]

At the One Young World conference started by David Jones, founder of You & Mr. Jones, Biz Stone and AI Foundation unveiled several prototypes such as a digital clone of Richard Branson.[8][9]

On the Tonight Show with Jimmy Fallon, Deepak Chopra showed off his digital AI version of himself which took Jimmy Fallon and the audience through a guided meditation.[10][11] Deepak's AI is aptly called Digital Deepak[12][13] and "will offer you advice whenever you need it" according to CNBC.[14]

Many media sites are discussing where the future lies with technology like this from customer service[15] to personal assistants.[16] While others are questioning the potential of living forever via your digital avatar.[17] USA Today wrote an optimistic viewpoint[18] of how this tech can improve lives via a digital replica of your aging parent or yourself and many other examples.

From a competitor perspective, Samsung backed NEON revealed their digital human prototypes at CES 2020 which gained a huge amount of press and mixed reviews.[19][20][21] Additionally, New Zealand based company Soul Machines, raised US$40 million in January 2020[22][23] to help further their digital human avatars.

Responsibility

The first product AI Foundation released is called Reality Defender. According to the Verge,[24] Reality Defender will, "...alert users to misinformation by scanning images and videos on the webpages they’re looking at and flagging any doctored content." However, researchers think this may not be enough and the technology and techniques needs to expand further.[25]

With organizations like Facebook and Twitter trying to tackle these misinformation challenges in various ways,[26][27][28] it may still not be enough before the next major election.[29][30] Fake news and deepfakes when used malignantly, is an issue facing everyone that can change our perceptions to the whims of the manipulators. As these types of synthetic media edited with AI continue to grow, peoples perceptions of reality may become altered indefinitely and it is important to ethically monitor synthetic media with technology to combat this.[31]

gollark: With high latency, but yes.
gollark: (listen to MCIR and OIR simultaneously)
gollark: I'm working on it. I added two lines of code today.
gollark: https://radio.osmarks.net/ ← listen
gollark: Listen to osmarks internet radio™.

See also

References
  1. Spangler, Todd (2018-09-18). "Endeavor Invests in AI Foundation, Startup That Has Created AI Filters to Spot Deepfakes Photos". Variety. Retrieved 2020-02-05.
  2. "AI Foundation raises $10 million to launch products that benefit humanity". VentureBeat. 2018-09-18. Retrieved 2020-02-05.
  3. Mayhew, Stephen (2019-05-21). "AI Foundation and Technical University of Munch partner to fight deepfakes". Biometric Update. Retrieved 2020-02-05.
  4. "AI Foundation | Crunchbase". Crunchbase. Retrieved 5 February 2020.
  5. Spangler, Todd (2018-09-18). "Endeavor Invests in AI Foundation, Startup That Has Created AI Filters to Spot Deepfakes Photos". Variety. Retrieved 2020-02-05.
  6. "Twitter co-founder invests in AI project to create 'new type of media'". The Irish News. 2019-10-25. Retrieved 2020-02-05.
  7. "Twitter co-founder Biz Stone envisages 'new type of media' - TechCentral". techcentral.co.za. Retrieved 2020-02-05.
  8. "If I had My Own AI", A. I. Foundation, 2019-11-04, retrieved 2020-02-05
  9. "Spreading human rights around the world, one AI at a time?". Reuters. 2019-10-25. Retrieved 2020-02-05.
  10. Connellan, Shannon. "Deepak Chopra gives Jimmy Fallon a sneak peek at the digital AI version of himself". Mashable. Retrieved 2020-02-05.
  11. Deepak Chopra Guides Jimmy Through Meditation, retrieved 2020-02-05
  12. "AI Foundation Is Building Celebrity Personas". www.adweek.com. Retrieved 2020-02-05.
  13. "Digital Deepak | Signup". Retrieved 2020-02-05.
  14. Gomez, Brandon (2019-12-05). "A digital version of Deepak Chopra is coming to your phone and will offer you advice whenever you need it". CNBC. Retrieved 2020-02-05.
  15. Newman, Jared (2020-01-28). "'We can't scale humans': Why startups are raising millions to build AI avatars". Fast Company. Retrieved 2020-02-05.
  16. Ramirez, Vanessa Bates (2019-12-22). "Would You Want a Personal AI That Knows Everything About You?". Singularity Hub. Retrieved 2020-02-05.
  17. Fleishman, Hod. "Which Tech Will Help Deepak Chopra Live Forever? Deep, Practical Or Commoditized?". Forbes. Retrieved 2020-02-05.
  18. Baig, Edward C. "AI in 2020 and beyond: create a digital replica of your aging parent or yourself". USA TODAY. Retrieved 2020-02-05.
  19. Haselton, Todd (2020-01-07). "Samsung's Neon 'artificial humans' look like super-realistic video chatbots". CNBC. Retrieved 2020-02-05.
  20. Byford, Sam (2020-01-08). "Neon CEO explains the tech behind his overhyped 'artificial humans'". The Verge. Retrieved 2020-02-05.
  21. Dignan, Larry. "Neon captures CES 2020 buzz with artificial humans, may help reinvent the future of work". ZDNet. Retrieved 2020-02-05.
  22. "Soul Machines raises $40 million for AI-powered customer-facing digital avatars". VentureBeat. 2020-01-09. Retrieved 2020-02-05.
  23. Keall, Chris (2020-01-09). "Auckland virtual human startup Soul Machines raises $57 million". NZ Herald. ISSN 1170-0777. Retrieved 2020-02-05.
  24. Vincent, James (2018-08-23). "Browser plug-ins that spot fake news show the difficulty of tackling the "information apocalypse"". The Verge. Retrieved 2020-02-05.
  25. Vincent, James (2019-06-27). "Deepfake detection algorithms will never be enough". The Verge. Retrieved 2020-02-05.
  26. Lakshmanan, Ravie (2019-09-06). "Facebook wants to combat deepfakes by making its own". The Next Web. Retrieved 2020-02-05.
  27. Morris, Betsy (2019-11-22). "Tech Companies Step Up Fight Against 'Deepfakes'". Wall Street Journal. ISSN 0099-9660. Retrieved 2020-02-05.
  28. "Full Page Reload". IEEE Spectrum: Technology, Engineering, and Science News. Retrieved 2020-02-05.
  29. Morris, Betsy (2019-11-22). "Tech Companies Step Up Fight Against 'Deepfakes'". Wall Street Journal. ISSN 0099-9660. Retrieved 2020-02-05.
  30. "'Deep fake' videos could upend an election — but Silicon Valley may have a way to combat them". Los Angeles Times. 2019-11-05. Retrieved 2020-02-05.
  31. Gilliland, Donald (2019-11-17). "Perception won't be reality, once AI can manipulate what we see". TheHill. Retrieved 2020-02-05.
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