Artificial intelligence (AI) is not only a popular topic in Hollywood but also in the world of Formula 1, with Red Bull Racing exploring its potential for enhancing performance in their cars. According to Craig Skinner, the teams chief designer, AI has already been utilized in driver training through the use of models and simulations, allowing drivers to learn the race tracks and improve their skills. Now, Red Bull is looking to harness AI in their design departments as well.

Skinner acknowledges that to effectively utilize AI, the team needs to have a comprehensive understanding of what makes a car fast. Teaching AI requires teaching it what to look for, and this knowledge comes from having an in-house team with expertise in car performance, aerodynamics, and vehicle dynamics. While Red Bull is currently investigating and incorporating AI, Skinner emphasizes the importance of truly understanding the problem before implementing these technologies.

A significant part of Red Bulls success in understanding car performance is attributed to their design guru, Adrian Newey. With Neweys never compromise philosophy, the team prioritizes car performance above all else. Skinner describes joining the team and witnessing Neweys unwavering dedication to adding performance, which revolutionized their approach to designing Formula 1 cars.

According to Skinner, Red Bull is willing to sacrifice aesthetics for speed. They prioritize performance over looks and are willing to put an ugly car on the grid if it proves to be faster. This mindset highlights their commitment to pushing boundaries and maximizing performance in their pursuit of success.

As Red Bull continues to explore the potential of AI in Formula 1, their focus remains on enhancing their understanding of car performance and leveraging technology to gain a competitive edge.

Original post:
Red Bull Investigates the Use of Artificial Intelligence in Formula 1 - Fagen wasanni

By Jasen Stine, David Bergstein, and Roman Kepczyk.

Artificial intelligence is everywhere and firms might be thinking how this will apply or make its way to the accounting and tax profession. The answer is that it already has and firms of every size should be taking advantage of the resources available to them, if they arent already.

On a recent episode of Intuits AccounTrends, hosts Jasen Stine and David Bergstein discussed the latest trends in technology with Roman Kepczyk, CPA, CITP, CGMA, PAFM and Director of Firm Technology Strategy for Right Networks. Ultimately, Kepczyk said the biggest trend in technology is far and away Artificial Intelligence (AI), which hes seeing built into anything and everything from toothbrushes to lawnmowers and baby strollers to cars and even in tools and applications for the tax and accounting industry, and professionals should take note because it is here to stay.

Artificial intelligence is one of the many results of the power of cloud computing. Both of these together are creating a global environment where people can create applications, bring clients together, connect remotely, and share real-time data. For accounting professionals, this means being able to connect with our clients in ways we havent been able to before remember the age of the flash drive?

Kepczyk remembers it well, but now relies on the cloud for any and all client work and communications. The cloud and AI tools are making relationship building, advisory services, and even compliance work much more efficient through e-signatures, data inputs, reporting, and more, allowing tax and accounting professionals more flexibility and time saving tools.

Kepczyk discusses how Intuits own role and use of AI is already helping tax and accounting professionals reconcile accounts, input data, create financial reports, and so much more. Soon, if not happening already, specialized AI will be put into every application and every hardware device as a sort of virtual assistant to help us with our day to day tasks limiting compliance work and making room for the coveted advisory services.

If tax and accounting firms arent already taking advantage of cloud computing, AI and other valuable technological resources, they should start and make sure they dont fall behind. Kepczyk calls the cloud the great democratizer as it offers the best technology at the enterprise level, which in turn allows major firms and small businesses to have access to the same resources and technologies to improve their businesses through processes, recruiting, and employee engagement.

Kepczyk sees the future of everything in the cloud, with AI as a great tool to facilitate compliance work and make sure tax and accounting professionals are as efficient and their data is as secure as possible.

Here is the original post:
Tech Tune-Up: Artificial Intelligence and its Role in the Tax and ... - CPAPracticeAdvisor.com

[Bilingual as delivered; scroll down for all-English]

Mr. President,Excellencies,

I thank the United Kingdom for convening the first debate on Artificial Intelligence ever held in this Council.

I have been following the development of AI for some time. Indeed, I told the General Assembly six years ago that AI would have a dramatic impact on sustainable development, the world of work, and the social fabric.

But like everyone here, I have been shocked and impressed by the newest form of AI, generative AI, which is a radical advance in its capabilities.

The speed and reach of this new technology in all its forms are utterly unprecedented.

It has been compared to the introduction of the printing press. But while it took more than fifty years for printed books to become widely available across Europe, ChatGPT reached 100 million users in just two months.

The finance industry estimates AI could contribute between $10 and $15 trillion US dollars to the global economy by 2030.

Almost every government, large company and organization in the world is working on an AI strategy.

But even its own designers have no idea where their stunning technological breakthrough may lead.

It is clear that AI will have an impact on every area of our lives including the three pillars of the United Nations.

It has the potential to turbocharge global development, from monitoring the climate crisis to breakthroughs in medical research.

It offers new potential to realize human rights, particularly to health and education.

But the High Commissioner for Human Rights has expressed alarm over evidence that AI can amplify bias, reinforce discrimination, and enable new levels of authoritarian surveillance.

Todays debate is an opportunity to consider the impact of Artificial Intelligence on peace and security where it is already raising political, legal, ethical, and humanitarian concerns.

I urge the Council to approach this technology with a sense of urgency, a global lens, and a learners mindset.

Because what we have seen is just the beginning.

Never again will technological innovation move as slow as it is moving today.

Mr. President,

AI is being put to work in connection with peace and security, including by the United Nations.

It is increasingly being used to identify patterns of violence, monitor ceasefires and more, helping to strengthen our peacekeeping, mediation and humanitarian efforts.

But AI tools can also be used by those with malicious intent.

AI models can help people to harm themselves and each other, at massive scale.

Lets be clear:

The malicious use of AI systems for terrorist, criminal or state purposes could cause horrific levels of death and destruction, widespread trauma, and deep psychological damage on an unimaginable scale.

AI-enabled cyberattacks are already targeting critical infrastructure and our own peacekeeping and humanitarian operations, causing great human suffering.

The technical and financial barriers to access are low including for criminals and terrorists.

Both military and non-military applications of AI could have very serious consequences for global peace and security.

The advent of generative AI could be a defining moment for disinformation and hate speech undermining truth, facts, and safety; adding a new dimension to the manipulation of human behaviour; and contributing to polarization and instability on a vast scale.

Deepfakes are just one new AI-enabled tool that, if unchecked, could have serious implications for peace and stability.

And the unforeseen consequences of some AI-enabled systems could create security risks by accident.

Look no further than social media. Tools and platforms that were designed to enhance human connection are now used to undermine elections, spread conspiracy theories, and incite hatred and violence.

Malfunctioning AI systems are another huge area of concern.

And the interaction between AI and nuclear weapons, biotechnology, neurotechnology, and robotics is deeply alarming.

Generative AI has enormous potential for good and evil at scale. Its creators themselves have warned that much bigger, potentially catastrophic and existential risks lie ahead.

Without action to address these risks, we are derelict in our responsibilities to present and future generations.

Monsieur le Prsident,

La communaut internationale a une longue histoire de rponses aux nouvelles technologies susceptibles de dstabiliser nos socits et nos conomies.

Nous avons joint nos efforts au sein de lONU pour tablir de nouvelles rgles internationales, signer de nouveaux traits et crer de nouveaux organismes mondiaux.

Si de nombreux pays ont prconis diffrentes mesures et initiatives relatives la gouvernance de lintelligence artificielle, une approche universelle est ncessaire.

Et les questions de gouvernance seront complexes divers gards :

Premirement, certains modles puissants dintelligence artificielle sont dores et dj largement accessibles au grand public.

Deuximement, et contrairement aux matires nuclaires et aux agents chimiques et biologiques, les outils dIA peuvent tre expdis partout dans le monde en laissant trs peu de traces.

Et troisimement, le rle de premier plan jou par le secteur priv dans le domaine de lIA a peu dquivalents dans dautres technologies stratgiques.

Mais nous avons dj des points de dpart.

Par exemple, les principes directeurs de 2018-2019 sur les systmes darmes ltaux autonomes, adopts dans le cadre de la Convention sur certaines armes classiques.

Je suis daccord avec les trs nombreux experts qui ont recommand linterdiction des armes autonomes ltales utilises sans contrle humain.

Nous disposons aussi des Recommandations sur lthique de lintelligence artificielle adoptes par lUNESCO en 2021.

Le Bureau de lutte contre le terrorisme, en collaboration avec lInstitut interrgional de recherche des Nations Unies sur la criminalit et la justice, a quant lui formul des recommandations sur la manire dont les tats Membres peuvent lutter contre lutilisation potentielle de lIA des fins terroristes.

Et les sommets "AI for Good" de l'Union internationale des tlcommunications ont rassembl des experts, le secteur priv, des institutions des Nations unies et des gouvernements autour defforts visant garantir que lIA serve le bien commun.

Mr. President,

The best approach would address existing challenges while also creating the capacity to monitor and respond to future risks. It should be flexible and adaptable, and consider technical, social and legal questions.

It should integrate the private sector, civil society, independent scientists and all those driving AI innovation.

The need for global standards and approaches makes the United Nations the ideal place for this to happen.

The Charters emphasis on protecting succeeding generations gives us a clear mandate to bring all stakeholders together around the collective mitigation of long-term global risks. AI poses just such a risk.

I therefore welcome calls from some Member States for the creation of a new United Nations entity to support collective efforts to govern this extraordinary technology, inspired by such models as the International Atomic Energy Agency, the International Civil Aviation Organization, or the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change.

The overarching goal of this body would be to support countries to maximize the benefits of AI for good, to mitigate existing and potential risks, and to establish and administer internationally-agreed mechanisms of monitoring and governance.

Lets be honest: There is a huge skills gap around AI in governments and other administrative and security structures that must be addressed at the national and global levels.

A new UN entity would gather expertise and put it at the disposal of the international community. And it could support collaboration on the research and development of AI tools to accelerate sustainable development.

Mr. President,

As a first step, I am convening a multistakeholder High-Level Advisory Board for Artificial Intelligence that will report back on the options for global AI governance, by the end of this year.

My upcoming Policy Brief on A New Agenda for Peace will also make recommendations on AI governance to Member States:

First, it will recommend that Member States develop national strategies on the responsible design, development and use of AI, consistent with their obligations under International Humanitarian Law and Human Rights Law.

Second, it will call on Member States to engage in a multilateral process to develop norms, rules and principles around military applications of AI, while ensuring the engagement of other relevant stakeholders.

Third, it will call on Member States to agree on a global framework to regulate and strengthen oversight mechanisms for the use of data-driven technology, including artificial intelligence, for counter-terrorism purposes.

The Policy Brief on a New Agenda for Peace will also call for negotiations to be concluded by 2026 on a legally-binding instrument to prohibit lethal autonomous weapons systems that function without human control or oversight, and which cannot be used in compliance with international humanitarian law.

I hope Member States will debate these options and decide on the best course of action to establish the AI governance mechanisms that are so urgently needed.

In addition to the recommendations of the New Agenda for Peace, I urge agreement on the general principle that human agency and control are essential for nuclear weapons and should never be withdrawn.

The Summit of the Future next year will be an ideal opportunity for decisions on many of these inter-related issues.

Mr. President,

I urge this Council to exercise leadership on Artificial Intelligence and show the way towards common measures for the transparency, accountability, and oversight of AI systems.

We must work together for AI that bridges social, digital, and economic divides, not one that pushes us further apart.

I urge you to join forces and build trust for peace and security.

We need a race to develop AI for good.

To develop AI that is reliable and safe and that can end poverty, banish hunger, cure cancer, and supercharge climate action;

AI that propels us towards the Sustainable Development Goals.

That is the race we need, and that is a race that is possible and achievable.

Thank you.

*************************************************************************

[All-English]

Mr. President,Excellencies,

I thank the United Kingdom for convening the first debate on Artificial Intelligence ever held in this Council.

I have been following the development of AI for some time. Indeed, I told the General Assembly six years ago that AI would have a dramatic impact on sustainable development, the world of work, and the social fabric.

But like everyone here, I have been shocked and impressed by the newest form of AI, generative AI, which is a radical advance in its capabilities.

The speed and reach of this new technology in all its forms are utterly unprecedented.

It has been compared to the introduction of the printing press. But while it took more than fifty years for printed books to become widely available across Europe, ChatGPT reached 100 million users in just two months.

The finance industry estimates AI could contribute between $10 and $15 trillion US dollars to the global economy by 2030.

Almost every government, large company and organization in the world is working on an AI strategy.

But even its own designers have no idea where their stunning technological breakthrough may lead.

It is clear that AI will have an impact on every area of our lives including the three pillars of the United Nations.

It has the potential to turbocharge global development, from monitoring the climate crisis to breakthroughs in medical research.

It offers new potential to realize human rights, particularly to health and education.

But the High Commissioner for Human Rights has expressed alarm over evidence that AI can amplify bias, reinforce discrimination, and enable new levels of authoritarian surveillance.

Todays debate is an opportunity to consider the impact of Artificial Intelligence on peace and security where it is already raising political, legal, ethical, and humanitarian concerns.

I urge the Council to approach this technology with a sense of urgency, a global lens, and a learners mindset.

Because what we have seen is just the beginning.

Never again will technological innovation move as slow as it is moving today.

Mr. President,

AI is being put to work in connection with peace and security, including by the United Nations.

It is increasingly being used to identify patterns of violence, monitor ceasefires and more, helping to strengthen our peacekeeping, mediation and humanitarian efforts.

See the original post:
Secretary-General's remarks to the Security Council on Artificial ... - United Nations

When Justin Harrison suffered a nasty bout of strep throat two weeks ago, he said he received a barrage of text messages from his mom urging him to take better care of himself -- even though his mom is dead.

Harrison, who founded an AI company called You, Only Virtual in 2020 that creates chatbots modeled after deceased loved ones, was getting reprimanded by a digital version of his mom in the same way its real-life counterpart would have done so.

"I've got a virtual mom talking to me ad nauseam about more rest, asking why I'm not hydrating," Harrison, 40, told ABC News. "I was getting yelled at."

Harrison, who has communicated with the digital reproduction of his mom on a daily basis since she died in October at age 61, believes AI-driven chatbots will redefine how some deal with grief.

The industry faces formidable obstacles to building chatbots that accurately mimic a dead person and questions remain over issues like privacy and consent, experts said.

Moreover, generative AI tools like ChatGPT -- which scan text from across the internet and string words together based on statistical probability -- have displayed a propensity to share arbitrary, false or hateful speech, raising alarm about the personal and societal effects of noxious words delivered with the intimacy and authority of a deceased loved one, some experts added.

"You will not be reincarnating a relative with GPT-4," Gary Marcus, an emeritus professor at New York University and author of the book ''Rebooting AI," said in reference to the latest version of Chat-GPT. "These systems make stuff up all the time."

Still, the emergence of sophisticated AI-driven conversation programs brings a life-like product within closer reach, experts said.

For years, advances in the reproduction of audio and video have made digital copies of deceased people possible, said Mark Dredze, a professor of computer science at Johns Hopkins University who helped create a finance-oriented AI language model called BloombergGPT. He pointed to big-budget movies and TV shows that feature impeccable computer-generated images.

In recent seasons of the TV series, "The Mandalorian," for example, the creators depicted a youthful Luke Skywalker by digitally de-aging Mark Hamill, the actor who played the character in the 1970s "Star Wars" films, Dredze added. (The Walt Disney Company, the parent company of the studio that made "The Mandalorian," is also the parent company of ABC News.)

"That technology will eventually become cheaper and easier," Dredze said.

The remaining technical challenge, however, is the authenticity of the words coming out of a digital person's mouth -- something that newly improved conversation bots like ChatGPT can help create, Dredze said. "Is it the person?" he added. "Is this something that they would say?"

AI experts who spoke with ABC News said that success or failure on that score hinges upon the volume of data about the deceased loved one that the user enters into a given chatbot, keeping in mind the possibility that a chatbot could still offer up arbitrary or inaccurate information, regardless of the scale of training data.

"If you have massive amounts of text that somebody has produced, you can train a system on that and you'll capture in some sense someone's voice," Kristian Hammond, a professor of computer science at Northwestern University who studies AI, told ABC News.

The chatbot would still struggle to respond to novel or complicated topics, however, Hammond said. "It's a thing that looks like, sounds like and speaks like a loved one, but it doesn't have enough in the way of data to capture the point of view and the values of that loved one," he added.

You, Only Virtual addresses this challenge by focusing on communication between an individual living person and the deceased, thereby attempting to recreate their specific one-on-one dynamic, Harrison said.

"When you start thinking about the nuances of a holistic human being, it gets out of control," Harrison said. "I stared at five years of messages and recorded phone calls with my mom -- 3,800 pages. The amount of consistency through the entirety of it was staggering."

After scanning communication records such as text messages, emails and phone calls, You, Only Virtual says it creates a chatbot that can utter original responses in conversation with a user either through written chats or audio responses that mimic a deceased relative's voice, Harrison said.

The company, he added, aims to offer video-chat capability later this year and ultimately provide augmented-reality that allows for interaction with a three-dimensional projection.

Harrison rejected possible privacy concerns raised by the use of personal correspondence to build a chatbot without the consent of the deceased, noting that the user of the chatbot is the same person to whom the communications were initially sent.

"You absolutely don't need consent from someone who's dead," Harrison said. "My mom could've hated the idea but this is what I wanted and I'm alive."

The early-stage startup, which has eight employees, is poised to grow in part through improvements in generative AI, Harrison said.

"Everything that happens with helping the program get better at learning and quantifying information is good for us," Harrison said.

StoryFile, a company that says it has 40 employees and $10 million in annual revenue, offers an interactive version of deceased relatives by recording an hourslong question-and-answer session with the individual before his or her death, and in turn, attempting to create a reproduction that responds to prompts.

In this case, the virtual reproduction utters pre-recorded content in a real-life manner, said Stephen Smith, the CEO of StoryFile. If a topic falls outside a set of established discussion areas, however, the reproduction cannot respond. Currently, users speak with the digital loved one through interactive video but the company is developing the capacity for conversation with a 3D likeness, Smith said.

The company holds a "hard line" against the use of AI for generating original spoken content, which Smith said he finds "creepy and weird." (In response, Harrison defended such use of the technology. "By using natural language processing and generative AI, youre able to keep the process moving forward so its relevant, its topical and its fresh," Harrison said.)

Instead, StoryFile deploys an AI chatbot as the interviewer during the question-and-answer sessions, allowing the conversation to probe a vast range of topic expertise, said Smith, who previously led the University of Southern California's Shoah Foundation, which established an archive of oral testimony about the Holocaust.

"I'm an oral historian going, 'Jeez, I've wasted the last 30 years of my life,'" Smith said. "ChatGPT can do it as well as me."

To be sure, some experts doubted the progress for this industry afforded by language models like ChatGPT and warned of potential risks.

"They're trying to do the impossible," said Marcus, of New York University.

Generative AI sometimes responds to prompts with arbitrary or inaccurate information, Marcus added, posing a risk to users who may struggle to fully understand the limits of the technology when it performs as a reproduction of a deceased loved one.

"These models are good at tricking people that they're people but they're not," Marcus said. "It's kind of like a party trick doing some imitations but certainly not the real thing."

Meanwhile, the mental health effects of such products are being examined. Smith, of StoryFile, acknowledged that the immediate aftermath of a death may be too early for some people to see a virtual reproduction of a loved one, adding that the product preserves the legacy for ensuing generations.

You, Only Virtual says it works with a team of clinical psychologists and offers alternate resources on its website for people in a mental health crisis, Harrison said.

Elena Lister, a professor of clinical psychiatry at Weill Cornell Medical College, said digital reproductions of the deceased could cause harm if they push a grieving individual to withdraw from his or her life. However, she added, the grieving process varies widely.

"When someone dies in your life, you are just so hungry for more of them," Lister told ABC News. "This is an attempt to bridge that gap."

"When it comes to grieving, there is very little that is right or wrong," she added. "If something provides you with comfort, I would in no way say there's something bad about it."

Going further, Harrison said he hopes people no longer have to feel grief at all. He wishes he could've avoided the painful emotions that have accompanied the death of his mom, he said, even if the experience has brought about some personal growth.

"Have I learned to be more reliant on myself? That's good," Harrison said. "Was it worth losing my mom? No."

Original post:
Artificial intelligence advances fuel industry trying to preserve loved ones after death - ABC News