Welcome to The Week in Generative AI, a weekly roundup for marketers from Quad Insights that sums up the latest news surrounding this rapidly evolving technology.
Google DeepMind unveils new model capable of making video games from scratch
Google DeepMind has unveiled Genie, a model capable of taking text prompts, sketches or photos and creating a playable classic-style 2D video game, MIT Technology Review’s Will Douglas Heaven reports. Currently producing slow-frame-rate games similar to classic, 2D Super Mario Bros., the tool was trained with a large language model (LLM) approach on 30,000 hours of hundreds of games. Though Genie is an in-house research project, Heaven reports that the DeepMind team says it could evolve into a public game-making tool.
See also: OpenAI’s recently unveiled text-to-video tool Sora set the internet ablaze with its sample videos, as we noted in an earlier installment of The Week in Generative AI.
Adobe adds Firefly gen AI features to new Express mobile app
Adobe has released a new beta version of the mobile edition of its design platform Adobe Express, adding the same creative, editing and Firefly-powered generative AI features found on the desktop version, The Verge’s Jess Weatherbed reports. The beta is currently available for free download to Apple and Android smartphone users but will require a $9.99 per month subscription once Adobe officially rolls it out at a later date TBD. In this version, Adobe Creative Cloud users are able to access and edit Photoshop and Illustrator files directly in the mobile app, Weatherbed notes, adding that this gives Express “a much-needed leg up over Canva — a rival design platform that hasn’t made its own ‘Magic Studio’ AI features available to mobile users.”
See also: Adobe also recently announced a new generative AI audio creation and editing tool called Project Music GenAI Control and launched an AI assistant in its Reader and Acrobat apps to help search and summarize PDFs, as we noted in an earlier installment of The Week in Generative AI.
Forbes CMO Network contributor calls for “generative empathy”
In a post titled “Marketing’s New Power Duo: Generative AI Meets Generative Empathy,” Forbes CMO Network contributor Gillian Oakenfull explores the need for “generative empathy,” which she defines as going “beyond mere understanding to proactively co-create solutions resonating on a deeper level.” Oakenfull says that today’s marketers need to utilize the thought-provoking, data-driven insights of generative AI in tandem with the uniquely human ability to assess things such as context and emotion. “Coupling cutting-edge capabilities with core human virtues is now an urgent mandate for sustainable success,” Oakenfull writes. Read the full story here.
OpenAI responds to Elon Musk suit
First, to bring everybody up to speed: Last week, Tesla CEO and OpenAI Co-Founder Elon Musk filed a lawsuit against OpenAI and CEO Sam Altman, alleging that the startup has abandoned its original mission in pursuit of profit, asking for a jury trial and a repayment of all profits received by the company, Altman and Co-Founder Greg Brockman. In the suit, Musk states that OpenAI was founded as a nonprofit focused on creating an artificial general intelligence (AGI) that enhances humankind, and he alleges that Altman, Brockman and Chief Scientist Ilya Sutskever diverted from that mission when they created the for-profit arm of OpenAI and pivoted away from a plan to make ChatGPT’s code public.
On Tuesday, OpenAI rebutted with a public statement that included past emails from Musk in which he seems to encourage raising $1 billion and agrees that OpenAI should start “being less open,” CNBC’s Hayden Field and Lora Kolodny report. OpenAI’s statement also alleges that Musk tried to take majority control and become CEO of OpenAI before parting ways with the company, Field and Kolodny note.
The takeaway: The level of intrigue here is giving us flashbacks to HBO’s classic comedy “Silicon Valley.”
Further reading
AI campaigns:
- “Washington’s lottery uses AI to show the wild things you can do as a winner” (Ad Age)
- “AI Version of Marilyn Monroe Unveiled at SXSW” (The Hollywood Reporter)
AI tools and advancements:
AI in the market:
AI controversies:
- “Microsoft begins blocking some terms that caused its AI tool to create violent, sexual images” (CNBC)
- “‘We definitely messed up’: why did Google AI tool make offensive historical images?” (The Guardian)
- “Fake images made to show Trump with Black supporters highlight concerns around AI and elections” (The Associated Press)
AI regulation:
- “Dozens of Top Scientists Sign Effort to Prevent A.I. Bioweapons” (The New York Times)
AI trends:
