AI Advancements
Making Videos. And Reading Your Dog’s Nose?
Hello BRIGHT Run Family,
Happy March.
The march of artificial intelligence (AI) continues.
In February, a new generative AI (AI technology that produces human-level content in the form of text, image, videos, etc.) model called SORA {Sora (openai.com)}, from OpenAI was released. OpenAI is the same company that released ChatGPT in late 2022.
SORA can generate videos from text prompts. It’s a step ahead from other generative AI models that support video generation in many ways. SORA supports the generation of videos with very diverse content (e.g., variety of topics and elements), aspect ratios (i.e., width to height of the frame), and resolutions (e.g., 1920 x 1080p). These videos look photorealistic and can also be generated from images.
However, SORA has its limitations, as it may not demonstrate cause and effect properly among the scenes. Also, developers of SORA are trying to prevent any harmful use of the technology. It has only been released to a selected few experts and creators only for now.
Like other breakthroughs in AI, the development of SORA has added more elements to empowering everyone with AI-assistance, as well as concerns about its responsible use for humanity.
AI’s march is not only affecting humans but also their pets. AI-powered devices are being developed for pet activity and regular health monitoring. A new app called Tably can read facial expressions of cats and BarkGPT aims to translate a dog’s bark to the needs expressed through its bark. A new technology based on identification of dogs from the images of their nose (dog’s nose print) is being investigated as a non-invasive ‘alternative’ to the existing technology of RFID microchips.
Something that already exists is not necessarily unreliable, outdated or bad. However, alternatives are important. Becoming aware of their existence provides us with some choices and perspectives we never had before.
These interesting times, together with AI’s steps, are driving the alternatives we have at hand for several things, including the way we perform research.
Stay tuned for another research update in the next eNewsletter.
Best,
Ashirbani
Dr. Ashirbani Saha is the first holder of the BRIGHT Run Breast Cancer Learning Health System Chair, a permanent research position established by the BRIGHT Run in partnership with McMaster University.
