AI Austria monthly: September Update

State of AI Event Recap, aws program 'AI Wissen', from AI business strategy to AI filling voids in relationships

Having enjoyed summer, sun and fun in July and August, it is time to get back to business now and ramp up for the second half of the year. September - here we come!

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🚀 Latest Developments

⭐ Event Recap: State of AI - From Inflated Expectations to Delivered Benefits

The 7th edition of our annual summer event series discussed the state of AI 'from inflated expectations to delivered benefits', co-organized with IECT - Hermann Hauser and Viktoria Tollinger. The current AI boom is around 10 years old and started, like most important developments of mankind, with cat videos on the internet. 😺 📺 At the end of last year, just as interest was starting to slow down, hype reached new heights with the release of ChatGPT at the end of last year. In addition, the discussion around AI regulation accelerated in the last 12 months. Surprisingly the actually delivered value via AI gets very little attention, something we set to change during that evening.

The event was kicked-off with a fantastic live Demo by Oege De Moor (creator of GitHub CoPilot) and in the second keynote, Steve Barlow (Engineering at Graphcore) gave a look behind the curtain on why custom AI silicon is necessary to keep the current pace of innovation. On the panel, moderated by our Clemens Wasner, both were joined by Hermann Hauser (Amadeus Capital Partners) and Prof. Dr. Monika Köppl-Turyna (EcoAustria - Institut für Wirtschaftsforschung). »Rewatch the session or read the event-recap

🗞️ Austria Wirtschaftsservice grant program

Watch out and don't miss it! Our friends at aws are offering you Intellectual Property related to Know-how-Transfer and financial grants especially for your Artificial Intelligence project. The name of this funding program is “AI Wissen”. Your benefits: 1) It keeps you in the loop about European AI guidelines which will be mandatory for your business soon. 2)  It has money ready for external AI and legal advice about how to deal with data copyrights, the acquisition of AI training data, how to save time and money through the use of Open-Sourced Large Language Models (LLMs) and the protection of your AI-related intellectual property rights. 3) It shows you how to effectively protect your AI inventions against product piracy and avoid legal pitfalls by violating the property rights of third parties. 4) And that's not all! » Interested? For more information please go here 

🎭 AI Girlfriends: Filling Voids, Raising Questions

Der Standard's recent article on the rise of AI companions resonates with concerns we've raised at AI Austria. While these chat bots fill social voids, they also present ethical challenges, notably concerning their impact on human relationships. As we sidestep the dystopia of "1984," we find new challenges reminiscent of "A Brave New World" and "We Amuse Ourselves to Death." We call for increased broad-scale educational and awareness-building efforts starting at an early stage and welcome stakeholders to engage in this crucial dialogue. For a deeper dive, read the full article here.

📺 Strategic AI in Business

LOOKAUT, the business-focused YouTube channel by the Austrian Federal Economic Chamber, recently featured AI Austria's Jeannette Gorzala and Anthony Corso, Executive Director of the AI Center for Safety at Stanford University, among other speakers, in a video exploring the importance of AI education. Titled "Die Macht des Wissens: KI in Bildung und Unternehmen," the video emphasizes the need for strategic understanding of AI across different sectors. Jeannette Gorzala highlighted the importance of small pilot projects in companies for grasping AI's potential effectively. A must-watch for those interested in harnessing AI strategically. - check it out: Link

🌲 AI vs. Bark Beetles: A Tech-Driven Approach to Forest Health

Climate change poses a dire threat to forests, making them vulnerable to bark beetle infestations. A project called AIDForHeRi, featured in a recent Futurezone article, is turning to AI for a solution. Utilizing machine learning and satellite imagery, the initiative aims to predict outbreaks and aid regional conservation efforts. While the technology doesn't replace the need for human foresters, it offers a powerful tool for more effective forest management. » Read more on Futurezone.

🙏 An Organization is Never Too Old for AI: A Heavenly Use Case in Graz

Graz's Franciscan monastery is proving that an organization is never too old to embrace AI. They are employing artificial intelligence to digitize and translate 54 ancient choral books. Led by Robert Klugseder from the Austrian Academy of Sciences, the project uses Austrian made "Transkribus" AI to make these Latin texts globally accessible. This heavenly use case for AI aims to benefit researchers and preserve cultural heritage. Financed by an EU grant, the initiative is a pioneering effort in digitizing Gradualia, manuscripts used for Gregorian chants.

🦾 Call for Action

🏢 AI Austria booth at the Digital Days 2023 "Digital Humanism - in action"

We still have 2 lots open for this year’s Digital Days on November 20 & 21 at the Technical Museum Vienna. If you are interested in joining us send us your concept idea to office@aiaustria.com

✨ Generative AI News ✨

A recent decision by a U.S. District Court has established that AI-generated artwork cannot be granted copyright protection, underlining the essential role of human authorship in copyright regulations. This verdict was reached within a case initiated by computer scientist Stephen Thaler, who aimed to obtain copyright claims for art produced by his AI software.

SynthID, an innovative tool developed by Google DeepMind, offers a solution for watermarking AI-generated images, specifically addressing concerns related to deepfakes. Currently in its beta phase, this technology embeds a digital watermark within the image pixels, visible for identification purposes while remaining imperceptible to human observers.

During the first half of 2023, the domain of AI experienced unparalleled expansion on Upwork, witnessing a remarkable surge of over 1,000% in job postings related to generative AI during Q2 compared to the conclusion of 2022. The online platform for freelance services, Upwork, also reported a staggering 1,500% increase in searches associated with generative AI over the same time span.

In an ambitious voice cloning experiment, the well-known German radio station SWR3 had contributions moderated by an artificial intelligence (AI) for one day. The AI voice model was trained by 3LIOT.ai and is based on sound recordings of Volker Janitz, one of the station's presenters.

A study conducted by the International Labour Organization (ILO), published in August 2023, suggests that generative AI is more likely to augment than destroy jobs by automating some tasks rather than taking over a role entirely.

📆 Upcoming Events

6.9. Ars Electronica Festival 2023
11.9. DigitalCity.Wien Movienight and Get-Together
14.-15.9. 1st Health Data Challenge by the Umbrella Association of Social Insurance Providers
21.09. Xplain-AI Abschlussevent
11.10. AI for Green inklusive Trustworthy AI Stammtisch
12.10 AI Policy Forum I KI und Regulierung

For more information on upcoming events head over to our community calendar.

🧑‍💻 Featured Jobs

Once a month we feature selected openings from our job board in this section.

• 506 is looking for a full-stack Software developer with enthusiasm for Generative AI

• Know-Center Graz has many interesting open positions: Software Engineer for Data Science Projects, Head of Operations, Senior Project Manager, Business Development Manager, Data Platform & Machine Learning Engineer

• Data Engineer at Opdata

Want your job listed? Head over to our Job Board.