OpenAI drops female voice after being confronted by Scarlett Johansson

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Newsbites

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Singapore Airlines Turbulence: More than 20 people have been treated for spinal issues and 46 people remain in hospital care (half of whom are in intensive care) after a Singapore Airlines flight experienced violent turbulence. One passenger said, “I saw people from across the aisle just going completely horizontal, hitting the ceiling and landing back down in really awkward positions.” 22 people have spinal injuries, 6 people were in critical condition with life threatening injuries, and one 73 year old British man who suffered a heart attack died. The plane was carrying 211 passengers and 18 crew members.

More: The turbulence lasted about 90 seconds while the plane dropped roughly 700 feet.

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Neuralink has been given the greenlight from the FDA for the second recipient of its brain implant chip, with the surgery expected to take place in June. Before giving approval, the FDA had required Neuralink to propose changes to the surgery because the first recipient, 29-year-old Nolan Arbaugh, experienced complications. About a month after Arbaugh received the chip, many of the micro threads inserted into his brain became dislodged and lost connection, significantly reducing the effectiveness of the implant. However, software engineers at Neuralink were able to reprogram how the remaining threads interacted with his brain’s neurons. After this repair, Arbaugh says the chip is now working more effectively than it had at the start.

More: Noland Arbaugh’s interview on Good Morning America talking about his experience.

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Powerful tornadoes hit parts of Iowa on Tuesday, leading to multiple deaths and inflicting substantial damage to the town of Greenfield, IA (video of the twister, video of the damage). 

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LiveNation sued by DOJ: The Department of Justice has filed a lawsuit against the biggest ticket provider for concerts and sports games in the world alleging they used their monopoly to drive up ticket prices breaking antitrust laws. Attorney General Merrick Garland said, “It is time to break up Live Nation.” The department, which did not seek to challenge the merger of LiveNation and Ticketmaster in 2010, now says it has the information it needs to win the case and break up the company. LiveNation denies the claims saying Ticketmaster does not set the prices for tickets.  

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U.S. debt interest soars: For the first time ever, the U.S. Government will spend more money on the interest accrued in debt than the entire defense budget ($900B). In the first 7 months of this year's fiscal budget, debt interest has reached $514B outpacing the defense budget by $20B. The U.S. debt is nearing $35T as of today (live debt clock). When the federal reserve started raising interest rates to tame inflation, government debt was also affected. Currently, all U.S. debt pays an average of 3.3% interest.

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Main Stories

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OpenAI Drops female voice after being confronted by Scarlett Johansson

What happened?
OpenAI paused the female voice in ChatGPT (called “Sky”) that drew comparisons to Scarlett Johansson’s voice on Monday following legal threats from her team. The particular voice had raised eyebrows at the company’s launch event last week for its flirty tone, and likeness to the actress’ voice. Johansson released a statement saying, 

“When I heard the released demo, I was shocked, angered and in disbelief that Mr. Altman would pursue a voice that sounded so eerily similar to mine that my closest friends and news outlets could not tell the difference.” (full statement here)

• Scarlett Johansson played the voice of the operating system girlfriend in the famous movie Her released in 2013.