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As newsrooms and websites begin to incorporate AI into their content more, you can’t blame writers for worrying about being replaced. But what if we learned to work with AI rather than against it? That was the mentality behind a new study by AI firm Pencil, which found that a collaborative approach to AI was the way forward. The small-scale study found that AI-generated content lightly edited by humans had a 26% more effective click-through rate than content that humans entirely wrote with no AI intervention.
“It’s a relatively small study structured as an A/B test, not a massive piece of research, but it was highly practical, and it was a real campaign,” Pencil co-founder Will Hanschell said. The experiment involved Facebook ad copy for a Singaporean beauty client. Specifically, four types of copy were tested: entirely AI-generated copy, copy written based on AI-generated suggestions, human-edited AI copy, and entirely human-generated copy.
Is human-powered AI copy the way forward?
“The control box was whatever they had before, not expertly crafted or tested within an inch of its life; it was Facebook ad copy,” Hanschell added. “Then, we had the AI generate some options.”
While AI-inspired copy had an 11% increased click-through rate, entirely AI-written copy had a 19% click-through rate. Meanwhile, AI copy, lightly edited by humans, had a 26% increased click-through rate.
“We want people to feel like AI was something they could do, something they could hold in their hand, and that wasn’t threatening – that isn’t preparing to replace you. To be able to see, in this case, that working with it, as opposed to letting it do the job, was *chef’s kiss*,” Hanschell added.
“It’s really important for people who are writing copy to feel safe enough with the technology to use it, to learn it, to learn its capabilities and limitations so that, when it becomes extremely good, they are taken along for the ride on that. I think there’s a danger that folks distance from it – and, before they know it, it’ll be really good, and you’ve missed an opportunity. You have to want it to help you.”
For more on the transformative power of AI, check out our articles on how AI is shaping HR practices and differentiating the male and female brains. 
Picture Credit: Photo by Sunil Ray;  Unsplash
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Researchers have developed an AI model that can tell a person’s sex through brain scans alone. Working at a level of 90% accuracy, the study arguably settles a long-running controversy over physiological differences. But before you ask, the answer is ‘no’ — that doesn’t mean men are automatically smarter than women.
Generally, men’s bodies are slightly larger than women’s bodies, which means that male brains, in turn, are also slightly larger than female brains. This means that, historically, studies that tried to differentiate between male and female brains came up with inconsistent and contradictory results. Until now.
The ‘crucial role’ of sex in brain development
“A key motivation for this study is that sex plays a crucial role in human brain development, in aging, and in the manifestation of psychiatric and neurological disorders,”  Vinod Menon,  the study’s senior author and director of the Stanford Cognitive and Systems Neuroscience Laboratory, explained.
“Identifying consistent and replicable sex differences in the healthy adult brain is a critical step toward a deeper understanding of sex-specific vulnerabilities in psychiatric and neurological disorders.”
For the study, Menon’s team used a process called dynamic functional connectivity fMRI. First, this involved teaching their AI how to pick up on the subtle differences between the MRI scans of men and women. Once the AI learned how to differentiate between male and female brain scans, the team fed the AI more scans. Based on what it had been trained on, the AI could successfully identify male and female brain scans with 90% accuracy.
“These models worked really well because we successfully separated brain patterns between sexes,” Menon explained. “That tells me that overlooking sex differences in brain organization could lead us to miss key factors underlying neuropsychiatric disorders.”
Menon plans to make the AI model available for other researchers to use because it has “broad applicability” beyond sex differentiation. He said: “A researcher could use our models to look for brain differences linked to learning impairments or social functioning differences, for instance — aspects we are keen to understand better to aid individuals in adapting to and surmounting these challenges.”
For more on the intersection between AI and medicine, check out our stories on Neuralink and wearable AI for brain stimulation.
Featured Image: Photo by Milad Fakurian on Unsplash 
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A rookie games developer has earned around £280,000 ($353,000) from a series of games made in a matter of minutes from his spare bedroom.
TJ Gardner is the creator of the “Stroke” collection of games, which has resulted in more than 120,000 PlayStation users paying £3.29 to pet virtual hamsters, dogs, beavers, and other animals.
Yes, that’s right. The aim of the ‘game’ is nothing more than stroking pets, which is an excellent example of seizing an opportunity.
Gardner, from north-west London, has spoken on the short production time of his titles with a full admission of their rudimentary style.
“The first one, I’ll be honest, probably took seven or eight hours, but the subsequent ones — ‘Stroke the Beaver,’ for example — would have taken about half an hour.”
Just Rewards
As mentioned above, a not-so-subtle inclusion of innuendo has worked wonders for his exploits, with the range of animals extending to dik-diks — as well as snakes and fish.
Gamers simply press an X on the controller to stroke the animal, that’s it. A corner score count tallies the numbers with trophy ‘awards’ available as the strokes rack up. No sound effects, no animation, no bells or whistles, nothing.
Gardner added, “It depends how you define ‘game.’ There is interaction, granted, that interaction is very limited, but it is there, and there is a goal — I’ll happily admit it’s not hard, it’s not complex, but it is still a video game.”
With the sole focus on providing for his young family, the self-taught developer has no regrets, and it is easy to see why. He has received criticism along the way for his basic collection of titles, but nothing meaningful to stop his progress.
Since launching in September 2022, the Stroke games have generated more than 120,000 downloads, earning an impressive £275,000 in sales minus a 30% cut taken by Sony for hosting royalties in its PlayStation Store.
The pre-tax return for Gardner is a healthy profit of more than £190,000 and a satisfactory return for his diligence.
Image: Zen Chung/Pexels.
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According to reported data, Apple has regained the top position from Samsung in the European smartphone rankings.
Market research provider Canalys shows Apple is at the summit after the 2023 holiday season reporting, with Samsung trailing behind.
Canalys analyst Runar Bjørhovde said, “High-end smartphones took a record share of the European market in Q4 2023. Almost 40% of smartphone shipments were priced at US$800 or higher.”
Samsung dethroned
As reported last month, Samsung lost its place at the top of the cellular pecking order in 2023, where a reported 1.17 billion smartphones were sold.
This ended a decade of dominance for the South Korean technology giant as Apple took the global crown after being second fiddle since 2010.
The world’s smartphone market was recorded to be down 3.2% in 2023, but Apple maintained marginal year-on-year growth of 1% to 12.4 million units in Q4 of 2023, but Samsung’s results continued to dip.
Bjørhovde continued, “The dominance of the high-end was mainly fuelled by strong iPhone 15 Pro demand alongside consistent Galaxy S-series volumes and a growing Google Pixel. Looking ahead, Apple will aim to capitalize on the impending refresh cycle. This includes exploring new routes to market to enable consumers to buy iPhones, such as the bank-as-a-channel approach co-piloted with Santander in Spain.”
Samsung would record a 12% drop, showing year-on-year decline of growth in the European smartphone market, but would remain the largest vendor of devices in the region.
The S-Series and A-Series of cell phones would contribute steadily to Samsung’s sales but only served as a staple of the company’s expected returns.
”In Samsung’s case, the premium S-series and foldable devices remain a priority, seeking to test a service-based subscription model,” Bjørhovde concluded with his thoughts on the vendor’s projected performance going forward.
Artificial intelligence to play a part in future cellular sales
Looking ahead to the future of the European smartphone market and artificial intelligence’s emergence in device features, Bjørhovde said that “in the long run, vendors will increase focus on the on-device user experience with AI at the core, emphasizing personalization, ecosystem interaction, productivity, and entertainment.”
”AI integration in smartphones will continue to advance steadily and is currently serving as a pivotal R&D-driven feature crucial to maintaining long-term competitiveness. Even so, vendors must educate consumers about maximizing the power of on-device AI features to achieve strong returns on their investments.”
Image credit: Pexels
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Saudi Arabia is set to see a $100 billion investment over the next six years, with an aim to become a leader in the field of electronics and advanced industrials.
On February 1, 2024, the country’s Public Investment Fund company Alat was launched. Four partnerships and the news of major investment have now been revealed.
In an announcement today via press release (Feb 20) $100 billion will be invested by 2030. This will go towards enhancing the “capabilities of the technological sector, benefitting from the rapid development of this sector in Saudi Arabia.”
Alat will be partnering with Softbank Group, Carrier Corporation, Dahua Technology Ltd, and The Saudi Technology and Security Comprehensive Control Company (Tahakom).
The Global CEO of Alat Amit Midha said: “In conjunction with our international and regional partners, the first four of which we proudly announce today, we will redefine sustainable manufacturing.
“Alat’s mandate is focused on harnessing the Kingdom´s solar, wind and green hydrogen clean energy. 
“We are passionately using technology to transform businesses, leveraging cutting-edge AI technology and fourth-industrial revolution technologies for manufacturing. This is not only using clean energy but applying sustainability measures to all our operations, buildings, logistics and supply chain, with sustainability at the core of everything we do.”
According to its website, these plans will contribute $9.3 billion to non-oil GDP by 2030 and create 39,000 direct jobs.
Global partnerships
Alat’s global partnership with the Softbank Group will include a $150 million investment to set up a fully automated manufacturing and engineering hub that will serve local and global demand. The aim is for the manufacturing plant to be open by December 2024.
The agreement with Carrier Corporation includes the development of a manufacturing and R&D center, expected to create more than 5,000 local jobs.
Alat and Dahua Technology Ltd will invest $200 million to establish a secure and compliant global business for vision-centric products, called Alat AlVisio Technology Co. Ltd., and a manufacturing facility in Saudi Arabia.
The fourth partnership, with The Saudi Technology and Security Comprehensive Control Company (Tahakom), will involve collaboration on solution designs, product specifications, and more, as well as building technology roadmaps and client and vendor relationships.
Featured image; Photo by Louis Reed on Unsplash
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An emerging artificial intelligence (AI) model is garnering a lot of attention thanks to its rapid response speed.
Groq, a California-based startup founded in 2016, has produced an impressive AI model which could quickly bring the company into competition with the likes of OpenAI’s Chat GPT.
The company uses LPU (language processing units) architecture instead of GPU (graphics processing unit), enabling more efficient and faster speeds. This is where it differs from traditional AI models which heavily rely on GPUs, which are both expensive and difficult to procure.

Wow, that’s a lot of tweets tonight! FAQs responses.• We’re faster because we designed our chip & systems• It’s an LPU, Language Processing Unit (not a GPU)• We use open-source models, but we don’t train them• We are increasing access capacity weekly, stay tuned pic.twitter.com/nFlFXETKUP
— Groq Inc (@GroqInc) February 19, 2024

Groq’s offering is returning incredible efficiency with its breakneck speed.
Early indications appear to show Groq’s hardware outperforming ChatGPT with public benchmarks hitting blazing speeds of 500 tokens per second, compared to 30-50 for GPT 3.5.
This side-by-side demo of Groq vs. GPT 3.5 shows Groq completing the same prompt but ~4x faster.

The first public demo using Groq: a lightning-fast AI Answers Engine.
It writes factual, cited answers with hundreds of words in less than a second.
More than 3/4 of the time is spent searching, not generating!
The LLM runs in a fraction of a second.https://t.co/dVUPyh3XGV https://t.co/mNV78XkoVB pic.twitter.com/QaDXixgSzp
— Matt Shumer (@mattshumer_) February 19, 2024

What’s the difference between Groq and Grok?
If you are unsure of the name of the company and think you might have heard of it before, we need to mention Elon Musk.
After he distanced himself from OpenAI to concentrate on plans of his own, he announced the arrival of Grok late last year, bringing him into direct contention with OpenAI’s ChatGPT.
Groq trademarked its name during its fledgling stage in 2016, so it’s no surprise they sent a cease-and-desist letter to the Tesla billionaire over his decision to title his firm with such a similar name.
The irreverent statement brimmed with self-confidence but it did not miss its target with a stern underlying tone addressing Musk directly, as reflected in its intro:
“Did you know that when you announced the new xAI chatbot, you used our name? Your chatbot is called Grok and our company is called Groq®, so you can see how this might create confusion among people. Groq (us) sounds a lot like (identical) to Grok (you), and the difference of one consonant (q, k) only matters to scrabblers and spell checkers. Plus, we own the trademark.”
This won’t be the last we hear of this confrontation, stay tuned.
Image: Groq Inc/X.
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