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With artificial intelligence becoming increasingly prominent, Kickstarter wants you to know if and how it’s being used in any projects on the platform. The company will soon require creators to disclose any use of AI in their projects. The policy will apply to every project that’s submitted on or after August 29th.

“We want to make sure that any project that is funded through Kickstarter includes human creative input and properly credits and obtains permission for any artist’s work that it references,” Kickstarter’s director of trust and safety Susannah Page-Katz wrote in a blog post. “The policy requires creators to be transparent and specific about how they use AI in their projects because when we’re all on the same page about what a project entails, it builds trust and sets the project up for success.”

The project submission process will soon include a new set of AI-related questions. Creators will have to disclose if their project generates outputs using AI, if it primarily concerns the development of generative AI tech or if it uses AI in another way. They’ll need to reveal which parts of their projects feature entirely original work.

Kickstarter will also ask creators to state whether they have permission to use works or data that are employed in AI-generated aspects of their projects. They’ll need to provide a sense of how their sources of data deal with consent and credit. “If the sources don’t have processes or safeguards in place to manage consent, such as through an opt-out or opt-in mechanism, then Kickstarter is unlikely to allow the project,” Page-Katz wrote. 

If creators don’t properly disclose their use of AI during the submission process, Kickstarter may suspend the project. Those who try to bypass Kickstarter’s policies or purposefully misrepresent their project won’t be allowed to submit another one.

Human moderators will review submissions and, if they’re accepted, Kickstarter will disclose any use of AI in a new section on applicable project pages in the creator’s own words. The company suggests its approach will help mitigate the community’s concerns over AI. It formulated the policy with the help of input from its staff, creators and backers, as well as “other platform leaders.” AI technologies will keep evolving quickly and as such, Kickstarter plans to revisit the policy and modify it if necessary.

This article originally appeared on Engadget at https://www.engadget.com/kickstarter-projects-will-soon-have-to-disclose-any-ai-use-145100394.html?src=rss 

It’s about to get easier to stream your favorite console games: Discord has announced it’s rolling out Stream to Discord for Xbox, allowing you to stream directly from your Xbox Series X|S or Xbox One. This news marks the first implementation of a console streaming directly to Discord, which has only been available for PC and mobile gamers. Xbox has typically received new Discord features before its competitor Playstation, such as last year’s update allowing gamers to connect directly to Discord Voice channels.

If you haven’t already, you’ll need to connect your Xbox to Discord in the Connections menu on your desktop or mobile app — just click on the Xbox logo and sign into your Microsoft account. You can stream right from a Voice channel by opening the Parties & Chats tab on your Xbox, choosing Discord, and then picking the channel you want to join. From there, all you need to do is click “Stream your game” whenever you want to start broadcasting your game. Stream to Discord for Xbox is also available in one-on-one or group DMs by clicking “transfer to Xbox” while on the call. Then, just like in a channel, you can choose to stream your game to your friends. Nitro subscribers will notice their streams appear in HD and up to 1080p.

Stream to Discord is now available for Xbox Insiders and will be rolling out “soon” to all Xbox players. The Xbox Insider Hub app is available for anyone to download through the Xbox store. Discord also claims they “are far from finished” with their Xbox integration and will have more announcements later in the year.

This article originally appeared on Engadget at https://www.engadget.com/xbox-gamers-can-now-stream-directly-to-discord-150045129.html?src=rss 

Meta is making it easier for artists and sound designers to produce audio using only AI. The Facebook owner has released an open source AudioCraft kit that bundles three existing generative AI models for creating sounds from text descriptions. AudioGen and MusicGen respectively produce sound effects and music, while EnCodec compresses sounds to produce higher-quality results. A musician or sound designer might have everything they need to compose pieces.

The release includes pre-trained AudioGen models for those who want to start quickly, and tinkerers will have access to the entire AudioCraft code and model weighting. The open source debut gives pros and researchers a chance to train the models using their own data, Meta says. All the pre-trained models use either public or Meta-owned material, so there’s no chance of copyright disputes.

The tech firm characterizes AudioCraft as a way to make generative AI audio simpler and more accessible. Where AI-produced images and text have been popular, Meta believes sound has lagged “a bit behind.” Existing projects tend to be complicated and frequently closed off. In theory, the new kit gives creators the opportunity to shape their own models and otherwise stretch what’s possible.

This isn’t the only open text-to-audio AI on the market. Google opened up its MusicLM model in May. Meta’s system also isn’t designed for everyday users — you’ll still need to be technically inclined to use AudioCraft properly. This is more for research, the company says. The developers are also trying to improve the performance and control methods for these models, expanding their potential.

Even in its current state, though, AudioCraft may hint at the future of AI’s role in music. While you won’t necessarily see artists using AI to completely replace their own creativity (even experimenters like Holly Herndon are still highly involved), they’re getting more tools that let them create backing tracks, samples and other elements with relatively little effort.

This article originally appeared on Engadget at https://www.engadget.com/meta-releases-an-open-source-ai-kit-that-creates-audio-from-text-prompts-152026368.html?src=rss 

China might put further limits on kids’ smartphone use. The Cyberspace Administration of China (CAC) has proposed draft rules that would cap the phone time of children under 18 to a maximum of two hours per day. That’s only for 16- and 17-year-olds, too. Youth between eight and 15 would be limited to one hour per day, while those under eight would have 40 minutes.

The draft would also bar any use between 10PM and 6AM. Phones would need to have an easy-to-access mode that lets parents restrict what kids see and permit internet providers to show age-appropriate content. Children under three would be limited to songs and other forms of audio, while those 12 and up can see educational and news material. There would be exceptions for regulated educational content and emergency services.

As with previous measures, the proposal is meant to curb addictive behaviour in children. The Chinese government is concerned prolonged use of mobile devices, games and services may be detrimental to kids’ development. The country already limits young people to three hours of online video game time per week, and then only on weekends and public holidays. 

The draft is still open to public consultation and isn’t guaranteed to pass. There are also questions about implementation. CNBCnotes it isn’t clear whether hardware manufacturers or operating system developers are responsible for implementing the kids mode. While Apple would have to change the iPhone’s parental controls in China regardless of this distinction, involving the OS developer might require that Google make changes, not just vendors like Oppo or Xiaomi.

The rules would also have a significant effect for Chinese app developers like ByteDance (responsible for TikTok and its China-native counterpart Douyin) and Tencent (the maker of WeChat and many games). They may have to design apps and tailor content around these time limits.

This article originally appeared on Engadget at https://www.engadget.com/china-considers-limiting-kids-smartphone-time-to-two-hours-per-day-134708060.html?src=rss