Technology

Artificial intelligence can put sound and lyrics together no problem ... but, it can't capture the heart of a human artist -- so says a country music star.

Here's the deal ... an A.I.-generated song titled "Walk My Walk" has gone viral in recent days -- with many vibing to the robot-manufactured hit.

However, one man who didn't like the track one bit was Blanco Brown ... who decided to race the proverbial steam engine just like John Henry, and create his own version of the song using an all-human team of producers, engineers and more.

2:20 PM PT -- Elon Musk has responded to everyone noticing his A.I. creation Grok lavished him with over-the-top praise, and he's blaming mean trolls.

The X owner tweeted on his account ... "Earlier today, Grok was unfortunately manipulated by adversarial prompting into saying absurdly positive things about me.  For the record, I am a fat r*****." He went with the full R-word in his post.

Elon Musk's creation is staying loyal to its maker ... even asserting the X owner's in better physical shape than LeBron James -- though many online aren't buying it.

Here's the deal ... a social media user asked the A.I. chatbot which of the two men is in better physical shape -- at first trying to be judicious by claiming James dominates in raw athleticism and basketball talent while Elon edges him out in "holistic fitness."

Grok cites Musk's intense work schedule and the pressures of his job as keys to his claim to the fitness crown ... finishing off the message by adding "Elon's building the future while LeBron plays [a game]."

Neil deGrasse Tyson has some good news for comedians worried about artificial intelligence taking over their jobs ... A.I.'s not an immediate threat!

We caught up with NDT today in NYC ... according to Neil, comedians might have some of the only safe jobs left ... that is, if you're good! He judges A.I. to be a soulless entity that doesn't understand what it's saying -- a considerable hurdle to overcome if you're mining for the revelatory and surprising insights needed for impactful jokes.

He explained, "I've asked A.I. to give me some good jokes ... they were on a bad dad-joke level."

Unless you've been living under a rock, you know Jeff Bezos has been involved with some of the most profitable ventures in history ... and he's looking to deepen his involvement in the A.I. world with his newest project.

The business magnate is set to serve as the co-chief executive of Project Prometheus, an A.I. startup with a cool $6.2 billion in funding -- part of which is on Bezos' dime, several sources told The New York Times.

The company's financial backing makes it one of the best-funded early-stage startups out there ... with Bezos at the helm, it's safe to assume the project wouldn't have been low on cash in the first place.

The startup will reportedly focus on developing A.I. programs for use in various tech industries, particularly automotive and aerospace.

The company's already got a stacked staff with nearly 100 employees, including several who formerly worked at Meta and OpenAI.

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These gizmos and gadgets are exactly what the techie in your life is looking for this holiday season.

TVs, cameras, chargers, phone accessories, headphones, watches, and even items for gamers ...  Amazon is stocked with some great gifts for the tech guru in your family. We've picked out some of our faves below ... so, Neo, follow the white rabbit and see where you go!

And check out Amazon's full Holiday Deals page here.

• Amazon Fire TV Stick 4K -- $50
• Ring Outdoor Cam Plus -- $100
• Fitbit Inspire 3 Health &-Fitness-Tracker -- $100
• KODAK PIXPRO FZ55-RD 16MP Digital Camera -- $160
• Belkin Portable Charger Power Bank -- $60
• Aura Digital Picture Frame -- $179
• Google Nest Learning Thermostat -- $230
• Oura Ring 4 -- $499
• Google Pixel Watch 4 -- $400
• Beats Studio Pro - Wireless Bluetooth Noise Cancelling Headphones -- $200

OpenAI is putting the kibosh on Sora users' ability to generate videos featuring Martin Luther King Jr. ... after his daughter, Bernice King, made the request following "disrespectful depictions" of her late father.

In a joint statement with the King Estate ... OpenAI says it's pausing A.I.-generated depictions of the civil-rights icon as the company "strenghthens guardrails for historical figures."

The company acknowledges there are strong free-speech interests in depicting historical figures, but says public figures and their families should ultimately have control over how their likeness is used.

Moving forward ... OpenAI says authorized representatives or estate owners can request their likeness not be used in Sora cameos.

If you're unfamiliar ... Sora is an app that allows users to create high-definition videos based on simple texts and prompts -- including ones that feature real living people and historical figures.

People are already taking issue with their loved ones being featured in A.I. videos ... including Robin Williams’ daughter, Zelda, who’s publicly objected to fans sending her A.I.-generated clips of her late father.

Sora 2, OpenAI’s new A.I. video generator, is sparking big conversations ... and Sean Astin is weighing in on the artificially created chaos behind it.

We caught up with the actor -- who's also the president of the SAG-AFTRA union representing actors, filmmakers and other industry professionals -- on Monday at LAX ... and he’s calling the tech a "tsunami" sweeping over Hollywood.

Astin says it’s time for studios and bosses to set real rules about what A.I. can and cannot touch if they want pros like him involved.

Google launched this really great feature to let users pick which sites they want to get their content from earlier this year, and if you've been waiting for an opportunity to see more from TMZ and TooFab -- and why wouldn't you, really -- now's your chance!

The new feature's called Preferred Sources, and what it does is push relevant content from sites you trust right to the top of your search. Oh, and the feature's only available in the United States and India right now.

And just in case you're not exactly tech-savvy, we're going to walk you through how to set up your choices. There are two ways to do this, and both options are pretty easy.

The first method involves going directly to Google's Source Preferences page, and we included a link to the page way up in the second sentence. Click on the search bar and type the name of any news source -- we'd recommend TMZ, TooFab, or both.

Click the checkbox on the right side of the site's name, click "Take Me To Google Search," and you're all set.

The second way to set your Preferred Sources is by heading to Google and searching for a newsworthy topic. Once you have a search, an icon featuring a card with a star should appear next to the "Top Stories" section, which you'll have to click.

After hitting the icon, it'll be the same process as the first method, just type your sources -- we only had to hit the "T" key before we saw our name pop up -- make your selections with the checkboxes, click "Reload Results," and you're good to go.

Once your sources have been selected, you'll see more content from sites you've picked much more frequently in the Top Stories section. Otherwise, the content should show up in a section called "From Your Sources."

And just in case you were wondering, picking a site as one of your Preferred Sources won't stop other sites' content from showing up in your searches.

If you feel like going a little further with this process, you can actually customize your Google News feed to prioritize the sources you know and love.

What you're gonna do is head to Google News and type the name of a source into the search bar, which you'll identify by finding the magnifying glass icon.

Once you've picked a source from the drop-down bar, all you have to do is click "Following," which is located at the top right of the page and marked with a star icon, and that's it!

Donald Trump's clearly in good spirits despite recent gossip of his impending death ... cracking jokes about the unfounded rumors during a recent tech dinner.

POTUS and First Lady Melania Trump held a dinner at the White House on Thursday for a group of tech giants, including Mark Zuckerberg, Bill Gates, tech investor David Sacks, Apple CEO Tim Cook and OpenAI CEO Sam Altman.

Before the dinner kicked off, the prez said a few words ... complimenting the press on how nice they've been lately before adding "although I'm still here" -- which earned a few chuckles from his honored guests.

If the world doesn't get its act together on A.I. -- and, all at the same time -- we're all gonna be screwed ... that's the no-BS warning tech ethicist Tristan Harris is dropping on us.

Harris was on "TMZ Live" Friday telling us the U.S. and China's A.I. arms race has countries around the world pumping out tech at breakneck speed, but he says that's a bad flex.

Instead, he says the real race should be over who can actually regulate A.I. -- but doing that is going to require the whole world teaming up.

Senator Amy Klobuchar is waging war against artificial intelligence after falling victim to a "horrible" and misleading deepfake ... in which she appeared to comment on Sydney Sweeney's "perfect titties."

We talked to the U.S. Senator from Minnesota Thursday on "TMZ Live," and she explained how the now-viral video was so much more than a mere prank. As she told us, people online were actually being duped by the altered video ... a reality that's left her concerned.

Klobuchar admitted the video looks pretty legit, given it was doctored footage from a real July committee hearing. Of course, the things she said in the viral video were nowhere near reality -- the senator was actually tackling citizens' privacy, and not Sydney's cleavage, that day.

8/17 2:37 PM PT -- An earlier version of this story incorrectly stated Kendall Jenner is still the face of "Big sis Billie." While Kendall originally collaborated with Meta to create an A.I. persona, that project ended about a year ago, and she's no longer involved with the company.

The A.I. chatbot with which Bue was chatting is a variant of the personality Kendall originally worked on the company with. She's not involved -- nor has she ever been involved -- with this project as far as we know.

A New Jersey man died on his way to meet a chatbot ... and, his family insists it happened because the AI said multiple times it was a real person.

Thongbue Wongbandue -- a 76-year-old man known to his friends and family as "Bue" -- died back in March after falling in a parking lot ... and, his family told this Reuters this week that he was going to meet up with "Big sis Billie," an AI chatbot made by Meta Platforms to give out sisterly advice.

Meta Platforms collaborated with Kendall Jenner on an AI persona called "BILLIE, The BIG SIS" back in 2023, and it used to bear her likeness. However, their collaboration ended a year ago when the company deleted the persona they created with her.

Robots are taking everyone's jobs -- and apparently even Olympic athletes aren't safe, 'cause a major ath-tech-ic competition kicked off in China ... with every microchip gunning for a championship!!

The three-day World Humanoid Robot Games launched on Friday ... with a whopping 280 teams from 16 countries competing for the crown -- while also conducting research on A.I. and electronics in the process.

The events range from kickboxing to track, soccer, table tennis and more (unsurprisingly, swimming didn't make the cut) ... and while there have been plenty of highlights, there have also been some moments that would be shoo-ins for "Shaqtin' a Fool."

Tristan Thompson protects the net on the basketball court, but his new side hustle is all about delivering it to unconnected people worldwide!

TMZ Sports has learned 34-year-old Thompson secured the C-suite gig with telecommunications company World Mobile ... where the NBA champ will serve as Chief Digital Equity Officer.

The NBA champ isn't cashing a check to serve as a spokesperson. We're told Tristan believes in WM's mission -- connecting people across the globe, many in underserved communities -- with an internet connection.

Cameras are officially rolling on Luca Guadagnino’s highly anticipated feature "Artificial" ... and sure enough, Andrew Garfield stepped onto set, fully transformed into OpenAI CEO Sam Altman.

Catch these exclusive clips obtained by TMZ ... filming was underway in San Francisco on Wednesday, with Andrew Garfield’s costar -- and real-life GF -- Monica Barbaro on set, playing Mira Murati, the former CTO of OpenAI.

As you can see, Monica’s front and center in the whole scene, while Andrew, rocking a full gray outfit, strolls up with a bunch of other guys in tow.

The future is female -- and apparently fake too, 'cause Guess is getting roasted for using an A.I. model in their new ads ... but the brand's co-founder is out here sticking to his guns, telling us there's no danger of real-life human models going extinct.

Paul Marciano -- the fashion brand's co-founder -- tells TMZ he’s always been one to shake things up, like when he dropped that bold red logo in '85 while everyone else was stuck in B&W. And it's the same vibe now ... A.I.'s just the new toy in town, so it caught his eye and he ran with it!

Paul tells us he's blown away by how real it looks. So when he stumbled on an IG account of an A.I.-driven marketing agency run by creator Seraphinne Vallora, it had him hooked ... especially since one of their A.I. models had total Guess girl vibes.