OneUnited Bank, one of the nation’s largest Black-owned banks, is partnering with the credit-building platform Esusu to change the path to homeownership for renters during Financial Literacy Month. Esusu uses data to help improve users’ credit scores, allowing people to make it easier to get onto the housing ladder. “This alliance is all about empowering renters with the financial tools they need to turn their homeownership dreams into reality,” Teri Williams, President & COO of OneUnited Bank, said in a press release. OneUnited Bank’s collaboration with Esusu By reporting on-time rental payments, this
Krisp, a noise cancellation app, announced that it will launch an AI tool to convert a speaker’s accent to American English, starting with Indian accents. The company says the AI Accent Conversion will change a person’s accent with a 200ms latency, which Krisps calls “an imperceptible delay in conversations,” whilst maintaining the speaker’s voice, according to The Verge. The tool has already been trialed in enterprise environments, and a beta version will be available on the Krisp desktop app. Users can use the tool at any time during or before
Cassava Technologies, founded by Zimbabwean telecommunications mogul Strive Masiyiwa, is working with Nvidia to create Africa’s first artificial intelligence factory. The Pan-African company will install Nvidia’s modern computing and AI software at its data centers in South Africa by June 2025. It will do the same in other facilities in Egypt, Kenya, and Morocco. “Our AI factory provides the infrastructure for this innovation to scale, empowering African businesses, start-ups and researchers with access to cutting-edge AI infrastructure to turn their bold ideas into real-world breakthroughs and now they don’t have to look beyond
Over 400 Hollywood creatives, including actors and directors, have signed an open letter calling for the government not to scale back on copyright laws related to artificial intelligence. Variety reported that the list included names such as Ava Duvernay, Janelle Monáe, Michaela Coel, Ben Stiller, Mark Ruffalo, and hundreds of others. “We firmly believe that America’s global AI leadership must not come at the expense of our essential creative industries,” they said in the letter to the White House Office of Science and Technology Policy last week. Why are Hollywood
Create Labs Ventures is collaborating with TONL, a Black-owned stock photography company, to launch the first-ever AI-powered image-generator exclusively trained to create a Black-owned stock photo library, Femi Magazine reports. This partnership aims to tackle biases in AI image generation, where models trained on white-dominated datasets often produce inaccurate or offensive depictions of Black, Brown, and other marginalized communities. communities. By leveraging TONL’s diverse collection, it aims to create more authentic, representative images. Black Representation in Stock Photography TONL was founded by Nigerian-American social entrepreneur Karen Okonkwo and Ghanaian-American Joshua
Latine workers in California are at high risk of losing their jobs due to growing automation, the use of technology to perform repetitive tasks without human involvement. According to a new report by researchers at the University of California, Los Angeles (UCLA), Latine workers are overrepresented in occupations most vulnerable to automation, such as agricultural laborers, construction laborers, landscaping workers and cooks. “Latino workers face significant challenges as their job responsibilities become more technical and analytical,” the report states. “Digital literacy and skills are low among Latino workers, and many
Anthropic has deleted commitments made during the Biden administration in 2023 to encourage safe and “trustworthy” AI, from its website according to The Midas Project. However, Jack Clark, co-founder of Anthropic, has since stated that the company still intends to honor its voluntary commitments. Biden-Era AI Policy Commitments In July of 2023, Anthropic and other companies like OpenAI, Google, Microsoft, and Meta agreed to comply with specific voluntary AI safety commitments suggested by the Biden administration. The initiatives included internal and external security tests of AI systems before release, investing
Microsoft has announced its plans to train one million people in digital skills through an Artificial Intelligence skilling initiative in South Africa. The initiative will give South Africans insight into the strategic aspects of AI whilst empowering leaders with the necessary tools and knowledge required to navigate the advancing AI landscape. “Harnessing the transformative power of artificial intelligence (AI) is no longer a futuristic vision, but a tangible reality for organisations seeking to achieve exponential growth and optimisation,” Lillian Barnard, President for Microsoft Africa, said in a press release. What
Hoan Ton-That, the CEO of Clearview AI, has decided to step down from his position, as reported by Forbes. The controversial facial recognition company received criticism in 2020 after gathering billions of images from social media without users’ consent to create a global facial recognition database. With Trump allies now leading Clearview, concerns are growing that a potential Trump administration could expand biometric surveillance, increasing risks for Black and immigrant communities. Clearview AI’s change in leadership Ton-That stepped down as CEO in December, becoming president before later announcing his full
Scoreplay, a media management startup, raised $13 million in a series A funding round. The round included notable investors such as NBA star Giannis Antetokounmpo, soccer star Alex Morgan, and Alexis Ohanian’s Seven Seven Six VC fund. The AI-driven platform provides tools that allow teams and leagues to automate the ordering and distribution of content. This clarifies what is usually a complicated process with different types of media spread over numerous software platforms. Scoreplay helps users discover content faster by accelerating new content production and streamlining delivery to athletes, broadcasters,
