This Week in AI: Microsoft Looks to Nuclear to Power AI Ambitions

Microsoft is bringing AI into the nuclear age, signing a two-decade power purchase agreement with Constellation Energy, owners of the Three Mile Island nuclear plant in Pennsylvania, to support the growing needs of its data centers and the AI programs they support.

The deal, which will help restart a part of the facility, comes more than 45 years after TMI-2, one of the plant's units, suffered a partial meltdown, marking the worst nuclear plant accident in US history. The event did not cause any casualties, but did trigger panic that is widely believed to have set back the nuclear industry in the US. Constellation said its agreement with Microsoft will help restore TMI-1, the unaffected unit, which had been shuttered in 2019.

“Powering industries critical to our nation’s global economic and technological competitiveness, including data centers, requires an abundance of energy that is carbon-free and reliable every hour of every day, and nuclear plants are the only energy sources that can consistently deliver on that promise,” said Joe Dominguez, Constellation's CEO, in a statement.

Microsoft's deal is part of a $100 billion (with a "b") investment effort by the tech giant, as well as the investment fund BlackRock and others, to expand data centers and infrastructure that will be needed for future technologies. 

Meta takes on ChatGPT

The "anything you can do, I can do better" battle between OpenAI's ChatGPT, Google's Gemini, and Meta's AI took another turn this week, when Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg demonstrated a interactive voice-controlled AI similar to the ones demonstrated for ChatGPT and Gemini earlier this year.

One key difference though is how Meta's AI sounds. When OpenAI showed off its interactive AI, it was criticized by actress Scarlett Johansson for seemingly reproducing her voice in the style of her sci-fi AI movie, Her. Meta, by comparison, worked directly with actors and entertainers including Judi Dench, Awkwafina, John Cena and Keegan Michael Key to lend their voices to this new feature. 

“We want to make this fun,” Zuckerberg said, adding that he believes voice will be the primary way people interact with AIs. Already, he added, Meta’s AI will likely become the most widely used in the world, with nearly 500 million users.

Read more: What is Meta AI? A Capable Chatbot That’s 100% Free

Zuckerberg announced the AI's new features as part of Meta Connect, the company's decade-long tech conference dedicated to showing off new technologies. 

Snap picks Gemini for generative AI

The camera and social networking company Snap announced it partnered with search giant Google to power its "My AI" features, which is similar to Google's Lens and Apple's Visual Intelligence. In Snap's case, the feature will provide an AI to help people interact with the world, including to translate a street sign, or understand a menu.

Spotify's AI playlist expands to US, Canada, Ireland and New Zealand

While many tech companies appear focused on turning AI into something of a work companion or friend, Spotify's hoping its approach can turn the technology into a musical maître d'.

The feature first launched in testing earlier this year, available only in the UK and Australia. Now, Spotify says it's expanding the program, offering people to create playlists based on a mood like "date night at home" or "road trip with old school buddies."

"The more specific you can be, the better," Spotify said. 

So, maybe, "writing a column while scrunched into an airplane seat?"