The Power of TayTay

Only a few months ago I wrote about the incredible proliferation of Taylor Swift and her music. Her business acumen has propelled her into superstardom. But last week a flood of AI-generated fake sexually explicit material of Swift was posted all over Twitter X. It’s a reminder that this happened to one of the most powerful entertainers out there. Even she can still fall victim to terrible people, predictably doing terrible things with bullshit-spewing AI tools. Jess Weatherbed at The Verge has more. One of the most prominent examples on X attracted more than 45 million views, 24,000 reposts, and…

Inhumane Pin

I continue to be skeptical about AI and that skepticism extends to the “AI-focused” products that are coming out this year. Case-in-point: a pin from an unknown company called Humane. They’d like you to think of it as a sort of wearable thing that you can interact with using AI. What it looks like is a very expensive product, spewing confidently-wrong-AI bullshit-filled-responses that will likely sell in tiny quantities. Ron Amadeo at Ars Technica has more. As far as we can tell, it’s a $700 screenless voice assistant box and, like all smartphone-ish devices released in the last 10 years,…

Selling AI Nonsense

It’s been pretty obvious for a few years that Amazon’s marketplace is filled with no-name products from no-name brands peddling questionable quality. Buying on Amazon is a roll of the dice even more than eBay these days. This stems from sellers looking to mass-list and mass-sell items with minimal effort. With ChatGPT and other “AI” tools hitting the scene, people’s ‘cheats’ to do less work are being exposed in listing titles. Kyle Orland at Ars Technica has more. Amazon users are at this point used to search results filled with products that are fraudulent, scams, or quite literally garbage. These days, though, they…

AI Scrolling

I may be very skeptical of all the buzz surrounding AI right now, but there are practical uses for the technology. Ancient scrolls dating back to A.D. 79 were burned in a volcanic eruption. Unrolling them is impossible and over the years scanning technology has tried to see anything inside. But using some AI, a college student assisted with deciphering the ancient text. Kyle Melnick at The Washington Post has more. The text message he received at the party included an image from one of the scrolls. [Luke] Farritor sat down in a corner to review the picture and uploaded…

Getty AI-Generated Images

The age old saying “if you can’t beat ’em, join ’em” has no better example than this: Getty Images has announced it is releasing its own AI Image Generator that’s been trained on its own images and will be exclusive to its service. Matt O’Brien at AP News has more. CEO Craig Peters said the new service, called Generative AI by Getty Images, emerged from a longstanding collaboration with California tech company and chipmaker Nvidia that preceded the legal challenges against Stability AI. It’s built upon Edify, an AI model from Nvidia’s generative AI division Picasso.  It promises “full indemnification…

What’s Mine is Mine and What’s Yours is Mine

We’re hot in the AI movement right now, regardless if most of the generative stuff out there is a giant BS machine. It hasn’t stopped the likes of Microsoft adding ChatGPT to Bing and Google rolling out Bard. But all that AI needs to be trained on real data and so Google is doing what they always do: taking the entire internet for themselves. Because they can. Thomas Germain at Gizmodo has more. Google updated its privacy policy over the weekend, explicitly saying the company reserves the right to scrape just about everything you post online to build its AI…

Wendy’s AI

While I don’t think ChatGPT is taking over the world any time soon, one technology that has come far in the last decade is voice recognition. In the early days of Siri and Google Assistant, they were wrong a lot. Now, those and other assistants capture our speech with extremely high accuracy. Using this, Wendy’s is piloting a program to let their Drive-Thrus be staffed by Google’s AI. Michael Crider at PC World has more. The system has been trained to tune out extraneous noises, like the sound of a passing conversation or kids fighting in the backseat, and can…

AI Objection

We know that for all the hype surrounding ChatGPT and these “AI” models, they’re actually big liars. I showed personal examples of this in March. Now a lawyer is also learning the hard way that if ChatGPT doesn’t know something, it confidently lies about it. Wes Davis at The Verge has more. After opposing counsel pointed out the nonexistent cases, US District Judge Kevin Castel confirmed, “Six of the submitted cases appear to be bogus judicial decisions with bogus quotes and bogus internal citations,” and set up a hearing as he considers sanctions for the plaintiff’s lawyers. Lawyer Steven A.…

Pepperoni Hug Spot

I know there is endless hype around AI. And as I’ve said previously AI chatbots are nothing more than a next-word-prediction algorithm (that loves to lie). But sometimes when you mix different AIs together, you get something really funny. Enter Reddit user SharpCartographer831 and their AI-Generated pizza commercial. This person used a series of AIs to write the script, do the voiceover, and generate the video for a 30-second ad. It’s incredibly weird, creepy, and funny because it’s so random and dumb. But in some weird way, it works. One thing that didn’t even occur to me is the time…

Voice Password Failure

AI-powered voice cloning technology has advanced to the point where scammers can now easily create convincing fake audio of someone’s voice. In a proof-of-concept video, Watch how Joseph Cox from Vice demonstrates how he was able to access his bank account by simulating his voice using AI.

AI Attempts Seinfeld Recreation

Nothing, Forever is an AI-generated stream that recreates Seinfeld, the hit 90s sitcom, with a fully-automated system. Created via machine learning and AI algorithms, the always-on show creates & delivers new content every minute on the fly.

Voice Scammed

Over the years we’ve grown skeptical about text messages and unknown callers. Unsolicited calls informing us our car’s warranties are expiring are a joke now and it is becoming well known that Amazon and the like will not contact you to refund your money. But the scammers are always one step ahead and voice AI muddies the waters. In essence, scammers are cloning the voice of someone you know, then contacting you saying they need money. And people are falling for it. Pranshu Verma at the Washington Post has more of this fascinating way scammers are working their new angle.…

Bing Sydney Put In Check

It’s been an interesting few weeks for Microsoft. After announcing their partnership with OpenAI and incorporating ChatGPT into it, things have gotten… weird. In only a short time it has threatened and insulted users. It has insinuated it spied on its creators via their webcams. To say it’s off the rails is an understatement. Tom Warren at The Verge gives some insight into how Microsoft is trying to reign this in. Reflecting on the first seven days of public testing, Microsoft’s Bing team says it didn’t “fully envision” people using its chat interface for “social entertainment” or as a tool…