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Issue #106 – Real Fake – The AI Dilemma, The End of Originality, Generative Agents and Pope Francis

Menno van Doorn
April 13, 2023

Why Pope Francis Is The Star Of A.I.-Generated Photos

Francis’s prevalence in A.I.-generated images is the result of a perfect storm of factors, religious experts said. After 10 years as the head of the Catholic Church, he is instantly recognizable around the world. He is viewed as a more approachable leader than his harder-line predecessor, Pope Benedict XVI. And when combined with a sudden burst of interest in new A.I. tools, Francis — who in real life is often pictured in formal settings — became the recurring choice of creators to place in the most incongruous scenarios.”

Generative Agents: Interactive Simulacra of Human Behavior

“Stanford/Google researchers just published some mindblowing new research on “generative agents”. It’s like they brought Westworld to life. Using a simulation video game they created, researchers made 25 characters that could: communicate with others and their environment, memorize and recall what they did and observed, reflect on those observations and form plans for each day.”

A.I. Pop Culture Is Already Here

“We’re living in a world in which every style, every idea, and every possible remix can be generated as fast an frictionlessly as possible. […] Execution may have been democratized by generative A.I., but ideas have not. The human is still the originator, editor, and curator of A.I.’s effects. […] The A.I. content has the appearance of realism, without actual reality—reality solely as a style. […] It seems that a Rubicon has been crossed: It doesn’t matter that these artifacts are generated by A.I.; we can just enjoy them for what they are.”

It’s aesthetic accelerationism.

What Happens When ChatGPT Starts To Feed On Its Own Writing?

“AI chatbots won’t destroy human originality. But they may homogenize our lives and flatten our reality.”

ChatGPT: The End of Originality?

“ChatGPT – and the internet it will engulf – will become a virtual hall of mirrors, perfectly capable of reflecting “progressive” ideas back at itself but never capable of progressing past those ideas.”

ChatGPT risks becoming the most radically conservative development in our lifetimes.

ChatGPT Invented A Sexual Harassment Scandal And Named A Real Law Prof As The Accused

“One night last week, the law professor Jonathan Turley got a troubling email. As part of a research study, a fellow lawyer in California had asked the AI chatbot ChatGPT to generate a list of legal scholars who had sexually harassed someone. Turley’s name was on the list. The chatbot, created by OpenAI, said Turley had made sexually suggestive comments and attempted to touch a student while on a class trip to Alaska, citing a March 2018 article in The Washington Post as the source of the information. The problem: No such article existed. There had never been a class trip to Alaska. And Turley said he’d never been accused of harassing a student.”

What if someone uses this new search engine and finds information that is not true, but he doesn’t know it?

Instant Videos Could Represent the Next Leap in A.I. Technology

“In the old days, to do anything remotely like this, you had to have a camera. You had to have props. You had to have a location. You had to have permission. You had to have money. You don’t have to have any of that now. You can just sit down and imagine it.”

The keyboard is the new camera.

AI Video Generators Are Nearing a Crucial Tipping Point

“Video memes made with algorithms are suddenly everywhere. Their sudden proliferation may herald an imminent explosion in the technology’s capability.”

Children’s Media Lives 2023 Report

“Social media platforms become a never-ending experiential conveyor belt of content in children’s lives. Social content, news, opinion, entertainment and advertising are jumbled together, blurring boundaries between genres. Gossip is presented as news and vice versa. Advertising is portrayed as social discourse. Professional influencers talk to fans as though they’re best friends while monetising those relationships.” Thx 2 Ezra Eeman

The AI Dilemma

“Tristan Harris and Aza Raskin discuss how existing A.I. capabilities already pose catastrophic risks to a functional society, how A.I. companies are caught in a race to deploy as quickly as possible without adequate safety measures, and what it would mean to upgrade our institutions to a post-A.I. world.”

Godfather Of Artificial Intelligence Talks Impact And Potential Of AI

Thx 2 Marco Derksen

How AI And The Metaverse Will Shape Society

About the author

Director and Trend Analyst VINT | Netherlands
Menno is Director of the Sogeti Research Institute for the Analysis of New Technology (VINT). He mixes personal life experiences with the findings of the 19 years of research done at the VINT Research Institute. Menno has co-authored many books on the impact of new technology on business and society. This is the list of the books and research project he has worked on: Making IT-Governance Work Ope

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