Real Fake Newsletter – Issue #122
The State of AI and Social Media Shows Capitalism is Unlikely to End With a Robot Rebellion

“We tend to think about media disruption as driven by technological innovation. But the enshittification of our socials shows that the tech itself plays a relatively minor role. […] We’ve reached the faecal stage of capitalism, an era of general shittification.”
AI Tests Into Top 1% for Original Creative Thinking
“The AI responses were as creative as the responses from the most creative real people who took the test, according to researchers. In fact, ChatGPT outperformed a majority of students nationally. “
These Hyperreal AI Worlds Are Created by Artists

“We are entering a new era of post-truth when it comes to the consumption of visual information, People will find it harder to trust whether or not they are looking at something ‘genuine’.”
Volkswagen’s Deepfake AI Ad Raises Concerns
“Beloved musician Elis Regina died aged 36 in 1982 but a new Volkswagen commercial shows her duetting with her daughter. […] The AI-created collaboration – which took more than 2,400 hours to produce and was made for a commercial celebrating Volkswagen’s 70th birthday in Brazil – has also sparked an impassioned debate over the ethics of artificial intelligence and its impact on the music industry and society as a whole. Newspapers and social media have been filled with discomfort and in some cases outrage at an onscreen revival that Elis Regina Carvalho Costa, who died more than four decades ago, could not herself have approved. Some critics remembered how the singer, commonly known as Elis, had been a staunch opponent of Brazil’s 1964-85 military dictatorship – a regime Volkswagen notoriously collaborated with. Brazil’s advertising watchdog, Conar, announced it would investigate a possible breach of ethics after receiving complaints questioning whether it was right to use such methods “to bring a deceased person back to life” on screen.”
How AI is Helping Scientists Talk to Animals

About Thijs Pepping
Thijs Pepping is a humanistic trend analyst in the field of new technologies. He is part of the think tank within SogetiLabs and in his work he continuously wonders and analyses what the impact of New Technologies is on our lives, organizations and society. He specialized in Humanistic Counselling and Education at the University of Humanistics in Utrecht and worked for five years with autistic children. His background in psychology and philosophy drives him to find meaningful answers to business related questions and to provoke whenever necessary. He is co-author of multiple publications on the impact of new technologies, such as ‘The FrankensteinFactor’, ‘AI First – Learning from the machine’, and ‘The Pursuit of Digital Happiness’ series. See labs.sogeti.com/research for his previous and current work. VINT provides practical insight into the likely impact and innovative applications of new technologies for organizations worldwide. This valuable intelligence helps public and private sector enterprises to anticipate and plan for the complex dynamics of the future. The use of new technological developments is aimed at generating value that anticipates future developments.
More on Thijs Pepping.