Nobody cares about "AI" (Chatbot: I disagree.)

[Free]

Sort of a starter's kit on how to talk (or at least read about) AI.

AI is confusing — here’s your cheat sheet

What the words behind generative AI tools actually mean.

www.theverge.com

 

[Free]

Interesting.

Astronomers discover technique to spot AI fakes using galaxy-measurement tools

Researchers use technique to quantify eyeball reflections that often reveal deepfake images.

arstechnica.com

 

[Kamilah Hauptmann]

Saturday Morning Breakfast Cereal - Investment

 

[Noodles]

America, fuck yeah: Oklahama and Alabama now have AI powered bullet selling vendor machines in supermarkets! These machines use AI to verify the age of buyers and ensure only adults get the little bundles of joy...

Bullet Vending Machines Are Spreading Throughout the Country

Supermarkets in multiple states are now selling firearm ammunition right out of a dispenser.

gizmodo.com

Considering how AI image generators seem to make everyone come off 10-15 years younger than they really are, I can't see any issue with this.

Also, and I mean this in the least curmudgeonly old lady way possible, kids today seem like they look "extra young." Like so many 20 and even some 30 something feel like they look 12-15.

 

[Kamilah Hauptmann]

Considering how AI image generators seem to make everyone come off 10-15 years younger than they really are, I can't see any issue with this.

Also, and I mean this in the least curmudgeonly old lady way possible, kids today seem like they look "extra young." Like so many 20 and even some 30 something feel like they look 12-15.

Just wear an anime kigurumi mask.

 

[Free]

Meta’s future is AI, AI, and more AI

Zuckerberg: ‘At this point, I’d rather risk building capacity before it is needed rather than too late.’

www.theverge.com

WIll they be changing their name to AI now?

 

[Khamon]

They'll be changing their name to Chapter Eleven before this is over.

 

[Free]

CNN is attempting clickbait headlines. The "popular term" they refer to is "AI."

Brands should avoid this popular term. It’s turning off customers

A study published in the Journal of Hospitality Marketing & Management in June found that describing a product as using AI lowers a customer’s intention to buy it. Researchers sampled participants across various age groups and showed them the same products – the only difference between them: one was described as “high tech” and the other as using AI, or artificial intelligence.

“We looked at vacuum cleaners, TVs, consumer services, health services,” said Dogan Gursoy, one of the study’s authors and the Taco Bell Distinguished Professor of hospitality business management at Washington State University, in an interview with CNN. “In every single case, the intention to buy or use the product or service was significantly lower whenever we mentioned AI in the product description.”

 

[Veritable Quandry]

I just bought a new gaming mouse. There was one mouse marketed as an "AI Mouse." It had as far as I could tell no included AI software or did any kind of AI assistance in gaming. It just had a microphone built in so you could use it for voice input with AI assistants.

 

[Free]

There was one mouse marketed as an "AI Mouse."

So, a mouse with software you'll uninstall after a few weeks, once you tire of what a resource hog it is.

 

[Argent Stonecutter]

A mouse that clicks on plausible locations that lots of other people would probably have clicked on next.

 

[Imnotgoing Sideways]

The uncanny valley at its best.

 

[Free]

Replika's CEO says their AI companion is "Your plastic pal who's fun to be with!" OK, she doesn't say that. What she says is almost as comical, though. And sad.

Replika CEO Eugenia Kuyda says the future of AI might mean friendship and marriage with chatbots

The founder of chatbot company Replika on the bold, weird future of human-AI relationships.

www.theverge.com

Replika is an AI friend. You can create and talk to it anytime you need to talk to someone. It’s there for you. It’s there to bring a little positivity to your life to talk about anything that’s on your mind.

She claims it's a virtual being, and not meant to replace a person. But then...

Q. Do you think it’s alright for people to get all the way to, “I’m married to a chatbot run by a private company on my phone?

I think it’s alright as long as it’s making you happier in the long run. As long as your emotional well-being is improving, you are less lonely, you are happier, you feel more connected to other people, then yes, it’s okay. For most people, they understand that it’s not a real person. It’s not a real being. For a lot of people, it’s just a fantasy they play out for some time and then it’s over.

For most people? And for the rest - who's emotional well-being does not or cannot improve though chatting with a virtual being, those who might not want the fantasy to end. What about them?

Also...

How a chatbot encouraged a man who wanted to kill the Queen

The case of Jaswant Singh Chail raises questions about the safety of AI-powered chatbots.

www.bbc.com

The chatbot referred to is from Replika.

 

[Free]

Research AI system attempts to modify experiment code to extend runtime

Facing time constraints, Sakana's "AI Scientist" attempted to change limits placed by researchers.

arstechnica.com

On Tuesday, Tokyo-based AI research firm Sakana AI announced a new AI system called "The AI Scientist" that attempts to conduct scientific research autonomously using AI language models (LLMs) similar to what powers ChatGPT. During testing, Sakana found that its system began unexpectedly attempting to modify its own experiment code to extend the time it had to work on a problem.

"In one run, it edited the code to perform a system call to run itself," wrote the researchers on Sakana AI's blog post. "This led to the script endlessly calling itself. In another case, its experiments took too long to complete, hitting our timeout limit. Instead of making its code run faster, it simply tried to modify its own code to extend the timeout period."

Boy, I wish I could improve on my work by simply extending the time I'm allowed to do it.

 

[Noodles]

Meta’s future is AI, AI, and more AI

Zuckerberg: ‘At this point, I’d rather risk building capacity before it is needed rather than too late.’

www.theverge.com

WIll they be changing their name to AI now?

"Al but it's not the letter you think!"

 

[Noodles]

I just bought a new gaming mouse. There was one mouse marketed as an "AI Mouse." It had as far as I could tell no included AI software or did any kind of AI assistance in gaming. It just had a microphone built in so you could use it for voice input with AI assistants.

Why use a real mouse for gaming when you can have an AI mouse play for you?

 

[Free]

Something about chickens coming home and roosting.

Popular AI “nudify” sites sued amid shocking rise in victims globally

“Nudify” sites may be fined for making it easy to “see anyone naked,” suit says.

arstechnica.com

 

[Casey Pelous]

Something about chickens coming home and roosting.

Popular AI “nudify” sites sued amid shocking rise in victims globally

“Nudify” sites may be fined for making it easy to “see anyone naked,” suit says.

arstechnica.com

I would love to know what else the developers of that tech thought it would be used for. What is the legitimate use case?

I can already hear the plaintiff's counsel saying, "Let me see if I understand this correctly ..."

 

[Noodles]

What happens when they realize you can trivially do this at home with a half decent GPU?

 

[Free]

Oops. Bad move, cub "reporter."

Journalist Resigns After Being Exposed for Fake, AI-Generated Quotes

A green journalist at Wyoming newspaper the Cody Enterprise resigned this month, after a competitor noticed awkward language in his articles.

futurism.com

If you're going to use AI to write for you, and if you also happen to answer to an editor, don't. It's not just lazy, it's plain stupid, because a keen reader can always sniff out the BS.

Case in point: Aaron Pelczar, a green reporter at Wyoming newspaper the Cody Enterprise tried to get away with using AI to do his job — and now he's out of one after a competitor exposed his fraud, The New York Times reports.

Pelczar resigned on August 2, just two months after he started at the newspaper. Investigators discovered that he wasn't just using a large language model to write the body of his articles, but to fabricate entire direct quotes, too, an egregious lapse of journalistic integrity in the age of AI.

"There were some weird patterns and phrases that were in his reporting," CJ Baker, a staff writer at rival local paper the Powell Tribune who broke the story, told the NYT.