The Future, Present & Potential of AI
5 in 5 - Brave & Heart HeartBeat #182 ❤️
This week we’re doing a deep dive on what’s happening in the world of AI, following the drama-filled few weeks at OpenAI HQ and the official one year anniversary of the company that opened pandora’s box.
From where ChatGPT and OpenAI will take us next, to who is getting in trouble by using AI generative tools a little too liberally.
Plus some good news, but at the end, obviously.
Let's get into it.
Were you forwarded this? Not a subscriber? 👉 Sign up here
#1 - ChatGPT Changed The Future, Now What?
In a write-up about the past year with OpenAI, tech magazine The Verge described the launch of ChatGPT as being one of a handful of before-and-after moments in the modern technology era.
Other examples were the dawn of the internet, when Facebook made that internet personal, and when the iPhone made it obvious that the mobile era would take over.
They also note that one of the most interesting things about how ChatGPT changed the game was that nobody though they were going to.
When OpenAI launched ChatGPT nobody got up on stage and announced that they’d invented the future, a la Steve Jobs, and nobody, from the users, to their competitors, to the creators themselves, thought that ChatGPT would become the fastest-growing consumer technology in history.
Which it has, by the way. In less than a year, the platform hit 100 million weekly users, and over 2 million developers are currently building on the company’s API, including the majority of the world’s Fortune 500 companies.
The biggest question to ask now is - where are we going from here?
It should be noted that AI is still not living up to the sci-fi hype – large language models still hallucinate (make things up), AI generated images can often be spotted, and the machine-made vibe of AI written emails is mostly still there. The Verge drive home the point that there’s no reason to think that we’re on our way to hitting the superhuman Artificial General Intelligence anytime soon, or ever.
However, it is moving at an impressively fast rate. It’s not finished yet, but AI is already better than people expected it to be. The rapid development of ChatGPT has moved OpenAI to aggressively monetise it. It was also part of the recent drama when Sam Altman was ousted and then returned, and is why OpenAI are on the way to moving from non-profit to mega-profit.
So, now what? The big question is, if AI is going to be the cornerstone of our new society, how is it going to be developed? The article asks “is the AI we need the same thing as the AI that makes the most money?”.
When we look at that question through the example of Facebook, Instagram and TikTok, we could argue that the social networks we needed were NOT the same thing as the social network model that makes the most money.
We can only hope for all our sakes that AI doesn’t go the same way…
#2 - Sports Illustrated In AI Trouble
Sports Illustrated have gotten themselves in hot water by taking full advantage of AI’s new capabilities.
Futurism broke the story after looking up a Sport’s Illustrated author. The author in question, Drew Ortiz, had a classic SI style biography which talked about his love of the outdoors, but outside of the magazine, he didn’t exist.
His profile photo, however, can be traced back to a website that sells AI-generated headshots, with the description “neutral white young-adult male with short brown hair and blue eyes”.
According to internal sources, who chose to remain anonymous so as not to get into trouble, at least some of Sport’s Illustrated’s articles are also AI-generated.
When asked to comment, Sport’s Illustrated deleted all offending articles and posted a completely bizarre excuse for the situation online.
According to them, the articles in question were licensed content from a third-party company called AdVon Commerce, who assured them that their content was all written and edited by humans, and in any case they were in the middle of reviewing them anyway, AND it’s not even AI-generated content, okay? It’s just that their writers use pseudonyms and AI-generated headshots to protect their precious privacy.
Not only have they used AI generated content – articles and images – lied about it, and barely proofread them, they’ve released a mad and convoluted denial statement that looks like it was created via voice note by a stressed publicist on their first day of an internship.
The damage to a once respected brand should serve as a lesson to other publications looking to cut corners.
#3 - Why Find Female Speakers When You Can Make Them Up?
Another company in hot water over creating AI profiles is the organizer of software and developer conference DevTernity, after being accused of generating fake women speakers featured on their website, including more AI generated headshots.
It seemed to be a misfired attempt to pad out diversity in a male-dominated space, and led to outcry, with high-profile engineering leaders from Microsoft to Google consequently pulling out of the conference. In the end, the entire thing was scrapped.
The organiser of the conference has doubled down on his actions, denying any wrongdoing, despite proof that the women he lists as speakers at the conference are fake, with made up names, titles, and AI images.
In a rambling post on X, the place where completely normal people always go to defend themselves, conference organiser Eduards Sizovs only admits to having fabricated one female speaker after someone dropped out. Still, not allowed, but okay.
Why would he do it, what’s the end goal here? Unlike with the Sports Illustrated situation, surely people would notice when they got to the conference that these women weren’t there?
It turns out that diversity isn’t only a draw when it actually exists. By giving his conference the appearance of being diverse, Sizovs was able to draw audiences AND appeal to other speakers.
For example, Microsoft executive Scott Hanselman, was set to appear, and his rules for participation stipulate that conferences must have an inclusive lineup. He eventually pulled out, noting that he was also duped by the fake speakers.
The generation of fake female speakers is damaging to women in the industry for numerous reasons – it papers over a lack of diversity and questions the legitimacy of women in the field , and it also removes the opportunity for people like Hanselmen to be allies to women in tech.
#4 - When It Pays To Be Fake
The number of jobs that can succesfully be replaced by AI just went up by one.
After deciding they’d had enough of dealing with their human influencer clients, Spanish agency The Clueless created a model made using AI tools. It’s apparently paid off as “she” is currently earning them up to $11,000 a month in revenue.
The agency are completely open about their tactics, saying that they no longer have any desire to work with human models. Founder of The Clueless and cocreator of the “model” in question, Aitana, stated that they created her so they no longer had be dependant on egomaniac influencers.
Aitana even makes money on a version of OnlyFans, selling AI generated racy snaps, and apparently her glamour shots are so convincing that a well-known actor even tried to slide into her DMs. According to The Clueless, of course.
The whole point of influencers is to connect with fellow people, and make them want to buy a certain product by using that emotional connection to “influence” them. This AI influencer seems to be working for now, and to a certain extent it may work forever, but will she be able to reach the stratospheric heights that some do, without being able to connect on an actually human level?
Or, another idea, maybe she isn’t the only one out there….
#5 - Some Good News
To end on a high note, we thought we’d bring you some of the good that’s been done using AI, not including fake selfies…
1 – Nasa are using AI to predict solar storms. Serious solar storms can be potentially catastrophic, and the speed of predictions made by AI plus the possibility to apply them to the entire globe are an indispensable tool for scientists.
2 – AI software has been used to make great gains in the medical world, from interpreting mammograms and translating them into diagnostic data to potentially reading minds to allow stroke patients to communicate.
3 – Decoding animal language. Apparently, AI is bringing us one step closer to a future in which we will be able to talk to our pets.
4 – AI will soon be Protecting our rivers. Although facial recognition technology has been controversial, the same technology could soon be used to stop invasive fish from disrupting fragile ecosystems.
5 – Although there was a lot of alarm at first, apparently experts are quickly coming to the conclusion that AI will Improve education for the better in a score of ways, from making learning more interactive and personalised to saving teachers time on administrative tasks.
See, it’s not all so bad after all!
Brave & Heart over and out.
Bonus
The Hall Of Shame
You’ve heard of the Forbes 30 Under 30, which highlights the biggest achievers and startup founders of the year.
Well, this year they’ve released a Hall of Shame to highlight people whose work has not done so well.
Who is top of the list? Disgraced former Crypto mogul, Sam Bankman Fried. Obviously.
To find out more on how you can retain your top talent, or how we can help you with digital solutions to your business and marketing challenges, check out our case studies.