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- #38 The Pentagon isn't on fire
I’m of the opinion that our choices determine our fate.
Yes. Events occur outside our control. But our reactions to these events make us who we are.
Given the news in today’s issue, I’m not sure anymore. When it’s so easy for people to create fake realities - what becomes the reality? Once enough people believe and react to a stimulus, what does it matter what’s real or not? Pondersome…
Anyway.
Wednesday brings us further down the AI rabbit hole - with this week’s events showing images' power over economics, societies, and even destinies. Even if those images are fake. Let’s dive in.
In today’s newsletter:
Top News: Pentagon explosion dumps S&P by $500B, ChatGPT gets supercharged, and Photoshop adds AI feature
TL;DR Rundown: Mind-reading AI, how lawyers are using AI and South Korean AI to detect ballistic missiles
Lesson of the day: How to spot an AI-image
Sharing time: AI-trickery
AI funny: Seriously, AI came up with this
Top News 🔝
Three biggest stories if you’re in a rush
Benjamin Graham, widely considered the father of fundamental analysis, would today be saying, “See, told you so.” (Fundamental analysis considers current and recent societal and geopolitical circumstances to attempt to predict stock market price movement.) In this instance, a fake AI-generated image of The Pentagon burning, released on social media on Monday, caused a temporary $500B downswing in the stock market. Officials quickly confirmed no such incident had occurred, however as technologist Sam Gregory puts it, this highlights how fragile our economies are, and how influential AI can be:
“You type a sentence into one of these text-to-image generators, which are AI-based - and it turns out an image. How does this play into some of our existing problems with the ways people deceptively mis contextualize an image to claim it’s one thing when it’s another? They show perhaps an act of violence against one ethnic group and claim it’s against another to try and incite violence - this is basically a supercharge of those existing tendencies.”
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Microsoft Windows occupies around 30% of the global Operating System market share - meaning 1.6 billion users will be affected by the new tools they introduce (wow). At this year’s Microsoft Build, which launched today, the company demonstrated its expanding use of AI across apps and services:
Windows 11 gets an AI copilot (an AI personal assistant)
Microsoft 365 copilot now supports plug-ins
Microsoft Edge will soon have 365 copilot integration
Windows Terminal gets an AI-powered chatbot
Bing becomes the default search engine in OpenAI’s ChatGPT chatbot
The next trick is learning how to use these tools effectively. They do make things easier, and tech companies are trying to minimize any learning curve as much as possible - but still, it’s something new, and people don’t necessarily like change. Or do they?
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In a genuinely original and totally unforeseen move, Photoshop users will soon have access to a new “generative fill” feature through Firefly, enabling them to use text prompts similar to those of Dall-E and Midjourney. While Adobe has been using AI in its tools for over a decade (think background replacement), the AI tools of today are too good not to include. What’s more, to dodge the minefield of AI-generated copyright infringement, Adobe has trained Firefly on 100M images “from Adobe’s stock library, as well as images in the public domain where copyright has expired.”
TL;DR Rundown 🐂
Summary of note-worthy trending articles
Neuroscientists test out brain-reading AI on CNN reporter. (link)
Palo Alto Networks CEO calls generative AI a boon for customer satisfaction and company efficiency. (link)
A first glance at how ads might look in Google’s new AI-powered experience. (link)
Ice Cube, the rapper who rapped over samples, says AI is ‘demonic’ for doing essentially the same thing. (link)
AI will boost Microsoft and Google - worry about these stocks instead! (link)
A look at how lawyers use AI to strengthen their arguments. (link)
South Korean company fuses AI with imagery to detect ballistic missiles. (link)
Anthropic, the Google-backed AI startup, successfully raises $450M in latest AI funding round. (link)
Buzzfeed tries to jump on the AI train with its latest feature Botatouille, an AI-powered kitchen assistant. (link)
NVIDIA and Microsoft team up to accelerate enterprise-ready generative AI. (link)
The Biden Administration wants YOU!..To provide feedback on responsible AI development. (link)
Solana integrates AI into blockchain, and raises grants fund to $10M. (link)
Lesson of the Day ⚒️
Tips to mitigate negative AI impacts
“The Pentagon is burning” - not.
Like it or not, there’s no changing the world we live in - one where AI plays a more significant role day by day. Burying one’s head in the proverbial sand just won’t work anymore - we need to know how to identify (at least, try to identify) what is real, what is tweaked, and what is bullshit.
This image caused a $500B dip in the S&P 500 earlier this week. As we’ve said, it’s fake, generated by AI. But how do we know that?
When you see an image or footage that reports breaking news, it’s best to treat with skepticism, then proceed with caution before spreading the news. Keep in mind:
News doesn’t occur in a vacuum - Significant events (such as, say, The Pentagon blowing up) will have more than one source, showing more than one image.
Consider who uploaded the content - What’s the account’s posting history? Do they have legit followers? Can you contact them?
Reverse image search - Tools like Google Image Reverse Search and TinEye reveal where and when an image was first used on the web. Also, live public traffic camera footage can help verify real-time events in particular locations.
Next time someone shares an image or story with you, and you find yourself dubious about it’s authenticity, consider these tips and try to decide whether or not it’s AI news or real.
AI Stories
Has an AI image duped you before? What was it of, what were the consequences? If you’d like, tell us below, and we’ll randomly select one of your stories to share with our readers in the next issue.
AIn’t That Funny
An AI-generated meme from The Meme Does Not Exist back in April 2020
And we thought good humor was a tenant of humanity…
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