Chaos & Amazement #2441 More AI Slop, Conversations with a Dodo, and The Royal Armories in Leeds
From AI-generated slop to chats with extinct birds, this week's batch of Chaos and Amazement proves that reality is now officially weirder than your aunt's Facebook feed.
Tech News
“AI slop” refers to low-quality, AI-generated content flooding the internet. Many creators push this content, hoping for viral success due to social media incentives. This rise in fake content risks spreading misinformation. It’s fake content, but it has real consequences. https://mashable.com/article/fake-hurricane-milton-ai-images-real-consequences
The Hollywood Reporter published their list of top 50 influencers and I’ve never felt this old. https://www.hollywoodreporter.com/lists/most-influential-influencers-2024/adam-faze/
Fortunately this one rings a bell: Cristiano Ronaldo has become the first person to reach 1 billion followers across all his social media platforms. How many are duplicates or bots? Who knows—but he seems happy about it!
Fresh AI
Adobe’s new Firefly Video Model in Premiere Pro lets users extend footage and generate videos from prompts. It also boosts performance on Microsoft’s Copilot+ PCs, with a focus on proper data licensing. https://www.theverge.com/2024/10/14/24268695/adobe-ai-video-generation-firefly-model-premiere-pro
Google's note taking assistant NotebookLM added customizable AI audio summaries, expands to 200 countries, and launches team collaboration pilot. It now supports more file types and uses Gemini for improved image analysis. Plus, it’s still free!
Boston Dynamics and Toyota Research Institute team up to advance humanoid robots. The partnership will integrate Toyota's advanced AI learning systems into BD's Atlas robot, aiming to teach robots multiple complex tasks through human demonstrations. This is going to be big. https://www.prnewswire.com/news-releases/boston-dynamics-and-toyota-research-institute-announce-partnership-to-advance-robotics-research-302276655.html
A museum experiment in Cambridge will allow visitors to have a conversation with a dodo. Using artificial intelligence, an authentic voice is given to the extinct bird that can respond to any questions visitors want to ask. I desperately want to know more about the casting process for the dodo voice (and how the Associated Press decided to describe the voice as 'authentic.')
From my blog
Not a blog post, but a podcast interview by https://webtechie.be/ ‘s Frank Delporte about speaking at conferences. We cover the differences between marketing and technical conferences, highlighting the impact of ecological costs on how we approach our work. I also discuss how fast-changing trends require speakers to stay adaptable, plus tips on getting paid as a keynote speaker.
Weird and Wonderful
The Exchange: a reminder that things in life don't always pan out the way we all planned.
Actor James McNicholas reciting Crazy by Gnarls Barkley as a dramatic monologue.
The Royal Armories museum in Leeds is absolutely slaying it on TikTok. Here’s one example:
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