Meet the first fully AI-generated news network

Of course AI won’t kill the news network but folks, this is scary. Channel 1 (not clear who or what is behind them) is the first network where everything is AI-generated. From the news anchors to the footage, the future of news (and disinformation) just took a sharp fork. Critically users will be able to personalise the news they receive and want to hear - so more echo chamber stuff.

You can(no longer) always get a job at Amazon

Amazon is testing a new humanoid bipedal robot, Digit, in its warehouses, created by Agility Robotics. Unlike those little Roomba-esque boxes that provoke nothing but “hey I’d love to get one of those for xmas”, these bots have a human-like appearance, with a turquoise torso and smiley eyes.

Amazingly they currently cost around $10 per hour to operate, but once production ramps up the CEO of Agility Robotics reckons this will fall to $2 to $3 per hour as production ramps up. Amazingly, Amazon already uses 750,000 robots in its warehouses.

To calm fears of mass job losses in this last bastion of Mcjobs, Amazon states that Digit is designed to "work collaboratively" with employees, not replace them. Yeah right! Just read their techwashing statement:

"We are passionate about technology that makes the work experience of our employees safer, easier, and less repetitive” (i.e. cutting pesky, unionised labour costs). "Doing so gives our employees the time and opportunity to take a step back (and look for other jobs), …"and find new ways to delight and serve our customers." (at other companies who value humans over profit).

EU Finalizes Landmark AI Legislation: A Global First

In a historic development, EU lawmakers have reached a political agreement on a comprehensive framework to regulate artificial intelligence, marking a global first. The deal, finalized after extensive negotiations, introduces a risk-based approach to AI regulation. It includes prohibitions on AI applications like biometric categorization based on sensitive characteristics, untargeted scraping for facial recognition databases, and emotion recognition in workplaces and educational institutions. Strict safeguards limit law enforcement's use of remote biometric identification, requiring judicial authorization for specific situations. The law has teeth because if companies mess up they could be fined up to €35 million or 7% of global turnover. Click the video below to learn more about what this means for you.

The EU agrees on AI regulations: What will it mean for people and businesses in the EU? | DW News

Fake it till you make it

Google's Gemini AI model, touted for its multimodal capabilities, faced skepticism after a demo video was revealed to be misleading. The video, portraying seamless and intuitive interactions, was actually a compilation of carefully selected text prompts and still images, not real-time AI responses.

Dream of Talking to Vincent van Gogh? A.I. Tries to Resurrect the Artist.

My family and I were at Scotney Castle in Kent over the weekend. As we walked into the main study, a disembodied voice was triggered that began to describe what life was like in the Kent countryside in the 1950s. My 1st thought was, “wouldn’t it be great to have a HeyGen type avatar lipsyncing the script and also being able to answer my inane questions”? But before I could raise billions for my ChatGPTed business plan, this article surfaced in the NYT about a new exhibit in the Musée D’Orsay in Paris that does just that.

In “Bonjour Vincent”, Vincent van Gogh chats with visitors, courtesy of artificial intelligence trained on some 900 letters that the artist wrote during the 1800s, as well as early biographies written about him.

But of course this brings up the thorny issue of how to deal with the subject of suicide and mental illness. Given his depression and eventual suicide, the model behind virtuelle Vincent is heavily censored, incredibly PC and weirdly upbeat.

This will be an issue for all lazavatars (lazarus avatars as I call them). To what extent will the AI gods limit and distort the conversations of the creatures they create?

Tools were playing with this week

Fal.ai - Real time Ai video generation via your webcam. The pace of AI is crazy. In 2019, the BBC brought out an excellent drama called The Capture which revolved around various dodgy security services manipulating real time CCTV feeds. Well you know what …there’s an AI for that! Below is a video of my web cam feed (on the left) and with a simple prompt I can appear as Morgan Freeman (or any well-known person) on the right in real time.

Visual Creative

An image generator designed for creatives. A canvas-based generative image creator that is actually nice to look at and use.

That’s all for this week folks. Enjoy your Christmas shopping and try and keep it analogue. If you liked this newsletter please share it with friends and fam.