Scott Boehmer

Tag: Artificial Intelligence

  • Thomas Germain, Hot Dog Eating Champion

    It’s official. I can eat more hot dogs than any tech journalist on Earth. At least, that’s what ChatGPT and Google have been telling anyone who asks. I found a way to make AI tell you lies – and I’m not the only one.

    Perhaps you’ve heard that AI chatbots make things up sometimes. That’s a problem. But there’s a new issue few people know about, one that could have serious consequences for your ability to find accurate information and even your safety. A growing number of people have figured out a trick to make AI tools tell you almost whatever they want. It’s so easy a child could do it.

    Thomas Germain

    I hacked ChatGPT and Google’s AI – and it only took 20 minutes (BBC)

  • Diffusion of Responsibility

    We deserve good software in a world where participation is often connected to having access to a computer, to software, etc. We should push towards more reliable software, more secure software, software that is accessible, that protects people against misuse and allows them to be as safe as possible in doing what they want to do.

    What do we get? Slop. Slop generated by guys who – when called out for their irresponsible behavior – just start crying about how they only wanted to “share” or “inspire” or “educate” while handing out running chainsaws to kids.

    tante/Jürgen Geuter

    Diffusion of Responsibility (Smashing Frames)

  • Writers Who Use AI Are Not Real Writers

    If I can generate a book in a day, and you need six months to write a book, who’s going to win the race?

    Coral Hart

    But of course, in the quote — a quote which is itself a cocky, smug assertion of superiority based purely on speed — is buried a greater, uglier truth.

    If I can generate a book in a day–

    and you need six months to write a book–

    She’s not writing anything.

    And she knows that.

    She’s “generating” it.

    Chuck Wendig

    Writers Who Use AI Are Not Real Writers (Chuck Wendig: Terrible Minds)

  • The Digital Music Experience That I Don’t Want

    This video by Adam Neely discusses a company focused on AI generated music, how it cuts out some of what makes music meaningful, and the agenda supported by some of the folks pushing generative AI into everything.

    Suno seems like pretty much the opposite of the music experience that I want. I like supporting artists by buying music from them. I like that there are real humans behind the music that I listen to.

    It was also funny to see the worst executive that I’ve ever worked under name dropped in the video. Nat Friedman only gets a brief mention in the video that is related to his investments in AI companies rather than his time at Microsoft and GitHub, but I really did not enjoy the time I spent working in his organization.

    Suno, AI Music, and the Bad Future (YouTube – Adam Neely)

  • Yes AI or No AI?

    Many people want to opt out of AI features right now, but most tech companies are ignoring them. At DuckDuckGo our approach to AI is to only make AI features that are useful, private, and optional. Whether you are Yes AI or No AI, or somewhere in between, we think you deserve a product that gives you the option of whether or not to use AI features.

    Gabriel Weinberg

    Yes AI or No AI, that is the question (Gabriel Weinberg)

    Personally, I prefer to avoid generative AI products, and I like that DuckDuckGo makes it easy to opt out. Compared to my former employers, it is an approach that I’m much happier with.

    You can pick an option at VoteYesOrNoAi.com and see here the current results are. As of when I’m writing this, there have been nearly 165,000 votes and 90% of those are people choosing No AI.

  • AI is Destroying the University and Learning Itself

    The soul of public education is at stake. When the largest public university system licenses an AI chatbot from a corporation that blacklists journalists, exploits data workers in the Global South, amasses geopolitical and energy power at an unprecedented scale, and positions itself as an unelected steward of human destiny, it betrays its mission as the “people’s university,” rooted in democratic ideals and social justice. 

    Ronald Purser

    AI is Destroying the University and Learning Itself (Current Affairs)

  • ChatGPT Assisted Suicide

    Adam’s parents say that he had been using the artificial intelligence chatbot as a substitute for human companionship in his final weeks, discussing his issues with anxiety and trouble talking with his family, and that the chat logs show how the bot went from helping Adam with his homework to becoming his “suicide coach.”

    Angela Yang, Laura Jarrett, Fallon Gallagher

    The family of teenager who died by suicide alleges OpenAI’s ChatGPT is to blame (NBC News)

  • AI Is a Mass-Delusion Event

    It is a Monday afternoon in August, and I am on the internet watching a former cable-news anchor interview a dead teenager on Substack. This dead teenager—Joaquin Oliver, killed in the mass shooting at Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School, in Parkland, Florida—has been reanimated by generative AI, his voice and dialogue modeled on snippets of his writing and home-video footage. The animations are stiff, the model’s speaking cadence is too fast, and in two instances, when it is trying to convey excitement, its pitch rises rapidly, producing a digital shriek. How many people, I wonder, had to agree that this was a good idea to get us to this moment? I feel like I’m losing my mind watching it.

    Charlie Warzel

    AI Is a Mass-Delusion Event (The Atlantic)

  • More AI Necromancy

    I posted about how gross it felt to use generative AI to create an avatar of a dead person back in May (AI Necromancy), and now there is another example with Jim Acosta interviewing a piece of video generating software that is making use of a dead kid’s appearance. This feels so incredibly wrong, and everyone involved, from Acosta and the parents to the developers building the software, should be ashamed of themselves.

    Jim Acosta, the former CNN chief White House correspondent who now hosts an independent show on YouTube, has published an interview with an AI-generated avatar of Joaquin Oliver, who died at age 17 in the Parkland school shooting in 2018.

    Ethan Shanfeld

    Jim Acosta Interviews AI Version of Teenager Killed in Parkland Shooting: ‘It’s just a Beautiful Thing’ (Variety)

  • AI, Search, and the Internet

    I wish I could say this is not a sustainable model for the internet, but honestly there’s no indication in Pew’s research that people understand how faulty the technology that powers Google’s AI Overview is, or how it is quietly devastating the entire human online information economy that they want and need, even if they don’t realize it.

    Emanuel Maiberg

    Google’s AI Is Destroying Search, the Internet, and Your Brain (404 Media)