[Technology expert Shelly Palmer posted this short blog entry that highlights current stories in the press to illustrate that we may not recognize it yet, but a future in which it is nearly impossible to accurately perceive the role of technology when we consume media content and interact via media is already here. For more on the first of the two stories he highlights, see the ISPR Presence News post “A parody ad shared by Elon Musk clones Kamala Harris’ voice, raising concerns about AI in politics.” For more information about the second story see “Instagram starts letting people create AI versions of themselves” in The Verge; here’s a key excerpt:

“AI Studio also allows for the creation of totally new AI characters that can be deployed across Meta’s apps. Here, Meta is coming after startups like Character.AI and Replika, where people already talk to — and even fall in love with — themed chatbots. Like OpenAI’s custom GPT Store, Meta will also surface the AI characters people make for others to try.

Meta’s first pass at this concept was having a handful of celebrities create AI versions of themselves with the same likeness but different names and personas. At the time, Meta said it took that approach because it worried about AI versions of celebrities saying problematic things on behalf of their human counterparts. (Even with the controls built into AI Studio, this is still bound to happen. It’s generative AI we’re dealing with after all.)”

ZDNet’s coverage includes a link to a 9:xx minute video on the topic: “In interview with Nvidia CEO Jensen Huang at Siggraph 2024, Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg shared his thoughts on AI Studio and the ability to create an AI chatbot.” –Matthew]

A Future We Won’t Recognize

By Shelly Palmer
July 30, 2024

There are two unrelated articles today that, when taken together, foreshadow a future we will not recognize. First is the deepfake video of Vice President Harris, which Elon Musk dubbed a parody, allowing him (according to his interpretation of his own rules) to widely distribute an anti-Harris video substantially created with AI. If you choose to watch this video, you will instantly realize that it requires a certain amount of sophistication to understand that it is a parody. It looks and sounds real – which is the point.

Please do not respond to me with your political opinions – I am completely uninterested in which side of the aisle you align with.

What is important about this story is that we have crossed the Rubicon and declared war on reality. We have entered a new world of deepfakes at scale. Using this technology, people with very limited technical skill can make thousands of messages like this. Scale is the lesson here. Critically, generative AI also empowers scale for social posts, email, and every other form of communication. Get ready to be inundated with hyper-targeted AI-generated bot-delivered messaging. There will be no escaping it. (There’s no way this gets regulated or stopped. I won’t print the reason here, but if you’re interested, reach out and I’ll explain it in a private email.)

The second (equally important) story is about a Meta initiative called AI Studio, which Meta calls “a place for people to create, share and discover AIs to chat with – no tech skills required.” Meta says the motivation for this feature was the fact that popular creators cannot personally interact with the vast majority of messages they receive. The solution (according to Connor Hayes, Meta’s VP Product for AI Studio) is to create an AI “extension of themselves.”

OK. Let’s imagine a world where you could interact with a human, an AI pretending to be that human, an AI pretending to be any human, or an AI that you know is an AI. All of these entities are (or soon will be) capable of carrying on a complete conversation with you. Now, without any help from me, follow this reality (which is where we are today) to its logical conclusion.

I’m not sure if George Lucas was prescient (or just lucky) when he wrote C-3PO’s famous self-introduction: “I am C-3PO, human/cyborg relations.” It always announced itself as a purpose-built artificial life form. Ethics? Protocol? Law? Truth in labeling? Requirement? We won’t need to recognize the future; it’s already here.