Peter Biles
The “Stay Human” Movement
How we can maintain human exceptionalism in an automated age
Taylor Swift and the Looming Threat of Deepfakes
According to an attorney, Swift should probably go after the AI companies themselves if she decides to sue.The country-turned-pop star Taylor Swift has commanded headlines for well over a year now with her record-breaking “Eras Tour” as well as her romance with Kansas City Chiefs tight-end Travis Kelce. Unfortunately, her image has also made the rounds in AI engines. Deepfake pornography is already an emerging problem, but its seriousness resurfaced when explicit, AI-generated images of Taylor Swift went viral in late January. Only ten states currently have laws prohibiting deepfake pornography, but legislation is underway to ban it in several others, including Swift’s home state, Tennessee. According to attorney Carrie Goldberg, if Swift were to sue anyone, it would probably have to be focused on the AI companies themselves. USA Today reports, It’s possible that the faked Read More ›
The Apple Vision Pro is Here
What exactly is the point of this new, painfully expensive piece of gadgetry?
Japanese Novelist Who Won Prestigious Literary Award Unabashedly Used ChatGPT
Meanwhile, authors in the United States are waging war against AI for copyright violation
Tech Billionaires and Their Science Fiction Dreams
They're mistaking cautionary tales for instruction manuals.
Napster, Spotify, and AI: How Will AI Escape Copyright Woes?
Robert J. Marks on AI and learning from past copyright cases.Copyright lawsuits are abounding against generative AI. Since the advent of ChatGPT in late 2022, various companies, artists, and writers have raised concerns over AI’s plagiaristic tendencies. Robert J. Marks, host of the Mind Matters podcast, has the story over at Newsmax. Marks recalls the debacle of Napster, a music streaming service that provided music for “free” without payment to the artists. Not surprisingly, it was soon shut down. So how will it fare with generative AI? What’s the solution to all the impending legal woes in the realm of AI? Marks writes, Today’s Spotify keeps automatic records of song frequency and, from subscriber’s payments, distributes royalties accordingly. Similar methods could be applied to compensate content creators by generative AI. It’s not Read More ›
The Transhumanist Delusion of the Nazis
"All the Light We Cannot See" shows what can happen when the delusions of transhumanism join forces with an appalling ideology.
Does ChatGPT Depend on Copyright Violation to Function?
Without copyrighted material, ChatGPT has slim pickings to go on.ChatGPT, the large language model developed by OpenAI, might seem like it generates novel content, but of course we know that it partakes in what’s generally called “scraping.” It takes pre-existing material on the Internet in response to the prompt a human user inserts. Not surprisingly, the folks who put things on the Internet for a living, like writers and artists, haven’t taken so kindly to AI’s online sleuthing. In fact, a number of artists, writers (including George R. R. Martin, Jonathan Franzen, and John Grisham) and even news outlets have sued OpenAI over copyright infringement allegations. What’s fascinating, though, is that OpenAI hasn’t tried to dodge the allegation but freely admits that ChatGPT depends on copyrighted material to function. Read More ›
You Can Be Social and Still Be Very Lonely
Machines can't meet our need to be known and understood.
This New Year, Resolve to Stay Human
This year, we will continue to declare that human beings are unique and exceptional.
The Two Visions of AI Technology
Competing views of AI's potential comprise a new struggle in Silicon Valley.
Substack Gets It. AI Can’t Replace Human Writers
It was encouraging to see the up-and-coming writing platform boldly herald the uniqueness of human creativity.
New Report: Parents, Don’t Give Your Kids Smartphones
This has become a national health crisis.
Why AI Can’t Create Genuine Beauty
AI, though a helpful tool in certain contexts, cannot replace the intentionality and creativity of the human person.
Sports Illustrated Used AI-Generated Authors
Human authors for a human audience, please.
Okay, Never Mind. Sam Altman Returns to OpenAI
The OpenAI CEO is back after a brief absence.
Beauty is Non-Computable
Taking some time to reflect on the beautiful things in the world can lead to genuine thanksgiving.
Sam Altman Out at OpenAI, Microsoft Picks Him Up
Will Microsoft become the prime leader in the AI movement, and what will be the future of OpenAI?
Planet of the Apes and Human Exceptionalism
This movie franchise makes us wonder what makes human beings unique.One semi-random movie franchise I’ve been a massive fan of is the newest iteration of The Planet of the Apes. The original trilogy, directed by Matt Reeves (The Batman) concluded in 2017, but a “fourth” film is set to release on Memorial Day of 2024, and a trailer for it dropped this week. I’m starting to become somewhat “anti-trailer” given that more often than not they tend to either distort the hype of the film or give away the story entirely. But in the cases of movies I’m most excited about, I confess that generally I give the trailer a quick view. Kingdom of the Planet of the Apes is set years after Caesar, the founder of the ape colony Read More ›