An AI startup made a hyperrealistic deepfake of me that’s so good it’s scary - "'I think we might just have to say goodbye to finding out about the truth in a quick way,” says Sandra Wachter, a professor at the Oxford Internet Institute" - "Synthesia uses both large language models and diffusion models to do this. Sees itself as a platform for businesses. Its bet is this: As people spend more time watching videos on YouTube and TikTok, there will be more demand for video content." - "Synthesia’s policy is to not create avatars of people without their explicit consent. But it hasn’t been immune from abuse." https://www.technologyreview.com/2024/04/25/1091772/new-generative-ai-avatar-deepfake-synthesia/
WIRED found thousands of ads running on Meta's social platforms promoting sexually explicit "Al girlfriend" apps. - "Some human sex workers say the platform unfairly polices their own posts more harshly." - "Many of the virtual women seen in ads reviewed by WIRED are lifelike—if somewhat uncanny—young, and stereotypically pornographic." https://www.wired.com/story/ads-for-explicit-ai-girlfriends-swarming-facebook-and-instagram/
Wall Street’s Patience for a Costly A.I. Arms Race Is Waning - "A sell-off in Meta’s stock after the company disclosed huge investments in the technology may be a sign of investor fears about tech giants’ spending." - "The company plans to spend $35 billion to $40 billion this year — much of that on the technology." https://www.nytimes.com/2024/04/25/business/dealbook/meta-artificial-intelligence-spending.html