Google AI, Scarlett Johansson, Spotify, Microsoft, and Steaks
Google AI, Scarlett Johansson, Spotify, Microsoft, and Steaks
Weekly Roundup of News in Technology, UX and AI
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Here’s the latest news, resources, and use cases from the world of product, UX, AI and technology. Let’s go:
🕹️ Tech Innovations
🔍 Google AI
👩🦰 Scarlett Johansson
🎶 Spotify
📊 Microsoft
👨👩👧👦 Superhuman
🥩 Steaks
Podcast
Navigating Tech Innovations and Strategic Partnerships with Varag Gharibjanian
In this episode, I sit down with Varag Gharibjanian, the founding partner of Actuate, a boutique advisory firm. Varag shares his personal journey from an engineering background to pioneering in business strategy and technology partnerships, especially within AR/VR spaces. We delve into his early career challenges, significant milestones at major tech companies, and the lessons learned from merging technology with business. Varag also discusses the current trends in XR and AI technologies, providing insights into future developments. If you're interested in business strategy, the future of technology, or growing a business, you won't want to miss this discussion.
News and Useful Reads
Google scrambles to manually remove weird AI answers in search
What happens when you rush a product to market before it’s ready? It may suggest that you should eat 1 rock per day. Or add glue to your cheese to keep it from sliding off your pizza. Or jump off a bridge. Maybe AI isn’t quite ready to take over the world just yet…
Social media is abuzz with examples of Google’s new AI Overview product saying weird stuff, from telling users to put glue on their pizza to suggesting they eat rocks. The messy rollout means Google is racing to manually disable AI Overviews for specific searches as various memes get posted, which is why users are seeing so many of them disappear shortly after being posted to social networks.
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OpenAI Just Gave Away the Entire Game
TL/DR, if you’re the CEO of a major tech company, you get what you want. People can give it to you when you ask, or you can take it without their consent. Which seems to be the ongoing story of AI. We’ll see if Scarlett Johansson can slow it down.
If you’re looking to understand the philosophy that underpins Silicon Valley’s latest gold rush, look no further than OpenAI’s Scarlett Johansson debacle. The story, according to Johansson’s lawyers, goes like this: About nine months ago, OpenAI CEO Sam Altman approached the actor with a request to license her voice for a new conversation feature in ChatGPT; Johansson declined. She alleges that just two days before the company’s keynote event last week—in which that feature, a version of which launched last September, was highlighted as part of a new system called GPT-4o—Altman reached out to Johansson’s team, urging the actor to reconsider. Johansson and Altman allegedly never spoke, and Johansson allegedly never granted OpenAI permission to use her voice. Nevertheless, the company debuted GPT-4o two days later—drawing attention to the “Sky” voice, which many believed was alarmingly similar to Johansson’s.
Spotify Will Brick Every ‘Car Thing’ It Ever Sold
In a giant “fuck you” to its customers, Spotify announced it will be bricking its Car Thing devices, turning off support for them and rendering them useless. It suggests to users to “throw them in the trash.” I own one of these, and it is a useful gadget for vehicles that don’t have built in smart systems. But we’re not at a place where companies care about that, or much of anything it seems…
Owners of Spotify's soon-to-be-bricked Car Thing device are begging the company to open source the gadgets to save some the landfill. Spotify hasn't responded to pleas to salvage the hardware, which was originally intended to connect to car dashboards and auxiliary outlets to enable drivers to listen to and navigate Spotify.
Microsoft debuts 'Copilot+' PCs with AI features
Microsoft debuted some new PCs with some fascinating features. I’m intrigued by the AI copilot features, though some of them present a security nightmare when they inevitably get misused. But the MS Paint demo is pretty cool.
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The Danger Of Superhuman AI Is Not What You Think
The problem isn’t necessarily that AI is better than humans. We know that computers can do certain things better than us. But that we are shifting the goalposts and devaluing what it means to be human and what is truly valuable in our world.
Today’s generative AI systems like ChatGPT and Gemini are routinely described as heralding the imminent arrival of “superhuman” artificial intelligence. Far from a harmless bit of marketing spin, the headlines and quotes trumpeting our triumph or doom in an era of superhuman AI are the refrain of a fast-growing, dangerous and powerful ideology. Whether used to get us to embrace AI with unquestioning enthusiasm or to paint a picture of AI as a terrifying specter before which we must tremble, the underlying ideology of “superhuman” AI fosters the growing devaluation of human agency and autonomy and collapses the distinction between our conscious minds and the mechanical tools we’ve built to mirror them.
Other Interesting Finds
Steak Guide I: Best Types of Steak, Characteristics & Cuts
I love steak. If you, like me, are grilling this weekend, you may want to check out this guide to steak. It is probably more information than most people want. But I live for this level of detail.
Even though it’s a deceptively simple dish, requiring only a bit of seasoning like salt and pepper and some heat, there are many things to know about steak before you get started grilling, searing, or even ordering one.