AI, Deepfakes, and a Printer with a Brain—Oh My!

From voice cloning to 3D chips, the tech world is a wild ride this week. Buckle up!

Dear Friend,

I jokingly show a video of a cat trying to jump onto a roof, after taking some time for consideration, only to barely not make it—with my commentary that this is how I feel every single day when I wake up, open my email, RSS feed reader, and social media accounts, and read up on what has happened in the world of technology since I went to bed. The speed with which things are moving is truly dazzling—definitely exciting, but also (sometimes) tiring. This week was no exception—OpenAI lost their COO, Meta announced new AI models and AR and VR glasses, and countless startups launched their latest products…

Sometimes it’s good to step back and ask “so what” and be reminded (as I wrote earlier this week) that nothing gets eaten as hot as it has been cooked (a German proverb).

With that being said – here’s what we have been tracking this week…

Have a beautiful day!
P ツ

The Thin Wisps of Tomorrow

Don’t Trust a Voice Anymore — “Deepfakes are only a threat to the rich and famous. Elon Musk? Sure. Me? Not so much!” You might want to reconsider this statement as deepfakes have now reached the lower echelons of fame—here is a sobering story from software developer Jeff Geerling, who had his voice cloned and used for unauthorized advertising. (link ↗)

Small Is Beautiful — We have talked about this here a couple of times before, but while frontier models from companies like OpenAI and Google become bigger and bigger (and thus much more expensive to train and run), new approaches to building smaller, more specialized models are starting to emerge that can compete with their much bigger counterparts. Point in case: The Allen Institute for Artificial Intelligence’s new model, Molmo. As models become smaller and thus run on (much) less expensive hardware, expect to see AI popping up in many more places. (link ↗)

Your Printer Has An AI Now — Talking about which, HP has added AI to their printers. And for once, they are not using it to sell you more ink cartridges or lock you into their ecosystem but to do some genuinely useful things to have you print less, not more. (link ↗)

Model Explosion — And while we are at it, Hugging Face (the oddly named community website that has emerged as the central place for the Open Source AI community) just announced the 1 millionth model being hosted on their site. These models are fine-tuned, customized versions of a set of base AI models such as Meta’s Llama LLMs. If there was ever any doubt that Open Source is a viable contender for the future of AI, it surely should be gone now. (link ↗)

3D Chips — With Moore’s Law coming to an end (turns out, physics is a thing and there are very real limitations to how small you can make things), chip manufacturers have talked about creating 3D chips for a long time. Here is a good primer on where we are and what the future might hold for us. (link ↗)

Dogs and the Internet — The old adage was, “On the Internet, nobody knows that you are a dog.” In today’s world, it might not be a dog but an AI on the other end of the line. And if that happens, will we end up with a version of the “market for lemons,” and will we just give up? (link ↗)

Bring Em Back And Pay The Price — Last week, we reported on AMAZON’s move to bring their workforce back to the office. You might be wondering how this is going. Well, not great: 91% of their workforce is dissatisfied with the decision. (link ↗)

A Storm is Brewing — In the world of cloud computing and infrastructure, the only way for a long time was up. Now, some dark clouds are forming as more and more customers bring their IT infrastructure back on-premise (and save big bucks in the move—ironically, the exact reason why these same customers initially chose the cloud). With the ever-declining cost of hardware, network access, and ease of use, cloud computing can turn into a costly value proposition compared to the good old self-hosting alternative. (link ↗)

We Are Turning a Corner — Climate news is usually bad news. Luckily, this one isn’t: Largely due to the massively declining costs of solar, combined with the staggering growth of EVs in China, global emissions are being driven down. It’s still a long, long way to go—but at least there is a ray of light (see what we did here?) on the horizon. (link ↗)

Climate Risk is a Factor — US real estate website Zillow just announced a new feature that shows you the climate risk for any property on their website. You can now look up the risk for floods, wildfires, wind, extreme heat, and poor air quality for your dream home—a factor that will surely affect housing prices. (link ↗)

---

What We Are Reading

🤖 This AI Chatbot Got Conspiracy Theorists Question Their Convictions AI chatbots challenge conspiracy theorists, potentially proving that facts can sway even the most entrenched beliefs. @Jane

💰 The Jobs Where You Can Still Land A Signing Bonus Companies and recruiters are bringing back a beloved benefit that new hires are captivated by: signing bonuses. Some are doing it to attract the best talent, while others aim to keep starting salaries down. Either way, always ask for one, as you might be leaving money on the table! @Mafe

👔 AI Can (mostly) Outperform Human CEOs Perhaps not shocking: In a simulated business environment, the latest AI models tend to outperform human decision-makers—until they’re fired by the board. @Jeffrey

⚖️ Europe Needs Regulatory Certainty On AI An open letter calls upon the EU not to fail its good intentions through mismanaged policies. Fragmented regulatory decision-making and unpredictable interventions have made it difficult for AI to be adequately developed within the EU, risking it falling further behind. @Julian

😲 “That’s Crazy” - Fans React As Tech Youtuber Marques Brownlee Launches $50 Per Year Wallpaper App For iOS And Android Marques Brownlee is known for detailed reviews of tech products; you might recall his Humane AI pin one. However, he just released his own very expensive app for wallpapers, nonetheless, that many are saying wouldn’t even be up to par with his own standards. @Pedro

🗺️ The Most Sought-after Travel Guide Is A Google Doc First, we had the Lonely Planet, then came the Internet, and then social media. As everybody now seems to converge on the same spots around the world (the ones that were featured heavily on TikTok or Instagram), the new hot travel guides are secretive Google Docs being shared among small groups of people. @Pascal

---

(Random) Bits & Pixels

🧮 Turn your TI-84 calculator into a ChatGPT-connected cheating device. Genius. (link ↗)

🛹 Remember “Back to the Future”? Forget hoverboards. Hovercarts are the new black. (link ↗)

🛩️ Maybe the Metaverse didn’t die after all, but just retreated into Microsoft’s Flight Simulator? (link ↗)