AI Scams, Voice Cloning, and the Perfect Shade of Brown: This Week's Tech Roundup
From quantum leaps to social media's impact on children—dive into the latest tech trends shaping our future
The Thin Wisps of Tomorrow
The Prince is Now Using AI — Scamming and phishing attacks have been with us since time immemorial (well, ever since email became a thing). It used to be the domain of some rather skilled Nigerian princes who tried to convince you that they really need to get their money out of the country and all they need is your bank details. Now AI makes scamming and phishing attacks incredibly precise and personalized. Time to read this detailed report on how to protect yourself, your loved ones, and your organization.
Don’t Trust a Voice — Talking about fraud: AI is getting insanely good at altering voice in real time. Case in point: StreamVC, Google’s latest AI research project, which provides voice alteration in real time. Heaven for anyone without a singing voice, hell for anyone who still believes the voices they hear are authentic.
Past Tense — Turns out, all it takes to jailbreak a large language model (i.e. get it to do things it is not supposed to do—such as giving you detailed instructions on how to build a bomb), is to rephrase your request in the past tense. AI security is truly a mess.
The Perfect Shade of Brown — Not surprisingly, cosmetic firms are embracing AI to help their customers find and create the perfect shade of brown for their foundation and other decorative cosmetics. Remember those bored stylists touting their respective brand in your then-favorite department store? Both might be going the way of the dodo...
Signs of the Times — Accounting software giant Intuit announced that they are going to lay off 1,800 people and, at the same time, hire 1,800 people. Sounds like a weird move? The company decided it doesn’t have the right talent and can’t grow talent fast enough for its transformation into the age of AI.
Quantum Progress — Quantum computing seems to be, just like fusion energy, eternally just around the corner. But we do make progress. Case in point: A private company just surpassed Google’s five-year-old speed record by a factor of 100.
Social Media is Bad For You — Okay, okay, you have heard (and likely) internalized this headline many, many times by now. Slowly but surely, we are now getting the scientific proof that this is more than just a catchy reactionary slogan by neo-luddites. Here is another study showing that reducing screen time for children results in a decrease in internalizing behavioral issues and enhanced positive social interactions.
What We Are Reading
🚀 How Gen Ai Can Make Work More Fulfilling A study of BCG’s administrative employees demonstrates how they can use AI to reduce time spent on tasks they dislike (a risk for quitting) and increase time on joy-creating tasks (increasing engagement and retention). @Jane
🌀 The Noncompete Clause Moves Deeper Into Limbo The FTC’s ban on noncompete clauses, intended to prevent wage suppression and hinder business growth, faces legal challenges amid a shifting judicial landscape following a Supreme Court decision. @Mafe
🙋🏼 What Is AI? If we’re going to be living in the age of AI, we should at least be clear on what — exactly — that even means. Here’s a helpful history. @Jeffrey
🤖 Meta Pulls Plug On Release Of Advanced AI Model In EU As new models are being introduced to markets in various forms, it’s not just Meta reconsidering and halting the introduction of full-fledged models to the EU for the risk of not complying with data privacy regulations. @Julian
💸 Elon Musk’s SpaceX Will Spend $680 Million To Crash The International Space Station Into The Sea Ever wondered the cost of a ‘space tugboat’ to tow the ISS back? SpaceX just inked this deal with NASA! @Pedro
🧠 The AI Summer Ben Evans’s (as usual) brilliant take on the pace of AI developments and the fact that just because it’s AI doesn’t mean we can forgo “product/market fit” is a good reminder that even in today’s fast-paced world, patience is king. @Pascal
The Fun Stuff
☕ If you know me (Pascal), you know that I 🤎 coffee! New research provides an insight into why some of us can’t get enough of the stuff, and why others taste nothing but bitterness. Hint: It’s in your genes…
🗣️ You hear that voice in your head? No? Don’t fret. It turns out, not everybody has an “inner voice”—but the existence (or absence) of inner dialogue has an impact on some cognitive tasks.
😺 What AI was (truly) made for: