The Robots Coming to Take Your Job?

[easye]

Tennessee becomes the first state to protect musicians and other artists against AI

www.npr.org/2024/03/22/1240114159/tennessee-protect-musicians-artists-ai

Tennessee made history on Thursday, becoming the first U.S. state to sign off on legislation to protect musicians from unauthorized artificial intelligence impersonation.

"Tennessee (sic) is the music capital of the world, & we're leading the nation with historic protections for TN artists & songwriters against emerging AI technology," Gov. Bill Lee announced on social media.

The Ensuring Likeness Voice and Image Security Act, or ELVIS Act, is an updated version of the state's old right of publicity law. While the old law protected an artist's name, photograph or likeness, the new legislation includes AI-specific protections.

[bobtheinquisitor]

The music Capitol of the world? Really?

Anyway, good on them.

[A Town Called Malus]

Mar 22, 2024 12:57:07 GMT -5 bobtheinquisitor said:

The music Capitol of the world? Really?

Anyway, good on them.

They have both types of music, Country and Western.

[Disciple of Fate]

I mean, its not so different from claiming America is the greatest country on Earth?

[Haighus]

Mar 22, 2024 14:14:18 GMT -5 Disciple of Fate said:

I mean, its not so different from claiming America is the greatest country on Earth?

Oof, burn.

[easye]

Well, you don't become the "Athens of the South" without making unilateral declarations about who and what you are!

[easye]

www.npr.org/2024/04/03/1242448552/amazon-remove-walk-out-technology

Amazon says it is removing Just Walk Out technology from its Fresh grocery stores

NEW YORK — Amazon is removing Just Walk Out technology from its Amazon Fresh stores as part of an effort to revamp the grocery chain.

The company's well-known technology lets customers pay for items without standing in line and sends them receipts afterwards. Amazon says it will now be replaced by smart carts that allow customers to skip the checkout line but also see their spending in real time.

While redesigning Fresh stores in the past year, Amazon spokesperson Carly Golden said the company heard from customers who enjoy skipping the checkout line but also wanted to view their receipts and savings as they shopped. Golden said the smart carts will give customers these benefits as well as the convenience of skipping the checkout line.

Interesting. Apparently Amazon has been struggling in the Grocery market.....

[skyth]

www.news5cleveland.com/news/local-news/east-cle-traffic-camera-issues-ticket-to-grandmother-while-her-van-was-being-towed

Joann Gibson of Cleveland said she was stunned when she was mailed a $105 speeding ticket from the City of East Cleveland, even though the ticket's picture clearly shows her van being towed when the alleged violation took place.

Gibson told News 5 that her van broke down on Dec. 20, and she was visiting her daycare center when her car was towed to a repair shop. Gibson said she can't understand why she was sent two violations when the pictures on the traffic camera ticket clearly show her van being towed.

[easye]

A national network of local news sites is publishing AI-written articles under fake bylines. Experts are raising alarm

www.cnn.com/2024/05/30/media/ai-bylines-local-news-hoodline/index.html

The articles on a local news site popping up around the country appear to cover what any community outlet would focus on: crime, local politics, weather and happenings. “In-depth reporting about your home area,” the outlet’s slogan proudly declares.

But a closer look at the bylines populating the local site and a national network of others — Sarah Kim, Jake Rodriguez, Mitch M. Rosenthal — reveals a tiny badge with the words “AI.” These are not real bylines. In fact, the names don’t even belong to real humans. The articles were written with the use of artificial intelligence.

The outlet, Hoodline, is not the first or only news site to harness AI. News organizations across the world are grappling with how to take advantage of the rapidly developing technology, while also not being overrun by it.

But experts warn that relying too heavily on AI could wreck the credibility of news organizations and potentially supercharge the spread of misinformation if not kept in close check. Media companies integrating AI in news publishing have also seen it backfire, resulting in public embarrassments. Tech outlet CNET’s AI-generated articles made embarrassing factual errors. The nation’s largest newspaper chain owner, Gannett, pulled back on an AI experiment reporting on high school sports games after public mockery. Sports Illustrated deleted several articles from its website after they were found to have been published under fake author names.

Hoodline, founded in 2014 as a San Francisco-based hyper-local news outlet with a mission “to cover the news deserts that no one else is covering,” once employed a newsroom full of human journalists. The outlet has since expanded into a national network of local websites, covering news and events in major cities across the country and drawing millions of readers each month, the company said.

But last year, Hoodline began filling its site with AI-generated articles. A disclaimer page linked at the bottom of its pages notes to readers, “While AI may assist in the background, the essence of our journalism — from conception to publication — is driven by real human insight and discretion.”

Huh..... if they use the internet to learn from, I look forward to the N-word or Holocaust denial to be some articles generated by AI.   

[herzlos]

I think Reddit has been toying with AI articles for a while, there was a big one about a fake update to some major game.

Or of course, googles AI result for "how to stop cheese falling off a pizza" which was "1/2 cup of non-toxic glue".


I'm actually starting to wonder if a lot of the world is giving up on the AI fad already given how obviously bad the results are and how it's not ready for use.

[easye]

No. Businesses are sensing blood in the water around cost-savings and are leaning into it pretty hard.

[herzlos]

I think that's where the enshitification comes in. Businesses will flock to it to save money whilst customers will dodge it because the quality is so bad.

For example, does anyone really want to read an AI written book?

[Peregrine]

May 31, 2024 13:02:59 GMT -5 herzlos said:

For example, does anyone really want to read an AI written book?

Absolutely. Look at how many generic $0.99 romance/military scifi/etc novels are selling on e-book stores. Look at how many people read volumes of erotic fanfiction written by people with a middle school level of writing talent. You can even find people talking about how they make "new" books by shuffling around the same collection of stock pieces and replacing a few names. There's an immense market for quantity over quality and AI is perfect for that market. It won't replace good literature any time soon but I guarantee you a lot of these authors are looking into how they can use AI to improve their business.

[herzlos]

That's a fair point actually. I forgot about 50 shades of whatever and how badly that was written.

Maybe it's just me though, but I find AI written stuff really difficult to read because it's so waffley and void of anything. But as you pointed out there's a market for cheap pulp fiction. Especially since the average American reader has a reading age of about 13 years old.

Maybe one day it'll be good enough to impress an avid reader though.

[Haighus]

I'm sure generative AI will develop to the point of being able to "write" well-written novels pretty quickly, at least if the massive copywright infringement of feeding the algorithms isn't curtailed.

The thing is, it cannot be creative and can only regurgitate something mashed together from other stuff it has been fed to meet the prompt. It is inherently formulaic and derivative.

However, as you point out, so is a huge proportion of human media output- people mostly copy trends that have proven to sell because we all need to eat and sleep somewhere and the corporations need to see line endlessly go up. Risky new stuff is very rare to be created by big players. Look at how much of the films being release these days are sequals or remakes or adaptations of existing popular franchises.

AI suits this to a tee, it will be great at churning out formulaic, mediocre plop favoured by suits in corporations. Lots of low-level writer jobs will be phased out for a small number of individuals prompting and touching up AI output if those suits get their way.