🔮 A tale of two intelligence companies and a deepfake tries to sell us on the deep state

👶 Grimes wants to make AI-powered hits for babies

The Good(ish)

I was struck by the difference in tone in these articles on Primer and Palantir. Both are intelligence companies using AI to try to organize large swathes of data. Both got early funding from the CIA, and both are working with the U.S. government. Palantir just has Peter Thiel as a founder, a contract with ICE, and a long enough history for misuses of its tech to come to light.

There is a chance that Primer might also have a contract with ICE that isn’t public or has other unsavory practices. But companies are going to have different approaches to AI, some better than others. We need to plan as if they are all going to go the way of Palantir. There are people who argue a tool is just a tool and depends on its use and others who argue that there is no neutral tech. What both companies have the ability to do is important, but need the culture and laws when culture fails to maintain the type of technology uses that we want to live with.

The Bad

A 64-page “intelligence” document that was supposed to expose a conspiracy around the Bidens turns out to be a fake doc by a fake intelligence firm with a fake photo to top it all off. As NBC News reveals, the pic is an AI-generated portrait, possibly (this is me speculating) even from This Person Does Not Exist.

Someone used this photo because they know we will be more trusting behind a name that has a face attached to it. In the age of deepfakes, we need to scrutinize the faces more closely. For now, there are giveaways (backgrounds are always blurry, irises aren’t the same shape, ears tend to be a little fucked up, as do earrings).

This one is very good, although something is up with the shirt if you take even more than a glancing look, but one-off tight portrait shots like this can’t be enough to establish someone in the era of deepfakes anymore. Multiple pics or it didn’t happen.

More News

Grimes made a lullaby for her five-month-old baby, X Æ A-XII Musk, with AI.

Speaking of Musk, Tesla has hit the gas when it comes to its driverless tech. Others are hitting the brakes.

Black Americans already receive inferior health care compared to white Americans. AI is not making it better.

GDPR is getting put to the test as former UK Uber drivers want to sue the company for using automated "robo-firing" algos.

Docs want Google to back up all their “AI is better at spotting cancer than you” claims.

IBM built an AI that they say correctly predicts the onset of Alzheimer’s 71% of the time, compared to 59% with standard clinical techniques.

GPT-3, the powerful AI text generator, should not be used as a medical bot, as at least one experiment where the tech told someone to kill themselves shows.

The US patent office is dealing with a lot of AI tech these days and is trying to update how it handles them.

A surveillance company employee used office cameras to take photos of and harass female coworkers.

***

Until Grimes dumps Elon and puts out a banger breakup album,

Jackie