Dispatch: New Podcast; AI and the Mental Health Crisis; One giant leap for AI Video;
A new podcast, and new challenges to what we see and believe are true
Hello Friends,
While I love to read, I don’t always have time if I’m doing other things or on the go, know what I mean? And sometimes, its just nice to listen.
Well, I’m pleased to announce new audio content is available!
First, I’ve launched a new podcast, which is available on all major platforms such as Spotify, Apple Podcasts & YouTube as well as on the FurturAI site.
Second, I’m gradually adding voiceover to all of my articles so you can listen to me reading my stories to you as an alternative.
Look out for the new voiceover player appearing at the top of my articles:
Please note voiceover isn’t yet available on all articles, its going to take a little while for me to record these for all my articles!
I hope you find podcasts & article voiceovers a useful alternative way to digest my content and insights.
This week the most interesting themes in AI news I’m seeing are:
Mental Health & AI: While AI is normally seen as a negative influence on mental health, I’m starting to see how AI could actually help support and improve our mental health, sometimes in surprising ways.
AI Video takes a huge leap: We know how impactful AI generated images has been, from amazing compositions to fake news. AI generated videos have been lagging behind, until this week. The implications are huge.
Insights, links to stories & podcasts on these below.
Wishing you a good week!
Take care,
Pranath
My latest articles
My latest podcasts
AI and the Future of Work: Why You Should Be Excited, Not Afraid
Whispers of Innovation: How AI Is Reshaping Music, Film, and Design
Notable other AI news
A giant leap for AI video - what does it mean for us?
Can you believe your eyes?
One of the biggest challenges we face is that we have created a world so different, so alien to the one we evolved to deal with as humans.
Cognitively, we are pretty much the same as humans were 100,000 years ago.
Yet the modern world we have created for ourselves is light years apart from the one our ancestors evolved to live in as ancient hunter-gatherers.
Our instincts evolved over millions of years of evolution and are hard-wired to respond to things that we see, instincts that are deep within us.
Our instincts don’t understand fake news or AI-generated images.
Our instincts are based on feelings, not ideas, and understand things like happiness, safety, or threats.
Like it or not, part of you will always believe what your eyes see.
This is why fake realistic images generated by AI fascinate us, intrigue us, and sometimes shock us.
It’s the short circuit in your brain, with one part of you believing an AI image is real, and another telling you it isn’t.
AI videos were not as advanced as images… until about 3 days ago…
3 Days ago leading AI company OpenAI announced their new Sora text-to-video model, which has taken AI video generation to a whole new level.
The easiest way to explain is just to show you…
Of course, these videos range from fantasy to realistic looking. Would you be able to tell if some of these were real or not?
So yes, the implications of this for society are huge.
First, the potential for generating even more convincing fake news using realistic-looking AI videos is an obvious point, that I’m sure the mainstream media will leap on and go crazy about.
But second, the potential for enabling human creativity is immense. As with ChatGPT, we are very likely to see free versions of these available to all.
Imagine being able to create a realistic looking movie or video about anything in minutes. Become your own movie studio, with a few text prompts.
This will enable ordinary people to express themselves in new ways that connect with other humans through AI created film and video, much more powerfully than they could using just images.
Turning people’s creativity and imagination, into something that looks real.
When anyone is going to be able to compose and tell their own story, that looks indistinguishable from reality, using film and video - this is going to be powerful tool not only for self-expression, but for culture and society.
What’s your perspective on the issues raised this week?
I’d love to know what you think whatever that is, let me know in the comments and let’s continue this important discussion about how AI is impacting society.