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Friends,
This week, I tried out a new, free AI tool powered by Verisoul - their Email Checkpoint. The product uses AI to analyze emails. In real-time, it determines whether emails are A) Personal vs. Work, B) Real vs. Temporary/Disposable, C) Unique vs. Repeat/Duplicate. Some awesome results: 98% of you all are real, unique viewers. Verisoul told me this was the highest rate across all customers. To the 2% that are fake, I know who you are. Although, these people don’t exist!
Deepfakery is taking centre stage in a big way. To be honest, I got much amusement, when this was just Tom Cruise:
But - it’s so serious now, that it feels like deep fakes are being created on a whim. If Taylor Swift has become compromised, what else for the rest of us?
This week, a deepfake CFO ordered a Hong Kong-based employee to transfer $25M:
Reports claim that a clerk at the firm was invited to a call with the CFO based in London, along with other workers. However, the "CFO" turned out to be an AI representation, and demanded that the clerk make money tranfers into different bank accounts, which they did. In total, it is claimed that $25m (HK$200m) was stolen in the scam. Hong Kong police believe that the threat actors had downloaded videos of previous conference calls at the company as a basis for AI to replicate the look and sound of the CFO.
Deepfakes didn’t used to be such a threat. The level of sophistication to pull something like this off is astonishing, even with the levels of AI advancement. This included supplementary infiltration of Whatsapp channels, with multiple parties to make it all feel real.
With a few important elections in play this year - we are already seeing deepfakes trying to manipulate the news. Again Taylor Swift was used to show support for Trump.
To protect yourself from deepfakes, there seems to me only a few routes.
Demand proof of life. always.
Demand an IRL handshake.
Seeing is not believing any more (must watch):
The Deepfake CFO is only just the beginning. We already see Elon fakes and others trying to convince us to invest in the next crypto, to transfer money.
Europol predicts 90% of content will be synthetically created by 2026.
And this technology is available to anyone and everyone.
As a consumer of content, ask the question if it can be faked, watch live, and find a body of evidence that demonstrates truth corroboration.
As a person or an institution, you’ll need to speak to companies like sensity that enables deepfake detection and helps create media integrity. It’s so serious that even Google have a whole company looking into this.
Be ready.
Stay Curious - and don’t forget to be amazing,
Here are my recommendations for this week:
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11 Philosophical Razors to Simplify Your Life: Philosophical razors simplify decision-making by “shaving off” possibilities and explanations with a low probability of being useful or true. Every day we’re confronted with vast amounts of information and problems that are begging for evaluation and solutions. The ability to eliminate unlikely ones by way of taking mental shortcuts is a uniquely human superpower. From avoiding pointless arguments to handling outlandish claims and exposing deceit, here are some great ways of framing. Also: Learn from every “no”
How AI is quietly changing everyday life: Just an update on what’s happening everywhere. Worth a skim. Just to kick you that the world is actually changing. also: The path to profitability for AI in 2024
How Much Should a Big Mac Cost? McDonald’s is getting criticism for an $18 combo meal, but what does affordability mean when it comes to fast food? I remember this used to be the marker of a cost of living index. An $18 Big Mac combo might seem expensive to many, even if it is the “true” cost that factors in rising rents, the cost of beef and grain, and the cost of fair wages. But “expensive” is a relative term. This shows the state of the world
Over Three Decades, Tech Obliterated Media My front-row seat to a slow-moving catastrophe. A history lesson on the impact of tech on the media from Kara Swisher.
Are you catastrophizing? Here’s how to stop assuming the worst.
Nine experts weigh in on curbing and diffusing your overly negative thoughts. It's obvious, but needs reminding: “Try to problem-solve instead of searching for problems”
Next
Where will Virtual Reality take us? A great piece by Jared Lanier that outlines the his extensive experience with and perspectives on Virtual Reality (VR) over the decades, from its early conceptualization to its current state and potential future. Ultimately, he advocates for a balanced approach to VR, one that values fleeting, awe-inspiring experiences over constant immersion - similar to what Meta and Apple are going. The importance of maintaining a connection to the physical world and appreciating the finitude and richness of reality is crucial though, challenging the tech industry's pursuit of infinite expansion and dominance. But isn’t that all they want? Related: Stratechery view of Apple Vision Pro
On Spatial Computing, Metaverse, the Terms Left Behind and Ideas Renewed: “Consensus that we are on the cusp of a new era in which the internet isn’t something we reach for, or that runs underground and is transmitted through the air. Instead, it will be all around us and we will be in it. That the world will represented by an infinite number of 3D simulations that are running in the buildings we walk through and the cars that drive by, which dynamically manage the traffic lights of our street and manage our checkouts as we leave a store, and which involves many objects that are not “real” in the sense they cannot be touched, yet nevertheless interacted with by millions each day. This future will feel very different from loading an app or webpage, but no one knows exactly what it will look like or how it will operate. All the same, many are convinced we’ll want (or need) new devices to help navigate this future - optical AR/MR glasses and passthrough AR/MR, sometimes just VR - plus AI that can “see,” understand, and help run the real and non-real, too.”
New E. coli strain will accelerate evolution of the genes of your choice
Genetic mutations are essential for innovation and evolution, yet too many—or the wrong ones—can be fatal. So researchers at Cambridge established a synthetic “orthogonal” DNA replication system in E. coli that they can use as a risk-free way to generate and study such mutations. It is orthogonal because it is completely separate from the system that E. coli uses to copy its actual genome, which contains the genes E. coli needs to survive.
Inside OpenAI’s Plan to Make AI More ‘Democratic’: “In politics, democratic governments derive their legitimacy from the fact voters can eject those who do a bad job. But in business, giving the public that level of power would usually be seen as corporate suicide. “Technology companies are in a really tough spot, because they may want to go to the public and build legitimacy for the decisions they make,” Krasodomski says. “But slowing down risks falling behind in the race.””
Disney invests $1.5B in Epic Games, plans new “games and entertainment universe” Disney everywhere, for a long time to come.
From visual capitalist:
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Thanks, Rahim. I am always finding interesting articles in your list. And I like your writing style very much. We will all have to be even more vigilant in the future, demanding proof that the person we’re talking to is real.