What’s cool? The Infinite Conversation
Tell me more!
As of late 2022, it’s cheap and easy to produce AI-generated content that is superficially good and surprisingly similar to “the real thing”. This applies to videos resembling celebrities (commonly known as Deepfakes) or, as in the case of the Infinite Conversation, speech.
This project aims to raise awareness about the ease of using tools for synthesizing a real voice. Right now, any motivated fool can do this with a laptop in their bedroom. This changes our relationship with the media we consume online and raises questions about the importance of authoritative sources, breach of trust and gullibility.
Will this technology lead to a massive proliferation of sub-optimal-quality content? Should we simply distrust anything we see online? As new tools are developed to help identify generated content, I recommend maintaining a skeptical stance, particularly when the source/channel of information doesn’t seem reliable and when the claims seem preposterous or outrageous.
Ultimately, I don’t see this as a technical problem, but as a human one. We all share a duty to educate the coming generations about the new paradigm while focusing on forming compassionate individuals who would not misuse these awesome powers.
As an AI optimist, I remain hopeful that we will be able to regulate ourselves, and that we will take experiments such as the Infinite Conversation for what they are: a playful way to help us imagine what our favorite people would do, if we had unlimited access to their minds. Art and Philosophy, here exemplified by Bavarian director Werner Herzog and Slovenian philosopher Slavoj Žižek, can guide us while navigating these treacherous waters.
h/t @grantpotter
Where is it?: https://infiniteconversation.com/
This is one among many items I regularly tag in Pinboard as cooltech, and automatically autoshares as #cogdogcooltech to Twitter and Mastodon. Now the Coolness is in OEG Connect 
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