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🕵️♀️ Can You Tell What's Real in the Age of A.I.?
Discover the latest news at the intersection of creativity and artificial intelligence.
Helen Todd (Human)
January 11, 2024
Creativity Squared: On Media Authenicity in the Age of A.I.“The future has profound challenges in protecting the real and detecting the fake.”
Dear Creativity Squared Member,
We’re only 11 days into 2024, and there’s already a ton going on among CES news, ChatGPT Store’s opening, and SAG-AFTRA deal enabling actors to license their cloned voices to produce video games. Read on for the full roundup of news (my clone reading it will be up tomorrow on our YouTube channel — subscribe here).
Today, we’re spotlighting the first Content Authenticity Initiative (CAI) Symposium blog post featuring Sam Gregory. Sam is the Executive Director of WITNESS, an international nonprofit organization that helps people use video and technology to protect and defend human rights.
Given 2024’s pivotal election year with half the planet’s population going to the polls, understanding what media is real from fake couldn’t be a more urgent issue, especially with A.I. enabling deepfakes and misinformation at an unprecedented scale. Sam took the stage at the CAI Symposium to share more about the vital work that WITNESS does, the current landscape we find ourselves in, and what needs to be done when it comes to media authenticity to protect people’s human rights in the age of artificial intelligence. Check it out!
New podcast episodes will be back on Thursday, February 1, and I can’t wait to share them with you, starting with a fascinating conversation with Claire Silver, an A.I. artist whose career trajectory shot off after she discovered GenAI.
Also, a big CONGRATS to all of ArtsWave 2024 Black & Brown grant recipients! 10% of all revenue Creativity Squared generates goes to ArtsWave to support this program. We did a special interview series with last year’s cohort you can check out here. Through our partnership with ArtsWave, we’ll be celebrating and elevating this year’s artists as well — stay tuned!
This week has been busy in Cincinnati — we had our first CincyAI Meetup for 2024 on Tuesday and had a record number of people sign up and attend, topping 130! We’re the largest A.I. meetup in the region and an important node in the burgeoning A.I. ecosystem here, including #StartupCincy which I spoke at last night. I demoed my ethically A.I.-created clone, Helen 2.ODD. If you’re in the area, be sure to sign up for our February CincyAI Meetup!
Scroll on to discover:
👩💻 Featured Blog Post: The Content Authenticity Initiative Symposium 2023 Takeaways Part 1
📆 Calendar of Events: A.I. Conference Radar + Cincy A.I. Events
🤯 A.I. + Creativity News Roundup
🎧 Featured Creativity Squared Podcast Episode
👯♀️ Apply to Join the Clone Club
💎 Creativity Squared Premium Member Benefits
💝 Milestone Rewards
We’re just getting started, and if you enjoy our content, I’d really appreciate it if you could share, review, like, subscribe, leave a comment, and help spread the word about Creativity Squared in whatever way you’re willing to. Your support is greatly appreciated, and the whole team looks forward to growing with your help. Thank you!
Here's to exponential possibilities!
Helen
Helen Todd (she/her)
Human behind Creativity Squared
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How creatives are collaborating with A.I.
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📆 A.I. CONFERENCE RADAR
🤠 MARCH 8-15 SXSW — I’ll be back in Austin for SXSW in March for its Interactive Conference which starts on March 8, and will be staying for their A.I. track which is March 11-15. Let me know if you’ll be there — would love to say hi IRL! If you missed the episode with Hugh Forrest, SXSW Co-President & Chief Programming Officer, check it out here!
😎 APRIL 5-9: Texas Eclipse Festival — If you’re looking for A.I. events to attend next year, do add the Texas Eclipse Festival to your list! On April 8, 2024, there will be a total solar eclipse. The festival, taking place April 5-9 at Reveille Ranch in Burnet, TX (outside of Austin), will bring people together from all over the world to celebrate the 4 minutes of totality amidst music, immersive art, tech talks, wellness activations, and so much more.
I can’t wait to be on stage there to talk all things A.I., avatars, and synthetic media alongside so many talented people and artists, including Alex & Allyson Grey, Android Jones, and Chris Dyer.
📆 CALENDAR OF A.I. EVENTS: CINCY
For those local in Cincinnati, join these upcoming A.I. events. 🥳
✏️ FEB 2 From Ellevate & IBM: Generative AI Summit Transforming Businesses for the Future - Excited to take the stage at this all-women conference on A.I. at my alma mater Xavier University to talk all things A.I. and the future of online communication with clones.
🤝 FEB 6 CincyAI Meetup - Join me and others interested in all things A.I. at the CincyAI Meetup for Humans, cohosted by Creativity Squared, on Tuesday, February 6, at the UC Digital Futures building from 3-5pm ET. Sign up now!
Looking forward to meeting those who can make it in person and geeking out about all things A.I. and creativity!
With all of the A.I. news flooding our feeds and screens, we’ve got you covered. News to check out includes:
OpenAI's GPT Store Now Offers a Selection of 3 Million Custom AI Bots CNET — The GPT store is now open for business! As of yesterday, OpenAI’s paid subscribers can access millions of customized chatbots that can help decipher laundry care symbols, tutor aspiring coders, recommend a book, and much more. It’s an opportunity for independent developers and OpenAI to cash in on the growing popularity of A.I. assistants. It’s still unclear how OpenAI plans to split GPTStore revenues with bot creators.
AI-powered misinformation is the world's biggest short-term threat, Davos report says Associated Press — A new report from the World Economic Forum predicts that A.I.-powered misinformation and disinformation will be the greatest threat to global stability over the next two years. Tech leaders including OpenAI’s CEO Sam Altman will join the forum’s annual conference next week to discuss the risks and solutions with economic and political leaders from across the world.
The Rabbit R1 is an AI-powered gadget that can use your apps for you The Verge — A new player entered the arena of A.I.-powered hardware this week. Rabbit’s R1 “Companion” device was designed as a language-driven operating system that can complete actions across multiple apps without needing specific instructions. Creator Jesse Lyu says the R1 is not a smartphone replacement for now, but hopes it will be one day.
AI-generated ads using Taylor Swift's likeness dupe fans with fake Le Creuset giveaway CBS News — Buyer beware: Taylor Swift is not trying to gift you a cookware set. Some unfortunate consumers were fooled into giving away their information recently by a fake video of Taylor Swift offering to give away sets of the premium cookware brand, Le Creuset. Swift is just the latest celebrity (Tom Hanks was also deepfaked by scammers last year) to get their likeness hijacked by scammers, and she’s likely not the last.
Actors union announces deal for AI voice acting licensing in video games NBC News — The Hollywood actors union has a new deal for licensing actors’ voice clones to produce video games. The deal with licensing company, Replica, mandates compensation for voice cloning and gives actors the power to decide which titles their voice appears in. Replica says it’s trying to build the world’s biggest collection of celebrity voices. Dedicated voice actors criticized the deal as a threat to their livelihoods.
Bipartisan House bill on AI fraud aims to set safeguards on Americans' 'digital personas,' rights to likeness FOX Business — Two Congresswomen from Florida and New York introduced a bipartisan bill yesterday to protect Americans’ likeness and voice from deepfake cloning. The bill seeks to balance privacy and civil rights with First Amendment considerations (such as parody). By enshrining the right to own one’s likeness as a federal statute, the bill would standardize the current patchwork of state statutes and empower victims of A.I. fraud to seek relief.
McAfee unveils Project Mockingbird to stop AI voice clone scams VentureBeat — The cybersecurity firm McAfee unveiled a new tool at CES 2024 this week that can detect A.I. voice clones with 90% accuracy. McAfee is touting the new tool as a bulwark against the economic and political harms that A.I.-enabled deepfakes have been shown to cause. The announcement comes as online scams and disinformation campaigns proliferate with the help of GenAI.
OpenAI says it’s “impossible” to create useful AI models without copyrighted materialArs Technica — While facing a lawsuit from the New York Times, OpenAI told a UK regulatory committee that their large language model needs training data from copyrighted works in order to be “relevant” for modern users. Because almost everything that exists online is copyrightable in one way or another, OpenAI’s lawyers say that the boundaries of fair use should extend to training A.I. models. They say that limiting training data to sources from the public domain would reduce the utility of their product for modern purposes. In the myriad copyright lawsuits against A.I. developers, rights holders say that they want compensation if A.I. models are trained on their content.
Listen: Ep7. Adobe on A.I. & Trust
Understand the Urgency for Media Transparency & Ethical Generative A.I. with Andy Parsons from Adobe’s Content Authenticity Initiative
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“These things are very easy to use, very powerful for creativity. But the more power you put in creative hands, the more potential damage you put in bad actors' hands. We're about empowering good people, good actors to do the right thing.”
In a world flooded with fake content, how can we discern what's real and trustworthy? Enter Andy Parsons who is Senior Director at Adobe's Content Authenticity Initiative (CAI), a groundbreaking endeavor that aims to bring transparency and trust to the online landscape. Andy discusses the importance of authenticity in online media and how Adobe leads the industry in ethical, generative A.I. with tools like Firefly. Listen to learn about the importance of provenance in each piece of content, training A.I. systems ethically, and teaching people media literacy.
“We're living in an age where even week by week, we see more powerful, photorealistic video and realistic audio fakes used for both creative purposes, but also potentially negative, damaging purposes. And we think on the Content Authenticity Initiative at Adobe, that through standards, technology, and open source, granting people a fundamental right to understand what it is that they're looking at or experiencing is just something that is missing on the internet. Some people say we're restoring trust, I think we're bringing a level of trust.” -Andy ParsonsIn Episode 7, you’ll learn why there’s an urgency to restore trust online, how Adobe is leading the industry in ethical generative A.I., CAI’s approach to establishing an open industry standard for content authenticity and provenance, the need for media literacy, and more!
Check out the episode and dedicated blog post here:
Apply to Join the Clone Club Today
Digitally Clone Yourself: The Avatar Experience Cincinnati
👯♀️ Ready to be digitally cloned? Get your own custom synthetic avatar! Creativity Squared is collaborating with our partner and sponsor, Render, to bring The Avatar Experience to Cincinnati, OH, by appointment that fits into your schedule. Digitally clone yourself to unlock streamlined and dynamic video content — Apply to be cloned today!
There are less than a thousand known hyper-realistic custom synthetic avatars in existence, so participants will be at the forefront of this groundbreaking A.I. technology. Custom synthetic avatars are part of a massive and growing digital avatar market and is projected to be $270B by 2030.
Custom synthetic avatars can be used for creating:
Dynamic online course instruction
Streamlined SEO video production of blog or audio-only content
Turnkey social media and email marketing video content
Engaging customer service messaging
And more!
👯♀️ In case you missed the announcement, I’ve digitally cloned myself! Learn all about mine in episode E14. Not Deepfaked! I Cloned Myself. You’ll meet Helen 2.ODD, my digital double, and discover why and how I made my A.I.-created custom synthetic avatar.
We look forward to seeing you there!
Thank You to Render
Creativity Squared is supported by Render which provides Digital Likeness solutions for personal brand businesses, thought leaders, influencers, and business leaders who want to leverage their synthetic, A.I.-powered Likeness to communicate more effectively online and create audio and video content from anywhere without going on camera. Learn more by visiting: https://rendermedia.ai.
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