eMusings
Your eyes and ears on the worlds of art, culture, technology, philosophy - whatever stimulates the mind and excites the imagination. We remind you that 20 years of
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We have become comfortable with Alexa and Siri waking us up, playing music, telling us the weather. That leaves us in preschool, while
these older bots are getting their Ph.D.'s. Will they be smarter than we? No one has that answer, yet.
Here are some of the better online reports. Keep in mind that we have no idea whether these articles were partially or entirely
written by AI. Many of them are surely written with PR in mind.
We are now being told that Google uses AI to compose 1/4 of the
code it writes. So far that code is neither self-correcting nor self-monitored. When those skills are developed, many programming
jobs will be eliminated. Google is also changing how we search on the Internet, affecting what we can search for and how
we search for it. Although that step is helpful, it may run into
headwinds from the anti-trust lawsuit under way at the Department of justice.
The latest iteration of Claude 3.5 Sonnet,
the brainchild of Anthropic's AI, appears to have a bad case of boredom. During a recent demonstration, Claude
stopped writing code and started to look at photographs of Yellowstone National Park. In another demo, Claude halted
a long screen-recording, causing all of the footage to be lost. Claude was developed as an AI agent, meaning it is meant
to perform its agenda automatically. Claude can, however, move a cursor, make mouse clicks, and perform keystrokes, essentially
controlling all of your softwware and applications. What it cannot yet do are things like dragging and zooming.
AI and 3D printing are collaborating to bring you
fashion experiences, not only in new products but in personalized shopping and targeted marketing. In one dress, for example,
sensors are built into the material that can report the emotions of the wearer and then activate robotic arms. One company
collects data from social media comments, runway shows, and consumer preferences. On the positive side, every
consumer, not only the wealthy can get styling suggestions based on their body type, color and style choices. Some well-known
labels are already using AI-derived information to control inventory and keep up with current trends. Others are examining the
environmental impact of basic materials like viscose and cotton. Virtual try-on tools are being offered, as well as letting
the consumer upload a favorite outfit, analyzing the item, and suggesting similar matches. Runway shows are creating surreal
backdrop images to intensify the impact of the collection.
Researchers at Adobe
have come up with a process that lets smart phone users connect directly without going on to the Internet. The system,
called SlimLM, avoids large cloud computing centers and instead works directly from your pocket. In a similar vein, Google
is producing GeminiNano for android phones, while Meta is is experimenting with LLaMA-3.2. Early results indicate that
smart phones can handle up to 800 words. This tectonic shift means that the millions now being spent on cloud-based AI
systems could be shifted to local devices, reducing costs and increasing privacy. Other industries that might benefit
from the change include law firms, financial institutions, and health-care providers. SlimLM's code is slated for public
release in the near future.
According to a new study in Nature Scientific
Reports, non-expert readers of poetry are unable to differentiate between classical poetry and AI-derived verses based on
the masters. In one case, subjects were shown 10 poems in random order, 5 from a real poet and 5 from AI derivatives. Results
confirmed that the AI poetry was rated higher in terms of "atmosphere", "creativity", and "emotonal quality". At issue seems
to be a demand that poems be easy to understand quickly, not necessarily an attribute of fine literature.
A striking AI study suggests that humans and
humpback whales can carry on a 20-minute conversation. The episode occurred off the coast of Alaska, using advanced underwater
speakers, AI for pattern recognition, and information theory. A similar event took place when a robot cellist played with
a symphony orchestra, indicating that AI can mediate between different species.
In a new movie called
Here, generative AI algorithms were used to de-age actors including Tom Hanks. Additionally, the actors could rehearse while observing the
performance of their younger selves. The process involved training a neural network with video footage of the actors when they
were younger. The results (it is claimed) were monitored by a human designer. The proprietary "youth mirror system" had just a
2-frame delay, allowing the actors to polish their performances so as to better reflect their younger selves.
A new mathematics
algorithm called Frontier Math has come up with a "benchmark" test that neither human Ph.D.'s nor AI models can pass easily. The test contains
hundreds of problems at expert levels which the most advanced AI models were able to solve less than 2 percent of the time. The data
used for the test is currrently unpublished and private. Epoch AI, which developed Frontier Math, says it worked with more than
60 mathematicians from top level institutions. The new tests covered multiple disciplines, from abstract algebraic geometry to
computational number theory.
A senior editor at Tech
Radar cloned his voice and found that even his spouse could not tell the fake from the real. Graham Barlow reports that you can easily do this yourself
online for free and get the algorithm to say anything you want in just a few minutes. He also reveals that there are no guard rails
or restrictions on what you (and the bot) can say. Just type 'AI Voice Cloner' into a Google search bar - several choices he tried were either expensive
or poorly done. He ended up using Speechify, where you talk into a microphone for 30 seconds or longer. Next you type in words and hit
the Generator button to hear the results. Speechify claims that it does not sell your information and protects your privacy, whatever
that means. The implications of this technology are pretty profound.
Amazon has recently brought out Astro, designed
for homes and small businesses. Astro includes door and window minitoring as well as pet recognition. It will patrol even when
you are not home, enhancing security, and respond quickly to emergencies, adding to elder care.
A new French AI startup called
Mistral is able to identify potentially harmful content using 9 different categories in 11 languages. The categories
include hate speech, violence, sexual content, dangerous activities, and data that is personally identifiable. Mistral is
cooperating with other major AI firms by signing the UK AI Safety summit accord. Unlike OpenAI and Anthropic, which employ
cloud-based algorithms, Mistral uses on-device AI and content moderation. Mistral also trained its models on coversations rather than
isolated texts, allowing it to find more nuanced types of destructive content that could escape the detection of standard filters.
On to other December treats:
The Henry Moore Foundation presents "The Traumatic Surreal",
with surrealist sculptures by 7 women artists in German-speaking nations after World War II. The title itself raises a myriad of
issues involving hatred, fear, suppression, disinformation, discrimination, survival - the list is exhaustive. Be sure to watch the
video to see some of the works selected.
Another look at
surrealism is showing at the Hepworth Wakefield Art Museum in West Yorkshire, England. Titled "Forbidden Territories: 100 years
of Surreal Landscapes", the exhibition marks 100 years since the publication of Andre Breton's "Surrealist Manifesto". The curators
propose that landscapes can be a metaphor for the unconscious, melding the body and the botannical, and indicating deep
political discomfort. Viewers might want also to read "Call the Cardioloigist" in
this month's issue.
The British Museum offers "Silk Roads", a historical
perspective on the many interlocking cultures that linked travel, communities, objects, and ideas over milllenia. The few objects
shown online give a hint of the wealth of ideas and artworks involved.
Saya Woolfalk has grand and vibrant ideas about public art, creating large narratives
about what another world might look like. She frequently focuses on "The Emphatics", new plant-human hybrids known as a
transcendental species living in worldscapes that seem to continuously reimagine themselves.
Linn Meyers also creates grand visions of an
alternate world. Meyers uses multiple hand-drawn lines and meticulous dots to create her own visual language, an
apparent attempt to employ logic and rationality against the forces of chaos.
Liz Collins focuses on textile media to create large public displays of vibrant
tapestries. She emphasizes repetitive patterns that reveal identities, challenging the misconception in much Western
thinking that decoration is shallow and unimportant. As she says, "Pattern is life, pattern is language, pattern is everywhere."
Melek Zeynep Bulut has created stunning
large-scale site-specific installations, including this suspended structure at the 18th century Old Royal
Naval College in Greenwich, London. The illuminated interactive portal includes microphones and reflectors on walls and
ceiling. Bulut suggests that we engage in this experience as if it were our body as a sensor rather than a solid mass.
An exhibition at the Lenbachhaus in
Munich is titled "But live here? No thanks: Surrealism and Anti-fascism". This show points out the strong
anti-fascist underpinnings of the movement, as well as the "inherent sexism" in Breton's view. Breton, it is claimed,
wrote exclusively to men and entirely from the male viewpoint, dismissing the contributions of women
like Leonora Carrington and Dora Maar. Implicit in these works, we are told, is "the rise of a new world from the ruins of the past,
to the imminent visitation of something monstrous."
In 2020, the Millinnial
Dining restaurant opened in Seocho to serve vegan varieties of classic Korean food. Now a startup called Millennial
Flavor Town is serving barbeque dishes using fermentation and plants. Its wagyu beef menu includes 2 items -
wagyu marbled beef steak and shredded beef, both in soy sauce and truffle flavors. The chef at both restaurants,
Bakrin Ahn, says that she employs traditional Korean fermentation along with soybeans, hedgehog, button
mushrooms, rice koji, coconut and olive oil, and beet powder. the latter responsible for the meaty color.
c. Corinne Whitaker 2024
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