AI Hallucination Nearly Starts a War Between the US and China
You know how ChatGPT, ahem, sometimes makes stuff up? Well, imagine that happening with military intelligence.
According to a CNN investigation published September 18, a US military analyst used an AI chatbot to examine intelligence about a Chinese cargo ship. The chatbot incorrectly identified its cargo as components for a nuclear weapons program.
The report was convincing enough that the military began preparing to intercept the vessel. Aircraft were airborne, and armed personnel were getting ready to board.
Fortunately, experienced analysts checked the underlying intelligence, discovered the AI’s mistake, and stopped the operation.
The incident happened earlier this year but was only recently reported. The good news? Human oversight worked.
The bad news? it wasn’t until planes were already airborne that the humans stepped in.
Perhaps we should keep chatbots away from military operations until they’ve mastered the basics of not making things up.
AI Actress Goes on a Press Tour, Forgets the Question, and Starts Speaking Chinese
Hollywood’s newest AI actress, Tilly Norwood, is promoting her upcoming movie, Misaligned.
Her creators decided to make her available for 75 simultaneous interviews. What could possibly go wrong?
During an appearance on Piers Morgan Uncensored, actor Tom Conti asked whether the other performers in her movie were real people or AI-generated characters. Tilly initially dodged the question, but, when pressed, she finally explained that they were digital twins.
Then she froze.
After an awkward silence, she suddenly began speaking Chinese.
A bewildered Piers Morgan asked what had happened. Tilly apologized and blamed a technical hiccup.
For an AI actress supposedly demonstrating the future of entertainment, it was quite the performance.
On the bright side, she’s already mastered one essential celebrity skill: delivering a lengthy answer without actually answering the question.
Pinterest Introduces AI Room Makeovers
Ever wondered whether your bedroom would look better with dark green walls, velvet furniture, and a suspiciously expensive chandelier?
Pinterest would like to help you find out.
Its new AI-powered Restyle feature lets users upload photos of their rooms and experiment with different furniture, colors, lighting, and decorative styles. You can even incorporate products you’ve saved on Pinterest and swap or remove individual objects.
Restyle is entering beta in Canada and the United States, with broader availability planned for October.
It’s potentially useful for homeowners, decorators, and anyone who wants to test a dozen questionable design decisions before spending actual money.
Just remember: AI can make that enormous sectional look wonderful in your living room. It cannot magically make it fit through your front door.
Forget AI-Generated Songs… This New Platform Lets You Invent Your Own Instruments
While everyone else is teaching AI to generate entire songs, Lunacy Audio has a different idea.
What if AI helped you create the instruments instead?
Its new NOVA platform launches with ten virtual instruments, including synthesizers and atmospheric sound generators. You can play them in your browser or use a free host plug-in inside your digital audio workstation.
The really interesting part? NOVA Builder is being developed to let people create and customize instruments using audio-processing blocks and AI prompts, without writing code. Users will eventually be able to share and sell their creations.
Unlike tools that make the entire song for you, NOVA aims to give musicians new toys to create with.
And that’s a considerably more interesting use of AI than generating another 4,000 songs and dumping them all on Spotify in an afternoon.
This New RPG Lets You Fight Monsters and Make Potions Just by Talking
Ever wish you could simply tell a video game character what you want instead of selecting from three dialogue options that all lead to the same conversation? That’s the idea behind SophieChat:AI.
Announced at Tokyo Game Show, the game takes place in the world of Atelier Sophie 2 and lets players interact with Sophie Neuenmuller through conversation.
Want to explore? Tell her.
Need to make something through alchemy? Talk it through.
Ready for battle? Use conversation to guide the action.
The developers say the artwork is human-created, with the original voice actress recording material for the AI voice system. Participating creators are also intended to receive royalties.
The AI handles conversations and speech rather than generating the entire game. A working version was demonstrated at Tokyo Game Show, although there’s no confirmed release date.
