- AI in Marketing
- Posts
- The Voice Belong To..
IN THIS ISSUE
Sam or Scarlett: Whose Voice Is It Anyway?
Is Google Search (as we know it) Dying?
AI for B2B Marketers Summit, June 6
Tips to Get Better at Prompt Engineering
TOP PICKS
Sam or Scarlett: Whose Voice Is It Anyway?
The recent uproar surrounding Sam Altman's "Sky" project and the unauthorized use of Scarlett Johansson's voice has rightfully sparked intense debate within the tech community and beyond.
While much of the discussion has centered on the immediate ethical concerns of unauthorized voice cloning, there are several critical points that have not received adequate attention.
Firstly, the controversy brings to light the long-term implications for individual identity and consent in the age of rapidly advancing AI technology.
Beyond the surface-level issue of unauthorized voice replication, there exists a deeper concern about who ultimately owns and controls one's digital likeness. As AI systems become increasingly proficient at replicating human voices and behaviors, individuals risk losing agency over their own digital identities.
This raises profound questions about the boundaries of consent in the digital age and the need for robust frameworks to safeguard individual rights in the face of emerging technological capabilities.
Secondly, the unauthorized replication of voices has significant implications for trust and authenticity in digital interactions.
In an age where AI-generated content is becoming increasingly prevalent across various domains, including entertainment, customer service, and social media, the ability to discern between authentic and synthetic voices becomes paramount.
Without clear mechanisms to verify the authenticity of AI-generated content, users may become increasingly skeptical and distrustful of the information they encounter online.
This erosion of trust in digital communication channels could have far-reaching consequences for society, undermining the integrity of online discourse and exacerbating social divisions.
Thirdly, the "Sky" controversy underscores the broader societal ramifications of unchecked AI development, particularly within synthetic media.
While the focus has largely been on the ethical implications for individuals like Scarlett Johansson, there are broader societal concerns at play.
The proliferation of hyper-realistic AI voices and other synthetic media technologies has the potential to exacerbate existing social and cultural divides, amplify biases, and reshape our understanding of reality.
Addressing these requires a holistic approach that goes beyond individual consent and encompasses considerations of social impact, equity, and justice.
Is Google Search (as we know it) Dying?
Google acquired the rights to Reddit's exclusive content paying nearly $60Mn dollars. The content from here would power Google's AI search called AI Overview.
The promise of AI Overview was to cut through the noise, offering clear, concise summaries of search queries. This could have been a game-changer for users overwhelmed by pages of search results. Yet, the execution has been less than stellar.
Then, Google AI went off like a drunk elephant - crashing and falling every step of the way.
Critics argue that the root of the problem lies in the AI’s source material. The internet is a vast repository of human knowledge, but it’s also riddled with inaccuracies and misinformation.
An AI that can’t discern reliable sources from questionable ones is bound to regurgitate errors. And when these errors are presented as ‘overviews’ by a trusted name like Google, they carry an unwarranted air of authority.
Google’s response has been to manually intervene, removing the most egregious of these AI-generated summaries. While this quick fix might mitigate immediate embarrassments, it doesn’t address the underlying issues with the AI’s learning algorithms.
The tech giant finds itself in a game of whack-a-mole, batting down one AI blunder after another.
The situation raises questions about the readiness of AI to take on such a pivotal role in information dissemination. It’s one thing for an AI to make a mistake; it’s another for it to do so while shaping the world’s knowledge.
The implications for education, journalism, and even everyday decision-making are profound.
EVENTS
GROWTH
Tips to Get Better at Prompt Engineering via Hin Yee Liu and Margaret Vo
Focus on prompt engineering techniques as the primary approach, reserving fine-tuning only for a small number of specialized use cases.
Adopt a mindset of continuous exploration, as not every prompt engineering technique has been discovered yet.
Claude 3 has the lowest number of hallucinations among language models. To further reduce hallucinations, instruct Claude to say "I don't know" and only answer when it's confident.
Interpretability and understanding the inner workings of language models which will become a key differentiator in the future.
Always use another model to evaluate your outputs- the same Claude model evaluating itself is not rigorous enough.