One More Reason We Need New AI Law
Hello from my last day at CES. The CES news is beginning to dwindle but there’s some good follow-up stuff in here, especially the first good use for a transparent display that I’ve seen. (Thanks Nick!)
May main topic is going to be about the comedy special that used a generated model of George Carlin. I’m for it but I’m also against it. I’ll explain. And we’ll talk anout it more on Good Day Interent too.
Then I’m hopping on a plane and shaking the dust of this Nevada town from my… trainers.
See you from LA tomorrow!
Tom
"George Carlin’s Daughter Blasts AI-Generated Comedy Special – Deadline"
An AI George Carlin is doing a comedy special, which may not be as bad as you think, or maybe it is. Depends on who you ask.
First of all you need to know about Dudesy. Dusdesy is a generated character used on a podcast and YouTube show hosted by “Mad TV” alum Will Sasso and podcaster Chad Kultgen. Dudesy is considered the third host of the show. The Dudesy channel has published a one-hour-long comedy special called "George Carlin: I'm Glad I'm Dead." At the beginning of the special the Dudesy voice says, "“I just want to let you know very clearly that what you’re about to hear is not George Carlin. It’s my impersonation of George Carlin that I developed in the exact same way a human impressionist would.... think of it like Andy Kaufman impersonating Elvis or like Will Ferrell impersonating George W. Bush.”
Basically it equates training the model on Carlin's work to an impressionist studying the person they want to do an impression of.
Carlin's daughter, Kelly Carlin, doesn't buy it. She wrote on X, "These AI generated products are clever attempts at trying to recreate a mind that will never exist again. Let’s let the artist’s work speak for itself. Humans are so afraid of the void that we can’t let what has fallen into it stay there.”
Dudesy's first comedy special used the voice of Tom Brady but was removed after the human Tom Brady threatened legal action.
I think I lean toward the Dudesy camp here but it's complicated. If the rights are clear then there's no harm in training a model on something and doing an impersonation. A sort of "What If?" I'm fascinated by this stuff and would love to see it. And I think the folks who make Dudesy did a good job prefacing that this is not trying to be Carlin, but an imagination of what he might say. I'm fine with that. I don't personally think I'll ever see it as a replacement for the real thing, anymore than I think Jamie Foxx was Ray Charles. And Ray Charles was alive when Jamie Foxx played him!
But the rights thing is what makes it complicated. Copyright is way too long and too often ends up in hands that don't feel like the right hands to me. So not he one hadn't, Carlin's work is old enough, that I personally feel like it should be in the public domain. But I also think that his living family, his daughter in this case, should have a say. And she clearly doesn't like it. I may disagree with the idea that it somehow degrades Carlin's original work, but she's the daughter and I would defer to that.
I think it's another interesting example of how generative models are raising questions that existing intellectual property law is not equipped to handle properly.
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Google reorganized its hardware group and eliminated a few hundred jobs, mostly in the Augmented Reality area. Google says it remains committed to AR but is reducing work on first-party AR hardware Along with that, Fitbit co-founders James Park and Eric Friedman are also leaving.
Google Formally Endorses Right to Repair, Will Lobby to Pass Repair Laws
Google also formally endorsed "righ two repair" and will testify in favor of a strong right to repair bill in Oregon. IN a White Paper, Google's Steve Nickel wrote, "access to the same documentation, parts and tools that original equipment manufacturer (OEM) repair channels have." He also wrote that Google should ban parts pairing, which restricts what kinds of parts can be used in devices from iPhones to John Deere tractors.
"Google Assistant will lose 17 features in the coming weeks - The Verge"
Starting January 26th if you try to use one of 17 Google Assistant features, you'll get a warning telling you they're being removed February 26th. Among the features are controlling audio books with your voice, a lot of cookbook and recipe features, managing a stopwatch, though timers and alarms still work. Using your voice to send an email, video or audio message. Some features just need to be done a different way. Like setting media, music or radio alarms which can be done by creating a routine and then calling the routine with your voice.
"Google (GOOGL) Ends Switching Fees for Cloud Data, Pressuring Amazon, Microsoft - Bloomberg"
On the more positive side, Google is no longer charging switching fees for clients leaving Google Cloud in order to entice more folks to come over from Azure and AWS and try them out. Google wrote “Google Cloud customers who wish to stop using Google Cloud and migrate their data to another cloud provider and/or on premises, can take advantage of free network data transfer to migrate their data out of Google Cloud.”
"SpaceX and T-Mobile send the first text messages from orbiting Starlink satellites"
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"Hertz is selling 20,000 EVs and replacing them with gas cars | TechCrunch"
Hertz said it will sell about a third of its Electric Vehicles and replace them with gas-powered cars. The number one rental car company in the US says the demand for EV rentals was lower than it expected and that combined with falling resale value and high repair costs brought about the decision. That may be surprising given that EVs generally have lower repair costs because of the lack of a combustion engine. But Hertz said that Uber drivers, which used about half of its EV fleet, drove the cars hard causing repair costs to be higher than expected.
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"Rabbit sells out 10,000 units of its R1 pocket AI companion in one day - The Verge"
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Nick from Australia saw LKTT's Short Circuit channel cover Veeo's interesting use for a transparent Display. The company took LG Display's transparent OLED and put a camera behind it so you can look right at the monitor during video calls and also be looking right at the camera. You could try this yourself, but the camera would show a lot of distortion from the operation of the monitor. Veeo's trick is to filter out that distortion and create clear image. The camera and monitor combo is expected to be available 30 and 50-inch sizesfor preorder in Q4 2023.
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