Starting Well

A voice for AI, viral wackiness & some music.

Today- some IG reel action, my son’s current favourite track, and words on the ScarJo / Open AI saga (are we tired of it yet?).

But first- some fabric shopping?

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“Is this Shagun Textiles?”

Just got a kick from this smart Reel done by a textile wholesaler/retailer in a small town of just over half a million people- Ulhasnagar, in India. There’s so much that can be said about this- raw creativity, copyright issues, social media as enabling, technology as empowering, the dark hole of short form video…

But I suggest for now, just take a look at this little piece of wild marketing where the dude just starts by confirming “ Is this Shagun textiles?” (the name of the shop).

You could also sample some of the comments

• “my god their marketing team went crazy” (“you mean the owner and his children")

• “bro, but I was scrolling through MotoGP reels”

• “Ad directed by Christopher Nolan”

• “Ulhasnagar is not for beginners”

{This post is not brought to you by MotoGP.}

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The start is when you can start well.

We are at a time where everything seems to be about AI- the excitement, the endless vistas, the fear, the insecurities, the optimism, the despair.

While many of us can agree that there is an inevitability about AI taking over the world (or some such suitably transformative dominance), equally, many are cognisant that quaint things like ethics, rights and externalities are to be catered for. I don't believe we can truly expect corporations to take the higher road, building first for humanity, and next for profit. That is naive, and others in the ecosystem must work to ensure the guardrails are shaped early on.

But surely these companies need to do more to show they have a smidgeon of genuine respect for human effort & personhood. Yes, we all know AI will improve our lives, elevate our creativity; it is a tool and we are the real drivers... So merely mouthing those already well-worn (if true) phrases does not count as respect for the human effort. Show us how you mean it.

Unfortunately, dodgy plays like OpenAI’s CEO trying to sneakily get his AI to sound like Scarlett Johansson, is not that. I’m assuming you have heard of this (if not, read more here ) - how Sam Altman wanted her to be the voice of the new ChatGPT, but she was having none of it. They went ahead and got a voice sounding a lot like her, anyway.

Good on her too, for taking a stand and being vocal about it. Of course, ScarJo was the voice of the rather lovely AI assistant in Her, Spike Jonez’s 2013 romantic/sci-fi film, where the protagonist falls in love with the AI. Altman even referenced it in a tweet!

I enjoyed how Aaron Holmes at the The Information put it- Sam Altman’s ‘naughty streak’, he calls it (paywall), embedding it in a wider trait:

To some people steeped in Silicon Valley startup culture, Altman’s actions were a virtue from the founder playbook: find creative solutions to getting what you want, even when people say no. For years, that has been a trait that top VCs look for.

and then

As the ScarJo saga illustrates, acting naughty becomes increasingly perilous when you’re running an $80 billion-plus company.

Though she hasn’t sued them yet, being in court will be now familiar territory for many AI companies, something we must watch closely; these will shape how Gen AI and the wider world of creative, publishing and IP will find some uneasy balance. THR has a good piece on some of the legal aspects here.

And since there is a lot being written about this, lastly this from The Atlantic’s “OpenAI Just Gave Away the Entire Game”

At the core of these deflections is an implication: The hypothetical superintelligence they are building is too big, too world-changing, too important for prosaic concerns such as copyright and attribution. The Johansson scandal is merely a reminder of AI’s manifest-destiny philosophy: This is happening, whether you like it or not.

…the company would plow ahead, consent be damned, simply because it might believe the stakes are too high to pivot or wait. When your technology aims to rewrite the rules of society, it stands that society’s current rules need not apply.

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If AI is the flavour, then here’s the inimitable Jon Stewart on it a couple of days ago.

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Earlier this week, I put down words spurred by watching a documentary about a legendary night back in the 80s- thoughts about the film, and making factual content in general. Click through for that, if you will.

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Listen.

And finally, my 8year old son. What is he doing here, you might well ask. Well, he is moderately obsessing with a track by Jóhann Jóhannsson, which is well worth sharing.

{Don’t ask why- he discovered it off one of my playlists, and its been on his for some time. Right now he plays it every day, and clearly does not subscribe to my approach that some tracks need to be played in the more ‘contemplative’ passages :) }.

Jóhann Jóhannsson, if you don’t know him, was a wonderful composer who unfortunately passed away in 2018, not yet 50 years old. He had some fine work in film, where I discovered him via the score for Denis Villeneuve’s Arrival.

Peace.

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