Andreessen Advocates for an AI-Assisted Paradise
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The Gist
- AI to the rescue. AI’s has potential to save the world, says Marc Andreessen.
- Dating lessons from AI. Blush App helps boost the digital dating experience.
- Next-generation video tech. Runway Research unveils Gen-2 AI video generation.
In stark contrast to last week’s fears over extinction at the hands of AI, this week brings a refreshing perspective that AI might just hold the potential to save our world. According to renowned innovator, creator and venture capitalist Marc Andreessen, “AI will not destroy the world, and in fact may save it.”
As co-founder and general partner at Andreessen Horowitz, a prominent venture capital firm — and the co-founder of both the Mosaic internet browser and Netscape (later sold to AOL) — Andreessen’s played a crucial role in shaping the tech industry. In a blog post this week titled, “Why AI Will Save the World,” he dispels with the idea that AI will lead to “killer software and robots that will spring to life” and instead insists that AI is “a way to make everything we care about better” — because like any other technology, AI is owned and controlled by people.
Among the changes in this “new era of AI,” he predicted that every child would have an AI tutor that is “infinitely” patient, compassionate, knowledgeable and helpful — and one that “will be by each child’s side every step of their development, helping them maximize their potential with the machine version of infinite love.”
Going beyond that, he predicts everyone will have the same features available in their own “AI assistant, coach, mentor, trainer, advisor, therapist” one that “will be present through all of life’s opportunities and challenges, maximizing every person’s outcome.”
“Perhaps the most underestimated quality of AI is how humanizing it can be. AI art gives people who otherwise lack technical skills the freedom to create and share their artistic ideas,” Andreessen said. “Talking to an empathetic AI friend really does improve their ability to handle adversity. And AI medical chatbots are already more empathetic than their human counterparts. Rather than making the world harsher and more mechanistic, infinitely patient and sympathetic AI will make the world warmer and nicer.”
Related Article: Artificial Intelligence Leaders: AI Threatens Human Existence Alongside Pandemics and Nuclear War
Swipe Right on AI: Blush App Turns Digital Dating Into Real-World Romance Practice
Blush, an AI dating simulator, promises to help users learn (and practice) relationship skills — all from home. The Blush app, developed by the creators of the AI friend service Replika, aims to “reignite the desire to date” by providing users with a full-time flirting companion.
Now available on IOS, Blush is designed to enhance users’ romantic lives. Blush seeks to bridge the gap between digital dating and real-life romantic experiences. The app provides an AI-powered platform where users can practice their flirting skills, learn how to communicate effectively and explore their romantic desires and interests. The app’s interface allows users to “match” with AI characters and engage in one-on-one conversations, simulating the online dating experience.
“At Blush, we believe that AI can enable romantic exploration, boost confidence, and increase our awareness of relationships,” Rita Popova, chief product officer at Replika, said. “Hopefully, through practice and play, Blush users will feel empowered to show up more authentically in their real-world relationships and experience a deeper sense of connection with others.”
OpenAI CEO Shrugs Off Professor’s AI Career Advice
As part of the Economic Times Conversations, OpenAI CEO Sam Altman spoke with Satyan Gajwani, vice chairman of Times Internet. During the conversation, Altman shared the fact that while studying AI in college, a professor once told him, “The only sure way to have a bad career in AI is to work on neural networks. We’ve decided those don’t work.”
Advice Altman said discouraged him but didn’t stop him. As for what he considers the “most surprising use case” for OpenAI’s ChatGPT, Altman said it all comes down to its “generality.”
“There’s a lot of other systems that can go do this thing … But the fact that this one system is truly general purpose and can do so many things, means that people are integrating into their workflow as a very powerful tool,” Altman said. “… One of the areas that we’ve seen the biggest impact is what coders are using this for, doubling and tripling their productivity.”
Related Article: AI Wonderland: Tech Titans Make Every Day Feel Like Christmas
Runway Research Unveils Gen-2 AI Video Generation
Runway Research, the company that, in February, unveiled Gen-1, a generative AI system, that uses language and images to generate videos in a variety of styles including Claymation, has announced the launch of its more advanced Gen-2 model.
In collaboration with Stability AI, Runway provided foundational research for Stable Diffusion, an open-source AI model — and in December, Runway announced it landed $50 million in Series C funding. Gen-2, now available on IOS, is a text video model that Runway says, “will turn your imagination into generated videos.” It features an “inspiration feed” below the prompts bar and allows users to remix existing prompts. The upgraded app also includes the ability to search with an image reference and allows for video-to-video and text-to-video prompts. Further, in “variations mode,” users can generate video using only a driving image. Users can also turn mockups into animated renders and transfer any image style to each frame of video.
AI Tweet of the Week: Actors Unite Against AI
It appears that the current writers’ strike many soon find itself joined by actors, many of whom are concerned about the effect of artificial intelligence on their acting careers. Recently, Spiderman actor Tom Holland spoke out about his concerns over AI along with actor Sean Penn. The Screen Actors Guild (SAG) is heading to the bargaining table, and the top concerns on the agenda include streaming residuals and artificial intelligence. In a recent Tweet, MAiJiN.THE ARTIST shared a list of proposed demands.
AI ACTORS STRIKE: Screen Actors Guild (SAG) joined the Writers Guild of America (WGA) in a strike against AI in the entertainment industry and activated a media blackout. Here’s the Actor’s list of DEMANDS against Artificial Intelligence:
1) Protection of Personal Brand from… pic.twitter.com/hSTckLlTlc
— MAiJiN.THE ARTIST (@MAiJiNTHEARTIST) June 8, 2023
AI Video of the Week: Work-Free Future: AI’s Promise to Turn Us All Into Leisure Connoisseurs
In this thought-provoking video, Ben Goertzel, CEO of the decentralized artificial intelligence marketplace SingularityNET, discusses a future where artificial intelligence has evolved to such an extent that humans no longer need to work for a living. He suggests that there are far more rewarding things for humans to do than simply scrambling around to get resources.
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