The WSJ’s Joanna Stern reports on The Shotline, which uses AI from a company called ElevenLabs to recreate the voices of kids murdered in school shootings and have them call elected officials. Take some time with this one; there are infinite layers here.
The longer the TikTok / UMG battle drags on, the more I think UMG’s leverage increases. Talked about it on Today, Explained with my pal Sean Rameswaram — and Cory Doctorow also joined this episode, so it’s a fun one.
The assistant attorney general says ‘the resonance these issues have is something that I’ve never witnessed in my lifetime.’
The NYT has a profile of Father Paolo Benati, the “self-professed geek” leading the Vatican’s thinking about AI. A good piece but this jumped out:
[Pope] Francis — who Father Benanti said has become more literate on A.I., especially after an image of the pope sporting an A.I. designed white puffer coat went viral — then became more animated. The pope liked when the discussion was less about the technology, Father Benanti said, and more on “what he can do” to protect the vulnerable.
Last month Adobe’s Dana Rao told me the Swag Pope was a “catalyzing event” for AI safety. One puffer jacket really can change the world.
[The New York Times]
This week marks the launch of Decoder’s second episode, which will explain big topics in the news with Verge reporters, experts, and other friends of the show. (The other Decoder you know and love, featuring big interviews with CEOs and others, now publishes every Monday.)
For this episode, I sat down with Verge Transportation Editor Andy Hawkins, to discuss a fantastic article he wrote called, “The EV Transition trips over its own cord.” It’s all about how the momentum for electric cars in America has started to hit serious snags, even as more people than ever before go fully electric. Check it out.
Now that people have Apple’s headset, there are so many funny videos and interesting thoughts about it floating around out there, but there’s almost no mention of the goofy low-res eyes on the front that are supposed to make other people feel like you’re looking at them. Did this just not work? I’m dying to know what you all think.
Anil Dash:
Being able to say, “wherever you get your podcasts” is a radical statement. Because what it represents is the triumph of exactly the kind of technology that’s supposed to be impossible: open, empowering tech that’s not owned by any one company, that can’t be controlled by any one company, and that allows people to have ownership over their work and their relationship with their audience.
I just said this on this week’s Decoder with Casey, but at this point it’s easy to see how algorithmic media platforms tend to push people and content into being more or less the same, but open distribution protocols like email and podcasts tend to allow for a much richer set of creators and formats. It feels like that’s an important lesson for the next generation of the internet!
[www.anildash.com]
