🤖 AI Lawyers | Deepfake AI | Apple Glasses | Web3 for Porsche | Musk's Mess at Twitter
What's happening and what's coming next in tech, web3, metaverse, innovation and strategy.
Hello Wiser! readers, here’s your mid-week “in case you missed it” recap of the key stories from Wiser! #110 - with updates and new stories.
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What’s happening in Tech, Web3 and Metaverse
Apple couldn't save the smartphone industry from its worst year since 2013. The smartphone industry shipped 1.21 billion units during 2022, down 11.3% on the year.
Getty Images is suing the creators of AI art tool Stable Diffusion for scraping its content. Find out more...
The US Department of Justice (DOF) is after Google again. Casey Newton calls this Google’s “most serious anti-trust challenge to date.”
How much of a threat to Google are LLMs? (Spoiler alert: a lot!)
Biologists are scheming to fight cancer and the flu with AI.
Could AI’s inability to forget things actually be a barrier to its development?
An investigation by the online magazine Futurism found "extensive evidence that the CNET AI’s work has demonstrated deep structural and phrasing similarities to articles previously published elsewhere." In other words, CNET have been caught using AI to write a lot of its copy WITHOUT TELLING ANYONE IT WAS DOING IT. Here's what The Verge had to say about it.
Consumer Groups call for a review of Walmart's "advergames" on Roblox. Read all about it here...
NBA and Meta announce extended partnership deal for watch basketball in virtual reality. Read the whole story...
After a miserable 2022, Bitcoin has recorded its third straight week of gains and is up 38% year-to-date (outperforming the S&P 500 by 33%). Goldman Sachs has ranked Bitcoin as the best performing asset in the world in 2023.
Three Arizona Senators introduced a bill that would make Bitcoin a legal tender in the state. If it passes, voters could choose to make virtual currencies tax-exempt in 2024.
Getty Images is suing the creators of AI art tool Stable Diffusion for scraping its content. Find out more...
You can now Listen-To-Earn with Bitcoin paying podcasts. You can now earn Bitcoin for listening to podcasts in this new initiative.
EU Lawmakers have paved the way for stricter crypto rules for banks. New rules in Europe may mean that financial institutions must hold more capital if they plan to buy cryptocurrencies.
Analysis found that roughly half ($30 billion) of all NFT volume last year was wash trading (people ‘selling’ to themselves to pump the price).
The Financial Times set up a Mastodon server in the decentralised social media network. And quickly shut it down again.
Details of how Apple’s upcoming mixed-reality headset will work have been leaked (again).
Microsoft roll out AI across all of its cloud services. Continue reading...
New research finds growing trend towards the Metaverse
In the latest Deloitte Global Marketing Trend report, the consulting firm found that marketers believe there is a growing shift towards the Metaverse and blockchain technology. When surveying marketers, they found only 10% of them believe the metaverse is irrelevant to their industry, a figure that represents continued optimism about the future-facing technology. However, nearly half (45%) of them viewed development and implementation as a challenge. When it came to blockchain, 41% of marketers are planning to use the technology to support their advertising strategies in 2023.
Porsche push further into Web3 with eSports partnership
Hot on the heels of Porsche dropping its first NFT collection, the luxury car manufacturer has announced a Web3 deal with Esports giant FaZe Clan.
The deal includes producing original content, esports initiatives, consumer merchandising and digital goods in the Web3 space, all due for release throughout this year. As part of the deal, Porsche also became the official partner of all of FaZe Clan’s esports teams.
OK, so what?
Here's The Thing: This partnership allows Porsche to tap into the intersection of gaming and youth culture. The next generation of Porsche customers are playing online, and Porsche is taking its brand to where they are hanging out.
Porsche's first NFT drop didn't get the response the car manufacturer was expecting. Learn more about what happened...
♾️ Learn all about Porsche’s push into the emerging tech space alongs 250 consumer brands by signing up for the Brand Strategy Collection. Either upgrade to Premium for the Wiser! Newsletter, or buy lifetime access on Gumroad.
The latest updates to the Brand Strategy Collection of consumer brands in emerging technologies include:
L'Oréal and their make-up brand NYX, Olympics, Netflix, Adidas, Nike, Disney, BMW, Pacsun, Overpriced, Netgear, Outback Steakhouse, ORC Zoo (and their Orangutan drawn NFT artwork!)
Can an AI lawyer really replace a human one?
The stunt by DoNotPay to put an AI lawyer inside a US court of law may not be going ahead now, but that hasn’t stopped the debate on the role of artificial intelligence as a legal resource. These have been backed up by numerous tests of different large language models that prove the AI’s ability to achieve a mediocre pass of law exams.
But, does that mean we’re about see AI lawyers arguing amongst themselves over points of law? And haven’t we been here before?
🎙️ Big Tech Little Tech - AI Lawyers
In the latest episode of the podcast, Shaun and I talk about what’s happening in US courtrooms around the use of AI, specifically ChatGPT. Does China use AI to help enforce the law, and will Americans end up paying fewer speeding tickets? Plus, Twitter leaves third parties in the lurch, Audi and John Deere announce new tech, and rats get facially profiled.
Listen to the podcast on all major platforms, including:
Apple Podcasts | Spotify | Amazon Music | Anchor
Flawless demonstrate the awesome power of Deepfake tech in just 23 seconds!
Watch this and tell me that you're not impressed, amazed and worried as the original scene is replayed multiple times. It was, of course, only filmed once. But by the magic and trickery of AI, the scene is replayed with the offending words removed, then replaced, then changed to Japanese and to Spanish (if only it was that easy in real life!)
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Who would trust Twitter with their payments?
It looks like Elon Musk is making his move to turn Twitter into an online payments business. IMHO, it's as misguided as Musk's attempts to change the business model to subscriptions. Who in their right mind would trust Twitter with their payments? Meanwhile, reports continue to claim that Twitter revenue is down as much as 40%, advertisers are staying away for fear of being placed next to contentious content, and the platform is unstable and buggy.
The latest desperate attempt by Musk to rescue the sinking Twitter business is to launch an "ad-free subscription tier." This is in addition to the current $11/month subscription tier that gives users very little other than a blue tick. There are several reasons why this will undoubtedly fail. Continue reading to find out what they are... Meanwhile, the other big Twitter story was Musk's short-sighted and arrogant decision to turn off the API without telling anyone and letting them figure it out for themselves...I explain it all here (note: the article was written with the help of the AI functionality from NotionAI).
US lawmakers are grand standing over TikTok
TikTok CEO Shou Zi Chew is to testify before the US Gov in March. This is a big deal given the growing anti-China rhetoric and the focus on TikTok as a surveillance and propaganda machine for the Chinese Communist Party. Apparently the global boss of TikTok is to appear before the House Energy and Commerce Committee and answer questions on the company’s privacy policies, the app’s impact on children, and the company’s relationship with the Communist Party in China. More on this in Friday’s issue of Wiser!
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