Machine Society

2 weeks ago | machinesociety.ai | Mike Elgan

My mother told me I could be anyone I wanted to be when I grew up. Turns out she was right. ByteDance (yes, the TikTok people) just unveiled an AI model called DreamActor-M1. It can take a single still image and turn it into a fully animated video with lifelike facial expressions, natural head movements, and even full-body motion. Even now in its "beta" phase, or whatever, it's easy to use. Just upload a picture of one person or cartoon character, then upload a video of a person talking.

1 month ago | machinesociety.ai | Mike Elgan

Social networks are filled with AI-generated images. Billions have been created using text-to-image AI tools since 2022, many posted online. To roughly quantify: 26% of marketers use AI to create marketing images. 39% for marketing images posted on social. 71% of images shared on social media were AI-generated. In Canada, it's 77%. AI is ubiquitous on social media. But there's one genre that fascinates me. It’s all over Facebook.

1 month ago | machinesociety.ai | Mike Elgan

Apple made a 3D VR movie. The short film "Submerged," made exclusively for Apple Vision Pro, will be available tomorrow (October 10). You can watch what they falsely call a "trailer" (it's actually a featurette on the making of the movie) here now. The movie, directed by Edward Berger, takes place on a submarine during World War II. The sub is torpedo-attacked, and the movie is about the crew fighting for survival.

1 month ago | machinesociety.ai | Mike Elgan

Tesla rolled out two shiny new cars in Burbank yesterday. With Elon Musk presiding over the company's "We, Robot" event at the Warner Bros. Studios, Tesla showcased a self-driving two-seat "robo-taxi" without a steering wheel or pedals and designed to cost less than $30,000 when it ships in 2027, according to the company. They also showed a 20-passenger art deco van. Wall Street was unimpressed. Tesla's stock dropped 8%. The star of the show was the Optimus robot.

1 month ago | machinesociety.ai | Mike Elgan

We already know that AI-edited pictures, AI fakes, and deep fake videos can make large numbers of people believe false second-hand information. It's easy to convince people that the Pope rocks a big, white puffy jacket. But in a disturbing new development, research from MIT and elsewhere has found that AI-edited photos can reliably induce false memories of events personally experienced.