Beep boop - this is a robot. A new show has been posted to TWiT…
What are your thoughts about today’s show? We’d love to hear from you!
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I setup Personal Voice on my spare iPhone mini and it is very good. Example posted below.
While you can tell it is a synthetic voice (it misses the general cadence and flow), the voice itself hit the uncanny valley nerve for my family.
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I can’t help feeling like there’s a certain amount of hypocrisy with the writers’ strike since I’m guessing that many of you are pretty happy using the automated checkout in the supermarket and the kiosk screen at Mcdonald’s, although I will admit that can free staff up to do other tasks, yet when it comes to the writers and the actors, we complain.
We know the standard of ChatGPT’s writing, and what does it say about you if you are worried about that replacing you? And as for worrying about studios using your likeness in perpetuity, where were those people when Star Wars used Carrie Fisher as a hologram?
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I failed Leo’s CAPTCHA. I neither game, nor did I buy anything on Prime day.
I tried to get into gaming for the first time during The 2020 Event and I didn’t stick with it. The biggest problem: I couldn’t comprehend the control scheme for most games, having never learned a modern controller. For example, I really wanted to like Microsoft Flight Sim 2020, but I ragequit the 30th time I crashed a plane during the tutorial level. I literally never managed to finish the tutorial.
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I loved “This Week in Tech” Sunday July 16, 2023.
I’m glad you talked about Politics in the Tech industry , The effects between tech and Politics is so much entwine. Thank you for the enlightenment.
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@Leo Expanding on my comment on the last TWIG, I think it is extremely up in the air whether commercial AI constitutes fair use. From the US copyright office, here are the four tests, with some editorializing:
- Purpose and character of the use, including whether the use is of a commercial nature or is for nonprofit educational purposes… Transformative uses are those that add something new, with a further purpose or different character, and do not substitute for the original use of the work.
- Nature of the copyrighted work: This factor analyzes the degree to which the work that was used relates to copyright’s purpose of encouraging creative expression… [Using a] more creative or imaginative work (such as a novel, movie, or song) is less likely to [be fair] than using a factual work…
- Amount and substantiality of the portion used in relation to the copyrighted work as a whole: Under this factor, courts look at both the quantity and quality of the copyrighted material that was used… [In the past, ] using even a small amount of a copyrighted work was determined not to be fair because the selection was an important part—or the “heart”—of the work.
- Effect of the use upon the potential market for or value of the copyrighted work: Here, courts review whether, and to what extent, the unlicensed use harms the existing or future market for the copyright owner’s original work.
I think it’s possible to poke holes in nearly all four of these. “Transformative” only applies if it isn’t subbing for the original, so if you can use a commercial AI to create a picture in someone’s style or write a Silverman novel, I don’t think it applies.
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The problem, for me, is that so many copyrighted works are available illegally in the internet - I.e. someone posted the work without permission and has no right to “publish” the works. The AI just hoovers this illegally provided work up and tells the copyright holder, tough, it was on the internet…
That I feel is just wrong. They should have a duty of care, to ensure all the material they feed into the AI is unencumbered.
For derivative works of works that were legally obtained, I see no problem, but if they are scrapping “shadow libraries” of works that shouldn’t be freely available, that is a different matter entirely.
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Heck no. I’m doing their work and still paying regular price for my food? Nah. I bypass auto kiosk unless I’m trying to beat the long line. The two stores I frequent don’t have a lot of staff, but always have long checkout lines. It’s a battle of wills. Mgmt vs customers refusing to go full auto 
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Yeah it’s bad that things are pirated. Even badder when pirated things are scraped for ai learning.
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I was somewhat amazed at the panels denigration of Facebook and other social media - it simply reflects real life and in many circumstances is somewhat less abrasive.
I lived in Upstate NY for 12 years and one of my then partners brothers owned a local bar frequented by police and fire fighters. It was a no go zone for people of colour. When I tried to drop some flyers off with a friend of mine who happened to be black, I was quizzed about who he was and why I was doing work for a venue frequented by people of colour. When I jokingly replied ‘oh my God, Andre - you’re black, I hadn’t even noticed’ I was banned from the bar too.
There are far bigger problems in US society than social media!!!?
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I was amazed at Leo’s criticism of the Sound Of Freedom movie, I don’t know what he was referring be it being “problematic”? I assume that must have been a politically motivated comment, although I don’t know what. It should be pretty bipartisan.
I saw it and it was an excellent movie from the creative aspect, and if you look into the background of the actual story, it was very accurate, with just a few timeline adjustments to keep the movie pacing on track.
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I am amused that only one of the panel has digitised their music, and that even they have only ripped to MP3. Every album and CD I have ever purchased is digitised to FLAC format and resides on my server in the lounge, it’s nearly 12TB of storage is almost full, but that is fine, most music for the past decade or so is as bad the same time period of TV shows. The constant lowering of both content and play back quality to suit the demands of the ADHD generation has created a creativity soup that stinks. We have lost Prince, Meatloaf, Bowie and other greats and are stuck with Kanye West and others, it makes me sad, but thankfully I turn on real amps and real speakers (not some plastic trash from Apple or sonoS) and make the floor move and the windows rattle!
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I’ve recorded my collection as 256kbps MP3, source is CD, so no use going higher. There are over 1,000 CDs in our collection, about a third as many as my DVD collection.
But I rarely listen to them these days. We have Apple Music and I listen to about an hour a month, my wife and daughter listen to more. If it the same with film, I have watched maybe 3 DVDs in the last 2 years. But we don’t watch many films on streaming either, these days.
It is mainly podcasts and audio books.
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I am not happy to use self-checkout anywhere. Cashiers always do it faster than I can. Ditto for kiosks or mobile ordering. I would rather businesses appropriately staff their stores so I can transact my business quickly.
Also, I support the writers and the actors, but perhaps this is a moment of reckoning for them and for studios to face the harsh realities of the economics of the new streaming landscape. Movies and TV now compete for attention with lots of other things, and there is so much more content that it is harder to get big hits. Studios also have fewer opportunities to re-sell the content without the old, timed-release windows (theaters > airplanes > DVD > premium cable > networks).
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Maybe Google its star and producer…
From (hive of left-wing scum and villainy) NPR:
A big part of its success is an appeal from its star, Jim Caviezel, who comes on screen at the end urging viewers to buy more tickets so other people can see it and help end child trafficking. It’s a model distributor Angel Studios calls “pay it forward.”
Caviezel, who previously played Jesus Christ in Mel Gibson’s The Passion of the Christ, is also drawing attention to the film in other ways. For years, he’s been a prominent promoter of the false, violent QAnon conspiracy theory — specifically, the baseless claim that an international cabal of elites is abusing and killing children to extract a substance called adrenochrome.
These wild claims have become deeply enmeshed with narratives about child trafficking in recent years, from the QAnon predecessor Pizzagate conspiracy theory, which falsely alleged a pizza parlor in Washington, D.C., was home to a child sex ring, to false claims that online retailer Wayfair was selling children in the guise of furniture.
In press appearances promoting Sound of Freedom, Caviezel continues to spout QAnon falsehoods. On a recent episode of former Trump adviser Steve Bannon’s podcast, Caviezel claimed “the whole adrenochrome empire” is driving demand for trafficked children. “It’s an elite drug that they’ve used for many years,” he asserted, falsely claiming it is “10 times more potent than heroin” and “has some mystical qualities as far as making you look younger.”
As for the veracity of the movie itself, Vice did a bunch of reporting:
I listen maybe 50 hours a month, about 150 of the albums are mobile fidelity half speed master versions, when I was working at EMI I used to buy 10-20 albums a week. My collection takes up a spare room. I run Jriver Media Centre which can finy track from the 180000+ in seconds
Paul Smith-Keitley
Adobe Creative Educator
whew, glad to hear that trafficking is not an issue