AI applications are here to stay, but what does that mean?

2023 is looking more and more like the year that artificial intelligence will go from being a silly sci-fi joke to becoming an everyday part of our daily lives. The massive viral success of “generative AIApps like OpenAI ChatGPT and Dall-E are bringing a new generation of entrepreneurs and founders to Silicon Valley (or a nearby spinoff,Brain valley“). Computer science programs at schools like the University of Texas at Austin artificial intelligence courses and degrees are added. Investors also noticed, flooding the space with new sources. The New York Times predicts that this year it will be based on artificial intelligence assistant applications they will evolve to the point where they cease to be a fun gimmick and begin to take the work off our human shoulders.

This has naturally led to an explosion of new machine learning applications, experiments, projects and startups. Many of them extremely practical, the purpose of which is to satisfy everyday needs, increase efficiency, and remove repetitive tasks from the hands of human employees. The text writing tool Jasper, for example, automatically generates company blog posts based on basic templates. The MathGPT The chatbot serves as a tutor that can help students answer basic homework questions without teacher intervention.

But each of these instantly useful AI concepts seems to have some weird, silly, or unexpected counterparts. The rush to plant a flag and get in early on the world of AI applications has inspired some truly bizarre experiments.

Weird art projects

Buy “Nothing, forever,” a live Twitch show that recreates the classic ’90s sitcom “Seinfeld,” created almost entirely by algorithm. OpenAI’s GPT-3 language model creates the scripts, and even dubbing, directing, editing, and music are generative. Some of the artwork and the laugh track were created by humans; the rest are all automated.

3D artist David O’Reilly also used exclusively generative systems to create a surreal and nightmarish “children’s cartoon”Barts.” The show is pitched as something of a parody of AI projects, featuring an unsettling AI-generated narrator and terrifyingly nonsensical and abstract cartoons.

Designer and photographer Rob Sheridan incorporates AI art into his online alternate reality game (ARG).VIIR.” Players examine alleged documents from the fictional “Volstof Institute for Interdimensional Research,” which investigated “soft places” where the fabric of space-time was thin, allowing humans to explore alternate realities. Many of these dimensions are illustrated with the help of Midjourney stick.

Weird academic and scientific applications

These are purely art projects, but other AI applications straddle the border between practicality and absurdity. Historical Figures Chat Designed by San Jose engineer Sidhant Chadda, it offers users the ability to converse (via text, of course) with over 20,000 notable individuals from human history. The selection ranges from revered heroes such as Amelia Earhart and Benjamin Franklin to more controversial chat partners such as Nazi General Heinrich Himmler. Although Chadda says the app is designed as an educational tool and a way to add a fascinating and fun human element to the sometimes dry study of history, many experts have already begun the project to ensure historical accuracy.

For example, chatbot versions of historical figures often express unrealistic remorse for crimes and atrocities committed during their lifetime. In some cases, the chatbot – in the role of a historical figure – tries to find excuses or explain their “behavior”. (A recently found example a Henry Ford stick (he denies accusations of anti-Semitism, saying the allegations were based on “a few isolated incidents.”)

Similar projects have attempted to create chatbot versions of deceased friends or family members. We wrote about it last year Los Angeles StoryFilea company that allows people to create videos that can answer questions from viewers, using AI to play relevant video clips of the deceased in response.

Scientists are also finding interesting and unexpected uses for cutting-edge AI applications. The program Deep Squeak detects the high-frequency sounds that some mammals make when stressed. After training on rats and mice, the software could theoretically be used to search for whales and other marine mammals in the vast ocean. The creator of Ocean Science Analytics hopes to use the technology to help build offshore wind farms, ensuring they don’t encroach on any pre-existing animal habitats.

A team a University of Toronto, led by astronomer Peter Ma, is accelerating humanity’s search for extraterrestrial life with the help of artificial intelligence. Since the 1960s, SETI (The Search for Extraterrestrial Intelligence) astronomers have recorded hours of “noise” from space, hoping to detect repeating patterns of signals that potentially carry a coded message from aliens.

More strange experiments

Of course, one of the most common and popular uses of AI today is to generate strange, otherworldly images based on simple prompts. But he’s an engineer James Bruton took things a step further, they not only designed a new instrument using generative artificial intelligence, but also created a physical version of the instrument in the real world. Bruton first generated a usable image for the rapid “experimental robotics rig for playing music,” then designed the working version in CAD and 3D printed the parts. (Yes, it worksand emits a noisy, somewhat disharmonic organ-like sound.)

Perhaps the most unusual use of artificial intelligence that has caught the eye of late is DoNotPay, a purported “robot lawyer” service that uses algorithms to help people with basic legal issues, such as parking tickets or a contract dispute over a subscription service. The company spent most of early 2023 using DoNotPay to represent an actual human customer American courtbut that project was derailed due to objections from several state bar associations.

Potentially even worse news for the embattled startup, new reports from TechDirt they indicate that DoNotPay is not even made by a robot lawyer using artificial intelligence, but only a marketing stunt. TechDirt poster and Kathryn Tewson, after several attempts to use the service, suspected that the company employs real human lawyers and only pretends their documents are prepared by artificial intelligence. Not really. That’s what they say.

Regardless, there are undeniably many REAL AI companies doing interesting things with the technology right now. Even in the market horrible New Yorker cartoonsmore nutritious the yield of broccolithe horrible nightmares haunted cryptidor just a collection hundreds of impossible buildings, now there’s something for everyone in Cerebral Valley and beyond. – Lon Harris