People are using AI chatbots to fill junk websites with AI-generated text that attracts paying advertisers, according to a new report from the media research organization NewsGuard that was shared exclusively with MIT Technology Review.
Over 140 major brands are paying for ads that end up on unreliable AI-written sites, likely without their knowledge. Ninety percent of the ads from major brands found on these AI-generated news sites were served by Google, though the company’s own policies prohibit sites from placing Google-served ads on pages that include “spammy automatically generated content.” The practice threatens to hasten the arrival of a glitchy, spammy internet that is overrun by AI-generated content, as well as wasting massive amounts of ad money. — Read More
Daily Archives: June 28, 2023
AI is killing the old web, and the new web struggles to be born
In recent months, the signs and portents have been accumulating with increasing speed. Google is trying to kill the 10 blue links. Twitter is being abandoned to bots and blue ticks. There’s the junkification of Amazon and the enshittification of TikTok. Layoffs are gutting online media. A job posting looking for an “AI editor” expects “output of 200 to 250 articles per week.” ChatGPT is being used to generate whole spam sites. Etsy is flooded with “AI-generated junk.” Chatbots cite one another in a misinformation ouroboros. LinkedIn is using AI to stimulate tired users. Snapchat and Instagram hope bots will talk to you when your friends don’t. Redditors are staging blackouts. Stack Overflow mods are on strike. The Internet Archive is fighting off data scrapers, and “AI is tearing Wikipedia apart.” The old web is dying, and the new web struggles to be born.
The web is always dying, of course; it’s been dying for years, killed by apps that divert traffic from websites or algorithms that reward supposedly shortening attention spans. But in 2023, it’s dying again — and, as the litany above suggests, there’s a new catalyst at play: AI. — Read More
NASA is creating a ChatGPT-like assistant for astronauts
Despite our intrinsic distrust of AI in space taught to us by movies like 2001: A Space Odyssey (“I’m afraid I can’t do that, Dave“), it offers large advantages to both manned and unmanned missions. To that end, NASA is developing a system that will allow astronauts to perform maneuvers, conduct experiments and more using a natural-language ChatGPT-like interface, The Guardian reported.
“The idea is to get to a point where we have conversational interactions with space vehicles and they [are] also talking back to us on alerts, interesting findings they see in the solar system and beyond,” said Dr. Larissa Suzuki, speaking at an IEEE meeting on next-gen space communication. “It’s really not like science fiction anymore.”
NASA aims to deploy the system on its Lunar Gateway, a space station that will orbit the Moon and provide support for NASA’s Artemis mission. It would use a natural language interface that allows astronauts to seek advice on experiments or conduct maneuvers without diving into complex manuals. — Read More
Unity launches Sentis and Muse AI platforms for real-time 3D creation
Unity today revealed two new AI-based products for creators to enhance their real-time 3D (RT3D) content. The two products are called Sentis and Muse and are currently available in closed beta, with plans to launch them globally later this year. In addition, Unity also announced it’s launching a dedicated AI marketplace in the Asset Store that offers several other tools for creators.
Sentis is a cross-platform runtime inference solution, meaning that it can embed AI models into any Unity project without creators having to worry about high latency. Muse is a set of tools that help users make RT3D content easily and more efficiently. At the moment, one of those tools is Unity Muse Chat, which lets users find information and answers to support questions in documentation by typing a prompt in a chat box. — Read More
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