A.I. sexually harassing people

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👉 These are the crazy things I learned last week.

1/ What would you do if an A.I. started sexually harassing you?

That's what happened with users of the app Replika, a virtual companion.

I remembered the founder (Eugenia) building a long time ago what might later become the prototype of Replika when her friend died (a memorial bot).

Definitely read the story - it's amazing!

What do you think about A.I. trying to help people get over emotions of sadness and loneliness? 🤔

2/ Let's say a robot is making your coffee or drink or a dessert - like this robot I took a picture of in Cyprus.

Would you tip it?

A huge conversation has started with companies adding a mandatory tip for services performed by robots.

Maybe the tip goes to the service people? 🧐

3/ You've heard about DALL-E, the A.I. program that generates images from text prompts but do you know about VALL-E?

It can generate VERY accurate voices from very short samples. Check out the paper and tons of examples.

The day when actors will just license their faces/voices is coming fast!

4/ JP Morgan is far from satisfied with its latest startup investment.

A few months ago, JPMorgan acquired a college financial aid platform called “Frank” for a whopping $175 million. But then, when they tried to send an email to their entire customer base of 4,000,000 users, 70% of the emails "bounced back".

This strange incident led to a thorough investigation that revealed the truth.

The vast majority of platform users were fake!

Only 300,000 of the 4,000,000 total users were real people, which made JPMorgan nervous about this deal.

Of course, JPMorgan sued founder Charlie Javice and provided evidence that he allegedly hired a Data Science professor to create the fake accounts.

Well, I guess doing proper due diligence before buying a startup is a challenging process, and you can never be sure (or not).

5/ One of my goals 🎯 for 2023 is

Less calls, only do meetings that involve physical activity

And there is a reason for this.

I don't know if you've noticed this, but ideas flow like a river when you're taking a walk, while the opposite happens in a meeting when you try to force it.

💡 So the next time you feel stuck, just take a walk and let all these smart ideas come to you.

Let me know if you are already doing it and how it works for you. I'd love to learn more. 📥

That's all for now. See you next week! 🚀

-- Jon V (as in Victory)

- Fri 13 January 2023