It’s been a heavy month, to put it mildly. But we’re willing to bet you’ve already read all there is to read about Chief Twit Elon, the unfolding Kanye saga, Meta’s stock dive, and all the rest of it. So instead, how about we peruse through some of the stories you might have missed? Welcome to the October edition of of …now you know.
read my mind eyes
In a move that’s either technologically impressive, or a creepy shout out to Minority Report, depending on your perspective, Apple’s upcoming mixed reality headset is reported to have iris scanning feature that can identify the specific person wearing the headset, allow for automatic log-ins and payments, etc.
Apple’s Mixed Reality Headset to Offer Iris Scanning
the ghost of steve jobs
While some people vaguely speculate about the day when AI will become indistinguishable from humans, the rest of us know that day is (almost) already here. Take the AI voice-generation technology Play.ht, which has reached a point where it can be used to reliably spin up podcasts featuring guests who were never actually together, or, you know, may not even be alive.
Play.ht
Podcast.ai (“Joe Rogan” & “Steve Jobs”)
“yippee-ki-fake, motherf*****”
We might as well keep blurring the lines between celebrity humans and celebrity apparitions. Mr. Die Hard himself has sold his rights to the aptly named firm Deepcake, which in theory would allow him (or, you know, “him”) to appear in any movie past, present, or future. Can’t wait for The Sixth Sense 2 to come out in 2041.
Actor Bruce Willis Becomes First Celebrity to Sell Rights to Deepfake Firm
and the inevitable backlash
Fake Steve Jobs or Bruce Willis is one thing, but AI-generate a beloved artist and people can really start to take things personally. You can just imagine what happened after renowned South Korean illustrator Kim Jung Gi passed away and a developer created an AI-generator for his work as an “homage”…
AI-generated art sparks furious backlash from Japan’s anime community
inside the inside outtakes
There’s a lot to say artistically, culturally and politically about Bo Burnham’s Inside, but even from just a production standpoint it’s one of the more impressive “one man shows” we’ve ever seen.
THE INSIDE OUTTAKES – Bo Burnham
