Episode Summary: Meredith and her husband delve into the evolving landscape of AI and its impact on society, particularly focusing on OpenAI and Google's initiatives.
OpenAI Updates:
Recent controversies surrounding Sam Altman's leadership and the dissolution of OpenAI's safety team.
Ethical concerns raised by using Scarlett Johansson's voice without consent for AI development.
Discussion on the integrity of philanthropic gestures amid media scrutiny.
Google's AI Initiatives:
Introduction of Gemini, Google's AI, aiming to enhance search result quality by combating affiliate-driven content dominance.
Exploration of AI-driven search result refinement to provide users with more accurate and trustworthy information.
Protecting Artist's Work:
Insights into tools like Glaze, which pixelate images to prevent AI misuse, and the option to request AI companies not to use specific materials.
Suggestions for photographers to revise contracts and safeguard their creative assets in the AI era.
Encouragement for Utilizing AI Productivity Tools:
Acknowledgment of the transformative potential of AI tools like ChatGPT, highlighting their underutilization and the opportunity for productivity enhancement.
Episode Summary: Meredith and her husband delve into the evolving landscape of AI and its impact on society, particularly focusing on OpenAI and Google's initiatives.
OpenAI Updates:
Recent controversies surrounding Sam Altman's leadership and the dissolution of OpenAI's safety team.
Ethical concerns raised by using Scarlett Johansson's voice without consent for AI development.
Discussion on the integrity of philanthropic gestures amid media scrutiny.
Google's AI Initiatives:
Introduction of Gemini, Google's AI, aiming to enhance search result quality by combating affiliate-driven content dominance.
Exploration of AI-driven search result refinement to provide users with more accurate and trustworthy information.
Protecting Artist's Work:
Insights into tools like Glaze, which pixelate images to prevent AI misuse, and the option to request AI companies not to use specific materials.
Suggestions for photographers to revise contracts and safeguard their creative assets in the AI era.
Encouragement for Utilizing AI Productivity Tools:
Acknowledgment of the transformative potential of AI tools like ChatGPT, highlighting their underutilization and the opportunity for productivity enhancement.
Oh, it's not. There are many other AI shows, but it is super relevant to SEL right now it is a monumental kind of shift. And we need to know about it.
Meredith's husband:
Yeah, I think so. I also need to update, of course, the last two episodes that we did, because so many things have changed since then.
Meredith:
Are you?
Meredith's husband:
serious. Yeah, of course you remember. So we talked about Sam Altman and OpenAI and how that safety team was being dissolved, yet they weren't saying anything because they had signed NDAs. Well, sam Altman came out like literally a couple of days after that story broke and says oh no, that's, we would never claw back money. He's also, from what insiders say, a master manipulator.
Meredith:
Yeah, it kind of sounds like it.
Meredith's husband:
Who needs to?
Meredith:
be in charge of everything.
Meredith's husband:
And also one of the things that former board members and former employees have said now is he lies. He just flat out lies. That was one of the reasons he was fired from being CEO, as the board said he just flat out lies, huh.
Meredith:
Who else I mean what?
Meredith's husband:
Anyway, also since our last episode about this there was the whole Scarlett. Johansson thing. Yes, they evidently approached Sam Altman and his team whoever approached Scarlett Johansson and said hey, can we use your voice as our new AI voice? And she was like no, yeah, and they went ahead and did it anyway.
Meredith:
Oh, the flames.
Meredith's husband:
However, they have then reversed that. They've been reversing a lot of things. They reversed that. They took that down. They're no longer, I guess, using her voice. They said it wasn't her voice, but it like massively was her voice.
Meredith:
Yeah, she said, even like her closest family thought it was her Her closest friends. Yeah, and family who know her voice.
Meredith's husband:
I never heard it myself.
Meredith:
You're really good at voices.
Meredith's husband:
That's one of the things I'm oddly good at.
Meredith:
Yeah, you can recognize.
Meredith's husband:
That's why I collect the big bucks.
Meredith:
You can. My husband has a very unique skill at being able to recognize voices.
Meredith's husband:
Yeah, it's kind of amazing yeah.
Meredith:
I don't know what it is. I from days gone by of being an actor. I can watch a scene in a show and know, oh, that was dubbed, that was dubbed, and you often don't hear that.
Meredith's husband:
Sometimes I often do, but sometimes I don't. But I know the voice.
Meredith:
But you can say oh, that wasn't that person.
Meredith's husband:
You also know faces.
Meredith:
Yeah, I guess.
Meredith's husband:
Being a photographer, I think, is the basis for your, the foundation for your skill there, not being an actor. Anyway, let's get back to what we're talking about. What people came here to hear and not waste their time Also, we talked about, or I talked about, what I called the safety team I didn't remember the name of it Safety team.
Meredith:
The team't remember the name of it Safety team.
Meredith's husband:
The team of people at OpenEye, by the way they were they were past tense called the super alignment team.
Meredith:
Oh boy.
Meredith's husband:
Yeah it's, it's a, that's an Elon Musk ish.
Meredith:
Oh, it's terrifying. Yeah, yeah, military.
Meredith's husband:
Yeah, anyway, that entire team is gone, does not exist anymore. They just dissolved it because I guess so many people left either left of their own free will or were pushed out that it just doesn't even exist anymore. So there is no team of people or no group responsible at OpenAI for the safety of all of our futures.
Meredith:
Wait, wait what. Whoa whoa, whoa whoa. So what does that mean?
Meredith's husband:
That means, from what I gather.
Meredith:
We're fucked. Now wait, is this in this country or the world? Because my guess is the EU are going to have far stricter regulations in place on this. That's my bet.
Meredith's husband:
They might, but on the inside this company, nobody's job description is they might, but on the inside this company, nobody there, nobody's job description is concerned with like rolling these things out responsibly, in a responsible manner, even though even though the the whole mission statement of their company is like to benefit humanity.
Meredith:
Yeah, isn't Facebook's as well?
Meredith's husband:
I don't know. That's how they keep it. That's how they keep a non. They actually do have a nonprofit status, openai. They have a nonprofit status although one of their subsidiaries is a for-profit company and I think some lawyers have brought cases against them saying, well, obviously, the for-profit portion of your company is telling the rest of the company what to do and you're just. You have a nonprofit, yes, but it is just-.
Meredith:
For show.
Meredith's husband:
Again, yes for show being a manipulator. I guess that's what. And also, of course, after all this stuff comes out, sam Altman and his husband come out and say oh, we're donating half of our wealth to charity. And they do that yes, oh well, no, if they were to do it like lots, lots, lots of you know, it's completely non-binding. It just so happens that he says this right as he's taking on a world of shit in the media about being a terrible person. Zuckerberg did the same thing.
Meredith:
Yes.
Meredith's husband:
Oh, we're giving away 99% of our wealth to a foundation that we created and control.
Meredith:
And benefit from who knows what it does.
Meredith's husband:
Yeah, who knows what it does. Anyway, somebody summarized this all in a tweet. I bet they did. I don't, it was brilliant, and I don't reference tweet. Actually they're not even called they aren't tweets anymore. Are they what?
Meredith:
are they called Exes?
Meredith's husband:
I don't know, but anyway, this tweet I'm going to try to do this from memory, I don't have it in front of me. Oh boy, the tweet was sci-fi writer. That was the first one. Like it is, a Sci-fi writer says, and the quote is I invented the torment nexus in my latest novel as a cautionary tale. Okay, that was his quote.
Meredith:
Right.
Meredith's husband:
The torment nexus in capital letters. So it's a thing. I invented the torment nexus in my latest novel as a cautionary tale, Next line Tech company. So the tech company says this yeah, At long last we have created the torment nexus from the classic sci-fi novel. Don't Create the Torment Nexus, which I just think is perfect. That's just exactly what tech companies do, but I figured we'd take this in a positive direction.
Meredith:
I was just going to say. The good news is….
Meredith's husband:
I know that's what you're going to say. So we're going to have to switch away from OpenAI and chat GPT, yes, and talk about the Google AI. Okay, so for a long, google's AI is called Gemini, by the way, gemini. So for a long time, one of the biggest problems that I have seen with Google and what you get as a user from search results is let's say, you do a search for air purifiers, you're researching air purifiers, you do a search best air purifiers, whatever In results, what you're probably going to see for a search like that is some ads, maybe some companies selling air purifiers, maybe some ads for websites that just tell you what the best air purifiers are, and then a whole bunch of websites, blogs, that just recommend different air purifiers.
Meredith:
Or videos right the top 10.
Meredith's husband:
Well, the videos might be there, yes, also. Okay, but in the non-video results it's going to be filled with those articles, right, the first page, second page, there's going to be dozens, if not hundreds, of those articles. Now, what those articles are are affiliate sites. So they get affiliate sales. Now, some of those blogs are really great. They really do an in-depth review of the different air purifiers and they really do explain which ones are the best. The problem is that a lot of them also just figure out which one can they get the biggest commission from and that's the one they recommend first. Yeah, of course they list the top 10. And I know this because you can go and check and figure out what kind of commissions are offered, how. You just go to the company that makes them and go to their affiliate program and see what commission they pay.
Meredith:
Regardless, how are you going to trust anybody?
Meredith's husband:
Yeah, exactly so that's, the fact that Google search results are dominated by these types of articles is a big problem, and it has been for a few years, and I didn't know how Google was going to get around this, because it's kind of the way the system has evolved. It's I had no idea how, what was going to happen, that was going to resolve this. It looks to be that AI is going to help resolve this, okay.
Meredith:
Now AI is going to be like this is the humidifier.
Meredith's husband:
What's going to happen is AI is going to come back and say here are the different humidifiers, and then you can ask follow-up questions of AI and you can sort of drill down and get the information that way, never having to go to these affiliate sites. So these affiliate sites are going to be hurt big time. They're going to be. It's going to be very difficult for them.
Meredith:
Will that then influence influencers?
Meredith's husband:
Probably not as much at least not yet because those guys are, those influencers, are using video more and they're probably also they're on Instagram and Facebook. They're on other platforms, so this is going to affect traffic to blogs and the CEO of Google has kind of apologized for this. Oh, that's nice. He knows, or he said he is empathetic to content creators who these current changes are going to affect, and he didn't name them as specifically as I am right now. I'm just kind of this is something that I haven't read exactly. Google has not said this, but as an observer and kind of somebody who knows a little bit Reading between the lines.
Meredith's husband:
Yeah, I think this is a great thing. I would love to see those sorts of results as would I, because I'd like to know the truth.
Meredith:
I'd like to know the truth I'd like to know.
Meredith's husband:
Yeah, and people are probably rightfully. You know those. Those are companies. Now, those are not just individual. There are big companies that do this. Those companies are going to be hit and you're going to see stories about them complaining that google is hoarding all the traffic for themselves, because you're going to be able to do more and more right on Google without going to blogs.
Meredith:
Oh, okay, right.
Meredith's husband:
But what I have said previously is if you are a photographer and somebody is looking, you know Google is not going to prevent that traffic from getting to your site and hiring a photographer. Google is not going to come out and be your photographer, like, that's not the type of thing that they're trying to do, right, yeah.
Meredith's husband:
So what I thought might be useful for photographers is, if you don't want to be the Scarlett Johansson of photography, let's say you don't want your images because you're as a photographer, you've got images on on your website, right, correct? So? So AI, chat, gpt and Gemini and all these things they can source your information and they use it for what they call training purposes. Now again, I think a lot of photographers don't like this.
Meredith:
I can understand why.
Meredith's husband:
Because you could say, let's say you could probably go to ChatGPT and say, create a family photograph in the style of Meredith Zinner photography, and it would do that. Now, if you go as Meredith Zinner and say, do not use my material for training purposes, my understanding anyway is it would prevent that. Okay. So there are a couple ways you can do this, and this is changing all the time. Okay, so, if you're listening to this tomorrow, it's probably new options.
Meredith:
Hopefully in our favor.
Meredith's husband:
So I would encourage you to take this as a starting place and do some research.
Meredith:
Yes.
Meredith's husband:
Because who knows, a month or six months from now, who knows what's going to be available Now? First, there is a company called Glaze.
Meredith:
Glaze, glaze Like donut, yes, g-l-a-z-e.
Meredith's husband:
And what they do is you can. I don't know, I've never gone through the process, but they were one of the first and they are the most well-known company to be doing this. It was started in Chicago, I think, by a couple yeah, by like a couple professors, oh and they offered this thing and they didn't know how much demand there was going to be. They released it and they had like 4 million downloads in 24 hours.
Meredith's husband:
It was crazy so it has gone and again, I don't know the exact process, but what they can do is they can take your images and before you post them online, they make what they call pixel level changes. So they change the pixels in such a way so that the image will be confusing to AI bots. It will look the same to users, but it will be too confusing to AI programs so that they can't?
Meredith:
Are AI just going to learn how to get around that instantly?
Meredith's husband:
Eventually, but yeah, but Glaze will keep updating, I would imagine. And that's why I say go out and research, because who knows what's going to happen in a week or a month or six months.
Meredith:
Right, I would just think somebody would create something. Whatever they do, then this does and that does.
Meredith's husband:
I believe there are other tools out there now that do this. Glaze, I think, was the first. Check them out first. I can't recommend them I've never used them Right but check it out. If it's something you're interested in, you might want to do this. Another option is you can go straight to the AI companies. You can go to OpenAI and request and I'll put this link below. You can request that they do not use your material. Now it seemed that Scarlett Johansson requested that they do not use her material and they did anyway.
Meredith:
So I don't know how good it is.
Meredith's husband:
But there is a link, you can go to Might as well. The downside is you need to do it for every single day every image. If you have 10 images on your site, you need to submit 10 of these forms. Now, the form is not that difficult, but you need to provide the link and a little description for each and every image.
Meredith:
Is there an AI action that you can use to do that for you?
Meredith's husband:
I doubt it, but if I were a photographer and I had some images that were really exemplary of my style, let's say some images that were really good they're really like what you would say oh, those are really Meredith's dinner photos I would probably go and enter those.
Meredith:
Especially if you're on the first if you're on.
Meredith's husband:
if yes, these are just the images on your website, especially if they're on your homepage. So you have, you have blogs that are that are just the images on your website, especially if they're on your homepage. So you have blogs that might have a whole bunch of images. By the way, it's probably also a good idea to help protect your clients, oh, boy, this is going to be a lawsuit.
Meredith:
City Time to revise your contracts.
Meredith's husband:
Actually, that's not a bad idea. You should probably say, yeah, I don't. It's like somewhere in your contract something to the effect of I don't have control over AI. Anyway, I would do that. There is something you can do as an individual artist to protect your work. I think it's the time is now.
Meredith:
The time is now if you want to look into that. What was that other piece of good news?
Meredith's husband:
No, that was the good news, I know. The other piece of good news. I read some stats about OpenAI, yeah, and it seems that so far they polled people in all. I don't know not every country, but some of the major countries, people in the US and the EU 40 something percent of adults had never even heard of chat GPT and only I think it was like five or six or seven percent use it on a regular basis. So it's still not a widely adopted thing yet.
Meredith's husband:
If you I, as I've said before, it's if you can learn how to use some of these things to your advantage. It's kind of a superpower in terms of like productivity.
Meredith:
Yeah.
Meredith's husband:
That's something else I would encourage you to do. Yeah, right now. Tomorrow it's going to be too late.
