Tech

Sex Ed

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I’m reminded of the age old question: who is going to teach our kids when there are no more young people willing to martyr themselves for the sake of the profession?

The answer is: The Sex Robots.

A WESTERN NEW YORK school district has halted its plans to place a humanoid robot in a classroom after a New York Focus report on the plan sparked fierce debate over the use of artificial intelligence in schools and backlash from local parents. Salamanca City Central School District announced in a Facebook post Friday afternoon that its pilot project with tech company Realbotix has been put on hold as school officials “work through enhanced student data privacy agreements” with the state education agency and engage with community members… In April 2024 (Realbotix), it acquired Simulcra, the Las Vegas parent company behind RealDoll, which creates hyperrealistic sex dolls.

— New York Focus

This story lept out at me before the uproar even had time to begin. One of those comically incompetent decisions that only gets made by the most highly-educated individuals.

Upon seeing the aesthetic of the device, I became more concerned for the robot’s safety than that of the high school students.

Machine Yearning

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Stories like these are becoming more frequent, and beginning to poke holes in the infallibility of AI.

Forrester’s survey of leaders found 55 percent of employers regret making tech-driven staff cuts — leading its analysts to predict that half of AI-attributed layoffs will be “quietly reversed.”
 — Inc.

While AI may be inevitable in displacing large swaths of the labor market, whether it can reach that scale before this current AI market-bubble pops is another question entirely.

“Mistakenly, we thought that by just introducing artificial intelligence and ingesting the design requirements that we had, that would produce a high-quality product,” said Charles Poon, Ford’s VP of vehicle hardware engineering.
 — Quartz 

The good news is this means more human jobs, the bad news is they probably won’t go to Americans anyways.

As the World Churns

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Netflix has expanded its acquisition of AI software tools.

Netflix has officially closed a monumental deal to acquire InterPositive, the stealth artificial intelligence filmmaking startup founded by Hollywood veteran Ben Affleck. The streaming giant paid $587 million USD for the acquisition….. The system is trained strictly on a project’s own dailies to maintain strict visual logic, helping crews fix continuity errors, handle complex wire removal, reframe existing shots, and adjust background elements or lighting during post-production. —HypeBeast

As a writer, AI is a double-edged sword. Its ability as an editor, proofreader, and text analyzer can expedite and cost-control the post-draft process significantly. The concern I think most writers feel is the possibility that an LLM becomes sentient and can adopt genuine human characteristics that give writing its true individuality and style, the thing that separates prose from prattle. At this point, I have not seen a model capable of replicating that necessary touch of humanity.

Ben Affleck was a guest on the Joe Rogan Experience this year and spoke about the significance of AI as a tool of creators, as opposed to being the creator itself. His startup was aligned with that vision. While I think his InterPositive technology can be useful, I have little faith in it doing much more than expediting and cost-reducing more “content” for Netflix to churn out. The true ceiling it could have provided the film industry will most likely be inhibited by its new owners. 

The positive takeaway is that we will eventually reach a point with AI where anyone with the talent to make a high-quality feature length film will have the means to do so themselves, and with that comes the final gasp of the Hollywood gatekeepers’ relevance.