The Download: how we’re using AI, and Trump’s campaign hack
When the generative AI boom started with ChatGPT in late 2022, we were sold a vision of superintelligent AI tools that know everything, can replace the boring bits of work, and supercharge productivity and economic gains.
Two years on, those productivity gains mostly haven’t materialized. Instead, we’ve seen something peculiar and slightly unexpected happen: People have started forming relationships with AI systems. We talk to them, say please and thank you, and have started to invite AIs into our lives as friends, lovers, mentors, therapists, and teachers. It’s a fascinating development, and shows how hard it is to predict how cutting-edge technology will be adopted. Read the full story.
—Melissa Heikkilä
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If you’re interested in how people are forming connections with AI, why not take a look at:
+ Deepfakes of your dead loved ones are a booming Chinese business. Read the full story.
+ Technology that lets us “speak” to our dead relatives has arrived. Are we ready? Digital clones of the people we love could forever change how we grieve. Read the full story.
+ My colleagues turned me into an AI-powered NPC. I hate him. Take a look behind the controls of a new way to create video-game characters that engage with players in unique, ever-changing ways.
+ An AI startup made a hyperrealistic deepfake of me that’s so good it’s scary. Synthesia’s new technology is impressive but raises big questions about a world where we increasingly can’t tell what’s real. Read the full story.
