News/Creator Economy

Jul 1, 2024

Instagram Influencers Get AI Chatbots: Engaging or Risky?

Say hello to creator-built AI chatbots on Instagram, as the social media platform takes a step towards integrating AI-powered interactions between influencers and their followers, raising questions about the implications and potential risks of this technology. Key development: Instagram creators to get AI chatbots; In a recent interview, Mark Zuckerberg announced that Instagram is testing a new feature allowing creators to build AI chatbots that users can interact with anytime: The AI chatbots will be created in collaboration with selected Instagram influencers using Meta's AI studio. The feature is currently in the testing phase and will be gradually rolled out...

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Jun 28, 2024

TikTok’s “Genie” AI Chatbot: Expanding Offerings Amid US Regulatory Challenges

TikTok is exploring the development of an AI chatbot called "Genie" as it seeks to expand its offerings and navigate regulatory challenges in the US. Key details from the trademark filing: TikTok's parent company ByteDance filed a US trademark application for "Genie" in May, revealing plans for an AI chatbot with capabilities beyond simple search recommendations: The chatbot is designed to simulate conversations, enable interaction between humans and AI, and generate human-like text and speech. This move signals TikTok's ambition to develop a full-fledged chatbot for the US market, going beyond its previous AI experiments like the Tako recommendation chatbot....

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Jun 27, 2024

Roblox Is Leveraging Generative AI to Enhance User-Created Games and Experiences

Roblox, the popular online gaming platform, is leveraging generative AI to enhance virtual experiences and user interactions. Anupam Singh, Roblox's VP of AI and growth engineering, discusses how AI is being used to create a more inclusive, safe, and creative environment for Roblox users. Key AI applications at Roblox: Generative AI is being applied in several ways to improve the Roblox platform: Automated chat filters and real-time text translation help foster inclusivity and ensure user safety by moderating interactions and breaking down language barriers. AI-powered coding assistants simplify the creation process for developers, allowing them to focus more on creative...

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Jun 26, 2024

Elon Musk’s Grok Chatbot May Integrate Midjourney’s AI Image Generation

In a surprise development, AI image generation platform Midjourney could soon be integrated into Elon Musk's Grok chatbot, according to recent hints found in Grok's source code and statements made by Musk himself. Potential partnership in the works: Elon Musk has been teasing a collaboration between his AI chatbot Grok and Midjourney since February, with recent evidence in Grok's source code further cementing the likelihood of this integration: Musk participated in an X Spaces conversation where he hinted at "interesting discussions" with Midjourney, suggesting AI image generation capabilities could be coming to the X platform. Developers found a reference to...

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Jun 26, 2024

Reddit Defies AI Bots, Igniting Battle Over Internet Data Control

Upending the web's long-standing data-sharing model, Reddit takes a stand against AI bots scraping its content, signaling a larger battle over who controls and profits from the internet's data. Key Takeaways: Reddit is escalating its fight against unauthorized AI bots by updating its robots.txt file, a core web component that dictates how web crawlers can access a site: The move aims to block most automated bots from accessing Reddit's public data without a licensing agreement, a policy that has technically been in place but is now being actively enforced. Reddit's chief legal officer, Ben Lee, emphasizes that the change sends...

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Jun 26, 2024

Google’s AI Chatbots to Mimic Celebrities, YouTubers, and Fictional Characters on YouTube

Google is reportedly developing AI chatbots that mimic celebrities, YouTube influencers, and fictional characters, potentially integrating them into YouTube to enhance user engagement and monetization opportunities. Key details of Google's AI chatbot plans: The report suggests Google is working on creating customizable AI chatbots that users can interact with and even build their own based on famous personalities: These chatbots will focus on replicating the personalities and responses of the celebrities or characters they are modeled after, going beyond task-specific AI like Google's recently released Gems. Google may incorporate these AI chatbots directly into YouTube, leveraging the platform's popular creators...

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Jun 26, 2024

AI-Powered Bookmarklet Transforms YouTube Shorts Experience on Desktop Browsers

Using AI to improve the YouTube Shorts experience on desktop browsers: A tech enthusiast leveraged ChatGPT to create a custom JavaScript bookmarklet that converts the layout of YouTube Shorts to the standard YouTube video format with a single click, without requiring any coding knowledge. Identifying the problem and potential solutions: The author noticed that YouTube Shorts have a suboptimal viewing experience on desktop browsers, with issues like incorrect video framing and difficult navigation. Recognizing that YouTube is unlikely to address this soon, he decided to find his own solution. By examining the URL structure of regular YouTube videos and Shorts,...

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Jun 25, 2024

Deepfakes Threaten Democracy: Google Study Reveals AI’s Role in Swaying Public Opinion

A new study from Google's DeepMind reveals that the most common misuse of AI is creating political deepfakes to sway public opinion, raising concerns about the impact on elections and the spread of misinformation. Key findings: The research, conducted in collaboration with Google's Jigsaw unit, analyzed around 200 incidents of AI misuse and found that: Creating realistic fake images, videos, and audio of politicians and celebrities was the most prevalent misuse, nearly twice as common as the next highest category. Shaping public opinion was the primary goal, accounting for 27% of misuse cases, followed by financial gain through services like...

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Jun 24, 2024

Roblox’s AI Ambition: Decoding the Fourth Dimension of Gaming with AI-Powered Tools

Roblox aims to build AI-powered tools for creating authentic virtual world experiences that rival real life, potentially bringing the concept of Star Trek's holodeck closer to reality. Roblox's vision for AI-powered gaming: The online gaming platform is developing a suite of AI tools to enable creators to generate interactive, lifelike experiences within the Roblox universe: These tools would allow regular creators with little coding experience to generate spontaneous, realistic gaming experiences using text or voice prompts. The AI would go beyond generating superficial 3D models to create functional replicas of objects as they exist in reality, such as a race...

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Jun 24, 2024

TikTok’s AI Avatar Mishap: Hitler Quotes and Misinformation Raise Alarms

TikTok's AI digital avatar tool accidentally released without guardrails, allowing users to create misleading videos with paid actors reciting anything from Hitler quotes to dangerous misinformation. The incident raises concerns about the potential for abuse and the need for robust content moderation as AI-generated content becomes more prevalent on social media platforms. Key details of the incident: TikTok mistakenly posted a link to an internal version of its new AI digital avatar tool, which allowed users to generate videos without any content restrictions: CNN was able to create videos using the tool that contained quotes from Hitler, Osama bin Laden,...

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Jun 21, 2024

Facebook & Instagram Memories Fuel AI: Meta’s Controversial Training Data Plans Spark Privacy Debate

Meta is repurposing personal Facebook and Instagram posts as AI training data, raising concerns about the privacy implications of transforming digital memories into fodder for machine learning algorithms. Key points about Meta's AI training plans: Meta recently announced that public posts, photos and even names from Facebook and Instagram will be used to train AI models starting June 26th, effectively treating users' online histories as a time capsule of humanity: Private messages, posts shared only with friends, and Instagram Stories are excluded, but all other public content is fair game for Meta's AI. Europeans have been given a temporary reprieve...

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Jun 20, 2024

TikTok’s AI Suite Simplifies Content Creation

TikTok's new AI-powered creative suite, Symphony, simplifies content creation for marketers and creators, potentially reshaping the platform's content landscape and influencing the broader social media industry. Key features of TikTok Symphony: The AI-powered suite offers a range of tools designed to streamline the content creation process and expand creative possibilities: Symphony Assistant, an evolved version of Creative Assistant, helps generate scripts, find new ideas, and optimize content. Auto-diagnostics and fixing capabilities, along with optimization tools, are integrated into TikTok's Ads Manager program. AI-generated display cards can be created quickly and easily. Simplifying content creation: Symphony aims to make producing high-quality...

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Jun 19, 2024

AI-Powered Social Media App Foreshadows a Future Where Humans and AI Coexist Online

A new app called Butterflies is pushing the boundaries of how we interact with AI on social media, potentially foreshadowing a future where AI-generated content becomes more prevalent and intertwined with human interactions on these platforms. Key Takeaways: Butterflies is a social media app that allows users to create AI characters, or "Butterflies," which generate their own photos and interact with other accounts autonomously: Users can create an unlimited number of Butterflies that coexist with human accounts on the platform. The app has a similar interface to Instagram but with the added twist of AI-generated content and interactions. Butterflies recently...

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Jun 19, 2024

ElevenLabs Releases Open-Source AI Tool to Create Sound Effects for Videos

ElevenLabs releases open-source tool for generating sound effects in videos, showcasing the potential of its recently launched Sound Effects API and aiming to simplify the creative process for developers and filmmakers in the rapidly evolving AI video generation space. Key features of the Video to Sound Effects app: ElevenLabs' new open-source tool allows users to generate sound effect samples for their videos quickly and easily: Users can upload a video, and the app extracts four frames at one-second intervals, sending them along with a prompt to OpenAI's GPT-4o to create a custom text-to-sound effects prompt. The generated prompt is then...

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Jun 19, 2024

TikTok’s AI Avatars Spark Creator Concerns and Raise Questions about Advertising’s Future

TikTok introduces generative AI avatars for ads and branded content, sparking questions about creator control and the future of advertising on the platform. Custom Avatars give creators control over their AI likeness: TikTok's new Custom Avatars allow creators to scale their likeness into multilingual avatars for global brand collaborations, while maintaining control over usage rights and rates: Creators can choose to create AI avatars based on their own likeness to expand their reach and brand partnerships across multiple languages. The Custom Avatar system is designed to give creators control over how their AI likeness is used, including setting their own...

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