Quiet weekend in TechLand the last one, but I can't help mentioning Osmo. That is, Osmo the smell-digitising artificial intelligence. "In this era, computers will generate smells like we generate images and sounds today," is the promise.
I admit to being old enough to having seen Polyester in my dissipated youth, but never did I think we might be realising the Odorama vision of that movie.
To be honest, Odoroma was a disgusting experience but now we have a team led by Alex Wiltschko from Google Research at the Osmo startup creating smells with neural networks. How that'll pan out I can't tell, but Osmo has some serious backers like the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation, Henry Kravis, Hugo Barra of Android smartphone fame, Jeff Dean and of course, Google Ventures and Lux.
The above is possibly a segue into biocomputing, "the next evolutionary leap for AI". The problem with AI is that the current iteration of the technology uses absolutely silly amounts of energy. Well, one of the problems, but either way, Swiss company FinalSpark wants to fix that with the "it's alive!" approach. Literally.
FinalSpark compared the human brain with 86 billion neurons (apparently) using only 20 Watts of power. Silicon-based AI doesn't come anywhere near that bang for the buck ratio.
So, it seems FinalSpark is putting together a scheme whereby researchers can rent access to biocomputers made out of human brain cells. And it's pretty affordable too, like US$500 a month.
"See our neurons working in real time" with the 0.5 millimetre organoids in question being alive for around 100 days, hooked up with electrodes. Possibly a good thing, that shortish life span, and it doesn't bear thinking about how the cells are harvested. Yes, that's a joke. I hope.
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To date, I've been very underwhelmed by AI. It seems to have circumvented all data and privacy standards by continuously spamming my social media pages with obviously fake advertisements - for example, a poor-quality AI generated video of Israel Adesanya telling me to buy bitcoin. Is this what we have to look forward to regarding AI? At best it is an annoyance, and at worst it is copyright fraud on a massive scale.
I've used ChatGPT on the odd occasion, which is sort of helpful, but something I could have easily lived without.
For example, a poor-quality AI generated video of Israel Adesanya telling me to buy bitcoin.
Israel won the Crypto.com Fan Bonus of $30,000, awarded to him in Bitcoin following his victory over Jared Cannonier at UFC 276 in July 2022. Its value in fiat has doubled in value since then. Remember, in July 2022, Bitcoin was in a bear market experiencing a significant decline in value, which began in late 2021 and intensified throughout 2022.
Israel has embraced the cryptocurrency space, especially through his partnership with Stake.com, a leading crypto betting platform, where he serves as a global brand ambassador. This collaboration aligns with his interests in cryptocurrency and sports betting, showcasing his enthusiasm for both the sport and the evolving financial landscape in which he is involved.
I think other crypto / scam sites have possibly jumped in on Israel's connection with Crypto. It was clearly a fake video with his mouth movements not in sync with what was being said, but I don't recall what website or link they were directing me to. A very bad attempt to use AI to scam people and being pushed out on social media and to date these types of scams seem to be the only thing AI is bringing to my daily life.
Its value in fiat has doubled in value since then.
Is that this week's riddle?
So he's simply embracing online gambling and speculation using substitute tokens. From gambling in casinos, to the stock market, to property, to crypto and NFT's. Evolution in its lowest form maybe. Not the greatest ideals to be a fan-boi of.
There is a lot of AI created fake advertising promoting all sorts of financial/crypto digital clickbait. Plenty of AI generated rubbish for the sake of content creation too. It's obvious when facial features and movements are out of alignment.
Yes. Apologise for that diversion. I like what Rentokil does with scenting for hotels to create relaxation and to differentiate the experience. The use case of designing molecules that smell bad to mosquitoes (e.g. insect repellents) seems very interesting. Gates is a big proponent of the World Mosquito Program that combats mosquito-borne diseases such as dengue, Zika, yellow fever, and chikungunya.
Quiet weekend in techland
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