Will AI influence the outcome of 2024 elections? ft. GPT Store

✨Welcome to untechnical✨
This is tech content made for the untechnical.

For those who are new here, this weekly newsletter is an easy and approachable way for you to incrementally build your knowledge and skills in all things new tech, AI and automation, while also staying up-to-date with a curated summary of the week’s AI/tech news.

It’s a long one this week - there’s been a lot to keep up with - so let’s get into it!

Tech Tip of the Week 🍎 

Deepfakes

This week, I got sucked down the rabbit hole of deepfakes after picking up the story about deepfakes emerging in social platform ads involving a BBC presenter and the UK’s Prime Minister. More on that shortly.

While these weekly emails will be biased towards how AI and tech can be used for good, as emerging AI enthusiasts, it’s also critical that we educate ourselves about cyber safety.

This includes understanding how AI can be used to create misinformation and disinformation enabled by deepfakes.

But first, what is a deepfake?

• Deepfakes are a type of artificial intelligence used to create convincing image, audio and video hoaxes.

• Often, deepfakes transform existing content where one person is swapped for another.

• They also create entirely original content where someone is represented doing or saying something they didn't do or say.

• Deepfakes aren’t just about impersonation (of celebrities, politicians or everyday people), they can be entirely fictitious personas.

To learn more, here’s a video covering the key points on deepfakes (especially scams) in ~5.5 minutes:

Spotting deepfakes: What to look out for in video content?

• Unusual or awkward facial positioning.

• Unnatural facial or body movement.

• Unnatural coloring, especially of the person’s face.

• Unnatural pauses in speech.

• Inconsistent audio.

• Videos that look odd when zoomed in or magnified.

• People that don't blink.

While we may still be able to discern real from fake with sufficient awareness, it’s nevertheless important to stay vigilant. 👀 

Weekly News Digest 🗞

There’s no shortage of news about tech, AI and automation but it’s hard to know what you should tune into. Here, I summarise noteworthy news from the week and why you should care.

1: Deepfakes creeping into 2024 political ad campaigns

What happened? 

• In the past month, over 100 deepfake paid ads impersonating the UK’s Prime Minister, Rishi Sunak, were promoted on Facebook.

• With 2024 being a general election year for the UK, this is the first time Sunak’s image has been doctored systematically en masse.

Tell me more: 

• Research conducted by communications company Fenimore Harper found 143 different ads impersonating the UK’s Prime Minister.

• The ads include one with faked footage of a prominent BBC newsreader, Sarah Campbell, appearing to read out breaking news that falsely claims a scandal has erupted around Sunak secretly earning “colossal sums from a project that was initially intended for ordinary citizens”. (Watch the fake ads - would you know they were fake if they appeared on your social news feed?)

• The ads originated from 23 countries including the US, Turkey, Malaysia and the Philippines, cost about £12,929 ($16,500 USD) to promote and reached as many as 400,000 people. 

Why is this important/interesting? 

• 64 countries (plus the European Union) are likely to hold a national election in 2024. That’s about 49% of the world’s population 😨. These ads of Sunak are likely to be the first of many AI-enhanced misinformation campaigns of 2024.

• While online legislation, such as the UK’s Online Safety Act, puts the onus on social media companies to immediately remove illegal and disinformation - including AI-generated content - as soon as they become aware of it, this will not prevent fake and manipulated content from emerging this year. 

• With the quality and sophistication of AI-generated content accelerating, it’s never been more important to get news and information from trusted sources.

2. Microsoft outperforms Apple to reclaim the title of world’s most valuable company 

What happened? 

• Microsoft has outperformed Apple to become the world’s most valuable company for the first time in two years.

Tell me more:

• As of last Friday (12 Jan), Microsoft’s market capitalization stood at $2.887tn, its highest ever compared with Apple’s $2.875tn. 

• This is the first time since 2021 when concerns about supply-chain shortages impacted Apple’s stock price, that Microsoft has outperformed its big-tech competitor.

Why is this important/interesting? 

• Microsoft’s investments in OpenAI and generative AI seem to be paying off at the moment. As covered in previous untechnical editions, Microsoft has incorporated OpenAI’s technology into its core Microsoft 365 product suite via the newly launched AI product, Copilot (try Copilot here for free). 

• Apple has been grappling with slowing demand for the iPhone, its biggest money maker - especially in China.

3. AI-powered products dominate the 2024 CES event

What happened? 

• The world’s largest consumer technology event, CES, was held in Las Vegas last week and provided a window into what’s next for consumer products. Spoiler: there’s a lot of AI-enabled products coming our way!

Tell me more:

• Rabbit introduced the Rabbit r1 AI hand-held device, which uses AI agents to complete digital tasks like ordering an Uber, planning a holiday or ordering a pizza. 

• Invoxia launched an AI-powered pet wearable called the Minitallz, which monitors vitals and alerts pet owners of potential health issues.

• Flappie showcased an AI-powered catflap that can remotely control the catflap and detect if your feline is attempting to bring prey into the house.

• Louise shared its AI-powered fertility tracking and advice tools, including the new consumer app, Olly, which offers a comprehensive fertility journey experience for both men and women.

• Swarovski Optic launched the first smart binoculars, called AX Visio, which can identify over 9000 species of birds and take HD images and videos. 

• VW demonstrated its in-vehicle ChatGPT integration with voice assistant, so drivers can interact with the chatbot by summarising articles and answering questions.

• LG introduced its new AI Agent home robot complete with wheels that can patrol the home, greet people at the door and act as a roaming smart home hub. (Surely they were inspired by the Jetsons!) 

Why is this important/interesting? 

• While these products won’t end up on store shelves overnight, what’s showcased at CES highlights where we’re heading and how new AI capabilities will likely make their way into our homes, cars, wearable devices and everyday lives.

Tech Tool Spotlight 💡

Here, I deep-dive into a selected tech tool to show you what’s possible and ways you can apply the tool.

GPT Store

The OpenAI GPT Store launched this week. Some are saying this launch is as big of a deal as when Apple launched the App Store back in 2008.

People around the world have already created 3 million GPTs in the past 3 months, so it’s worth knowing what the GPT Store is and how it can be useful.

As we’ve talked about previously, anyone can create a GPT, which is essentially a custom version of ChatGPT trained to more effectively complete specific actions or answer specific questions compared to if you were using the normal ChatGPT tool.

How do you access the GPT Store?

Anyone with a ChatGPT Plus or Team account can access the GPT Store.

When would you use the GPT Store?

This is a great question and something I initially struggled to get my head around. The GPT Store essentially brings together all the publicly available custom AI chatbots (agents) that have been built by either OpenAI, companies or individuals around the world.

At this early stage, I would use the GPT Store in these instances:

1. If you’re brand new to generative AI and ChatGPT and want to play around with the technology to see what’s possible.

2. If there’s a specific task you want to complete. For example, if I knew I wanted to analyse and/or visualise some data, I would try out the Data Analyst GPT or if I wanted to learn more about my astrological birth chart, I’d check out the Astrology Birth Chart GPT.

The range of GPTs is quite amazing, so I’d encourage you to have a browse!

Playground 🪁

Experimenting with new tech, AI and automation is one of the best ways to learn. But it can be hard to know where to start or what to play around with. Here, I provide an example of what I’ve been playing around with recently to give you some inspiration.

Consensus GPT: an academic research tool

If you’ve ever been to university/college, then you will likely have felt the pain of conducting academic research.

It took me 4 undergraduate and postgraduate programs to know for sure that I was never cut out to be an academic.

The main culprit? I detested online academic research and navigating the many online databases, portals and systems available.

But perhaps my answer would’ve been different if an AI solution was there to lend a helping hand.

This week, following the GPT theme, I deep-dived into a GPT called Consensus, which brings together 200 million academic papers that you can search in one place. Just like ChatGPT, all I had to do was start chatting with (prompting) the chatbot!

If you’re curious to see the output of my interaction with Consensus GPT (and don’t have a ChatGPT Plus or Team account), check out this link below.

Feedback 🎯

This newsletter is a two-way street. Learning more about what you’d like to see more/less of and what content is going to support you best is incredibly important.

💬 Do you have any feedback that may help improve future editions of untechnical? Any questions? Or content requests?

Get in touch by replying to this email.

That’s all for this week! Until next Tuesday…

✨ Thanks for tuning in! ✨