Deepfakes are after you!

Or at least your wallet. From false advertisements to deepfakes of celebrities selling scam products, AI is quickly becoming a controversial and dangerous tool. If this keeps up and regulations come into play, it might eventually become way harder to use AI in marketing effectively. 

On Today’s Horizon:  

• AI-generated images scam Willy Wonka fans with false advertising. 

• Concerns over deepfakes grows for future elections. 

• How different generations view and use AI. 

• The latest stock news for AI companies. 

Let’s dig in shall we?

MARKETING

AI-Generated “Willy Wonka Experience” Scams Everyone

AI images in marketing are coming under fire for false advertising.

A Willy Wonka themed event in Scotland promised to use AI generated images to create a fantastical world like Willy Wonka’s Chocolate Factory. Instead it turned into a nightmare.

What was advertised:

What actually happened: 

The details:

• AI generated images were used as marketing material. You can see them clearly on the event website.  

• The event was a barely decorated warehouse with a few seats and a half inflated bouncy castle. 

• An AI generated script left actors blabbering out gibberish. 

• Advertisements were written with typos, likely generated by AI. 

• The event generated scrutiny about AI generated images used in marketing, particularly concerning scams. 

• This adds to an already mounting concern over AI-generated deepfakes and scams.

• The entire event was NOT affiliated with Warner Bros., Willy Wonka, or the estate of the author Roald Dahl. 

• The event was shut down and the police were called to the scene after families demanded refunds. 

• The event didn’t even include chocolate 🙁

A real quote from the AI-generated script: “There is a man we don't know his name. We know him as the Unknown. This Unknown is an evil chocolate maker who lives in the walls.”

Takeaway: AI is becoming increasingly popular with scams, like the Taylor Swift deepfakes and an actual, real life bank losing $25 million to a deepfake scam. 

1. Be careful how you use AI generated materials. Just because AI generated materials look good doesn’t mean you can use them how you please. False advertising is still a thing. 

2. AI doesn’t let you be lazy, even with writing. It’s not enough to type a few prompts and expect something worth selling. 

3. The latest wave of AI scams might bring changes to advertising laws. Stay aware and up to date with changes if you plan to use AI materials in your marketing. 

4. AI related scams are everywhere. If a bank can fall for it, you can too. Again, be aware. 

HEADLINES

AI’s SILVER BULLETS

Tyler Perry halts a $800 million studio expansion “indefinitely” after seeing OpenAI’s Sora’s capability. Not only was he impressed, he also expressed concern about AI’s ability to displace numerous film industry workers and called for regulations to protect these jobs. Honestly, it’s inevitable. Just as graphic artists have fallen victim to Dalle-3 and Midjourney, movie studio employees will also be “replaced” by more efficient AI. 

Cyber threats just leveled up. Researchers have created the first generation of self-replicating AI worms. These AI worms can spread autonomously between systems by manipulating other AI models through "adversarial self-replicating prompts." This essentially tricks the AI into generating responses that include further instructions for spreading, similar to how a computer virus infects a system. It highlights real vulnerabilities in AI systems. Good thing we don’t have anything important running off of these systems, right? Look for future articles tackling security measures for AI systems. 

CHART

• Only 34% of consumers realize they are directly experiencing AI. 

• While 84% actually use AI-powered devices or services.

Source: Pegasystems

This finding suggests that AI is often seamlessly integrated into everyday technologies, making it less noticeable to users. It also suggests nobody knows anything about AI, even when they’re using it. 

Keep this story in mind as you read the rest of today’s newsletter. 

Do you know?

NEWS

UK Home Secretary is Concerned About AI Deepfakes Influencing Elections

Nobody knows what’s real anymore… 

What happened? In another mounting story about AI being used to deceive people, UK Home Secretary James Cleverly warns that the upcoming general election could be influenced by deepfakes. 

• James Cleverly, the Home Secretary of the UK, believes that deepfakes could be used by adversaries to influence the upcoming general election. 

• Cleverly believes foreign governments may use deepfakes to spread misinformation. 

• Cleverly is calling for tech companies to do more to prevent the spread of deepfakes. Basically asking big tech companies to regulate themselves. 

• Some tech companies, including Google, Meta, and Microsoft, have formed a coalition to develop tools to identify deepfakes.

• The coalition, called the Coalition for Content Provenance and Authenticity (C2PA), is also working on ways to educate the public about deepfakes.

Why should I care? Let’s say you go to court and need to submit video evidence to prove your case. How do you prove the video is real and not AI-generated? 

• I could make a deepfake pretending to be Tom Cruise and sell you a scam product. 

• Presidential candidates could use deepfake technology to slander their opposition. 

• Movie studios can use AI generated videos of actors instead of hiring the real thing. 

• Someone who doesn’t like you deepfakes you into some porn, ruining your reputation and image. 

• You might never know what’s real or fake. 

• Court cases have to decide if video evidence is real or AI generated. 

Takeaway: The Home Secretary warns of “Britain’s enemies” using deepfakes to influence elections. While this may be true… the bigger concern is about deepfakes from everyone. 

Remember these? 

They were made in Midjourney almost a year ago. AI Images have come a long way since and you can do so much more with AI now…

INFORMATION

Older generations view AI with pessimism and fear

Your grandpa doesn’t get it

There’s a growing gap between how older and younger generations view AI. 

Multiple studies and sources agree… Older generations are more pessimistic about AI while younger generations have more hope. 

Over the last year AI has boomed into popularity, and with it a series of studies (here’s one) looking for the effects AI has on society. 

Some interesting facts (from multiple sources): 

• Younger generations trust AI more while older generations remain skeptical and alarmed. 

• Both generations expect AI to replace them in some capacity, but younger generations also expect to work alongside AI more. 

• Younger generations are using AI 3x as much as older generations.

• Older generations don’t believe AI is as big of a deal. They are “nonbelievers” and hold more caution towards AI. 

• Younger generations believe AI developments are as important as the creation of the internet. 

• ~75% of people who use generative AI use it for work and 70% of Gen Z uses new generative AI technologies. 

• 51% of the population claims to have never used AI. 

• Younger generations are more hopeful about AI. Older generations are more fearful. 

• The Terminator movies are predictive programming warning us about our future overlords. (Okay this one doesn’t count.) 

The stats don’t lie, AI is a threat and benefit to everyone, but tech-savvy younger generations are more trusting and willing to use AI despite still believing it might replace them one day. 

Takeaway: Whether you hate AI or not, the best way to keep up is to use AI to better your life and productivity. 

It’s also important to be aware. Most scams target older people. Guess what else is on the rise? AI based scams. Not knowing about AI doesn’t keep you safe, it just makes you a naive target. 

If you’re subscribed to this newsletter then you probably fall into the camp who already sees AI as the future. Don’t let your preconceived notions keep you from keeping up. 

LEARN

BRONZE-KEY CONCEPT

Deepfakes

What are deepfakes? 

Deepfakes are doctored videos or images that use artificial intelligence to make them look unbelievably real. They are usually real videos which are then altered by AI to become something fake. 

They started off as funny spoofs. Sylvester Stallone’s face in Home Alone or Keanu Reaves as Forrest Gump. Now they’ve spiraled into Taylor Swift fans getting scammed and banks sending millions to the wrong guy. 

However, AI video generation is officially a thing. We don’t need to cover over a real video, we can generate anything from scratch. So deepfakes now extend to include videos made entirely by AI which depict something untrue happening. 

What do we have to fight against deepfakes?

Nothing substantial has come from government regulation… yet. Instead we have a coalition of major tech companies called the Coalition for Content Provenance and Authenticity (C2PA). 

I hope you can see the problem with letting big for-profit organizations regulate themselves for the betterment of mankind. It’s not like we can’t trust them… right? 

INVESTING

THE STOCKS

Today’s Tech Company Stock List

Courtesy of Investors.com 

A Handful of AI Companies Looking for Funding

• Antithesis

• Bioptimus 

• Cimba.ai 

• Segwise 

• FlowGPT 

Tip: Companies that rely on external API access have no control and are generally bad investments. 

Tidbit: OpenAI raised over $10 billion in funding last year. 

HEADLINES

Loose Change

For the poor headlines that didn’t make it…

The UK and France have established a collaboration for AI research, focusing on safety and responsible development.

Mark Zuckerberg toured Asia to talk about AI, likely in a bid to compete with companies like Samsung and even met with the South Korean President Yoon Suk Yeol. 

Artificial intelligence can predict life events with surprising accuracy using registry data on people's residence, education, income, health and working conditions. One step closer to thought crimes. 

Demand for AI in surveillance is expected to grow rapidly by 2031. 

TOOLS

AI Tools

Transistor: an AI-powered podcast transcription tool. 

Kapwing: An AI voice replication tool that seems to be gathering a lot of popularity lately. It’s at least worth checking out. 

Anyword: This AI tool assists marketers with copywriting, generating personalized and effective advertising content. 

MEMES

Artificially-Generated Memes

Yes… memes generated by AI. But are they funny? 

Sources: shotkit and Alex Brogan

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