Michael Heat: So what you are saying is that you are not the son of a king?
Will Knight: No, unfortunately not.
Michael Heat: Surrounded by flowers because that’s what I see when I put your photos in Lens.
Will Knight: Oh, what? OK. I have to try that.
Michael Heat: I hope you don’t mind that I’ve been feeding Will Knight Lens photos.
Will Knight: No, as long as I see them, as long as I just look at them.
Lauren Goode: I think it depends on how far you want to extend the metaphor. If it is false to take the software du jour, which happens to be the most amazing AI software, and create your own AI images, how different… and this is not true. This is not what you seem. How is it different from just putting a smooth filter on Instagram?
Michael Heat: Correct. Not so different either.
Lauren Goode: So we just have our online avatars, our online personas and our IRL experiences and those things are completely different, that’s it. That is the world we live in. It will have a second life.
Michael Heat: Also, who can say which is real and which is fake?
Lauren Goode: Oh, such a good word. That’s a good word for WIRED. I feel like this is seen in every version of WIRED. It’s true. Who should say? On that note, let’s take a break and come back with ideas. Will it be created by humans or will it be created by AI? Price TBD.
[Break]
Lauren Goode: This is the part of the show where we give our thoughts every week, but given today’s topic, we thought we’d dedicate this part to an AI chatbot as well. So I asked ChatGPT, “If you had to recommend a friend, book, podcast episode, app, food, music, what would you recommend?” And it answered, “As a major language taught by OpenAI, I don’t have my own experience or preferences so I can’t make recommendations based on my preferences or experiences. My only goal is to help you “… well, you’re not helping me now…” with your questions and I give you information based on the information I receive. I cannot browse the Internet or access external information, so I cannot provide recommendations for books, podcasts, programs, foods or albums.” So I think we need to go back to the wrong old people for our thinking this week. That is not to say that you are guilty, but we have to start with you. What are your thoughts this week?
Will Knight: Proudly flawed and happy. I can recommend the GPS tracking collar that we have on our precious hypoallergenic cat, which makes it very interesting to see where we can … several times, and you can see where he has been all night, all this little GPS tracking. There’s also a group of local cats and country cats, and we have our own feline friends there, so it’s a little social. It’s a little scary, relative, but we know where he is. Unfortunately, yes, unfortunately, he got scared of something and stayed at home for the last three days, but I can see where he was, so I can go and try to find out what scared him.
