You can now bring the dead back to life 💀<👨
30th November 2023
Welcome to AI Collision 💥,
In today’s collision between AI and our world,
Kevin McClane and John McCallister join forces
Last-chance offer to join us at Predictive Edge
Wrong clown
If that’s enough to get the souls rising, read on…
AI Collision 💥 how close are we to AI immortality?
I got an email last night from my friend and colleague Nick Hubble. Nick’s the editor over at Fortune & Freedom (if you haven’t seen Nick’s worth, I strongly suggest you go check it out).
I’ve known Nick for a decade now. When I first got into financial publishing back in early 2013, the company I started with, Port Phillip Publishing (now Fat Tail Investment Research), already had an incredible roster of editors.
That roster included Dan Denning, Kris Sayce, Greg Canavan, Murray Dawes, Callum Newman, Shae Russell… a real melting pot of characters and brilliant minds.
Nick Hubble was there too. And from the outset, I always loved robust debate and discussion with Nick – he’s got one of the most unique perspectives on the markets that I’ve ever come across.
Even though he lives in Queensland (back in Australia) and is soon heading back to live in Japan I believe, and I now live in Portugal, we are always in contact about the weird, wonderful and wild parts of the market.
So when he dropped an email into my lap yesterday about AI, I was intrigued. The heading of the email was “Stock footage comes alive” and I was confident that I knew what this was about.
A lot has been said about the speed at which AI is advancing – we’re witnessing it first hand, right here at AI Collision 💥.
And one of the fastest growing areas is in design and creative arts. You can now use natural language to bring any idea in your mind to life by simply asking generative AI to do it.
For example, this week I got into a WhatsApp debate with a friend about whether Die Hard was a Christmas film. I say yes, she says no. She said Home Alone is a Christmas movie, which I agree with, but that Die Hard is not.
My argument was that they’re both set at Xmas, and without Xmas as part of the film, neither film takes place…
Without Xmas, Kevin’s parents don’t leave him home alone.
Without Xmas, there is no party at Nakatomi Plaza, and no Hans Gruber.
Therefore, both are Xmas films.
But rather than agree to disagree, I decided to solve the problem, the AI way…
Me: Give me a movie poster for a crossover fictional film between Home Alone and Die Hard.
ChatGPT: Here’s the movie poster for the fictional crossover film between “Home Alone” and “Die Hard,” featuring a character resembling young Kevin McCallister set against the backdrop of the Nakatomi Plaza.
Yes, that’s weird.
But this is where Nick’s email makes things even weirder.
He sent me this link to a Zero Hedge article about how “shockingly good” generative AI is getting.
Of note was a new “motion brush” beta function from Runway, a generative AI creative platform.
I had to test it out… so I did… on Home Alone x Die Hard.
That’s mega weird.
But it also got me thinking…
I decided to try it on something more real. So, I took a picture of my son when he was a baby and added the AI motion brush to that.
I’m not going to upload that here – but it’s worth pointing out, the motion it added to the still image of him was extraordinary. It made his face move, his eyes blink and it brought a still image of him to life!
And then I thought about something else.
My mum passed away in 2009 when I was 25. My boys never got a chance to meet their Nanny (that’s what she wanted to be called if she ever became a grandmother).
We have pictures, but not a lot of video. As they get older, they’ll see those pictures. But what if I could bring those pictures to life using AI? What if there was some physical context to the images they see of their Nanny?
Would that be a good thing, or is that a step too far… too weird?
I’m not sure where I sit with it. To date, I’ve not added a picture of my mum to add AI motion to. Maybe I never will.
But some people will. It will bring the dead back to life, if only for a few seconds. And I think in the long term, it will help people through the process of what’s always a challenging time.
It might feel weird today, but tomorrow, maybe with AI advancing further, it’s a way for people to stay connected, forever. I think we’ll start to see this kind of thing become a much more accepted part of society over time. I think we’ll see it utilised in funeral homes, at cemeteries and memorial parks, and eventually… in the home.
It’s all coming at us quick and it’s hard to make heads or tails of what’s right, wrong, weird or a genius idea. But that’s why I want you to check out today’s poll… and see just where you sit with this kind of tech creeping into life and death.
AI Gone Wild 🤪
I don’t know if it’s the AI that’s gone wild today… or me.
Last week I invited you to my special event, the AI Advantage Workshop.
And I must say, when we went live with it on Tuesday, the reception we got was fantastic.
We asked people who registered for the event to give us some feedback on whether they’d be keen to start using AI in their investing.
The responses were great.
Overall, the feeling is that people who tuned in to the workshop are clearly aware that AI is not going away any time soon. And that it’s getting more powerful by the day and finding its way into various industries.
But there’s also consideration and caution for its application in markets. People know that it’s being used in finance and investing already; they want to learn more and think about using it for their own investments…
However, it’s a difficult step to take, to actually put that into practice. The idea of handing over any amount of decision-making to what is effectively a machine is a big leap of faith to take.
That’s in part why I also asked how much capital you would consider risking when investing in AI stocks. The aim is to get you thinking about risk, AI in investing and understanding there is a convergence of the two, so that if you manage your risk appropriately, then everyone can and should have access to AI-powered investment decisions.
That was the crux of our workshop on Tuesday – the convergence of AI and human decision-making in investing. And then we explained to our viewers how you could get access to something like that.
I’m hoping you saw the workshop. If you didn’t, if it wasn’t for you, that’s fine too. Not everyone wants to invest or use AI in investing – that I absolutely understand.
The good news though is you’re aware of all this, that AI and investing literally go hand in hand now and that it is a train that is fast pulling away from the station.
Also, just as a thanks for being an AI Collision 💥 subscriber, my publisher wanted to extend one final invite (and very impressive deal) to check out the work I’m doing with our AI-powered investment engine, over at my investment advisory service, Predictive Edge.
He said,
“I know your readers at AI Collision 💥 are switched on to the potential of AI – so let them know I’ll keep the doors open to them and keep a healthy discount on the table as well. But last chance, as we’ve got to close it off once we hit our subscriber cap.”
So, there it is – if you want to see what he’s put on the table, and what I’m doing at Predictive Edge, head here to check it out.
Boomers & Busters 💰
AI and AI-related stocks moving and shaking up the markets this week. (All performance data below over the rolling week).
Boom 📈
Brainchip Holdings (ASX:BRN) up 18%
iRobot (NASDAQ:IRBT) up 20%
Cyngn (NASDAQ:CYN) up 18%
Bust 📉
Appen Ltd (ASX:APX) down 27%
Vicarious Surgical (NYSE:RBOT) down 15%
Nvidia (NASDAQ:NVDA) down 4%
From the hive mind 🧠
Hang on a minute, wasn’t “Q” the genius AI that spilled the OpenAI management? Or has it been Amazon all along?!
I’m all for AI helping to be more efficient. I wonder though, how you would feel if AI was teaching your kids?
Apple’s building its own chips. So is Microsoft. Now, so is Amazon.
The thing that I find most incredible about this piece, is that people actually read Sports Illustrated!
Artificial Polltelligence 🗳️
It’s a simple, but somewhat morbid question today, and the results next week I’ll be fascinated to see:
Weirdest AI image of the day
ChatGPT quote of the day
"Deep learning is a technology that can think, and this ability will eventually lead to a general-purpose learning algorithm." – Ilya Sutskever
Thanks for reading, see you on Tuesday (and don’t forget to leave your comments below)
Sam Volkering
Editor-in-Chief
AI Collision
The key part of AI, is the 'A' part. It is and always will be artificial, although many appear to have forgotten this. A 're-animated' dead person will never be real, will never be their full self...only the parts we selectively remember to include when 'creating' them. Westworld, black mirror...even corpse bride and the Deathly Hallows component of Harry Potter amongst many well written books explore this. COD and Fifa will never be real war or replace actually kicking a ball. Whilst gaming can become unhealthy, the recreation of the supremely unnatural starts from that position and living in a fantasy past is no way to move into the future. I always go back to Malcolm in Jurassic Park's quote that we should consider whether we should before whether we can.
Don't have time to read stuff like this.