How AI reduces the world to stereotypes
Rest of World analyzed 3,000 AI images to see how image generators visualize different countries and cultures.
▻https://restofworld.org/2023/ai-image-stereotypes
How AI reduces the world to stereotypes
Rest of World analyzed 3,000 AI images to see how image generators visualize different countries and cultures.
▻https://restofworld.org/2023/ai-image-stereotypes
Impressionnant.
Je suis une IA.
Voici un Français.
Je suis une IA voici la France :▻https://media.ouest-france.fr/v1/pictures/MjAyNDAyMjM5NTkwNzQyNWQ2ODQxYTRlN2VlZWQ5ZGFhYjJmZTE?width=1260&fo
(nan, j’déconne)
AI Modi singing is taking over India’s internet - Rest of World
▻https://restofworld.org/2023/ai-voice-modi-singing-politics
By Nilesh Christopher
30 October 2023 • Bengaluru, India
The Indian internet is rife with AI-created songs of Prime Minister Narendra Modi crooning in languages like Hindi, Tamil, and Telugu.
AI-powered voice cloning tools are also being used ahead of the upcoming elections, with personalized messages in the voices of politicians sent to voters and party workers.
The internet has been amused at an Instagram Reel where Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi can be heard “singing” a hit Bollywood song. Accompanying the singing is a picture of Modi sitting cross-legged, strumming a guitar. The video, made by creator @ai_whizwires using artificial intelligence, has over 3.4 million views. “Before uploading [it], I was a little scared. But after it went live, everybody was enjoying it,” @ai_whizwires, who didn’t want to be identified by his real name over fear of political backlash, told Rest of World.
The rise of free AI voice-cloning tools has allowed Indian meme pages like his to mix politics with entertainment and trolling, drawing more eyeballs and engagement. Over the last few weeks, Modi’s digitally rendered voice has been used for videos not just in Hindi, but also in south Indian languages like Tamil, Telugu, and Kannada, captivating audiences in regions where Hindi is not commonly spoken.
But the videos, though lighthearted, serve a larger political purpose in India, a country with 22 official languages. Modi’s Hindi speeches can often be inaccessible to large swathes of the population that does not understand the language, but voice cloning could help make campaigns accessible, political strategist Sagar Vishnoi told Rest of World. AI voice cloning could break down this language barrier in India, especially the north-south linguistic divide, he said. “AI can be game-changing for [the] 2024 elections.”
40 global technology companies beating their Western rivals - Rest of World
▻https://restofworld.org/2023/rest-vs-west
What is the world’s biggest digital bank? No, not HSBC — it’s Brazil’s Nubank, which reported close to $5 billion in revenue last year.
What is the most widely used social media platform in Vietnam? Not Facebook or TikTok — it’s Zalo, with an impressive 87% adoption rate.
And what was one of the earliest online food delivery platforms? That would be Talabat, launched by a group of Kuwaiti students in Cairo, in 2004. That’s three years before the iPhone came to market.
If these names surprise you, they shouldn’t. Startup ecosystems outside the West have been churning out billion-dollar tech companies and radically innovative products for years. But their achievements are rarely celebrated or known here in the U.S. Today, not only are entrepreneurs in Buenos Aires, Lagos, and Jakarta building businesses that create huge economic opportunity and value, they’re also competing directly with Silicon Valley for users and growth in these markets. And they’re winning.
Our 2023 annual list is devoted to 40 trailblazing companies that, in their own ways, beat the West. Some of them won by market combat: Years of bruising competition led to lucrative acquisitions by their Western rivals, or acquisitions of the Westerner’s local assets. A few just dominate their sector outright.
Others beat the West by paying attention. They saw what foreign entrants missed, and tailored their products and platforms to local user needs with surgical precision. Or they proved a certain model could work in developing economies written off by outsiders.
By seeing and seizing opportunity — and not waiting for Silicon Valley to meet local needs — these 40 companies lead the pack. They’ve already inspired a generation of new startups, founders, engineers, and problem-solvers across emerging markets, whose inventions will come to define the future of everyone’s technology experience. TikTok may have been the first international tech platform to spark a major crisis around American competitiveness, but it won’t be the last.
— Anup Kaphle (Editor-in-Chief)
#Grandes_entreprises #Not_gafam #Economie_numérique #Globalisation
AI comes for YouTube’s thumbnail industry - Rest of World
▻https://restofworld.org/2023/youtube-thumbnail-ai
Designers and artists who spoke with Rest of World said they’re treating the rise of text-to-image generation AI tools such as Midjourney and AlphaCTR with a mix of anxiety and curiosity. Rest of World spoke to four YouTube thumbnail artists in India, Qatar, and France who said they have either already incorporated, or will soon incorporate, AI tools such as Midjourney or Photoshop’s Generative Fill into their workflows.
“I’ve heard from so many junior artists who are absolutely petrified because they’ve gone to university; they’ve put years of work and resources and experience into this skill that, quite frankly, may not ever get used,” U.K.-based senior digital designer Edd Coates told Rest of World. “From a technical standpoint, what we’re talking about is a piece of software that you have fed other people’s work into, and then that software is generating work that will replace the people who you’ve taken the work from.” Coates said it’s his responsibility as a senior digital designer in the gaming industry to push back against the use of such tools.
Until 2020, full-time thumbnail artists were far and few. The pandemic sparked a boom in the creator economy, which led to the emergence of numerous graphic design professionals catering to YouTubers full time, said Muazz Shaail, a Qatar-based thumbnail designer. The rise of the YouTube economy, which also included strategists, video editors, and scriptwriters, even led to the creation of YT Jobs, a job board to find talented YouTube professionals in 2021.
Of the over 2,000 job postings on YT Jobs this past May, thumbnail designer was the second most in-demand role, accounting for 19.3% of the listings. Creators who once made their own thumbnails, or paid graphic designers a meager $20 for thumbnails five years ago, are now paying hundreds of dollars for a single image, Paddy Galloway, creator of YT Jobs noted in his analysis.
#YouTube #Thumnail #Intelligence_artificielle #Métiers_numériques
Déjà le fait que ce soit un métier de produire spécifiquement des vignettes putaclic pour Youtube (plutôt que prendre une capture quelque part dans la vidéo)… C’est vraiment des bullshits jobs déjà de base quand même.
Perso j’utilise l’extension « Clickbait remover for Youtube » :
▻https://chrome.google.com/webstore/detail/clickbait-remover-for-you/omoinegiohhgbikclijaniebjpkeopip
Ça remplace justement ces vignettes putaclic par une image prise au hasard dans la vidéo. Je trouve que ça change considérablement l’expérience.
How Chinese citizens use puns on Weibo to talk about #MeToo and zero-Covid without being censored | Meaghan Tobin and Katherine Lee
▻https://restofworld.org/2022/china-social-media-censorship
Chinese social media companies and users are locked in a never-ending battle between free speech and censorship. Source: Rest of World
Inside Israel’s lucrative — and secretive — cybersurveillance industry
▻https://restofworld.org/2021/inside-israels-lucrative-and-secretive-cybersurveillance-talent-pipelin
The country’s hacking software is recognized the world over. Not everyone thinks it’s a good thing. At age 18, K., like almost all Israelis, began his mandatory army service. “This was my way to give back to society and defend my country,” he says. “I was one of them. I was one of the radical ones.” From violent policing in the occupied West Bank to obscure, mundane office work, assignments in the Israeli Defense Forces vary wildly. K. remembers thinking, “Whatever job I’m given, I’ll do it.” (...)
From Russia with free shipping – Rest of World
▻https://restofworld.org/2021/from-russia-with-free-shipping
Bakalchuk stands out from the country’s other billionaires, the majority of whom made their fortunes, directly or indirectly, from the extraction of mineral resources.
#russie #ecommerce
(je crois que j’ai lu 12 000 articles sur Jeff Bezos et c’est le premier que je lis sur Tatyana Bakalchuk)
Opening dossiers — and old wounds - Rest of World
▻https://restofworld.org/2020/kgb-has-logged-off
n a bright, clear day in mid-June, Andry Kohut, director of the State Archive of the Ukrainian Security Service, stood in front of the sarcophagus of Chernobyl’s reactor Unit 4 wearing sneakers and an N95 face mask. Just over his head, a new mural by the Ukrainian artist Valeriy Korshunov, titled “Look into the Future,” came into view, depicting an outstretched hand holding an atom-like orb over a field of wild horses. Unveiled in 2019 to cheer up workers at the Chernobyl plant, the mural is meant to symbolize hope and renewal. So, too, was Kohut’s visit, in a way: before him, a stack of bright-yellow books, titled The KGB Chernobyl Dossier: From Construction to Accident were placed upon a folding table, and a small crowd of journalists gathered round.
Je ne sais pas quel hashtag mettre !
Platform & dysfunction
▻https://restofworld.org/2020/brazil-favela-chat-groups
Finding that elusive bus to work, reporting on a blocked sewer, or dodging gang activity : Brazil’s poorest find novel uses for familiar tech platforms. With a smartphone in hand, Felipe Fagundes darted down a narrow graffiti-splattered pathway to a bus stop in a run-down suburb of Rio de Janeiro. The 28-year-old writer had checked the bus timetable on Google Maps and left plenty of time, a habit forged by experience in a metropolis where millions of citizens spend several hours every (...)
Anatomy of an internet shutdown
▻https://restofworld.org/2020/sudan-revolution-internet-shutdown
How citizens, telecom employees, and activists in Sudan turned a battle for digital rights into a referendum on the government Abdelazim Hassan is not tall. His voice does not boom. He is balding, wears glasses, and his suit, the dark brown of a standard boardroom table, hangs from his body as if it has given up. He’s mostly a corporate lawyer, though from time to time, his business crusades become a kind of moral battle, like the one he waged to get back his internet. Hassan lives in (...)