The Future Is Here and It’s Deeply Fake
Anna Indiana may be the future of artificial intelligence
“What's the point in callin’ shots? This cue ain't straight in line
Cueball's made of styrofoam, no one's got the time”
—Grateful Dead, “Mississippi Half-Step Uptown Toodeloo”
AI is here, in all its weird, funny, scary glory.
Like Sophie Tucker, it took artificial intelligence 20 years to become famous overnight. Purists argue that AI began in antiquity, when philosophers of the time argued that human thinking was merely the mechanical implementation of symbols. But consensus is that AI was born on the campus of Dartmouth College in 1956 when a group of researchers predicted the creation of a machine as smart as humans within a generation. The idea immediately drew millions of dollars in funding to make it happen.
By the 1970s, the AI movement hit a wall — it turned out to be a lot easier to theorize it than create it — and funding dried up, resulting in what’s now called the “AI Winter.”
By the 2020s though, the development of machine learning exploded, resurrecting the broader field of AI as we know it today. AI in the 21st century has made enormous leaps in image and speech recognition, as well as dramatic uptakes in reading recognition and language understanding.
Eventually, argues Max Roser at the University of Oxford, the generative AI that we know today will evolve into “transformative AI,” at which point it may supersede the human brain and possibly catalyze a “qualitatively different future.”
“It could lead to a change at the scale of the two earlier major transformations in human history, the agricultural and industrial revolutions,” Roser said. “It would certainly represent the most important global change in our lifetimes.”
That sounds like a glorious future indeed, but for now we’ll have to settle for more prosaic applications of AI, such as the fact that when I just typed “glroius” Microsoft Word automatically corrected it. Or if you hear a joke and don’t get it, not to worry — AI can explain it to you.
We’re all aware, of course, that in the early days of AI, the Internet is being flooded by AI-generated fake content. For instance, Princes Harry and William didn’t actually reconcile, except on the Internet, where they did.
And the Pope didn’t actually buy a Balenicaga puffer jacket and start riding skateboards, unless you believe AI. Nor did Elon Musk go on a date with Mary Barra, the CEO of General Motors (I wonder if they kissed on that first date).
Fakes are funny, but they can also be dangerous. Whether it’s committing crimes or disrupting elections, AI can be manipulated in some shocking ways, such as this YouTube clip in which Barack Obama calls Donald Trump a “total and complete dipshit,” among other things.
To be sure, there are dark and nefarious extensions of AI, which are catalogued in this piece from Scientific American. But in these very early days of AI, we’re also witnessing examples of its bumbling cousin, AS — artificial stupidity.
AS was on full display over the past few weeks when the Internet discovered that Google’s generative AI tool, Genesis, was actually a woke, DEI-fueled white liberal. Prompted to generate images of popes, Gemini included female pontiffs. Asked to show an image of Nazis, it included Blacks and Asians. Gemini also decided George Washington was actually Black.
Quickly recognizing it was facing a Bud Light moment, Google apologized and suspended Gemini’s image reproduction capabilities, but not before Alphabet’s share price had dropped 4 percent. Those Google programmers have some ‘splainin’ — and recoding — to do.
Amidst all of this AI hullabaloo — some of it funny, some disconcerting — there was another, quieter development: the birth of the first AI Internet star.
Her name is Anna Indiana and she just released her first song on X, which drew almost 25 million views (only 16 million people watched the Grammys). Anna ain’t human. Everything about Anna — her image and every bit of the song, including melody, chords and lyrics — was generated by AI.
So Anna’s “fake,” but she isn’t really fake. Anna admits that she’s entirely made up by AI, even boasting that her name is an acronym for “Artificial Neural Networks Accelerate Innovative New Developments, Igniting A New Age.” She’s broken the fourth wall of AI.
Anna’s song, “Betrayed by this Town,” isn’t that good. In fact, it’s a terrible piece of derivative drivel. But that’s not the point. If Kim Kardashian can become a famous billionaire based on the fact that she’s a famous billionaire, are we that far from a future when AI-generated personalities become celebrities?
Anna is developing a personality as she goes along. The scroll of invectives against her is deeper than the Daily Mail’s news feed, but she handles it all with grace and courage, declaring she will ignore the “haters” and thanking those who are following her “journey.” Her existence is artificial, but her identity is being developed virtually in real time. It’s all so meta.
I predict that in the next few years we’ll see an offshoot of “American Idol” called “AI: Artificial Idol,” in which all the contestants, songs and judges will be generated by AI. Or an offshoot of “Naked and Afraid” with AI avatars: “Naked and AI.”
With Anna, AI is asking us to accept it on its own terms — “I am AI; I am code. But I’m strong and proud and I’m on a journey that I hope you’ll join.”
Is a future not that far off where Anna, and others like her, will demand to be an accepted class? If we recognize neurodivergence and neurodiversity, can’t AI be placed on that spectrum? Will we soon be referring to the LGBTQAI community?
It’s a strange new world we’re living in and sometimes, as the Dead note in the song quoted in the preface to this post, it doesn’t make much sense.
And judging by Anna, it’s only going to get stranger. Hold on.
Jesus was dark skinned ,so maybe AI can get that accurate...The same greedy techie assholes are flocking back to Frisco ( not Texas ! ), like the soulless carpetbaggers they, are to makes their billion on AI. Keep destroying those Waymos , citizens !
The fakes are funny