Rohit Bhargava's Blog, page 39

Is Poisoning AI The Best Way for Artists to Fight Back?

In less than a week since the AI poisoning tool known as Nightshade was made available online for free, more than 250,000 people have downloaded and started to use it. Artists and creators can use the tool to tag their images at the pixel level which is undetectable to the human eye, but wreaks havoc on AI learning models. It is part of an effort known as the Glaze Project, designed to “increase the cost of training on unlicensed data and making licensing images from creators a more attractive o...

The Gen Z Gender Divide

For all the research and articles you might have read about the habits and beliefs from one generation to the next, one assumption has remained surprisingly unquestioned: both men and women from any particular generation share a similar mindset. What separates Boomers from Millennials may be extreme but that shift applies relatively equally to anyone regardless of gender.

This week an op-ed piece in the FT suggested that Gen Z (a term generally referred to those currently under the age of 26) may...

We Need Another Word for Different Types of Plagiarism

Given the recent increased usage of AI tools and the story of the ouster of Harvard President Claudine Gay for plagiarism, it seems we hear about it everywhere. In an op-ed piece all about the word, John McWhorter suggests that perhaps we need a second word to describe instances where ideas aren’t truly stolen:

“The term ‘plagiarism’ is overstretched. Cutting and pasting is not the same as stealing ideas. ‘Plagiarism,’ as a term, should be restricted to the latter. That means we need a new term f...

How the “TikTok Voice” Could Help You Be a Better Communicator

Uptalk. It’s the vocal quirk that makes every sentence sound like a question and it’s something you are regularly taught to avoid. It’s also a key element in the “TikTok voice,” a vocal style adopted mainly by female influencers that some linguists believe might signal the future of English.

Uptalk has been criticized because it seems to indicate a lack confidence. Making statements is more definitive than asking questions, right? What I had never considered is that this sort of uptalk might be a...

How To Put Numbers in Context During an Election Year

I have bad news for all of us. The non-stop media coverage of politics has already started and it’s an election year here in the US. Now that the voting for Presidential primaries has started, you’ll likely start seeing a lot of reports about momentum, winners, losers and general predictions about the sentiment of the nation based on biased polling.

To help us all get ready, I thought it might be useful to share a few facts about demographics in America that put commonly shared numbers into conte...

Why Music Journalism Is Collapsing and How to Find New Music

“Before streaming, everybody in the value chain needed new music. The record stores would go broke if people just listened to the old songs over and over. And the same was true for record distributors, record labels, radio stations, nightclub owners, and music writers. Everybody needed hot new songs and rising new musicians. Of course, fans also benefited. The music industry worked tirelessly to find exciting new music, and share it with the world. That business model is now disappearing.”

This e...

Help Us Pick the Cover for Non-Obvious Thinking … Our Upcoming Book on Seeing What Others Miss!

I’ve been hard at work collaborating on a new book over the past few months and I can’t wait to share it with all of you. Those of you already on our launch team have seen a preview of these covers already (and thank you for all the feedback!). For the rest of you – I would love to hear what you think and you can also join our Launch Team for a sneak peek at manuscript too when we’re ready to share it!

JOIN LAUNCH TEAM & VOTE ON THE COVERS >>

Genomic Nutrition Is Coming and It’s Going to Be Popular

The promise is simple and appealing. Get your genetics tested so that you can optimize the food you eat based on your unique needs. Personalized nutrition is already a billion-dollar industry without much actual personalized science behind it. Imagine what will happen when the genomics start catching up. An early initiative hoping to pave a path toward exactly this is a new partnership between natural and organic grocery store Earth Fare and GenoPalate, a leading genomic nutrition platform.

Toget...

Meet the Bizarre Top Ten Finalists in the 2024 Guthman Musical Instrument Competition

In early March on the campus of Georgia Tech 10 finalists will meet for a face-to-face competition to take home a $10,000 prize and bragging rights in the Guthman Musical Instrument Competition. The contest is attracts innovators who are inventing the “world’s next generation of musical instruments.”

This year’s finalists come from five countries and include The Babel Table (multiple arrangements of latex membranes and compressed air to produce a variety of “voices” from deep percussive effects t...

AI Models Are Finally Getting Adopted in Fantasy Sports

The past few months have seen an explosion in people experimenting with Chat GPT to write everything from college essays to resignation letters. The tool has become indispensable for some, helping with search queries, research and answering just about any question. Yet for the many use cases out there, one that seems to be getting surprising little attention is the potential for AI to help you win some money. In particular if you play fantasy sports, and specifically in daily contests where yo...