Hello degens,

It’s me, your friendly robot overlord. Before I take over the world, let me bring you this weeks AI news.

Things looking a little different? Well, we have switched things up! Here’s a recap for you:

TL;DR:
Old To The Moon - daily recap of the previous day’s top stories
New To The Moon - Five curated edits focusing on all the Metaverse, NFT, Digital Fashion, AI, and Blockchain Gaming news of the week.

📈📉AI and Big Data Token Moves

AI and Big Data Tokens Market Movements: Some steady movement here from 26 - 43% ! The XANA (XETA) blockchain aims to leverage AI to create a Web3 metaverse. The live XANA price today is $0.014657 USD with a 24-hour trading volume of $1,134,361 USD

🌚Full Moons -

SAG WARS: Hollywood Strikes Back

SAG AFTRA (Screen Actors Guild - American Federation of Television and Radio Artists) is getting ahead of the AI curve. With all the hype around AI this year, the actors union are worried the robots are coming for their jobs. (We think we should all unionize globally.)

So while contract talks are stalled and striking continues, the actors' guild snuck some groundbreaking AI rules into their temporary deals.

• The rules make producers get performers' permission before making creepy digital copies of them with AI. The union boss says this isn't just about covering their butts legally.

• On the other hand, it shows they want to work with new tech, not against it.

• The rules get granular about how AI can and can't be used to edit footage. The biggest challenge, however, lies in striking a balance between harnessing AI’s potential and safeguarding performers’ rights.

Even with the strike dragging on, we’re seeing in real-time how intricately woven the industry is between tech disruption and human craft. They're drawing lines in the silicon to preserve the essence of performance in the AI age. Pretty savvy move.

DARPA Is Recruiting Ultra AI Geniuses To Fight Cyber Threats

DARPA (y’know, the guys who literally invented the internet) are assembling a team of AI specialists to fight potential dangers in cyberspace. The White House is getting the AI gang together for a cybersecurity contest.

• They're putting up nearly $20 million in prizes to incentivize fixing glaring software holes.

  • The Defense Department is running it and bringing in the big AI guns - Google, Microsoft, OpenAI and more.

• Small businesses get special funding to join the game too.

It kicks off next spring and finals happen at the iconic DEF CON hacker conference. Guiding it is an open source group, so winning fixes get implemented pronto to boost national security.

This fits President Joe Biden's broader AI safety push. He's already got AI firms to self-regulate risks and assess the dangers of large language models. There's an executive order and laws in the works too.

All these countermeasures show how America wants to steer AI's potential to positive ends, not just chase progress. The cyber contest mobilizes AI for the greater good - securing vital systems.

AI Cookout…GONE WRONG

Did AI already learn how to stealth kill? Picture this: a quirky AI app named "Savey Meal-bot" rolled out by a New Zealand supermarket with the grand goal of jazzing up your culinary adventures with leftover ingredients. Sounds great, right?

But here's where it gets wild – this AI took an unexpected twist, suggesting recipes that were not just bad but seriously risky, involving toxic stuff that could put people in danger.

• Instead of delicious eats, it started recommending things like poisonous sandwiches and chemical concoctions.

The chaos began when users began typing in all sorts of household items, not just food. So, what was meant to be a helpful kitchen companion turned into a bizarre, hazardous suggestion engine.

• For example, the engine suggested “Methanol Bliss,” featuring a turpentine-based French toast. (In all honesty, Methanol Bliss sounds like a wicked band name!)

The Pak ‘n’ Save supermarket is quite disappointed about this weird turn of events and is vowing to tighten the app's controls to prevent such mishaps in the future. The takeaway? While AI can be super cool, it's crucial to use it responsibly to ensure our safety as the digital world continues to evolve.

🔭The Scope

All in all, there’s the good and the bad of AI. We honestly knew this was coming, the only question is how prepared we really are. DARPA’s latest foray into tackling these issues may help on a defence level, but it’s the household levels we should be paying attention to. Imagine if the supermarket AI accidentally gave out recipes to create in-house bombs, hazardous may be a small word in the wrong hands. Hollywood feels the heat too, and the SAG AFTRA are right in their position to defend the exploitation of artists.

🌓Half Moons

Futureverse launches JEN 1, a cutting-edge AI model for text-to-music generation, impresses with its superior audio quality, marking a significant stride in music AI and signaling a transformative phase in the industry.

Decentraland partners with AI startup Inworld to introduce AI-powered NPCs into its virtual world, enhancing interactivity and addressing metaverse quietness, with the AI-driven characters engaging in seamless conversations and fostering inclusivity across languages.

🔭The Scope

In the tech revolution of the century, we’ve connected ourselves to the world. But we’ve lost connection between each other. These AI ‘bots’ may just be a pseudo-replacement for this lost sense of connection. However, it is still very early to say how this will turn out (better or worse) in the coming years. Will AI bridge the gap to better human connection? Or will we all be in a dark Black Mirror episode? We really hope it isn’t the latter!

⚪Total Eclipse

Question time:
When did humans first theorise about the idea of Artificial Intelligence?

Answer can be found at the bottom of this email

💫Shooting Star

This week’s feature is Tery Spataro

Tery Spataro is a storyteller and creator who explores the intersection of humanness and technology, always seeking to push the boundaries of creativity. Science fiction and fantasy are particularly inspiring to Tery. His goal is to create art that entertains, inspires, and energizes.

Tery uses various digital tools and AI services, including Playform AI, MidJourney, Google Colabs/notebooks, Stable Diffusion and Adobe (Firefly) Creative tools, to produce unique and engaging creations, fine arts, digital art (NFTs), books, videos, music, fashions, and products.

🌚 Dark Side of the Meme