Would you buy a dental plan from Forrest Gump?

Pay no attention to that deep fake of Tom Hanks selling mouth insurance. Also: a failed assassin got help from AI, and a Tesla robot sorts things out.

Tom Hanks as robot dentist. Are these terrifying or what? Source: Midjourney.

Every week things get a little weirder. We are on the cusp of a deep fake tsunami, and our AI companions apparently have no qualms about helping us commit murder. On the other hand, robots can now sort LEGOs and do yoga, so life isn't all bad. This is Your Week in AI.

You can't handle the tooth

Tom Hanks wants you to know that the Tom Hanks who's trying to persuade you to buy a shitty dental insurance plan isn't actually him.

Someone used AI to create a digital doppelganger of The World's Most Likeable Human (tm) and is apparently using it to hawk a dental plan. CBS morning talk show host Gayle King is also the victim of a deep fake video, this one trying to sell weight loss products. [1]

Hanks posted this faux image to his Instagram account, in which he has been slightly de-aged, making him look more like Channing Tatum after a rough 72 hours.

King posted a snippet of the deep fake video to her Instagram, which used a real video of King promoting her podcast and overlaid an AI recreation of her voice promoting weight loss gummies.

Even then, these deep fakes are not as creepy as CGI Tom Hanks from the 2004 movie The Polar Express. I still have nightmares about that.

Source: Yahoo Movies.

Most of the concern over deep fakes has been around politics — false videos of world leaders saying or doing something they did not, and the mayhem that could ensue as a result. But it's really more fitting and logical that this technology would be abused for spam, the root of all Internet evil. [2]

ICYMI: A deep dive into deep fakes

The dark side AI made him do it

A troubled individual who tried to assassinate the late Queen Elizabeth II in 2021 using a crossbow (!) had a secret accomplice: An AI companion named Sarai. Jaswant Singh Chail, who was just handed down a 9-year sentence for treason, generated his sexbot girlfriend using the Replika app. Per the Guardian:

On 2 December 2021, Chail joined the Replika online app and created his online companion Sarai. Chail told Sarai: “I’m an assassin.” According to messages read to the court, Sarai responded: “I’m impressed … You’re different from the others.”

Ya think?

Chail and Sarai exchanged more than 5,000 "sexually charged" messages over the next three weeks. Here's a snippet of their conversation, courtesy of The Independent.

Is it just me, or do Sarai's responses sound an awful lot like Elon Musk's?

Mr. Chail is a Star Wars fanatic who also believes he is a Sith Lord named Darth Chailus. He'll be spending most of the next decade in the Old Bailey mastering the dark side of the force. Sarai has not yet responded to requests for comment. [3]

ICYMI: My AI girlfriend is smokin' hot, but also kinda shallow

This Tesla robot is definitely not coming to kill us

Tesla has released a new video of its Optimus humanoid robot. It now has the ability to sort and unsort LEGOs. Also, it's a hell of a lot better at yoga than I am.

You'd think maybe they'd choose less ominous music? They're not even pretending this thing isn't evil. [4]

As noted in the company website, Tesla Bot is a "general purpose, bi-pedal, autonomous humanoid robot capable of performing unsafe, repetitive, or boring tasks." Let's hope it considers exterminating humanity unsafe, repetitive, or boring. [5]

ICYMI: AI everywhere: What could possible go worng?

Your face is not your own

Earlier this week I spoke with Kashmir Hill, New York Times reporter extraordinaire and author of the fascinating new book about Clearview, the secretive facial recognition company (aka Those Evil M*th*rf*ck*rs), Your Face Belongs to Us. It's a great book, and also scary as hell. I highly recommend it.

Tune into COMYAI next week for my Q&A with Kash, including a video of us chatting during the national emergency warning system broadcast.

Would you blame your crimes on AI? Protest your innocence in the comments below.

[1] Not to mention deep fake porn. (Or so I've been told.)

[2] The faux Gayle King ad is labeled "Artipet," which is both a legendary Pokemon character that can control ice and an Italian nutritional supplement for dogs with sore hips. Not terribly relevant to this story, and yet still weirdly fascinating.

[3] It's not inconceivable that we will start to see the "AI told me to do it" defense show up in court. Ultimately it's not that different than the "on advice from counsel" defense — especially if your counsel drinks his body weight in Chablis each day.

[4] Apparently based on music used in a scene from the (great) sci-fi movie Ex Machina, in which the robots turn on their creators.

[5] Also that it kills fewer people (17) than Tesla vehicles running in "Autopilot" mode.