Weekly Web Harvest for 2023-08-27

  • ‘Life or Death:’ AI-Generated Mushroom Foraging Books Are All Over Amazon
    Amazon has an AI-generated books problem that’s been documented by journalists for months. Many of these books are obviously gibberish designed to make money. But experts say that AI-generated foraging books, specifically, could actually kill people if they eat the wrong mushroom because a guidebook written by an AI prompt said it was safe.

  • Generative AI has Arrived. What Does this Mean for Teaching and Learning at UVA?
    “Starting this fall, student learning will take place in a world where AI is undetectable, ubiquitous, and transformative.”
  • Johnny Cash Covers Aqua Girl’s ‘Barbie Girl’ Using AI
    “My process for these is a little different than most people,” Ballard said.”I first record the vocals myself so that I can do my best imitation of the cadence of the original singer. Then I use one of their own songs (like ‘Folsom Prison Blues’ rather than the original ‘Barbie Girl’ music) to add to the illusion that this is a ‘real’ song in the artist’s catalog, though clearly all done in jest. Finally, I use an AI voice model trained on snippets of the original artist’s singing to transform my voice into theirs. I have a guy in Argentina I often call upon for this training (although the Johnny Cash one already existed).”

  • Cornell DAS Lab NYC Tree Dashboard
    Tree Folio is a suite of tools to better understand and quantify the local impact of urban trees. Tree Folio extracts 3d models of every tree in NYC from publicly available, high-resolution LiDAR scans, simulates their local shading environments, and quantifies the amount and quality of shade they provide. The goal of the project is to develop strategies that are responsive to local needs and add up to have the maximum effect in mitigating climate effects for the future ‘climate changed’ city.

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