March 5, 2021

How to Destroy an Industry

Follow Oakland’s example.

OAKLAND, Calif. (KRON) – Oakland has banned the use of leaf blowers, trimmers and other lawn equipment that rely on combustion engines, citing health and climate change concerns.

The city says that the “significant health hazards” to users and residents from the discharge of particle matter and carbon monoxide lead to the decision, as well as unwanted noise pollution.

The city recommends using electric or non-motorized options.

The ban is included for commercial landscaping or gardening services as well as private usage.

Homeowners and businesses have until April to switch over to more silent and sustainable options.

In a grid down situation, electric anything will actually be non-sustainable.

You can’t rely on one type of power. That is asking for disaster.

Fake People

Let’s face the reality. People are shit.

With that being said, it is little wonder why this story is relevant.

Researchers at Netease Fuxi AI Lab and University of Michigan have recently created MeInGame, a deep learning technique that can automatically generate character faces by analyzing a single portrait of a person’s face. This technique, presented in a paper pre-published on arXiv, can be easily integrated into most existing 3D videogames.

Pretty soon. We won’t even need the “real” input photo and computers will just generate characters for us. I am also going to assume that computers will also generate fake voices to go along with it.

What does that mean?

It means big movie studios will be able to make a movie without all of the overhead of the actors. I’m sure there will be labor rattling in the beginning but actors are expensive. They also can say bad things in public, hurt your brand, etc.

A computer that you control, will probably not do that.