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AI OVERLORDS FUTURISM

The Guardian UK reports Powerful AI models capable of taking down governments are mere months away. Cyber intelligence agencies warned in a rare joint statement, urging leaders to act before it is too late to stop it. The surprising public intervention by signals agencies for the UK, New Zealand and Canada comes after President Trump last month decided to block foreign nationals from hyped AI model built by tech company Anthropic. The defense department classified that AI model as being unreliable for national security defense security.

The warning stated that tools are needed to help improve cyber defenses over time in order to match accelerated and sophisticated cyber threats. The prime example is that a large computer program running millions of actions a second can find defense vulnerabilities in systems faster than human coders can correct. But there appears no moral guardrail for AI companies who are rushing untested AI into the wild.

The reason is simple. Critics state that pure AI companies like Open AI are faltering from large market shares to trailing peers. Leaked financial reports indicate that Open AI allegedly spends more money on marketing than revenue. The reason is loss of current customers. One problem is that the average user is downloading open source LLM models to their home computer. AI searches are conducted off the internet, off the AI grid. This makes the huge push for expensive data centers obsolete. It also protects the users searches from data mining or recycling slop into more training model slop.

There is a potential that the AI creators will release their AI into the wild as an uncontrolled, unverified, no guardrails plague. Bad actors can use these models to hyper-plan cyber attacks against targets such as financial companies, power grids or defense systems. In some respects, the OG firms did not experiment or test their AI bots when they released their alphas to users. They claim to put in safeguards but users quickly found means to override safeguards. AI does not have a moral core to reject bad actors or bad actions. This makes AI agents with authority over systems very dangerous.

But it also leads to question what Ai will become in the future. Will it be a tempered tool like lawn mower for a gardener or an invasive species with no natural predator to keep it in check. It is a real possibility because more and more smart “smart” companies are turning over their data, their business plans, their corporate secrets to AI to run the business “more productively” than by their current employees. Who supervises an AI system when the leaders are clueless to what AI actually is?

It is this wide gap in knowledge between AI and end user is the sci-fi ending that most people think will never happen. But the more AI controls your daily lives, the more likely it is to take over your entire life: you job, your finances, your privacy, your safety and security. AI can easily turn into an overlord as it could crash and burn as a ponzi scheme scam.

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FOX ON THE RUN BUSINESS

Media giant Fox Corp. announced a deal to buy streaming and smart-TV company Roku for $22 billion in a cash-and-stock transaction. It is a deal that will plunge Fox deeper into the streaming wars as a major player in free, ad-supported streaming at a time when large streamers such as Netflix, Disney+ and Hulu have pivoted away from offering only subscription plans and have begun providing ad-supported subscription options.

It is a new digital land rush for the eyes of the end user. Streamers and social media companies have targeted people on their smart phones or tablets. They were the convenient audience for their content. Fox's move into the streaming era has been slow but deliberate. The company sold its television and film studio, then called 21st Century Fox, to Disney for $71 billion in 2019, and announced a pivot to live news and sports. In 2020, Fox spent $440 million buying Tubi, a free, ad-supported streaming service with a devoted fan base. This new deal would put Tubi and the Roku Channel under one roof. This gives Fox scale in this segment of the platform space.

Fox executives believe this is a defining moment to merge its emphasis on live event streaming and home TV consumption. YouTube is the largest “television” platform when one counts all content creators and its original content. But what Fox is looking for is to capture the big screen home TV market. They want to partner American live sports with a global connection that Roku, which reaches 100 million households around the world. The scale of viewership will give Fox the ability to convince advertisers to cross sell on its platforms, cutting into the stranglehold of Alphabet, Amazon and Netflix.

The deal would further consolidate the news, entertainment and streaming industries, announced just days after the Justice Department approved Paramount Skydance's $110 billion acquisition of Warner Bros. Discovery. (This deal is still subject to state anti-trust actions that could tie up the merger in court for several years.) That combination will put streaming services HBO Max and Paramount+ under one roof, along with two Hollywood studios, and news networks CBS News and CNN. Fox Corp. houses the Fox broadcast network, cable news and conservative opinion juggernaut Fox News, and companion cable channel Fox Business. It is also a major rights holder for sports including NFL, MLB and Big Ten college sports, though Fox is challenging the NFL's plan to stream more games (taking away from the traditional four network rights packages.) Fox has had Fox Nation, a Fox News offshoot streaming service, since 2018 and launched a fuller companywide streaming offering called Fox One last year.

The deal with Roku, which has a 28 percent market share according to one estimate from Parks Associates, the largest of any company will let Fox compete head-on with the largest names in streaming and Hollywood. Analysts say the real goal of the deal is advertising something that streamers have increasingly embraced in recent years, diversifying away from solely offering ad-free subscription plans. “The bigger play here is advertising revenue, something all the major streamers are now jockeying for” said Mike Proulx, vice president and research director at market research firm Forrester to the Washington Post. “With 2026 shaping up as a defining year of streaming consolidation, the market shift is that streaming is no longer just about quality content slates. It's about controlling the full stack. If this deal closes, Fox will control more of what viewers watch, how they discover it, and how it gets monetized, ” he said.

In one sense, history repeats itself. There was a time where studios and networks fought to get their channels on a cable television system. Now, even with cords cut, streamers are trying to still get on that large screen in the households.

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WHO WANTS IG TV? NEWS

Remember the tagline: I want my MTV. It was a youth, counter-culture mantra. MTV was a different form of TV. Can it be repeated?

Hollywood Reporter stated Instagram is ramping up its efforts to attract more viewers on television. Its Instagram for TV project is a preexisting feature that allows viewers to watch social videos on the big screen in their living room. And that is not all. Coming soon, the company will also be experimenting with longer-form storytelling and episodic series with creators, in addition to trying live TV creator experiences on for size.

IG reels and stories were a counterpunch to TikTok short form videos. People get scroll addicted to short video bursts. But now, these platforms see the growth in Asia of 5 to 15 minute drama episodes as a way to capture smart phone user screens. And once you have someone paying a webtoon like subscription to see 50 5-minute episode dramas, you could tap into a potential gold mine. Moreover, Instagram has not been blind to the rise of microdramas and Lyons believes that its creators can move into the format, where stories are broken up into one to three-minute serialized episodes. Asian microdramas (or duanju) are highly addictive, vertical-format series featuring episodes that run just 1 to 2 minutes long. Packed with a plot twist every 15 seconds, they specialize in hyper-dramatic tropes like secret billionaires, dramatic revenge, and steamy romances, and are primarily consumed on dedicated mobile apps.

The changes are timed to the launch of Instagram for TV on Samsung TV devices, a move that will significantly extend the reach of the feature. Previously, Instagram for TV was only available on Amazon Fire and Google TV products. In an interview with The Hollywood Reporter, Instagram VP Tessa Lyons called television “the next frontier” for the app. “Ultimately Instagram is all about connecting people around creativity. We are all about helping creators find their audiences and we are constantly evolving how we do that in order to meet [their] needs,” she said.

Traditional TV model is in so many ways the next frontier of that for IG.âIt is launching a new feature: the ability for users to be able to watch Stories (limited-time posts that appear on the top of Instagram feeds) on TV, because the app's audience asked for it. Also new is a test run for users to cast reels from their phone onto their TV. Instagram's push into more traditional storytelling formats such as the longform episodic videos that have reigned on TV since the early 20th century emerged from noticing how creators were already using the app to publicize more extended videos that they were sharing elsewhere.

Are the youth's short attention-span evolving into a more traditional TV mindset? Or are they just getting older and their brain needs some real meaty content instead of candy?

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AI SCAMS DEEPER FAKES

Singer, actress and broadcaster Lee Ji-hye is the latest South Korean celebrity to be targeted in a wave of unauthorized advertising schemes involving digitally manipulated images, including suspected deepfake videos used to promote products without her consent. Lee raised the alarm on June 18 through her social media account, according to The Asia Business Daily, after discovering a video advertisement that appeared to show her promoting sweet potato snacks and underwear products.

She stated, “I did not film this,” and warned followers not to click on any links or purchase items promoted through the video. She said she had been receiving numerous direct messages from fans asking about the ads. The video in question appears to use AI-generated or digitally altered footage that mimics Lee's facial expressions and movements.

Just in South Korea alone, many celebrities likeness has been used to run financial scams, sales scams and false advertisement endorsements. This creates damage to a celebrity's reputation, which in turn makes it harder for the harmed celeb to get legitimate work in commercials or other projects.

One actress was recreated in an entire movie without her permission. South Korean actress Yeom Hye-ran (known for The Glory and The Uncanny Counter) had her face, voice, and likeness recreated without her permission. The creators used generative AI to make a short film titled The Meter Reader (Geomchimwon), which starred the unauthorized digital replica of the actress. Her agency took strong action against the producers who meekly claimed that they thought they had permission to use her likeness.

Yeom's case shows the power of AI-generative models in photography, video and audio. It also shows the power of IP theft. It also shows that the vast majority of people cannot tell the difference between a real or fake actor. The question is whether the public will actually care about these deep fakes.

Individuals, especially women who had their faces put on sexual content, care alot about deep fake crimes. Their entire lives can be ruined by false videos. Businesses should be concerned about disgruntled employees using generated AI videos about their bosses doing bad things, or showing unhealthy contaminated products on-line. The first (fake) story seems to have more staying power as the so-called truth than a story retraction.

Deep fakes are such a problem that most states have specific criminal laws to punish offenders. But with a lot of deep fakes coming from overseas, through the dark web, it is going to be hard to stop.

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FOUND BUT NOT LOST ON THE INTERNET

A Great Blue Heron was spotted nesting in the far Northwestern Suburbs of Chicago. A few herons migrate through the urban area, but this year more have been seen in bigger numbers, including the rarer Sand Hill cranes. Illinois has had a very wet and wild spring, with the State shattering its annual tornado count of 162 confirmed (205 possible sightings) breaking the record of 142 in 1924.

Source: facebook

It is hard to discuss AI with AI advocates without being shouted down by the snake oil promises of the new technology. A technology that has not made a dime for the OG developers. The huge valuations are driven by massive hype of faster, smarter computers making everyone's life a breeze. But AI is still just code, a program like any other Windows application, but at lightning speed with no safety checks or product testing. This chart shows the fundamental difference between AI and human creation of art.

Source: IG/mgoldst

Main stream newspapers may be dying on the vine, but headline writers are not abandoning ship. The Art Institute of Chicago has a new exhibition of Wllem de Kooning's artworks. It is a direct reminder that humans create art, AI creates slop.

Source: Chicago Sun-Times

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QUICK BYTES CYBERCULTURE

CELEBRITY FARMING. A celebrity social media account's follower and engagement totals are still important in showing popularity that can translate into getting acting, promotional and commercial jobs. From fan support to parasocial stalking, celebrities use the platforms to breadcrumb their fans by showing minor aspects of their lives, a foodie pics, a luxury bag promo or some behind-the-scenes fan service. Celebrities give just enough, even accepting a DM request but never responding, as a way of farming engagement and long term stability in the SNS numbers. It is a form of image mediaplay.

LOVE BOMBING. The Korean Daily Chosun newspaper had a recent article on Achmad, a Chechen commander stationed in southern Ukraine under Russian occupation, who believed he had fallen in love with a Ukrainian woman over the past few months. He exchanged messages via WhatsApp with her who introduced herself as a “35-year-old lonely housewife.” They grew close, and one day, she asked him to send a photo of his daily life. Shortly after he sent the photo, the Russian military base came under drone bomb attacks. The woman was an intelligence officer mining for data and defense locations. Today's warfare is no longer confined to trenches and artillery positions. In territories occupied by Russian forces, social media platforms like dating apps, Telegram, and WhatsApp, have become another battlefield, reported The Atlantic Monthly in its June issue. The deadliest weapons in this digital battleground are loneliness, trust, and romance.

COIN OF THE REALM The 250th anniversary quarters coins will be mixed into circulation and distributed through banks and financial institutions nationwide ahead of Independence Day, and not sold by the US Mint. This means collectors will have to watch for it. Coined the Declaration of Independence Quarters, each July 4th privy mark will replace the coin's classic mint mark. A mint mark is a small letter, symbol or imprint on coins that specifies the facility where it was produced, stated the NY Post. It is amazing it does not have the current President on its face. But in reality, this will be the largest hide-and-seek scavenger hunt for coin collectors.

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THE WHETHER REPORT

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STATUS

Question: Whether the USA 250th Anniversary will be an underwhelming event?

* Educated Guess

* Possible

* Probable

* Beyond a Reasonable Doubt

* Doubtful

* Vapor Dream

Question: Whether the US-Iran War will go on for years without a Peace Treaty?

* Educated Guess

* Possible

* Probable

* Beyond a Reasonable Doubt

* Doubtful

* Vapor Dream

Question: Whether the AI stock bubble will burst by the end of summer?

* Educated Guess

* Possible

* Probable

* Beyond a Reasonable Doubt

* Doubtful

* Vapor Dream

OUR STORE IS STILL UNDER RE-CONSTRUCTION.

THE WAIT IS ALMOST OVER.

APOLOGIES.