Autonomous vehicles, your WiFi is spying on you, SORA, GAP rebrand and what to check out this weekend
It's pretty science heavy, bear with...
In the science world:
Would you trust an autonomous vehicle?
I’ve been hearing a lot of horror stories recently about electric vehicles, specifically the ones that have driverless interfaces. I live next to a main A-Road and a couple of weeks ago a woman was driving at 60/70mph down this road when her car shut down and locked her inside, trapping her in the path of oncoming traffic. Luckily she was okay as she called emergency services and they cut her out of the car. The same can’t be said for an American woman who made headlines last week.
Angela Chao was in her Tesla when the system failed and thought that she had put the car in reverse instead of in drive. She called her friend, explaining that the car had locked her in and was reversing into a pond and she couldn’t stop it. She ended up drowning in her car.
Last week I also read a story about a man whose £80k Jaguar went rogue and sent him speeding down a motorway at 120mph. His breaks failed and the car continued to speed along. The driver was able to contact the police who shut down the motorway but he was stuck in his car at that speed for 35 minutes until his car ran out of power and slowed down.
While cars with automated driving options can be safer in some instances, there is as much of a risk as there is with having a human at the wheel. The question is, do you trust AI over human error?
Be wary of your WiFi routers
Scientists at Carnegie Mellon University gave AI systems access to WiFi routers and cameras to track where human beings were in a room. The catch here is that the AI was not in the room. Once they’d trained the AI to detect where the living beings were via this camera, they removed the camera - forcing the AI to rely on the radio signals being given off by the WiFi router. It was able to do this.
This means that technology now exists for AI that can track living beings through walls, in the dark, using just a WiFi router, with no camera. Crazy.
It doesn’t just know where they are, but exactly how much space they are taking up and where they are in relation to one another. Like this:
What is OpenAI’s Sora?
OpenAI, the company that brought us ChatGPT last year, has developed video software that allows you to input a command and the AI will produce a video. This is nothing new, we’ve been seeing AI videos for a while now. The difference is that it has become indistinguishable from reality, not entirely but certainly as realistic as I’ve seen so far. It will be released later this year and was created using free data online such as YouTube.
I urge you to have a look and as you do, ask yourself if you’d be able to tell that it’s not real. With some of them - and they give examples of it going wrong - it can be clear that it is AI generated, or it is an animation/ something that couldn’t exist in real life.
But ask yourself if you would otherwise be able to tell that it was AI-generated. With some of them, I had no idea.
That being said, what strikes me about these videos is how much they remind me of stock footage and images. This is probably because they’re just short clips for now but I’m not sure. I’m interested to see how this develops over the coming years.
What I also find interesting is that my parents are never very impressed when it comes to AI. I remember last year I came home, so excited to show them ChatGPT after someone showed me it for the first time and they couldn’t care less. The significance of the scientific progression is more surprising to me than it is to them, I can’t figure out why. Perhaps it is because they’ve seen so much in their lives such as the start of social media, that has always been normal for me. I’m not sure.
Check out their sample videos here: https://openai.com/sora
And in fashion:
Is Gap finally rebranding?
After falling off the face of the relevant fashion earth, Gap is clearly grasping at its heritage as it attempts to make a comeback.
They have just revealed a new collaboration with Palace Skateboards - creating athleisure/ varsity attire that is reminiscent of 90s Gap. It’s cool, I’m not a huge hoodie person but I like these designs and I’m tempted to buy one.
Have a look here.
They also had that YZY collab with Kanye in 2020 as a nod to his history with the brand but it came to an end in 2022 for obvious reasons.
This all being said, they did a cool campaign three weeks ago. They partnered with Tyla and got her to perform with the dance crew fronted by Will West who shot to fame in *that* Jungle music video and, in the same week, performed at the Brits. That was an interesting collaboration for Gap and something a little unexpected.
Check it out here:
These two new campaigns suggest that they have a lot planned for this year, we’ll see.
Are raincoats for items of clothing a thing??
I’m sure you’re all aware of who Pookie and Jett are. No? They’re the new internet darlings, an American couple who have gone mega-viral in videos where they show off their outfits and lavish lifestyles, all brought to life by Pookie’s absolutely fire outfits and her husband who is a little odd… @campbellhuntpuckett
Anyway, in one of their recent videos, Pookie was shown to have a raincoat specifically for her Hermès Kelly which makes sense as the bags can be over £22,000 a pop.
I then saw that fashion house Thom Browne is now selling rain covers specifically for bags and heels. Not a bad idea for those of us in the rainy UK, not that I think I’ll be buying anything Thom Browne for the foreseeable.
What I’m listening to this week:
Someone played this at pres last weekend and I felt like I knew it well but it’s nowhere on my Spotify. It’s been on repeat since - obsessed.
Thank you so much for reading and supporting! We have some really exciting stuff coming up so please subscribe! It’s free and means a lot <3