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🤖 Midjourney kills free access

PLUS: UNESCO calls for a halt on AI

Rowan Cheung

March 31, 2023

In today's rundown:

  • 🤖 Midjourney cancels free access: Addressing the ethical debate

  • 🌐 UNESCO calls for a halt on AI: Implementation of ethics in AI

  • 🔥 AI in March 2023: The most revolutionary month in AI history

  • 🎉 Today's giveaway: 500+ best ChatGPT prompts

Read time: 4 minutes

🤖 Midjourney Cancels Free Access

Midjourney, arguably the most widely-used AI text-to-image generator, recently halted access to its free trial version due to a rapid increase in viral deepfakes using their technology.

The most notable deepfakes that prompted this:

  1. Pope Francis swagged out in a white puffer [covered in this issue]

  2. Former U.S. President Donald being by police, which surfaced during reports of his impending arrest [View twitter.com]

  3. People sharing fake photos of historical events such as the "Great Cascadia" [View twitter.com]

The acceptable use of deep fakes remains a topic of ongoing debate. Companies such as Midjourney and Playground AI can try to prevent as many deepfakes as possible by removing free tiers. However, it's probably much too late for that. 

Our recommendation: start educating friends, family, and as many people as possible on the new reality that we will no longer be able to trust images as 'purely authentic' on the internet ever again.

🌐 UNESCO Calls for a Halt on AI

Following the letter proposed by Elon Musk and other tech leaders yesterday, UNESCO (a specialized agency of the United Nations) just called for countries to implement its recommendation on the Ethics of Artificial Intelligence immediately.

The "Recommendation on the Ethics of Artificial Intelligence" sets the necessary safeguards for AI:

  • Adopted unanimously by 193 member states

  • Addresses discrimination and stereotyping

  • Tackles disinformation and privacy rights

  • Focuses on personal data protection

  • Emphasizes human and environmental rights

As the first global framework for ethical AI use, UNESCO aims to maximize AI's benefits while minimizing risks, providing countries with essential guidance.

🔥 AI in March 2023

March of 2023 will go down as one of the most revolutionary months in history. AI developments released this month have changed the world forever.

From the start of the month when ChatGPT and Whisper APIs were released to world leaders signing a petition to halt AI developments, this month has felt like an entire decade.

If you just subscribed to The Rundown:

  1. You just made the best decision of your life.

  2. I feel BAD for you because you missed the live coverage of the most historic month in AI history.

But don't worry, we still got you covered. We curated a full rundown of the must-know events:

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That's all for now!

If you have any interesting projects or ideas, please reach out to us by responding to this email or by sending us a DM on Twitter: @rowancheung & @therundownai

As always, thanks for reading, and see you next time. 🫡

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