Within the wake of final week’s alarming report from Anthropic—the AI security firm based by former OpenAI researchers and creators of Claude, a number one AI assistant competing with ChatGPT—I discover myself more and more involved about our collective capability for discernment on this accelerating AI period.
And this comes from somebody who considers Claude his favorite AI device, one that may positively increase all types of necessary work.
The report by Anthropic researchers Ken Lebedev, Alex Moix and Jacob Klein reveals a disturbing evolution: a financially-motivated “influence-as-a-service” operation that leveraged Claude to orchestrate over 100 distinct social media personas throughout X and Fb.
This subtle community engaged with tens of hundreds of genuine customers whereas selling narratives that, amongst different issues, “supported or undermined European, Iranian, UAE, and Kenyan pursuits.”
Gradual-burn manipulation vs. viral misinformation
What makes this case notably regarding is the operation’s strategic strategy.
Quite than aiming for viral content material, these actors prioritised “persistence and longevity” by means of seemingly genuine engagement—step by step pulling customers into politically aligned echo chambers by means of interactions that appeared natural.
Claude was used to make tactical engagement selections, figuring out whether or not personas ought to like, share, touch upon, or ignore particular posts primarily based on their shoppers’ political aims.
The irony is not misplaced on me that I am discussing the misuse of a device I’ve personally discovered transformative for my writing. This makes its weaponisation all of the extra troubling. Like several highly effective know-how, its worth clearly relies upon completely on the intent and deployment ways of these wielding it.
Deepfakes and digital doppelgängers In the meantime, Steven Bartlett—one of many UK’s most outstanding entrepreneurs, Dragon’s Den investor, and host of the globally common “Diary of a CEO” podcast—just lately sounded the alarm about deepfake scams proliferating throughout social platforms.
“Over the previous couple of weeks lots of of deepfake advertisements have popped up on Meta and X selling scams, utilizing movies or pictures of me made with AI,” he wrote, providing sensible steerage on setting household code phrases and verifying pressing cash requests by means of separate channels.
“Who cares if it is actual?”What’s notably unsettling about this second is not simply the know-how’s capabilities, however our diminishing collective concern about goal actuality and, dare I say, knowledge and reality.
In my current piece about AI’s disruption of my voiceover profession, I confronted the stark warning from Marie Lora-Mungai—a revered African inventive industries skilled—that my “voice expertise job goes to vanish.” But regardless of this private reckoning, I discover myself much less involved about particular person livelihoods than about our societal relationship with verifiable details and primary widespread sense.
A 2021 interview for US tech publication The Verge captured this disorientation completely. Throughout a promotional dialog about “The Matrix Awakens”—a online game primarily based on Hollywood’s Matrix movie franchise that itself explores the boundary between actuality and simulation—actors Keanu Reeves and Carrie-Anne Moss mentioned digital id.
Reeves recounted asking a buddy’s 13-year-old daughter concerning the distinction between actual and digital worlds. Her response? “Who cares if it is actual?” Whereas Reeves appeared fairly tickled by this response, I discover it profoundly disturbing.
As somebody who constructed a profession in media earlier than the algorithmic age absolutely set in, I discover this sentiment much less “superior” than deeply regarding. It is a wake-up name for these of us who lived by means of the distinction—the earlier than instances—to teach and supply perspective to youthful generations. In any other case, we’re all in deep trouble.
South Africa’s digital priorities revealed
Latest Google search knowledge from Ahrefs presents a sobering window into South African on-line behaviour, with playing and porn-related searches dominating our digital panorama. In keeping with current analyses, phrases like “Betway logging” (seemingly a misspelling or variation of “Betway login,” however it’s extensively utilized by South Africans seeking to entry their Betway accounts) generate round 14 million month-to-month searches, whereas playing websites function prominently among the many nation’s most visited web sites.
This is not merely a curiosity—it is a reflection of our collective consideration and priorities in an more and more digital society.
Company FOMO-mongering
In opposition to this backdrop, considered one of OpenAI CEO Sam Altman’s current X posts strikes me as alarmingly tone-deaf: “in case you are not skillsmaxxing with o3 at minimal 3 hours day-after-day, ngmi.”
This corporate-speak, Gen Z slang mashup—basically suggesting that with out dedicating three hours every day to their newest GPT-4o mannequin, you are “not gonna make it”—completely encapsulates the anxious, FOMO-driven content material spawning and consumption patterns AI corporations like OpenAI (at the moment ranked the ninth most visited web site in South Africa) search to normalise.
This messaging comes only a month after OpenAI’s announcement of their Academy initiative, ostensibly designed to assist AI literacy throughout numerous backgrounds. The distinction between instructional outreach and pressurised adoption ways reveals the advanced company incentives at play.
To be clear, I am not suggesting we reject AI innovation outright, and even that it wouldn’t be sensible to upskill ourselves. My very own experimentation with these instruments has revealed their constructive potential to reinforce our work fairly than merely change it. However we should resist the relentless strain to mindlessly eat these applied sciences with out vital engagement.
Andile Masuku is Co-founder and Government Producer at African Tech Roundup. Join and interact with Andile on X (@MasukuAndile) and by way of LinkedIn.
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