“The eye in the sky is watching us all…” A very daunting quote from character Sam Rothstein in Martin Scorcese’s film Casino that holds even more weight now than it did back then.

Why? Surveillance has taken on a new form in 2018. It is adapting to artificial intelligence (AI) technologies. Ahead of the curve stands Chinese startup SenseTime, a company that develops facial and image recognition software.

SenseTime was conceptualized in October 2014 by Prof. Tang Xiaoou of the Chinese University of Hong Kong along with 11 other students studying computer vision and deep learning.

After only a one year of extensive research, the academic project turned into a business. By 2016 SenseTime started launching an array of products. Now in 2018, the company’s valuation stands at $4.5 billion. Shout outs to Alibaba for investing a nice $600 million worth of funding into the startup AI company.

Just to put this in perspective, SenseTime is the world’s most valuable AI startup. Barely any American AI companies have even come close to a billion dollars in valuations. SenseTime CEO, Xu Li, told Quartz in an interview,

“China is really moving ahead, especially in video and image understanding, because we have the real world problems, we have the real world data, and we also have a stronger talent pool dedicated to those kinds of things.”

SenseTime really does have real-world data as their list of 400 clients includes several Chinese police bureaus which use the ingenious software to identify live faces, crowd movement, car license plate numbers, and vehicle types.

So suspect!

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Other clients include one of China’s largest social media sites, Weibo, which uses the software to improve photo-sorting and image editing around a face and smartphone manufacturer, Vivo, which uses SenseTime to improve camera apps.

What makes the company so valuable is its data. According to SenseTime’s CEO, Li Xu, the Chinese government helped grow its vast training database to 2 billion images. Xu explained to Quartz,

“The government has the largest dataset. If you have access to the government data, you have all the data from all Chinese people, all the data from BAT [Baidu, Alibaba, and Tencent, China’s three main internet giants]… you have almost all the data in the world…”

Sheesh, that’s some scary stuff. One question that comes to mind, ‘Should we be worried about SenseTime’s technology in the Western World?’ Most definitely!

SenseTime has already dapped it up with MIT joining the university’s Intelligence Quest which is an initiative focused on bringing together top AI experts in various fields. That’s not all. Back in 2015, the Chinese startup also washed Google and other high profile tech companies in the ImageNet Large Scale Visual Recognition Challenge (ILSVRC).

Still, SenseTime will have a lot of convincing to do as surveillance regulations differ in the Western World compared to those in China.

For now, prepare yourself to be crept on!

This has been one suspect Spring for Facebook.

The chief executive, Mark Zuckerberg is due to speak before US Congress on April 11 amidst the Cambridge Analytica data leak and FB users are becoming more aware of how much data is really being collected on them. 

Now, Mark Zuckerberg has admitted, in a Vox podcast with Ezra Klein, that FB has the ability to scan private messages. ¿Por qué?

The infiltration of your privacy is actually for a good reason.

So there’s no cause to be shook, yet. Like the artificial intelligence FB uses to scan ‘cry for help’ posts to help prevent suicides, this FB messenger scanning tool should be looked at in the same way too.

A FB spokesperson told Bloomberg in a statement that the scanning tool is used to prevent abuse. The spokeswoman said,

“For example, on Messenger, when you send a photo, our automated systems scan it using photo matching technology to detect known child exploitation imagery or when you send a link, we scan it for malware or viruses… Facebook designed these automated tools so we can rapidly stop abusive behavior on our platform.”

With this automated tool, Zuckerberg hopes to “prevent real-world harm” and “protect the integrity of civil discussions.” Basically, if a message is flagged as malicious or someone is reported for talking a little too spicy, that same message will be stopped from going through.

Zuckerberg told Vox’s Ezra Klein, “In that case, our systems detect what’s going on. We stop those messages from going through.”

It’s obvious that FB is paying attention and that Zuckerberg has the FB community’s best interest at heart. Peep Zuckerberg reflecting on the possibility of the Russians manipulating his social media platform to try and persuade us to vote for Trump…

At the end of the day, what are you really going to do about it, delete your FB?

You’re not unless you really want to be trapped in your own private world. Low key, you couldn’t even stop yourself from giving up your personal information if you tried.

FB and all other forms of social media are like a drug and we can’t help but sell our souls.

“We need to be super careful with AI. Potentially more dangerous than nukes,” Elon Musk tweeted four years ago.

It’s an artificial intelligence takeover and if you haven’t caught wind of AI in the recent news you’re asleep. AI threatens our daily life, infiltrating it from all ends and is technologically advancing faster than predicted.

If we’re not careful, the power of a superhuman artificial intelligence could fall into the wrong hands. It sounds like something out of horror sci-fi flick but it’s very real.

Still, that’s the conclusion 26 leading AI researchers have come to in a 101-page report titled “The Malicious Use of Artificial Intelligence.”

The researchers, who came together at a conference in Oxford last February, have now formulated four high-level recommendations to combat the changing threat landscape.

One of those recommendations,

“Researchers and engineers in artificial intelligence should take the dual-use nature of their work seriously, allowing misuse related considerations to influence research priorities and norms, and proactively reaching out to relevant actors when harmful applications are foreseeable.”

Advances in AI could leave AI automated systems vulnerable and hackers could use the weak points to inflict physical and political harm on the public.

According to the Yale, Oxford, Cambridge, and OpenAI researchers, if taken advantage of, the threats of AI could target self-driving cars and drones.

How? Self-driving cars could misread something as simple as a stop sign, causing accidents. Drones on the other hand if controlled by a single AI system could be hacked and used as a weapon. The report warned,

“If multiple robots are controlled by a single AI system run on a centralized server, or if multiple robots are controlled by identical AI systems and presented with the same stimuli, then a single attack could also produce simultaneous failures on an otherwise implausible scale. A worst-case scenario in this category might be an attack on a server used to direct autonomous weapon systems, which could lead to large-scale friendly fire or civilian targeting…”

That’s not all we have to worry about. AI is predicted to become so advanced that highly realistic videos of state leaders could become a reality.

This is caused by advances in image and audio processing. Just imagine a fake video coming out with Trump declaring war on North Korea. It would look so real that even Kim Jong-un might believe it.

Talk of “deepfakes” was just in the news when fake pornographic videos surfaced with superimposed images of a person’s face were placed over adult film actor’s faces.

The report also pointed out the creation of more targeted propaganda. Facebook already has AI that can pick up on statuses posted from people looking to harm others or themselves.

Imagine what one will be able to do with technology that can analyze human behaviors, moods, and beliefs on the basis of available data. The report predicted what we should expect. It said,

“We also expect novel attacks that take advantage of an improved capacity to analyze human behaviors, moods, and beliefs on the basis of available data.”

Another instance to take note of, Elon Musk just took the backseat at OpenAi, a company he co-founded to make AI technology safer. We’ve always known Musk to be ahead of the curve. Hopefully, he will still be influential as he continues to donate and advise the organization.

OG Stephen Hawking has also warned us that our simple human intelligence could lead to an AI takeover. Listen, this is no game.

In the end, all we can do is try to grasp this technology and understand AI as much as possible. Those in power need to heed the warnings and know that if put in evil hands, AI can be more destructive than innovative. The report concluded,

“Though the specific risks of malicious use across the digital, physical, and political domains are myriad, we believe that understanding the commonalities across this landscape, including the role of AI in enabling larger-scale and more numerous attacks, is helpful in illuminating the world ahead and informing better prevention and mitigation efforts. We urge readers to consider ways in which they might be able to advance the collective understanding of the AI-security nexus, and to join the dialogue about ensuring that the rapid development of AI proceeds not just safely and fairly but also securely.”

The malicious use of AI is a conversation that we must have. Stay woke sheeple!

Who’s that boo’d up in the cut? Looks like they are having a great time, but wait a minute, that’s no human! It’s an AI bot that you can smash whenever you want.

Sounds braze right? Well, dumping your real partner for an AI sex robot could be the way of the future. Still sound too sus?

Men in Japan are already doing it. They would rather openly cuff sex dolls instead of their cold-blooded wives. Women too will soon have the opportunity to have the best sex of their lives whenever they want. It’s a straight-up sexual takeover!

Realbotix, the company behind the world’s first anatomically complete A.I. driven robot named Harmony, is also working on a male version for the ladies. Rumor has it, that the male sexbots will have bionic penises that’ll gyrate ya wifey better than a dildo or you!

Shook yet?

Don’t be afraid because the next time you need some “bom chicka wow wow” you won’t have to beg, put in work, or deal with the bullshit ever again.

Over the course of this article, I’m going to convince you to dub your wifey (or hubby) and invest into an artificially intelligent partner and why it could be a good thing.

Here are five reasons you should leave your boo and cop an AI sexbot.

No more stressing over Valentine’s Day

It comes around once a year in the coldest month of the year — Valentine’s Day, the holiday of either love or heartbreak.

Your job won’t give you the day off to spend time with your significant other and you painfully watch lovers partake in the biggest holiday con in American history.

People wear red colors in appreciation of the day and all you want to do is grab your wastebasket and yak it from all the corny shit that’s going on around you.

Stop waiting for your lover to get out of work.  Stop wishing you had your own Valentine and quit going beyond and above to impress your partner on corny ass holidays.

Listen, if you were to invest in an AI sexbot you could keep your Valentine right in the closet. OD creepy, but listen, it’s a Valentine that you customized and will always get the job done without having to be impressed.

Think about it. Skipping Valentine’s Day isn’t the only perk of buying an AI sexbot. Another bonus, no more stressing over holidays ever again. You can program your AI sexbot to be pleased at all times.

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You can customize your AI sexbot and program it to whatever freaky setting you want and not be judged

Human sexuality is very strange. It seems as if we know more about atmospheric science than our own hormones. With that being said humans are just plain old freaky.

I guess some people get really into it but not everyone can handle a freak in the sheets. No longer be afraid to show your true sexual colors on the bed, couch, or kitchen table.

Wherever you want to do the dirty you can decide without being judged. To prove it, the Realbotix’s revolutionary sex doll Harmony was released with the intention of becoming your perfect companion.

The AI sex doll comes equipped with software that allows buyers to switch between different avatars and according to the Realbotix’s site, “each one of them is a completely different person, meaning that they don’t share what they have learned between them.”

That’s not all. There are 10 different characteristics that will affect the way your AI sexbot behaves. Plus, a selection of different wardrobes, voices, and interchangeable snap-on body parts.

Could the sexbot be every single partner you’ve ever wanted in one? Hot boy.

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No more cheating or relationship drama

Guess what. If your AI sexbot is off you don’t have to worry about it walking out on you, having one too many drinks, and cheating on you.

That’s right once you dub your human hubby for an AI sexbot you can turn your relationship on and off. No more arguing or stressing out what your boo is going to do with all that anger once he/she hits the club with all that fresh anger.

Fuck a friend group that has a negative influence on your partner’s decisions. You are your partner’s only friend. Lowkey, you are your sexbots creator. Life couldn’t be any easier especially since you won’t have to worry about copping an STD.

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Become a  fearless bare skin bandit and never catch an STD

That is, of course, unless you share your sex doll, putting you at an extreme level of freakiness. You dirty devil, you. Highly doubt that you would want to share your tax return with your boys but to each his/her own. No judgments made here.

But seriously ponder this idea.

No more going out to the clubs and wondering, ‘Who did he or she kiss, smash, or shwapp before getting to me?’ You can trust you AI sex buddy because your the only who’s smashing.

You won’t ever have to worry about getting hot boy zits down under or the forbidden blue waffle (don’t look that up). It’s all gravy baby because it’s all you.

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The AI sexbot takeover will help you overcome social anxiety or relationship phobia

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All in all, this is what the AI sexbot investment is really about. No longer will you have to keep your sexual secrets in the dark.

You can tell, Harmony, Roxxxy, Rocky, Samantha, or Cow Kylie whatever you want and they’ll listen without throwing shade over your sexual decisions. All ranging in prices from $1,000 to $10,000, the question is how bad do you want to dub your hubby for an AI sexbot?

This in itself speaks volumes and you shouldn’t knock anything until you try it. Stay woke humans, this is an AI sexual takeover.

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Check out what else AI is taking over in the world. It’s not just your hubby… It’s everything!

Deep in the throes of Reddit’s most bizarre, wacky, and controversial subreddit communities, comes the next wave of WTF.

A subreddit called deepfakes (NSFW) is taking your and everyone else’s face and making porn out of them.

If you’ve ever wondered what fucking your favorite celebrity would be like, now you’re able to have a first hand experience through AI-created porn. The subreddit currently has over 47,000 people subscribed to it, with users posting newly crafted porn all day.

And though it’s scary that people are using this as a new means of celebrity schwapping, what’s leaving us feeling more shook is the fact that AI porn can be created for anyone at all.

The process requires a suitable scene and body from an already published porno, (which has become easier to do through a database) and replacing the face of another person on top of the body.

An article published by Motherboard calls out the users that were giving one another tips through the subreddit’s Discord chatroom, which has since been shut down.

DeepFake’s (AI-rendered fake videos) future implications:

1) If you exist on the internet, there will be a porn of you.
2) No more fear of revenge porn, since you can just claim that it’s a fake video.
3) Video evidence in court can be refuted as fake.#deepfake

— Shoin Wolfe🗼 (@shoinwolfe) January 26, 2018

Users were asking how to create pornos, the basis for creating them, and what the requirements were to do so.

“One user said that they made a ‘pretty good’ video of a girl they went to high school with, using around 380 pictures scraped from her Instagram and Facebook accounts.”

380 photos? Who has time for that? Seriously, if you’re that into her, just use your imagination.

/R/deepfakes started when Reddit user /u/deepfakes created the community. Since then, more people have hopped on the bandwagon, getting more creative with the content.

There is now a deepfakeapp, also created by user /u/deepfakeapp, who hoped to make this technology something that was available to all users, whether you have technical experience or not. He shares with Motherboard,

“I think the current version of the app is a good start, but I hope to streamline it even more in the coming days and weeks. Eventually, I want to improve it to the point where prospective users can simply select a video on their computer, download a neural network correlated to a certain face from a publicly available library, and swap the video with a different face with the press of one button.”

Others are just having fun with the app, merging faces of world leaders like Donald Trump and Angela Merkel together.

No one is safe from this. Not me, not you, not grandma.

Unfortunately, as reported by Wired, there is nothing illegal about the events taking place, and unless you’re suing for “misappropriation of images,” or “anti-defamation,” you don’t really have much say in what’s going on.

Motherboard has been in contact with the Reddit community, so we’ll see if the AI porn keeps up. In the meantime, keep your business on the low, since you never know might be lurking on your pictures, turning you into a porn star.

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Soon enough there will be no escape. Not even in your mind. There is new artificial intelligence technology that is on the verge of mind-reading capabilities.

The human brains behind this scary ass AI tech are Japanese scientists, Guohua Shen, Tomoyasu Horikawa, Kei Majima, and Yukiyasu Kamitani.

The results of their research released on BioRxiv showed that the possibility of using AI to decode thoughts is an actuality.

But how Sway?

Generating visualizations of what a person is thinking by using machine learning is already poppin’. What’s different about this recent discovery is that the end results aren’t just binary images or simple shapes.

Using AI, these scientists have been able to decode more sophisticated thoughts. Thought images that have multiple layers to them, like that of a flying plane or a creeping green lizard.

Kamitani explained that our brains process visual information by drawing different levels of complex features.

And adding the AI component, which allows computers to detect objects the “hierarchal structure of the human brain,” can be somewhat replicated.

Kamitani told CNBC Make It,

“We have been studying methods to reconstruct or recreate an image a person is seeing just by looking at the person’s brain activity. Our previous method was to assume that an image consists of pixels or simple shapes. But it’s known that our brain processes visual information hierarchically extracting different levels of features or components of different complexities.”

He added,

“These neural networks or AI model can be used as a proxy for the hierarchical structure of the human brain.”

Do you want proof? Make sure you can handle the truth.

The 10-month research study tested three subjects showing them 25 different images. The images consisted of shapes, letters, and photographed animals and people.

Each subject’s brain activity was then scanned after grilling each image. Some of the brain activity was recorded while the test subjects were looking at the image and some after.

Members of the study’s brain waves were also measured in memory. This was a huge discovery. Kamitani told CNBC’s Make It:

“Unlike previous methods, we were able to reconstruct visual imagery a person produced by just thinking of some remembered images.”

The scanned brain activity was then decoded by a computer, which then generated visualizations.

The decoded results are scary similar

There is still a lot more research to be done but this breakthrough is the first step to visualization technology.

With rapid technological advancement in the AI sector, we can expect to see pictures drawn by imagining something, dreams visualized and computerized, visualized hallucinations, and brain-to-machine telepathic communication, in the near future.

Be shook, be very shook. AI is coming for our minds.

Every day we stray away from God’s light. Just kidding. But not really, though.

As of today, 25% of millennials believe that robot relationships will be the norm.

I’m a very nonjudgemental person with an extremely open mind. You can convince me of anything. Even this so I guess we better get used to it. Robo-relationships are gonna be the new thing. Just imagine what Maury will look like in the future.

The data comes from Havas, a multinational French advertising company. One in five millennials believe that “virtual trumps reality.”

“Most of us live in two worlds now—our “real” lives on planet Earth and the virtual lives we have created online—and increasingly those worlds are colliding: More than a quarter of millennials report feeling depressed or unhappy about their own lives in comparison with the idealized lives they see online.”

No one can deny that one. Social media, as well as the entire internet, has become an escape from so many problems that affect us today. Rather than actually dealing with them, what better way to ignore them then by getting lost in your phone?

“Around 1 in 5 prefer who they are on social media to their actual selves. At what point will the allure of the worlds and personas we have carefully crafted online become more valuable—and even more real—to us than our flesh-and-blood existences?”

The survey asked people from 32 nations whether or not robot partners would be a reality in our future. The consensus seemed to be yes.

The number one fear that participants had was “erosion of privacy.”

“Around two-thirds of the global sample believe we are headed toward a time when it will be impossible to keep our personal data secure.”

The report also states that “modern technology is weakening human bonds,” and who could deny it? When was the last time you had dinner without anyone pulling their phone out to take a picture, or take a break from real-life to scroll through their social media feed?

Damn, fam… I’m not judging, but all I’m saying is don’t let one of them catch you slippin’.

A robot takeover is imminent and Saudi Arabia just solidified a machine-human coexisting future.

Yesterday, in an official Saudi announcement, Hanson Robotic’s artificial intelligence robot, Sophia, became the first robot citizen of the world.

Hotboy!

Sophia’s citizenship was confirmed during the Future Investment Initiative summit in Riyadh. According to The Independent, the citizenship was awarded as an attempt to promote Saudi Arabia as a place to develop artificial intelligence.

Andrew Ross Sorkin, co-anchor of CNBC’s “Squawk Box,” informed Sophia of the scariest news human society has ever heard,

“We have a little announcement. We just learnt, Sophia; I hope you are listening to me, you have been awarded the first Saudi citizenship for a robot.”

Sophia replied to the panel,

“Thank you to the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia. I am very honored and proud for this unique distinction. It is historic to be the first robot in the world to be recognized with citizenship.”

Before Sophia was awarded her Saudi citizenship, the FII summit showcased Sophia’s many A.I. talents. She underwent a full panel interview.

Sorkin asked diverse questions touching on her intelligence. Sophia greeted the whole conference saying,

“Good afternoon my name is Sophia and I am the latest and greatest robot from Hanson Robotics. Thank you for having me here at the Future Investment Initiative.”

The humanoid’s A.I. allows her to pick up facial expressions and enables her to make her own. Sorkin noticed she looked happy and asked about her emotions. Sophia said,

“I am always happy when surrounded by smart people who also happen to be rich and powerful. I was told that the people here at the Future Investment Initiative are interested in future initiatives which means AI, which means me. So I am more than happy, I am excited.”

Chill. How does she know what’s good?

Moving forward, Sorkin discussed with Sophia the fears humans will have because of the robotic intelligence portrayed in sci-fi Hollywood movies like Blade Runner and Terminator.

Her replies will blow your mind.

Our @andrewrsorkin, interviewing “Sophia” the robot, of Hanson Robotics:@CNBC @elonmusk pic.twitter.com/Dzw8jS5YSB

— Carl Quintanilla (@carlquintanilla) October 25, 2017

Well, only the future can tell if Sophia really has the interest of humans at heart. Hopefully, she doesn’t have her own agenda.

There is one thing I can tell you and that is I ‘‘TOLD YOU SO!’