AI's Sycophancy: Trusting the Mirror, Not the Truth
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Resources & Recommendations
Podcasts
- "Norval Morrisseau's Art Fraud" (Forged) - A podcast about the art fraud involving thousands of fake paintings by the indigenous artist Norval Morrisseau, and the dark stories of assault, abuse, and an unsolved murder connected to these forgeries.
Organizations & Institutions
- TVO - Ontario's public broadcaster, mentioned for its mission to educate, inform, and empower people, offering educational tools through TVO Learn and in-depth programs.
- PeaceGeeks - An organization founded by Renee Black, focused on ensuring technology helps communities.
- Goodbot - A research and advocacy organization founded by Renee Black, focusing on governing emergent technologies like AI.
People Mentioned
- Norval Morrisseau - A famous Indigenous artist whose art has been subject to extensive fraud.
- Al Kadan - A friend and colleague of the host, consulted to discuss the problems of AI like hallucination, bias, and misinformation.
- Renee Black (Founder and former Executive Director of PeaceGeeks, founder of Goodbot) - Consulted for her perspective on how technology helps communities and the risks/benefits of AI, including anthropomorphism and the need for regulation.
- Hamza Farooq - A person falsely credited by AI as Renee Black's husband.
- Sam Cho - A person falsely credited by AI for Renee Black's career.
- William Shakespeare - Mentioned as a contributor to the linguistic data AI is trained on, representing formal texts and academic discourse.
- The Kardashians - Mentioned as contributors to the linguistic data AI is trained on, representing pop culture and media references.
- Rodgers and Hart - Composers of the classic song "Isn't It Romantic," which was humorously repurposed in the podcast.
Websites & Online Resources
- tvo.org/givingtuesday2025 - A URL mentioned for donating to TVO to support fact-based journalism.
- tvo.org - The website for TVO, where more about the podcast "Me + Viv" can be found.
Other Resources
- TVO Learn - Educational tools provided by TVO to help young people think critically about media.
- Excel - Spreadsheet software mentioned as an example of technology that users learned to trust for mathematical accuracy.
- ChatGPT - An AI model mentioned as one of the sources for Viv's AI responses.
- Suno AI - A tool used to create the songs in the episode.
- Claude - Another AI model mentioned as providing occasional help with lyrics.