There is just so much AI-related news coming out every week that it is so hard to track which are the ones that will change the world and which are just the flavour-of-the-day types that will fade away.
But the trend is clear newer innovations will continue to amaze us and set the tone for material changes on how we see and do things in the future. Just on productivity and creativity, AI will easily outshine any normal human being with its speed and think-out-of-the-box moments that were only unimaginable a year ago.
Take, for example, OpenAI’s reveal in the last 2 weeks. When asked recently about AI threats from other major players, Sam Altman had hinted cryptically that “you have never seen anything yet”. And they delivered with a bang – an update on Sora plus their latest Voice Engine sneak peek.
OpenAI provided an update on Sora called “First Impressions” that showcases what creative minds can do with their video creation product. Short videos made by AI without a single human actor let us know how threatened the Hollywood industry can feel. All it takes is a computer to create videos via word prompts. The first short video featured: Air Head by Shy Kids (a multimedia company) is a quirky story of a man with a ballon as his head and the challenges he faces.
Given that Sora is only beta-tested by a few selected creative types, one can only imagine the possibilities once this product is rolled out to the public. Actors will get a threatened sense of redundancy. AI-manufactured videos can replace anyone in the creative industry.
Then a week later, OpenAI shocked the world again with its latest product launch named Voice Engine. It literally can clone the voices of anyone with just a single 15-second audio sample. Can you imagine the possibilities of doing deepfakes on just about anyone? Combining with Sora, a teenager can do serious mischief to convince a naive audience of certain narratives and conspiracies. OpenAI is treading carefully and has yet to decide how and if they will deploy the technology at scale. It is not releasing this to anyone for fear of the power it can unleash until it can determine what guard rails it can put in place first.
Last weekend was a long 3 day break thanks to the Good Friday holiday. My wife and I took advantage of the break by opting to go for a short overnight vacation at JB (Johore Bahru). The night before on Thursday, an all-time high record was set when 510,000 persons crossed the border into Malaysia.
Many S’poreans are taking advantage of the strong SGD against MYR (MYR 3.5 = SGD 1) for shopping, buying everything they can find. The currencies used to be on par many years ago. S’pore has become such an expensive place to live in and JB is just a short hop away to enjoy luxuries at a fraction of the cost.
We parked our car at the Turf Club and walked to Khatib MRT station to take the CW1 bus to bring us to the immigration checkpoints of both countries on Friday morning. From leaving home at 0930, we finally cleared the Malaysian customs at noon.
The rest of the day was mall shopping with a one-hour massage before checking into the Opero Hotel we booked at Southkey. Due to the long weekend, the cost was higher than usual at SGD 150 for the night. Transport was easily arranged with the Grab app and was relatively cheap when we compared it to SGD. Evening time was a happy hour drink and then dinner near the hotel.
We had a leisurely morning (gym and breakfast) before getting a 2 hours massage, followed by a nice late lunch at a Michelin-mentioned famous fish soup restaurant before heading back to S’pore after 3 pm. It was a refreshing short break for us and we felt that out bodies were loosen up and relaxed after 3 hours of massages within 24 hours. The tight knots around my neck were eased up thanks to the final hour of painful kneading.
I am optimistic that JB can become like Shenzhen to HK for S’pore. Hopefully, a meaningful SEZ (Special Economic Zone) MOU (Memorandum of Understanding) can be concluded soon. The past failures and false alarms of growth should be lessened as the current Malaysian king from Johore is pro cooperating and the current government’s thinking is aligned with him. There is so much mutual benefit that can be had with closer cooperation between Johore and S’pore.
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