MESSAGE FROM CENTRES OF DISEASE CONTROL
THIS THREAD HAS BEEN QURANTINNED TO PREVENT SPREAD OF COVID 19
But is it safe to post in it or not?
*cough* *cough*
you have to update the css to keep each post 6 feet away.
nono, inside the quarantine, everyone's dead anyway. Focus on keeping the healthy threads, healthy posts,, far away from each other. Thus may we ascertain our health.
>>3 ATTENTION; INFECTION IMMINENT. YOU ARE HEREBY QUARANTINED FOR LIFE
Pink-haired Aitana Lopez is followed by more than 200,000 people on social media. She posts selfies from concerts and her bedroom, while tagging brands such as hair care line Olaplex and lingerie giant Victoria’s Secret.
Brands have paid about $1,000 a post for her to promote their products on social media—despite the fact that she is entirely fictional.
Aitana is a “virtual influencer” created using artificial intelligence tools, one of the hundreds of digital avatars that have broken into the growing $21 billion content creator economy.
Their emergence has led to worry from human influencers their income is being cannibalized and under threat from digital rivals. That concern is shared by people in more established professions that their livelihoods are under threat from generative AI—technology that can spew out humanlike text, images and code in seconds.
But those behind the hyper-realistic AI creations argue they are merely disrupting an overinflated market.
“We were taken aback by the skyrocketing rates influencers charge nowadays. That got us thinking, ‘What if we just create our own influencer?’” said Diana Núñez, co-founder of the Barcelona-based agency The Clueless, which created Aitana. “The rest is history. We unintentionally created a monster. A beautiful one, though.”
Over the past few years, there have been high-profile partnerships between luxury brands and virtual influencers, including Kim Kardashian’s make-up line KKW Beauty with Noonoouri, and Louis Vuitton with Ayayi.
Instagram analysis of an H&M advert featuring virtual influencer Kuki found that it reached 11 times more people and resulted in a 91 percent decrease in cost per person remembering the advert, compared with a traditional ad.
“It is not influencing purchase like a human influencer would, but it is driving awareness, favourability and recall for the brand,” said Becky Owen, global chief marketing and innovation officer at Billion Dollar Boy, and former head of Meta’s creator innovations team.
Brands have been quick to engage with virtual influencers as a new way to attract attention while reducing costs.
“Influencers themselves have a lot of negative associations related to being fake or superficial, which makes people feel less concerned about the concept of that being replaced with AI or virtual influencers,” said Rebecca McGrath, associate director for media and technology at Mintel.
“For a brand, they have total control versus a real person who comes with potential controversy, their own demands, their own opinions,” McGrath added.
Human influencers contend that their virtual counterparts should have to disclose that they are not real, however. “What freaks me out about these influencers is how hard it is to tell they’re fake,” said Danae Mercer, a content creator with more than 2 million followers.
The UK’s Advertising Standards Agency said it was “keenly aware of the rise of virtual influencers within this space” but said there was no rule where they must declare they are generated by AI.
Many other markets are contending with the problem, with India being one country that forces virtual influencers to reveal their AI origins.
Although The Clueless discloses Aitana is fake through the hashtag #aimodel in her profile on Instagram, many others do not do so or use vague terms such as #digitalinfluencer.
“Even though we made it clear she was an AI-generated model . . . initially, most of her followers didn’t question her authenticity, they genuinely believed in her existence,” said Núñez, who added that Aitana has received multiple requests to meet followers in person.
One of the first virtual influencers, Lil Miquela, charges up to hundreds of thousands of dollars for any given deal and has worked with Burberry, Prada and Givenchy.
Although AI is used to generate content for Lil Miquela, the team behind the creation “strongly believe [the storytelling behind virtual creators] cannot be fully replicated by generative AI,” said Ridhima Kahn, vice-president of business development at Dapper Labs, who oversees Lil Miquela’s partnerships.
“A lot of companies are coming out with virtual influencers they have generated in a day, and they are not really putting that human element [into the messaging] . . . and I don’t think that is going to be the long-term strategy,” she added.
Lil Miquela is considered by many to be mixed race, and her audience of nearly 3 million followers ranges from the US to Asia and Latin America. Meanwhile, The Clueless now has another creation in development, which it calls a “curvy Mexican” named Laila.
Francesca Sobande, a senior lecturer in digital media studies at Cardiff University, has researched virtual influencers with racially ambiguous features and suggests that the motivations behind giving some of these characteristics are “simply another form of marketing” in order to target a broader audience, when “something has been created with a focus on profit.”
“[This] can be very convenient for brands wanting to identify global marketing strategies and trying to project a hollow image that might be perceived as progressive,” said Sobande, who added that “seldom does it seem to be black people” creating the virtual avatars.
Dapper Labs emphasized that the team behind Lil Miquela is diverse and reflects her audience. The Clueless said its creations were designed to “foster inclusivity and provide opportunities to collectives that have faced exclusion for an extended period.”
The Clueless’s creations, among other virtual influencers, have also been criticized for being overly sexualised, with Aitana regularly appearing in underwear. The agency said sexualisation is “prevalent with real models and influencers” and that its creations “merely mirror these established practices without deviating from the current norms in the industry.”
Mercer, the human influencer, argued: “It feels like women in recent years have been able to take back some agency, through OnlyFans, through social media, they have been able to take control of their bodies and say ‘for so long men have made money off me, I am going to make money for myself’.”
But she said AI-generated creations, often made by men, were once again profiting from female sexuality. “That is the reason behind growing these accounts. It is to make money.”
© 2023 The Financial Times Ltd. All rights reserved.
What is COVID-19 brain fog — and how can you clear it?
GettyImages-1205852013
March 8, 2021
By Andrew E. Budson, MD, Contributor; Editorial Advisory Board Member, Harvard Health Publishing
As a cognitive behavioral neurologist, I’ve been hearing from many individuals who are complaining of “brain fog” after infection with COVID-19. So I thought it was worth discussing exactly what COVID-19 brain fog is, and some things to do that might help clear it.
What is brain fog?
Let’s start by trying to understand brain fog. Brain fog is not a medical or scientific term; it is used by individuals to describe how they feel when their thinking is sluggish, fuzzy, and not sharp.
We all experience this feeling from time to time. Perhaps you couldn’t think clearly when you were sick with the flu or another illness. Maybe you were jet-lagged and your thinking was sluggish because it felt like it was 2 AM. Or perhaps you took an antihistamine or another medication that made your thinking fuzzy for a few hours. In each case you probably just waited to get back to normal, whether that meant recovering from your illness, adjusting to the new time zone, or waiting for the side effects of the medication to wear off.
But what if your thinking didn’t return to normal?
What is COVID-19 brain fog?
Recently I received an email from a man who described how he is still struggling with “cognitive challenges” since recovering from the virus in the spring of 2020. His doctor ran him through a checkup and a battery of tests. Everything was normal, yet his cognitive challenges remain. Like this man, many people who have recovered from the acute, life-threatening effects of COVID-19, but still don’t feel that their thinking and memory are back to normal.
How COVID-19 affects the brain
There are many ways that COVID-19 can damage the brain. As I described in a previous blog post, some can be devastating, such as encephalitis, strokes, and lack of oxygen to the brain. But other effects may be more subtle, such as the persistent impairment in sustained attention noted by Chinese researchers.
In addition to direct effects on the brain, COVID-19 can also have long-term effects on other organ systems. So-called long haulers can have other lingering symptoms including fatigue, body aches, inability to exercise, headache, and difficulty sleeping. Some of these problems may be due to permanent damage to their lungs, heart, kidneys, or other organs. Damage to these organs — or even just the symptoms by themselves — can impair thinking and memory and cause brain fog. For example, how can you think clearly if you’re feeling fatigued and your body is aching? How can you concentrate if you were up half the night and awoke with a headache?
What should you do if you may be experiencing COVID-19 brain fog?
The first and most important thing to do is to see your doctor and share with them all of the lingering symptoms you are experiencing. These should include your brain fog and other neurologic symptoms (such as weakness, numbness, tingling, loss of smell or taste), and also problems such as shortness of breath, palpitations, and abnormal urine or stool.
What might help clear the brain fog?
To help clear the brain fog, I recommend pursuing all of the activities that we know help everyone’s thinking and memory.
Perform aerobic exercise. You may need to start slow, perhaps just two to three minutes a few times a day. While there is no established “dose” of exercise to improve brain health, it’s generally recommended you work toward 30 minutes a day, five days a week.
Eat Mediterranean-style meals. A healthy diet including olive oil, fruits and vegetables, nuts and beans, and whole grains has been proven to improve thinking, memory. and brain health.
Avoid alcohol and drugs. Give your brain the best chance to heal by avoiding substances which can adversely affect it.
Sleep well. Sleep is a time when the brain and body can clear out toxins and work toward healing. Make sure you give your body the sleep it needs.
Participate in social activities. We are social animals. Not only do social activities benefit our moods, but they help our thinking and memory as well.
Pursue other beneficial activities, including engaging in novel, cognitively stimulating activities; listening to music; practicing mindfulness; and keeping a positive mental attitude.
viruses don't exist at all