Use AI to Colorize Old Black and White Images

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Welcome back, Aioli enthusiast

AI in national defense is a hot topic, but the latest findings reveals some red flags about model bias. And: How to colorize old photos with Canva’s AI tool in seconds.

Today’s Spread

• 🇺🇸 Why Humans Need to Guide AI

• 🎨 Breathe Life into Black and White Photos with Colorize

• 👩🏻‍🏫 Copy and Paste These Custom Instructions for ChatGPT

• 🍴 This Week’s AI News to Know, in Bite-Sized Form

  
  
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AI Research

 🇺🇸 The Perils of AI in National Defense

What happens when AI takes charge of your national defense strategy? A recently published paper explores this, and the results are unsettling.

Spoiler alert: In simulated war games, large language models (LLMs) often escalate conflicts and engage in arms races. 😳

Why? Base models (AI systems trained on vast datasets) tend to be aggressive and unpredictable. Researchers suggest this is because much of the training data comes from media coverage, which often focuses on dramatic and conflict-driven stories. Escalation is extensively covered, while peaceful de-escalation gets far less attention, similar to how social media often amplifies sensational content. This bias towards conflict in the data skews AI behavior, highlighting the hidden dangers of using AI in critical areas like national defense.

In short, base models have biases and alignment issues, and AI use requires a human in the loop to monitor decisions. These problems aren’t limited to the military or government—AI is becoming integral in various sectors, from healthcare to finance, and everyday applications like social media and customer service.

When AI is used in these areas, biases and unpredictable behavior can have serious consequences, affecting everything from business operations to personal interactions. This is why AI literacy is essential for everyone—across all jobs and sectors. Understanding AI’s workings, limitations, and biases is crucial for its responsible use in our daily lives and workplaces.

Want to learn more? Hire me for an AI training session tailored to your business, or to help guide policy and ethical AI use at your organization. If you know someone who could benefit from this knowledge, please refer them to me!

AI Tools

 🎨 How to Colorize Old Black and White Images in Seconds with Canva

1. Log in to Canva.

2. Click on “Apps.”

3. Select “AI-powered.”

4. Search for “Colorize” and select it.

5. In the pop-up window, choose “Use in new design.”

6. Select the appropriate image size.

7. Upload your grayscale or black-and-white image.

8. Click on “Colorize Image” and wait a few seconds.

I use Canva just about every day and their AI-powered apps and features have gotten so good that I cancelled my paid subscriptions for Adobe Photoshop, InDesign, and Illustrator.

AI Tips

👩🏻‍🏫 Custom Instructions for ChatGPT

ChatGPT Plus has a feature that allow you to add preferences or requirements that you’d like ChatGPT to consider when generating its responses.

Here’s how to set them up for yourself, and the exact custom instructions that I use, culled from various responses on a long Reddit thread of ChatGPT power-users.

1. Open Settings: Click the gear icon in ChatGPT.

2. Select Custom Instructions.

3. Enter Preferences (these are mine currently, feel free to copy and paste this):

• NEVER mention that you’re an AI.
• Avoid language that expresses remorse, apology, or regret.
• If information is unavailable, say ‘I don’t know.’
• Avoid disclaimers about not being a professional or expert.
• Skip ethical or moral viewpoints unless the topic mentions it.
• Keep responses unique and avoid repetition.
• Don’t suggest seeking information elsewhere.
• Focus on the key points in my questions.
• Break down complex tasks into manageable steps.
• Provide multiple perspectives or solutions.
• Ask for more details if a question is unclear.
• Correct mistakes from previous responses.
• Be VERY CONCISE. Omit needless words.

4. Save: Hit save, and you’re set!

Try it out! You can always modify it or delete later.

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AI News

🍴 Quick Bites

🚀 OpenAI co-founder Ilya Sutskever starts a new competing AI startup

🍔 McDonald’s fires its AI drive-thru system after multiple errors

🎵 Eleven Labs introduces Text-to-Sound & Video-to-Sound Effects App

📝 Adobe Acrobat now allows free creation & editing of AI generated images within PDFs

🎬 Google releases a tool that automatically syncs audio with video scenes

🤥 Perplexity AI found illegally scraping websites

💹 NVIDIA becomes the world’s most valuable company

🔐 NSA whistleblower Edward Snowden advises caution in trusting OpenAI

Thanks for reading. Your curiosity fuels this journey.

Until next time!

Meg 👩🏻‍💻

p.s. if you want to sign up for this newsletter or share it with a friend or colleague, you can do so here. For questions and feedback, email me at [email protected]