Robots are pumping iron and acing finals week! 💯

Hello, Fry Guy here serving up your Wednesday updates in AI! Let’s get salty. 🧂

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ROBOT WORKOUTS 🏋️‍♂️

Put down your french fries and pick up your gym bag, because AI is transforming the fitness industry. 💪

In recent years, AI has made a splash in the fitness industry by designing personalized training programs and diets through apps like Fitness AI. However, there are breakthroughs now happening in the design of actual fitness equipment.

Dumbbells could soon be a thing of the past. A company called The Exercise Coach, which has 180 studios worldwide, is implementing AI-powered workout equipment designed by a company called Exerbotics. This revolutionary workout equipment allows Exercise Coach trainers to measure the whole-body strength levels of gym members as they work out and then provide them with ability-matched, customized strength training workouts.

Not only do these machines track the movement and strength of the individuals, but they also adjust while the individual is using them! The Exercise Coach CEO, Brian Cygan, remarked, “Exerbotics smart resistance and bio-feedback change resistance levels in real-time to accommodate where an exerciser's muscles are stronger or weaker … and when resistance levels are precisely dosed and users are guided by on-screen feedback, they work at higher effort levels and apply the most effective stimulus for improvement possible.”

Cygan Believes that these AI-powered machines are able to outperform human trainers in “calculating strength, tracking performance in real-time, instant calculations related to progress analysis, and conversion of performance data into a recommended effort for next time." However, Cygan says this AI technology is unable to “care about people’s goals, obstacles, pain points, need for support,” like human coaches. 🙂

CAN AI ACE FINAL EXAMS? 💯

With finals week here for many college students, AI usage at universities is at an all-time high. One unanimous survey of college students said that almost 49% of them would consider using ChatGPT on their final exams if they were sure they could get away with it! Universities have been scrambling for ways to deal with the emergence of ChatGPT in education, and what has become scary for educators is how well AI is performing in various fields along with how easily accessible the tech is to students.

Many universities have implemented measures to help prevent students from using AI to cheat. Some have tried blocking access to ChatGPT on the campus WiFi. Obviously, this has done little to nothing to help, considering the availability of mobile data to students. Others have required essays be checked by an AI tracking program. These programs, however, have been proven to be faulty. For instance, one tracking program insisted some writings of Shakespeare were AI generated. 😳

A looming question remains, how can educators structure their final exams to reduce the use of AI and encourage students to think for themselves? James Fern, an educator at the University of Baths, tested ChatGPT’s ability on his final exam. He said, "Multiple choice questions … it will handle those very well. We definitely were not expecting it to do as well as it did... it was getting close to 100% correct." However, he noted that with more complex questions which required AI to think more critically, it struggled by merely providing broad information on the subject, but no critical critiques. Fern recommends that educational institutions form the bulk of their assessments challenging the critical thinking skills of students to avoid AI involvement in cheating.

Although Fern might be onto something, it seems that educational institutions are still scrounging for definitive answers. One survey found that more than 70% of teachers "have not received any faculty guidance on ChatGPT.”

IS JUSTIN BIEBER A ROBOT? 😳

Spotify has removed “tens of thousands” of songs from their platform which were produced through the AI music startup, Boomy. Boomy, which has been around for two years, allows its users to create music using AI technology and sell that music for commercial purposes. Boomy claims its users have created over 14 million songs, totaling about 13.83% of “the world's recorded music.” Spotify allows for AI-generated music to be released on their platform and Boomy agrees to split the royalties with the human DJs. However, the greed for those royalties may have gotten the best of them this time. 🤑

Spotify claims that Boomy’s songs were removed from their platform due to the suspected use of bots to inflate streams and gain popularity for the music, a practice known as artificial streaming. Boomy is already facing copyright issues from human artists whose voices are being used as a tool to create the artificial music, and this new concern surrounding artificial streaming has the company garnering attention for all the wrong reasons.

In their official statement, Spotify said, “Artificial streaming is a longstanding, industry-wide issue that [we are] working to stamp out across our service.” It remains to be seen what the future holds for AI music, but it is surely something to keep an eye (or an ear) on! 🎵

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