Track 9. Anti-AI Software, Google's Biggest Move, Vision Pro's Future

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Bullet Train is your express route to the stories, products & concepts shaping our future. No short-term headlines, no fluff—just the innovations transforming the world and our place in it, curated by the team behind the Meco App.

In weeks like these, we’re prettygrateful we get to write this newsletter: focused on future-shaping stories we can have positive discourse and enlightening discussions about. Some call it disassociating from present reality, we call it Bullet Train.

It’s July 17^th . Today’s stops include:

• The social app spurring the rise of anti-AI software 🎨

• What Google’s biggest acquisition ever is telling us 🥷

• Is Vision Pro the Apple Macintosh of VR headsets? 👀

And don’t miss our #offtherails segment — not so future-focused, just a bit of fun

Weekly coverage of stories shaping the future — brought to you in streamlined bullet points:

The social app spurring the rise of anti-AI software

• Have you heard of: Cara — the newish social media app that prevents its users’ posts and imagery from being used to train generative AI

• Who it’s for: the app is targeted at artists wanting to share their portfolios on social media without the risk of ‘AI scrapers’ scrolling their work and learning how to mimic their style

• Growth story: founded by photographer Zhang Jinghna in 2022, Cara grew astronomically in June — jumping from 40K to 650K users in just over a week

• How we got here: last month, Meta announced it would train its generative AI on all content posted to IG and Facebook (you can opt out of that, btw)

• How it works: Cara has promised not to train AI models on any user-generated content or allow third parties to do so (by using a ‘NoAI’ tag)

• But there’s a catch: if OpenAI taught us anything, it’s that if someone really wants to train their AI model on your content… they’re going to do it — and that ‘NoAI’ tag will be kind of like a speed limit sign (all too easy to ignore)

• Software steps in: however, the Cara app is beginning to implement more impactful anti-AI measures via software tools (Glaze and Nightshade) that confuse AI bots trying to scrape data in the first place

• Anti-AI software: both developed at the University of Chicago — Glaze is a tool that learns how AI bots perceive art to make subtle changes; and Nightshade adds invisible pixels to an image, causing scrapers to misinterpret what they’re ‘seeing’

• Where our minds are going: while Cara has an honorable mission in the social media space, dare we say the most interesting part of all this will be the new race between AI bots and the anti-AI software being developed to trick them

What Google’s biggest acquisition ever could tell us

• What to know: Google (or rather, Alphabet) is reportedly in talks to purchase the 4-year-old Israeli-founded cybersecurity startup, Wiz, for $23 billion

• Follow the money: if it goes through, this would be the largest acquisition made by Google — double that of its 2012 takeover of Motorola Mobility (which was a big flop btw)

• Why Wiz: the company (with $350M in annual recurring revenue, last valued at $12B) excels at cloud security — by automating scans of cloud environments they offer instant visibility on risks so companies can proactively remove them, without the need for human agents

• How we got here: in 2021 Google pledged to the Biden administration to invest $10B in cybersecurity and then proceeded to buy Siemplify for $500M and Mandiant for $5.4B

• Probable pushback: we’re guessing the White House wasn’t expecting this big of a follow-up… as both the Biden administration and the EU have been trying to stop these major mergers that could create monopolies — so they’ll likely push back on this deal, too

• Cybersecurity is still hot: regardless of what happens, cybersecurity will still be the hot ticket — especially following continued reports of data breaches at the likes of Ticketmaster and AT&T

• Where our minds are going: this isn’t an expected move from Google — it’s just not their style to make acquisitions at this scale, and that’s exactly what makes it so interesting

• What it signals: Google isn’t trying to catch up to Amazon and Microsoft in the cloud computing space — they’re aiming for a massive headstart in the new game that matters most: cloud cybersecurity

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A story that stirred up big emotions and bigger opinions for us this week

Is Vision Pro the Apple Macintosh of VR headsets?

• What to know: Apple’s Vision Pro headset just launched in Europe, and our friends across the Atlantic can now snag a pair for the very cool price of £3,499 (or €3,999)

• Is anyone buying them: the tech nerds are (maybe speculating on how much it will be worth someday), but this is not a general public purchase — research firms estimate Apple will only sell 500,000 in 2024 (compared to 49.5M iPads and 231M iPhones sold in 2023)

• Who competes with Apple: there are so many virtual reality headsets out there, but the main competitor for the Vision Pro is Meta’s Quest Pro, which costs about 80% less

• What are VR headsets good for: it’s more the novelty of new tech for now — they offer deeply personal video experiences, immersive gaming, engaging fitness routines — and if that’s all you’re after, Meta VR headsets will do the trick

• The Vision Pro vision: Apple sees a bigger play for Vision Pro becoming a product that will drastically enhance daily productivity and aid in highly complex tasks, becoming as embedded into our lives as iPhones

• Compelling but clunky: nothing matches the Vision Pro when it comes to speed and quality of VR tech, it’s in a league of its own — but thinking about strapping on a nearly 1.5lb pair of goggles to make life more convenient and productive… isn’t persuading us (yet)

• Where our minds are going: but we’re reminding ourselves that this is still early days of VR, and perhaps we should think of the Vision Pro as the Apple Macintosh of VR headsets…

• An interesting comp: Apple’s first personal computerwas clunky as heck and sold for $2,495 when it was released in 1984, equivalent to $7500 today — a big purchase that most definitely wasn’t mainstream

• The future is fast approaching: if we can think of the difference between the Apple Macintosh and the iPad Air, just imagine where the Vision Pro headset gets to over the next decade — Tony Stark here we come!

A bit of fun to round out your ride

• We know Thomas Edison, but we didn’t know much of anything about his background, and it’s actually super interesting. Faster Than Normal covered it brilliantly — worth a read here

• Did you catch the scandal of the UK politician accused of being an AI candidate? Turns out, he’s a real person who just missed his campaign events because he had pneumonia… this global election year is really so, so, so special

• Feel like you’re not living a very fulfilling life? This sociologist suggests you need something called “moral ambition”

• And how about a little gadget roundup? The team at Stuff have rounded up the best gadgets of 2024, satisfyingly sorted to cover every aspect of your life

Here’s what Bullet Train readers had to say about last week’s topics:

What do you think about Bloomberg’s $1B donation for free medical school?

🟨🟨⬜️⬜️⬜️⬜️ It's incredible, no downsides (28%)

🟩🟩🟩🟩🟩🟩 I can see how it doesn't solve a bigger issue (72%)

“As parents receive tax breaks or vouchers for their choice of early education for their children, perhaps a similar incentive for graduate and medical school candidates could help fill out the more needed industries. And get these bloated institutions, receiving these large endowments, to put some skin in the game!” - C

We're curious: do you believe most people can be trusted?

🟨🟨🟨🟨⬜️⬜️ Yes, actually! (46%)

🟩🟩🟩🟩🟩🟩 No, unfortunately (54%)

Please mind the gap as you get off the train ✌️