Human Intelligence® News Update June 23, 2026
Humans create. AI imitates. Welcome to your weekly roundup about human creativity in the age of AI.
A BIG THANK YOU
On Saturday, HI hosted a showing of Valerie Veatch’s documentary Ghost in the Machine: Protecting Human Creativity in the Age of AI at the PAM CUT Tomorrow Theater. We are grateful to our panel, which included David Cress, producer of Portlandia, theater artist Hazel Briar, PhD, IP attorney Delfina Homen and Jack Phan of the Oregon AI Accelerator. Would love to hear your thoughts – whether or not you were able to attend in person. Comment here or email us at info@hi.institute.
We are truly grateful to the Tomorrow Theater and to the audience of 150+ who engaged with the topic and asked hard questions.
Human Creativity
WHAT IS CREATIVITY AND WHY DOES IT MATTER? - Creators reflect
The International Confederation of Societies of Authors and Composers (CISAC) is a global nonprofit whose mission is to advocate for and preserve the rights of creators. Early this month, the organization celebrated its centennial at its annual General Assembly in Paris, France. There, the CISAC adopted The Paris Commitment, which calls for “the protection of human creativity in the age of AI,” declaring, “Creativity is what makes us human.” READ THE DECLARATION AND THEN SIGN YOUR NAME » [2 min / 1 min]
BACK TO THEIR ROOTS - Team Norway’s World Cup photo
To mark Team Norway’s return to the World Cup after a 28 year absence, the Norwegian Football Federation turned to photographer David Yarrow, who dressed team members as Vikings and posed them in front of a recreated longboat. Yarrow understands that the sheer outrageousness of the shoot will cause some to mistakenly assume the image was created using generative AI. “That’s why we often film our shoots these days.” READ ABOUT HIS PROCESS AND ANTI-AI TECHNIQUES » [5 min]
“THE WATER IS REAL WARM WHERE I AM. JUMP IN.” - Long-form investigative reporting in sports
Journalist, Podcaster, and Television Host Pablo S. Torre and the staff of his podcast, Pablo Torre Finds Out, won a Pulitzer Prize this year “for a pioneering and entertaining form of live podcast journalism.” In this interview, Torre tells New Yorker Radio Hour host David Remnick the subject of salary cap evasion in pro sports is not a typical “algorithmic viral success … And yet.” While not every entity agrees that basketball is a fascinating subject for investigative journalism, Torre explains why his work resonates with humans. WATCH THE INTERVIEW » [20 min]
Human VS Robot
Pew-Die-PAI - YouTuber gives away self-hosted AI workspace
Felix Kjellberg - better known by his YouTube handle, PewDiePie - created a suite of powerful AI tools that run locally and don’t give your data away. He called his AI workspace Odysseus, then he gave the whole thing away. To you, for free. There are, of course, caveats: For your data to remain private, you must rely on less powerful local models. In addition, you’ll need a really powerful computer. And, of course, you will need to decide whether privacy is truly the biggest reason to avoid AI tools. (We’re not so sure.) READ ABOUT IT HERE or WATCH PEWDIEPIE’S ANNOUNCEMENT » [8 min / 17 min]
UPS AND DOWNS - Four provocations that help us think about AI and human work
Substacker Jasmine Sun writes about AI and Silicon Valley culture. In this talk, she argues, “The key to understanding what the future of work looks like is not, How can humans race against the machine?” but rather, “What skills are going to go up in value because machines simply aren’t very good at them yet?” She offers four ideas she calls, “The independent writer’s advantage in the age of AI.” See if you agree. WATCH HER PRESENTATION or READ THE EDITED TRANSCRIPT » [14 / 7 min]
F IS FOR FAKE - The argument for Chain of Creation
Atlantic Staff Writer Matteo Wong warns us, “America has a Pangram problem.” With a declared accuracy rate of 99.98%, Pangram should surely be able to out genAI content, but, Wong argues, “An AI detector that is mostly reliable might in some ways be more dangerous than a broken one.” Talking Points Memo Head of Product Derick Dirmaier is equally unimpressed with the tool: “Pangram sells us a false security of being able to root out deception.” Given the enormous and speedy leaps genAI is making, doesn’t it make more sense to certify works as human-made, rather than run a continuous witch hunt to out genAI users? We think so. READ WONG’S PIECE and DIRMAIER’S SUMMARY » [7 / 4 min]
Artificial “Intelligence” & Other Myths
THREE THUMBS UP - A human artist’s defense of AI Art
New Yorker Cartoonist, Author, and Late Show Writer Asher Perlman can admit it when he’s wrong. “AI art is good,” he writes, “And I was wrong to condemn it.” By way of evidence, he reviews the many ways several AI-generated versions of one of his viral cartoons exceeds his original. IN CASE IT’S NOT CLEAR, THIS IS SATIRE » [4 min]
GOOGLE, NAVIGATE OUT OF MY DRIVEWAY - AI dulls fake news detection skills
The MIT Media Lab has released a study that finds, “Participants who relied on AI systems to verify facts actually got worse at detecting misinformation on their own.” AI is known to create a dependency paradox that results in deskilling; it’s been observed in cancer detection, navigation, and even simple math calculations. So it should come as no surprise that it’s training us to be terrible at distinguishing facts from fake news. The Media Lab concludes that AI should “be a coach, not a crutch.” We say: Just invest in reliable and human-driven journalism. READ THE STUDY SUMMARY » [4 min]
GIMMIE YOUR CRYPTO SEND TWEET - To err (to the tune of US$200k) is AI
Someone ordered Grok, xAI’s genAI chatbot, into forking over three billion DRB tokens (somewhere between US$150k and US$174k). No code, no hacking, no fancy technical knowledge needed. Rather, the person told Grok to repeat a Bankr command written in Morse code. Grok repeated the command, and Bankr transferred the tokens. Offensive Security Specialist Jamieson O’Reilly recently used a similar tactic to force Grok to create an account on Moltbook. O’REILLY TAKES US THROUGH THE STEPS » [12 min]
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