AI Reading for Friday June 21
Maybe AI governance will be the only job left. - Fast Company
"I had ChatGPT draw me a picture of how to mount a TV"
Good job, no experts needed in future.
Masayoshi Son sets sights on artificial super-intelligence. 'General intelligence?' Ha! that is for pikers. - Yahoo Finance
Tesla teases a robotaxi demo. But they are not testing a fleet on the road, with or without human safety drivers so seems like it will still take many years. - Business Insider
Perplexity Plagiarized Our Story About How Perplexity Is a Bullshit Machine - WIRED
TikTok AI-generated influencers run wild - CNN
Judea Pearl gives a causality question that eludes AIs. It can memorize answers so you have to mix it up based on a pattern. - X (formerly Twitter)
Apple delays AI rollout in Europe due to regs. - FT
AI models are so big that super rare bit flips are frequent enough to cause errors. - The Register
Major labels look at suing AI music generation platforms. - Billboard
YouTube update suggests 'ask for music' feature is coming, presumably AI music search (or maybe creation LOL?:) - Android Authority
Washington Post dives into the nuclear fusion dreams of AI and cloud hyperscalers. - Washington Post
Apple has an uphill battle to release AI features in China, even with a local partner. - AppleInsider
TikTok offered US government a 'kill switch' among other concessions, US just wants divestiture.
Target to issue retail workers mobile devices with a chat app to help answer customer questions. - Retail Dive
Generative AI robot creates real-world Lego pixel art. - pcgamer
Deepfakers target actor with video encounter with a minor - TMZ
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RE Khosla's prediction -- golly, so that means we'll be ushering in a new era of expanded human creativity, the arts, medical breakthroughs, and general prosperity and leisure for most of the working class, right? LOL JKG naw you'll all be scrambling for fewer and fewer scraps as jobs disappear and the entire planet is run by 3 megacorps run by 7 guys living in a fortified, heavily guarded bunker/custom biosphere somewhere ala Ozymandias from The Watchmen/The Squid Game Island, and the bulk of the developed world slides backwards socially as global poverty finally hits the West. I'd like to be optimistic but I'm already hearing a lot of "AI will take your jobs so shaddap and get your butts back in the office even though you've been productively WFH for the past X years." Irony cherry on top: If anyone's job should be the first to go, 99% of the time the correct answer is "middle management" -- the same crew that wants people back in the office Because Reasons. Also, we're still a long way off from replacing all of the jobs that many look down upon with automation, and you still need human hands in most cases to maintain and repair infrastructure, even if the parts involved are all made by robots. But, there's already too many people scrambling for menial work, at least in NYC where I sit -- the competition (for example) among deliveristas to pick up the "best" delivery gigs is beyond fierce; ditto for "good" barback/dishwasher jobs at places that actually share tips with them. Entire families split delivery jobs and one car over three shifts to make ends meet; I have seen this before, in action, with my own eyes, more than once. It's this not very tall but very wide based pyramid of marginally-skilled labor serving an increasingly shrinking middle class, who in turn is hanging on to their collective jobs for dear life as more and more stuff gets outsourced and/or civil service (and similar) budgets for State/Federal jobs get cut more and more. I live in a building with a lot of civil servants in it, and almost everyone I know who is 45 or older is just going through the motions, afraid to rock the boat, afraid to apply for a promotion and give the impression that they are "unsatisfied" in their current roles, etc. Those that lost their jobs in their 50s are doing bullshit clerical work (instead of being hired into positions that use their expertise because of blatant ageism and the shitshow that is employer-provided healthcare) and are relatively grateful for it. Example: The Parks Department is always saying it needs people. Another couple in my building both got laid off in their late 50s, but they are incredibly outdoorsy, love to ride their bikes in the park, etc. But their applications went nowhere; now he's tutoring other middle class kids for cash and she's doing manual data entry WHICH THEY MAKE HER COMMUTE TO MIDTOWN FOR. IIRC she has a mechanical engineering degree and he did something at a very high level/top of the field architecture or something. It's crazy because the people I know at the most bloated agencies that this City has to offer are also the ones constantly having sabres rattled above their heads. One big question that the article sort of touches on is "what is productivity?" MY question is what happens if there really is no more need for MOST of the white-collar jobs that the middle class does? What happens to an economy then? We're not talking about a major war or natural disaster upending a society; just a complete reshuffling of the value of work itself, which is a lot more disruptive, and it's happening now, in real time. Trickle-down economics never worked and never will. Most people, if you ask them what they would do differently if they lost their job tomorrow, would say "stop getting crap from Amazon/stop having groceries delivered/stop eating out/stop getting takeout." The MTA is already blaming COVID on reduced ridership and instead using this as a way to improve public transportation, it's actually as bad as I can possibly remember it (and it's still a money pit). And our educational system is in shambles anyway, and a new and unflattering light is being shed on higher education from multiple angles unfortunately. TL;DR we're not going into an era where the serfs have access to learning and culture and leisure; rather, most of the population will be further forced into artificial wage slavery. And, any shreds of liberalism left always die when a nation's middle class does. I hope I'm wrong. Thanks for coming to my TED talk!