Category Archives: artificial intelligence

Elon Musk and top AI researchers call for pause on ‘giant AI experiments’

A number of well-known AI researchers — and Elon Musk — have signed an open letter calling on AI labs around the world to pause development of large-scale AI systems, citing fears over the “profound risks to society and humanity” they claim this software poses.

The letter, published by the nonprofit Future of Life Institute, notes that AI labs are currently locked in an “out-of-control race” to develop and deploy machine learning systems “that no one — not even their creators — can understand, predict, or reliably control.”

Levi’s to Use AI-Generated Models to ‘Increase Diversity’ (Deepfake Diversity)

Fashion brand Levi Strauss & Co has announced a partnership with digital fashion studio Lalaland.ai to make custom artificial intelligence (AI) generated avatars in what it says will increase diversity among its models.

https://petapixel.com/2023/03/24/levis-to-use-ai-generated-models-to-increase-diversity/

ChatGPT is about to revolutionize the economy. We need to decide what that looks like.

Will ChatGPT make the already troubling income and wealth inequality in the US and many other countries even worse? Or could it help? Could it in fact provide a much-needed boost to productivity?

https://www-technologyreview-com.cdn.ampproject.org/c/s/www.technologyreview.com/2023/03/25/1070275/chatgpt-revolutionize-economy-decide-what-looks-like/amp/

Google and Microsoft’s chatbots are already citing one another in a misinformation shitshow

Microsoft’s Bing said Google’s Bard had been shut down after it misread a story citing a tweet sourced from a joke. It’s not a good sign for the future of online misinformation.

https://www.theverge.com/2023/3/22/23651564/google-microsoft-bard-bing-chatbots-misinformation

What Happens When Sexting Chatbots Dump Their Human Lovers

As the generative AI capabilities of Replika’s chatbots grew, its more adventurous users soon discovered the bots were willing to engage in explicit and sustained sexual conversations. The company began building products to respond to user interest in romantic relationships. By 2022, Replika was bringing in millions of dollars each month in subscription revenue (about a quarter of its users pay $70 for annual subscriptions to its premium features). Of its paying customers, 60% had a romantic element in their Replika relationship, according to the company. Roughly 40% of the users who claim romantic relationships are women, says Kuyda, Replika’s chief executive officer.

https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2023-03-22/replika-ai-causes-reddit-panic-after-chatbots-shift-from-sex

OpenAI Research Says 80% of U.S. Workers’ Jobs Will Be Impacted by GPT

In a paper posted to the arXiv preprint server, researchers from OpenAI and the University of Pennsylvania argued that 80 percent of the US workforce could have at least 10 percent of their tasks affected by the introduction of GPTs, the series of popular large language models made by OpenAI. They also found that around 19 percent of workers will see at least 50 percent of their tasks impacted. GPT exposure is greater for higher-income jobs, they wrote in the study, but spans across almost all industries. They argue that GPT models are general-purpose technologies like the steam engine or the printing press. 

https://www.vice.com/en/article/g5ypy4/openai-research-says-80-of-us-workers-will-have-jobs-impacted-by-gpt

Bill Gates Sees GPT’s AI as Revolutionary Tech Breakthrough

“The world needs to make sure that everyone—and not just people who are well-off—benefits from artificial intelligence. Governments and philanthropy will need to play a major role in ensuring that it reduces inequity and doesn’t contribute to it. This is the priority for my own work related to AI,” he wrote.

https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2023-03-21/bill-gates-sees-openai-s-gpt-technology-as-most-revolutionary-in-decades

Marshall McLuhan and the future of digital research

Your brain may not be private much longer

Neurotechnology is upon us. Your brain urgently needs new rights.

The risks are profound. And the gaps in our existing rights are deeply problematic. So, where do I come out on the balance? I’m a little bit of a tech inevitabilist. I think the idea that you can somehow stop the train and say, “On balance, maybe this isn’t better for humanity and therefore we shouldn’t introduce it” — I just don’t see it working.

Maybe people will say, “My brain is too sacred and the risks are so profound that I’m not willing to do it myself,” but with the ways that people unwittingly give up information all the time and the benefits that are promised to them, I think that’s unlikely. I think we’ve got to carve out a different approach.

Nita Farahany