August 20, 2024
Today, The Verge profiled a new Tesla project aimed at training robots for routine materials movement. The company is hiring workers between 5’7” and 5’11” to move 30-pound packages while wearing sensor arrays and virtual reality goggles. These workers will provide the motion capture data to train Tesla’s Optimus robots, which will eventually begin taking over this…
June 6, 2024
Dwight Eisenhower’s advice about plans and planning is still relevant today On June 6, the world will mark the 80th anniversary of the D-Day landings and the 40th anniversary of Ronald Reagan’s 1984 “the Boys of Pont du Hoc” speech honoring those who helped turn back the Nazi threat on the beaches of Normandy. We are now as far from Reagan’s speech as the speech was…
May 30, 2024
The Wall Street Journal reported recently that a bidding war has broken out among the tech giants for scarce and valuable generative AI talent. This scramble is part of a much bigger talent shortage that looms over the US economy in coming years as AI becomes critical business infrastructure. Since generative AI (GAI) burst onto the scene in late 2022, the technology has sped ahead, driven…
May 21, 2024
A recent study by UC San Diego researchers brings fresh insight into the ever-evolving capabilities of AI. The authors looked at the degree to which several prominent AI models, GPT-4, GPT-3.5, and the classic ELIZA could convincingly mimic human conversation, an application of the so-called Turing test for identifying when a computer program has reached human-level intelligence. The results were telling:…
February 29, 2024
Abstract The question of how artificial intelligence will affect jobs, skills, and the future of work is open-ended, and answers have been uncertain and contradictory. As AI has advanced, forecasts of labor market impacts have increasingly emphasized AI’s potential to automate tasks that require skills—including creativity, writing, and social and emotional learning—previously believed to be beyond the technology’s reach. In the face…
February 20, 2024
After decades of industrial robots, factory layoffs, and outsourcing, automation has finally arrived in the cubicle. A recent Wall Street Journal article spotlighted how the new “robots for the mind”—the complex algorithms and language models of generative AI—are creating rising uncertainty in the professional class. In the past, automation has generally been more of a concern for blue-collar workers, especially those in the…
January 12, 2024
For decades, automation has been a rough road for middle-skill workers. These jobs used to provide plentiful, family-supporting employment opportunities for those with only a high school education or even less. Robotics and, to a lesser extent, trade dramatically reduced the number of middle-skill jobs leading to what economists called a “polarized” labor market: many high-skilled and low-skilled…
November 27, 2023
The practical advantages of machines better at interpreting, explaining, and anticipating human actions. Recent advances in artificial intelligence demonstrate its growing, and somewhat surprising, potential to imitate sophisticated reasoning tasks previously thought to be reserved to human beings. A new study from researchers at Google, Google DeepMind, the University of Southern California, the University of Chicago, and Carnegie Mellon University reveals progress in developing an…
November 16, 2023
AEI’s Michael Strain contends that, at least for the next several decades, it is highly unlikely that artificial intelligence (AI) will all but eliminate human jobs. This is largely due to the “creative” side of creative destruction. Innovation creates wealth, wealth creates demand, demand spurs employment. The amount of work to be done always increases. Over the…
November 6, 2023
As artificial intelligence (AI) continues its rapid advance, upskilling is shifting from a luxury good to a necessity for almost all workers. Traditionally, upskilling efforts have focused on frontline and production staff. That approach is unlikely to work when it comes to AI. To reap the benefits of this technology, we need commitments at all…