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August 20, 2024
The Robots Are Going to Take These Jobs. Thank Goodness.
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…
May 30, 2024
Building a High Tech Workforce for the Future
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
Did AI Just Pass the Turing Test?
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:…
November 16, 2023
Work in a World of Abundance
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
Upskilling from the Top
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…
November 3, 2023
The Biden AI Executive Order: Dark Brandon or Uncle Joe?
President Biden’s executive order this week on artificial intelligence (AI) brings to mind his split media personality, which consists of the avuncular “Uncle Joe” and the more Machiavellian “Dark Brandon.” This bifurcated political personality has the advantage of keeping his opponents guessing, but in the case of the EO, it creates a policy jumble that is going…
July 14, 2023
Do We Need a Reboot? Challenging Prevailing Narratives on AI
It is hard at times to tell which is likely to be more disruptive: artificial intelligence (AI) or the multiplying efforts to regulate this powerful, potentially transformational, and highly beneficial technology. With multiple calls for pauses and increasing calls for new regulation, we are clearly at a critical moment in a debate that could either…
June 7, 2023
How ‘Negativity Bias’ Skews the Conversation About Artificial Intelligence
Just as I was preparing an article titled “Calm Down About Artificial Intelligence”—one in a series—Marc Andreesen has preempted me with an 18-page blog post inventorying the main threads in the “AI doom-loop” and why these concerns are either wrong or substantially overblown. In fairness, Andreesen is open to the criticism that he is engaging in…
April 6, 2023
Stop the AI Pause
Last week, the Future of Life Institute released an open letter that included some computer science luminaries calling to freeze deployment and research on artificial intelligence (AI) technologies for six months. One prominent AI ethicist insisted that the letter did not go far enough and proposed that the world’s governments prepare for “airstrikes” against rogue developers and data processing…