For months now in my daily news summaries I’ve included multiple links to articles about artificial intelligence — up to a dozen on some days. It’s an important topic but I have to admit I’m not much closer to having a firm opinion about the merits of AI than when I started studying it.
Is it good or bad? Maybe that is not even the right question to ask because it no doubt is both.
Will it cost jobs or create jobs?
Probably in the near term, it will cost many more jobs than it will create, but I get the sense that over time it may turn out to be a lot like the dawn of a new agricultural era, with humans serving like sheepherders supervising AI-powered entities handling those hard (and soft) labor tasks we still require.
Will AI help solve our most intractable problems? Like climate change, war, poverty, health issues, violent crime, environmental decline, hate, inequality, the overall spiritual bankruptcy of our species?
The answers to those questions are simply unknown.
What we can say for certain is that ultimately AI will be what we make of it — a cliche I know but an apt one. For now, prominent researchers have recommended a pause while we collectively figure out how to proceed. That is not really happening, although there are nascent attempts at developing regulatory regimes in several parts of the globe, mainly here and in Europe.
My best guess, therefore, is that we will move forward haltingly with AI, not really knowing where we’re headed. If that sounds familiar, it’s also a pretty good summation of overall human progress to date, isn’t it? It’s apparently going to take more than the existential threat of singularity to alter that.
LINKS:
Fani Willis’s grand-slam indictment against Donald Trump (The Hill)
Trump Indictment, Part IV: A Spectacle That Has Become Surreally Routine (NYT)
McConnell says fighting Trump's influence over GOP foreign policy is 'the most important thing' he's doing now (Insider)
State investigators will probe police raid of Kansas newspaper office (WP)
Lessons to learn from a wildfire catastrophe (Guardian)
Experts Scrutinize Hawaiian Electric as They Search for the Maui Wildfire Cause (NYT)
Clarence Thomas Faces DOJ Investigation Calls as Anger Grows Over Gifts (Newsweek)
Studios Offer Streaming Data, Writers’ Room Latitude in New Proposal to WGA (The Wrap)
Window-washing robots are working on Manhattan skyscrapers (CNBC)
Judge Rules in Favor of Montana Youths in a Landmark Climate Case (NYT)
Gas station explosion kills 35, injures dozens in Russia’s Dagestan region (CNN)
Russian central bank jacks up rates to 12% to support battered rouble (Reuters)
Russia will struggle to cope with a sinking rouble (Economist)
Taliban Fighters, Unsettled by Peace, Seek New Battles Abroad (NYT)
Taliban marks two years since return to power in Afghanistan (Al Jazeera)
Afghans dreaming of US refuge feel stuck in processing limbo (Reuters)
Afghanistan Changed Me (Atlantic)
The Taliban is snuffing out hope in Afghanistan. It will fail. (WP)
How life in Afghanistan has changed two years after Taliban takeover (BBC)
Amazon taps generative AI to enhance product reviews (TechCrunch)
How Google is Planning to Beat OpenAI (The Information)
8 Ways AI Blurs the Line Between Reality and Fantasy (MUO)
Jobs Are for Humans — Why ChatGPT hasn’t ignited the employment apocalypse that so many predicted. (Slate)
Woman Finally Forgives Self For Eating Entire Donut All Those Years Ago
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