In his latest newsletter, the venerable Steven Levy unpacked the background for the kerfuffle surrounding Sarah Wynn-Williams’ book. While there…
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Under the rug The darkside of technology, particularly regarding social media and the AI stampede, continues to unfold, with whistle-blower testimonies and books. Even a movie now & then, like The Social Dilemma. We’re in a political climate where hypocrisy is no longer a disqualification. Yet again money muddies moral missteps. Ancient wisdom butts heads…
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Despite all the reality checks and cautions about AI chatbots, general discussion & development continues to move ahead, discounting worst-case scenarios. Particularly big tech rollouts of new versions – with some new names – for public-facing chatbots. And AI startups even pitching the promise of empathetic-like AI customer-facing agents to businesses (delivering at least better conversations than with many outsourced customer support services, eh). So, new choices, as this Wired…
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2023 was likely the hottest year on record … megadroughts … megafires … megastorms & floods … mega migrations … and all the political & social impacts. In the New Year, complacency is not an option – misinformation exploits hopelessness. • Wired > “Yes, the Climate Crisis Is Now ‘Gobsmacking.’ But So Is Some Progress” by Matt Simon (Dec 27, 2023) – This is the year that “absolutely gobsmackingly bananas” summed up the…
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My holiday card this year in the cosmic greetings, Santa-in-Space series. What another year … how to handle the challenge of cheer?so, Santa’s adapted, got some new gearamidst all the clutter & clatter,swiftly gauging every matter even the Claus is down with AI,for transport does he deftly relyto artfully supervise a lot,answering wishes by merry chatbot With hands off the reins likely as not,trusting his beta auto-pilotto do all the…
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Looking back … moving forward …
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“Our future will be characterized by a tension between copilot (AI as collaborator) and autopilot (humans as sidekick to AI). The latter is more efficient and cheaper in a narrow labor economics sense but troublesome in all sorts of ways.” – Wired > email Newsletter > Steven Levy > Plaintext > The Plain View (December 8, 2023) Ready or not, in November, 2022, a new chatbot “tumbled into civilization’s ongoing…