CategoryArtificial Intelligence
Artificially Smart: Artificial Intelligence and Higher Education
Understanding needs to remain the metric by which students are evaluated
Robert J. Marks to speak at Big Sky Conference in Billings, Montana
He will focus on the way in which, while AI offers exciting possibilities, many claims for AI are provably overblown
Internet Pollution — If You Tell a Lie Long Enough…
Large Language Models (chatbots) can generate falsehoods faster than humans can correct them. For example, they might say that the Soviets sent bears into space...
Can There Really Be an Ultimate Happiness Machine?
Technology can do so much. Can it really provide an answer to the eternal human quest for happiness?
Does ChatGPT Depend on Copyright Violation to Function?
Without copyrighted material, ChatGPT has slim pickings to go on.ChatGPT, the large language model developed by OpenAI, might seem like it generates novel content, but of course we know that it partakes in what’s generally called “scraping.” It takes pre-existing material on the Internet in response to the prompt a human user inserts. Not surprisingly, the folks who put things on the Internet for a living, like writers and artists, haven’t taken so kindly to AI’s online sleuthing. In fact, a number of artists, writers (including George R. R. Martin, Jonathan Franzen, and John Grisham) and even news outlets have sued OpenAI over copyright infringement allegations. What’s fascinating, though, is that OpenAI hasn’t tried to dodge the allegation but freely admits that ChatGPT depends on copyrighted material to function. Read More ›
AI Will Disrupt Everything — But Forget the Robot Apocalypse!
It will be a slow, steady, measured disruption, like the one the printing press created
Computers Still Do Not “Understand”
Don't be seduced into attributing human traits to computers.
Framework for AI Legislation
Unfortunately, current calls for AI legislation seems to be largely motivated by fear of the unknown rather than looking for specific policy goals.
When it Comes to New Technologies Like AI, Tempers Run Hot
So far, the most tangible LLM successes have been in generating political disinformation and phishing scams.
This New Year, Resolve to Stay Human
This year, we will continue to declare that human beings are unique and exceptional.
Copyright in the Age of Artificial Intelligence
What exactly is a human and how does a human differ from a computer?On December 27, The New York Times Company sued Microsoft and OpenAI for violations of their copyright. The Times contends that training chatbots on its content in order to create an information competitor is a violation of its copyright. This suit is sure to bring up a number of old copyright issues that were never resolved, plus some new that need to be worked through. The fact is, the big search engines have been violating copyright from the very beginning. All search engines are in fact derivative works of the sites that they crawl, index, and dish out. Most search engines even provide excerpts from the sites they scan. However, most copyright holders have turned a blind eye to this for two main Read More ›
ChatGPT: You’ve Come a Long Way, Baby
Reviewing the bot's progress (and problems) from over the last year
The Two Visions of AI Technology
Competing views of AI's potential comprise a new struggle in Silicon Valley.
Tesla Recall Due to the Short Attention Span of Drivers
Tesla did nothing wrong, but some claim they didn’t do enough right.
AI Chatbot Claude Passed My “Sex and Gender” Test. I’m Impressed.
The chatbot "Claude" isn't perfect, but it's miles ahead of the others.
How Do We Define Successful Use Cases for Generative AI?
Current generative AI systems are designed to give us the most common solutions, instead of the new ones we need.
Substack Gets It. AI Can’t Replace Human Writers
It was encouraging to see the up-and-coming writing platform boldly herald the uniqueness of human creativity.
Large Language Models are Still Smoke and Mirrors
Incapable of understanding, LLMs are good at giving bloated answers.I recently received an email invitation from Google to try Gemini Pro in Bard. There was an accompanying video demonstration of Bard’s powers, which I didn’t bother watching because of reports that a Gemini promotional video released a few days earlier had been faked. After TED organizer Chris Anderson watched the video, he tweeted, “I can’t stop thinking about the implications of this demo. Surely it’s not crazy to think that sometime next year, a fledgling Gemini 2.0 could attend a board meeting, read the briefing docs, look at the slides, listen to every one’s words, and make intelligent contributions to the issues debated? Now tell me. Wouldn’t that count as AGI?” Legendary software engineer Grady Booch replied, “That demo Read More ›
