📨 Weekly digest: 43 2024 | The robots are coming: is AI the ultimate disruptor of society?
We readily feed LLMs our most intimate data – our hopes, fears, medical histories, even our deepest desires | AI this week in the news; use cases; tools for the techies
👋🏻 Hello legends, and welcome to the weekly digest, week 43 of 2024.
We all must acknowledge that LLMs are no longer confined to research labs; they are rapidly automating tasks once considered the exclusive domain of human intellect.
No job is truly safe from the encroaching tide of automation, including drafting legal briefs, composing marketing copy, diagnosing diseases, and providing customer service.
This mass displacement of human labor has the potential to unleash unprecedented levels of unemployment and social unrest, fracturing the very fabric of our society.
Imagine a world where skilled professionals—lawyers, doctors, writers, even programmers—find their expertise rendered obsolete by machines. Millions are left without the means to support themselves or their families, leading to economic despair and social upheaval.
This is not science fiction; it is the stark reality we must confront as LLMs continue their relentless march into every facet of our lives.
We must ask ourselves not if this will happen but how we will respond.
Will we passively accept this dystopian future, or will we proactively seek solutions to mitigate the impact of mass automation?
This is not merely an economic challenge but a moral imperative.
We must find ways to ensure that the benefits of AI are shared by all, not just a privileged few.
This may require a radical rethinking of our social safety nets, our education systems, and even our definition of work itself.
The time for complacency is over.
The future of our workforce hangs in the balance, and the decisions we make today will determine the fate of future generations.
A universal basic income may be a viable solution to the economic upheaval caused by widespread AI adoption.
We must start preparing for a future where human labor is mainly obsolete and find ways to ensure a just and equitable distribution of resources.
What do you think?
I am looking forward to reading your thoughts in a comment.
Happy days,
Yael et al.
This week’s podcast episode
This week’s Wild Chat
🦾 AI elsewhere on the interweb
Adobe study on AI in the creative industries. [LINK]
A sensible piece from A16Z on using generative AI for tools for small businesses to help them process unstructured data (think of the hours a dentist, doctor or hairdresser has to spend typing data from emails into booking and accounting systems). [LINK]
One sign of the path to maturity of generative AI, and the hunt for specific, tangible use cases rather than ‘teach everyone to write prompts!’ - Anthropic is now doing content marketing to promote customer success stories. They’ll have branded fleeces next. [LINK]
Fast access to our weekly posts
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🚀 Bias, fairness, and explainability
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📨 Weekly digest: 42 2024 | The Faustian bargain of AI: trading privacy for convenience
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