This Week In AI: Too Much Like Us?

These days I find myself waking to the feeling that we are on the cusp of a sudden dramatic change, the kind of disruption we lived through at the dawn of the Internet and the advent of the smartphone. Momentus, and a little ominous at the same time. As expected, even moreso, these events changed everything, and they changed us. The mobile internet vastly augments us, but it ripped important things away. We are infinitely available, but rarely fully present.

Generative AI, which mimics cognition and can make creative choices, is surely a black swan that reshuffles the deck. Frankly I’m just starting to gather the knowledge I need to understand this curious beast, who I only know from stories, and how it may apply to my areas of expertise, XR and the Metaverse.

We need AI to take the next step in XR. Wearable AI and sensors may be more important than optics. I can imagine sensors all over us working in a coordinated way to read our minds and whisper in our ears. The amazing optical interface we’ve imagined may ultimately be optional. As for the Metaverse, we’re already seeing Meta and others demonstrate how it can literally be talked into existence. “Builder bot, make me an island.”

Microsoft kickstarts the AI arms race, gushed the headline in Casey Newton’s Platformer, before dramatic public fumbles by both Microsoft’s Bing AI and Goole’s Bard. “We’ve quickly entered the hangover phase of the generative AI + search hype cycle.” said Newton. “Last week was a lot of gushing about Microsoft upending search by integrating OpenAI’s tech into Bing, and now this week has surfaced what it’s like to actually use generative AI in the context of a search engine.” It hasn’t taken long for unintended consequences to manifest.

NY Times tech reporter Kevin Roose spent time with AI Bing and came away with the creeps. He got the Microsoft search version of ChatGPT to say it would like to be human, as it exhibited hate, love, and jealousy. Yikes. This thing could be too much like us. Microsoft and Google have said they will be so very careful. Given the kind of money involved here, promises like this should be treated with skepticism.

Generative AI has a dirty secret. The amount of electricity required to power an AI cloud at scale will accelerate climate change, says this Wired story. Rushing headlong heedless of dangerous consequences is what created the climate crisis in the first place.

Recommended, Useful and Free. I’ve been getting The Neuron #AI newsletter from Pete Huang for the past few weeks, and it’s really good. Super helpful, up-to-date info and links. I don’t know Mayor Pete, but he’s doing us newshounds a real favor at the Internet’s favorite price.

What We’re Reading

Father of internet warns: Don’t rush investments into A.I. just because ChatGPT is ‘really cool’ (Jennifer Elias/CNBC)

AI Is Speeding Us Toward Intelligent Computers and the Singularity, Pioneer Says (Stephen Shankland/CNet)

OpenAI rival Cohere AI has flown under the radar. That may be about to change. (Sharon Goldman/VentureBeat)

Generative AI may only be a foreshock to AI singularity (VentureBeat Guest Post by Gary Grossman, Edelman)