There’s a somewhat weird alien who wants to work for free for you. You should probably get started.
Let’s get to work.
In previous posts, I have made the argument that, for a variety of reasons, it is better to think of AI as a person (even though it isn’t) than a piece of software. In fact, perhaps one of the most interesting aspects of our current AI moment is that several billion people just got free interns. They are weird, somewhat alien interns that work infinitely fast and sometimes lie to make you happy, but interns nonetheless.
So, how can you figure out how to best use your intern? — Read More
Daily Archives: May 22, 2023
Does AI mean we don’t need the Semantic Web?
If you hang around with computerists long enough, they start talking about the Semantic Web. If you can represent human knowledge in a way that’s easy for computers to understand it will be transformative for information processing.
But computers, traditionally, haven’t been very good at parsing ambiguous human text.
… [That is now changing.] Do we need to write for computers any more? — Read More
Jeff Ding on US vs China AI and Lessons from Past Industrial Revolutions
Jeff Ding is the leading US scholar on China and AI and author of one of the earliest China-focused Substacks, ChinAI.
He recently published a fire paper called, “The diffusion deficit in scientific and technological power: re-assessing China’s rise.” It makes the argument that diffusion capacity (not just innovation capacity) is critical to economic growth — and China actually fares much worse in diffusion capacity than mainstream narratives imply. — Read More
In Battle Over A.I., Meta Decides to Give Away Its Crown Jewels
The tech giant has publicly released its latest A.I. technology so people can build their own chatbots. Rivals like Google say that approach can be dangerous.
In February, Meta made an unusual move in the rapidly evolving world of artificial intelligence: It decided to give away its A.I. crown jewels.
The Silicon Valley giant, which owns Facebook, Instagram and WhatsApp, had created an A.I. technology, called LLaMA, that can power online chatbots. But instead of keeping the technology to itself, Meta released the system’s underlying computer code into the wild. Academics, government researchers and others who gave their email address to Meta could download the code once the company had vetted the individual.
Essentially, Meta was giving its A.I. technology away as open-source software — computer code that can be freely copied, modified and reused — providing outsiders with everything they needed to quickly build chatbots of their own.
… Its actions contrast with those of Google and OpenAI, the two companies leading the new A.I. arms race. — Read More
AI and the future of humanity
Meta Wars, Microsoft vs Meta: Who Will Come Out on Top?
The Meta vs Microsoft debate is that of both principle and the future of Metaverse technology. No doubt the Metaverse, as vague as the word is at the moment, can be seen by tech giants as a new world ripe for the taking. Two of the largest companies building the Metaverse are Meta, formerly Facebook, and Microsoft, are racing to stake their claim.
Now, of course, as mentioned, no one knows what the Metaverse will end up looking like. There are a few things we do know, however.
Firstly, the Metaverse is a virtual environment – or many of them – in which individuals can share their experiences and engage in real-time activities with other users in simulated settings.
Secondly, we do know what technologies will constitute the infrastructure on which it is built. — Read More
Rick's Cafe AI 