AI round-up: Week of Jan. 01, 2024

I was thinking of kicking off the round-up next week. But you know…there’s just too much going on.
 
This week’s issue: 9 stories
The AI impact meter: High
How long to read: 20 minutes (not including the Lex Fridman pod or my interview)
 
1.    Christopher Penn sets the tone. Three words and four enemies of 2024. As he warns you early on in his blog, this one may not be for everybody. I think it is a very important read. But again, it may not be for everybody.
2.    2024 will be the year AI affects everything and anything. This Vox article is full of predictions from many other prediction pieces.
3.    Don’t worry. Google has created a robot constitution to make sure its AI droids won’t kill us.
4.    This is a three-hour podcast. Is it worth all three hours? That’s up to you. But it’s the Lex Fridman podcast, and his guest is Beff Jezos, aka Guillaume Verdon. I recommend you find a way to check out the first hour because it gives a perspective you may not have been exposed to: one that insists AI be treated as an equal and believes in caring for it as it evolves.
5.    The journey continues. Midjourney is focusing on AI video creation next and will likely have it up and running within a few months.
6.    AI everything. In this fantastic post, Ethan Mollick talks about how we will live in an AI-haunted world once they all start talking to each other. I particularly liked the image generated for the piece. (At the end of the read.)
7.    Copilot is here. For your phones.
8.    Speaking of Copilot, there is now a Copilot button on the Windows keyboard. The first change to the keyboard in 30 years.
9.    Some copyright stuff:
 
First, if you missed it, The New York Times filed a copyright lawsuit against OpenAI and Microsoft. This could change … a lot of things, mainly how content can be used and pulled into LLMs. I’d recommend staying up to date on this one, as it could have a significant impact on journalism.
 
Second, OpenAI’s ChatGPT4 is moving quickly to reduce how DALL-E is stepping on copyrighted images. I mean, look at the difference:

Finally, if you missed it … I was featured in Medium’s Authority Magazine at the end of 2023. The topic? How will AI disrupt our industry? Here’s the full interview.
 
Welcome to 2024.
 
-Ben


As a reminder, this is a round-up of the biggest stories, often hitting multiple newsletters I receive/review. The sources are many … which I’m happy to read on your behalf. Let me know if there’s one you’d like me to track or have questions about a topic you’re not seeing here.