AI round-up: Week of January 13, 2025
This is an important AI Round-up. It’s the last one of the Biden Administration.
Now, before you stop reading because you don’t talk politics at work, please note – this isn’t political. It’s historical.
We witnessed the first executive orders signed by a president regarding AI. (Biden signed another earlier this week.) We’ve seen tech leaders jockey for positions over the past year and most recently this past month as they prepare for a new president. (Zuck put a wishlist in front of President Trump just this week.)
We were here, at the beginning, as this new era started and accelerated. How will the next administration impact AI and us? Honestly, I think the sky’s the limit. I think we will see far less restrictions (or talk of them) and a lot more in-fighting and trash-talking from the AI big dogs as they’re forced to play Elon’s game.
We should take note of where we are in historical terms, appreciate what we’ve seen … and be in amazement at what we’re about to see.
The Heavy Stuff
Story 1: The World Economic Forum’s Future of Jobs Report (Christopher Penn)
This story is flooding my LinkedIn feed, so I thought I’d share a perspective from a voice I trust. What does it mean that there is now a prediction from an institution like the WEF that within five years, AI will be better at (no one said replace!) several specific jobs (not tasks)? Worth your time to dig into this one.
Story 2: Prophecies of the Coming Flood (Ethan Mollick)
Diving right in here, no pun intended.
I actually had this one saved from last week. It was too much to throw into our first one, but it’s worth reading. And here’s why – while Mollick does a great job recapping all of the AGI talks kicked around the past few weeks, he does an even better job doing what he always does … bringing it back to us, the humans.
His concern is that we aren’t even dealing with the AI we have now … how can we prepare for the AI that is to come?
I appreciate that he doesn’t put the onus entirely on us. Because as we’ve heard for the past few years (thank you, Max Tegmark) we aren’t capable of understanding it. Tegmark’s point was that technology will exponentially grow at a speed we really can’t comprehend.
But back to Mollick – his point, which, regardless of what we can comprehend, is we need to prepare in some form now … not when the flood arrives.
Great read. Check it out.
Story 3: The Future of Work (Paul Roetzer)
Paul put it right out there this week when he issued a challenge to debunk thinking around generative AI’s impact on the future of work. The challenge itself is linked in the headline and it is 100% worth your time to take a look at it.
The point he successfully makes, even by taking a conservative approach and scaling the outcome, is no matter how you look at the future state of work and AI, we will see disruption that we aren’t ready for. He is on the front lines, talking to companies, thought leaders and economists, and his concern is that we will “catch up” to whatever changes come our way when in fact we have technology that will put us in a position that can’t be caught up to.
Story 4: OpenAI’s bot shut down a company’s eCommerce site (TechCrunch)
As we’ve talked about in the past, OpenAI learns by its bots scraping websites. Sometimes, that can slow down a website’s performance. In other cases, it can shut it down entirely.
The company’s CEO said, “Their crawlers were attacking our site,” and likened it to a DDoS attack.
Story 5: President Biden signs another executive order regarding AI. (FoxNews)
This one is to help us accelerate our infrastructure in a way that doesn’t negatively affect climate change. The idea is that federal sites will become available for the private sector to lease and build. (I have a feeling this may be the last time you hear of our government being concerned about AI’s impact on climate change.)
Story 6 & 7: They kinda go together.
First, this read in Bloomberg. Here’s the opening paragraph, which quickly gets the point across:
Global banks will cut as many as 200,000 jobs in the next three to five years as artificial intelligence encroaches on tasks currently carried out by human workers, according to Bloomberg Intelligence.
Next, this WSJ article features the new buzzword: cost avoidance. I.E., cost cutting … or “not going to backfill those positions.” Here’s the subhead, which gets the point across even faster:
The term helps business technology leaders justify the high cost of artificial intelligence
Story 8: 25 Experts predict how AI will change business and life in 2025. (Fast Company)
Sort through the buzzwords and jargon and you can see a few patterns emerging. Also – people really like saying “agentic” now. It IS a fun word to say.
The not-so-heavy stuff
Story 1: Google Gemini is getting a transfusion of accurate news.
The Associated Press to the rescue! And they’re getting paid. Good for them! (Digital Trends)
Story 2: ChatGPT doesn’t want you to forget things.
Effective this week (it’s showing up in my menu), you now have tasks. It’s in beta, but it basically acts as any other reminder you set for yourself. I put some in today (for tomorrow) and will see how this goes. See if you can access it and an advantage to using it. (The Verge)
Story 3: Elon says the world is running out of data for AI training.
Well, this isn’t really new. We knew this was coming. Sooo … time to move on to “synthetic data.” Which is the real “news” portion of this article in Digital Trends
Story 4: Or … YouTubers can start selling their unused footage for training.
AI companies are paying $1 - $4 a minute for footage! Mike Lawrence and I have a ton they can use! (Bloomberg)
A few that don’t fit in either category
Nothing today. I think we hit a lot in the “heavy” section, no?
Final Note
I put this in ‘Ben Thinking’ this week too.
We all see the devastation of the California wildfires. It’s surreal – and quite honestly, hard to comprehend. My cousin who lives in LA (she’s safe) is volunteering at World Central Kitchen. The organization is providing meals to the front lines. If you’re looking to donate, start by checking them out. But quite honestly, there are so many ways to give and support. Here is a link to the LAFD’s page that lists a few.
Thanks for reading! Let’s go get 2025!
-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.