AI round-up: Week of June 3, 2024
Found out today AI is likely just a fad. Just like the internet, email, social media, podcasting, live streaming…*
Want to learn more? Listen to the For Immediate Release podcast, episode #409: “Just a Fad.” It talks about how AI is just a fad you probably shouldn’t worry too much about getting ahead of. (Side note: I don’t feature this podcast enough in this space. It’s one of my favorites and a true PR-driven pod. Please check it out beyond this episode!)
*I recently had a co-worker tell me the ellipsis is the true sign of a Gen X’r. I would have to agree because I use the hell out of them.
The Big 5
1. My last five years of work
"I am 25. These next three years might be the last few years that I work. I am not ill, nor am I becoming a stay-at-home mom, nor have I been so financially fortunate to be on the brink of voluntary retirement. I stand at the edge of a technological development that seems likely, should it arrive, to end employment as I know it.
I work at a frontier AI company."
This is a paragraph from an article (in Palladium) shared on LinkedIn (by Paul Roetzer). I’d encourage you to take the time to read both.
2. ChatGPT5: what we know so far
A lot of rumors swirling around regarding this but all signs sem to point to yes, we will see a new version of ChatGPT at some point this year. readwrite does a great job recapping everything that’s known so far.
3. That is if OpenAI employees don’t revolt first.
No big deal. Just OpenAI employees worrying that their company doesn’t have proper safeguards set-up…nor do they feel safe speaking out at about what they know.
Here’s the open letter (I am passing on the link featured in Casey Newton’s eNewsletter.)
That’s always what you want to hear from a company that is partnering with everyone.
Nothing to see here!
4. We’re twinning.
Do you remember the Wonder Twins? From The Justice League? Yeah. Sadly, so do I.
Anyway, Zoom’s CEO wants you to have a digital wonder twin of yourself so you don’t have to attend meetings. Your twin can. And then guess what. Your twin may have a twin. Until there’s a bunch of yous doing your work.
Check out the Decoder podcast, hosted by Nilay Patel, where he talks to Zoom’s CEO, Eric Yuan, about this more.
5. Perplexity has Pages and Pages of info.
Perplexity is continuing to do its own thing, adding Perplexity Pages to its library. You can now use it more as a research tool and create shareable pages that people can review and return with their own questions and insights.
Learn a little
AI Overviews are only appearing for ‘about’ 15% of search queries.
Why? Especially after they were at ‘about’ 84%?
Well, glad you asked. Because this article from Search Engine Land has answers. And a lot of them. Some great intel on what influences AI in search. Don’t sleep on AIO, as this is going to continue to evolve. I’ll continue to flag and cover this as it’s so important to so many of our clients.
Did you hear about…
…Adobe breaking its own AI rules? (PetaPixel)
…the most exciting moment since Wifi? (Financial Times)
…the university that suspended students for using an AI tool it paid them $10k to make? (404)
…the future impact of AI in HR? (Sage)
…REAL fake news? (CNN)
…Ashton Kutcher’s take on AI movies? (Variety)
…five Sora-produced shorts will be featured in the Tribeca Film Festival? (Mashable)
Must read/must discuss:
Remember when Twitter used to go down? Oh my. The world literally felt like it stopped spinning.
It could be argued that outside of our own curiosity and metrics, Twitter being down was more of a ‘what do you mean Starbucks closed early’ than a true hit to productivity.
Earlier this week ChatGPT went down. And things got weird. As the workforce relies more on AI tools, what will happen if these go down? Are we ready to support the infrastructure that is needed for all the work we will be doing? Like a lot of other things tied to AI, I feel like this is an area we aren’t prepared for, nor have we given a ton of thought to in terms of how we manage it.
Thanks for reading!
-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.