AI round-up: Week of May 13, 2024
In the classic Seinfeld episode ‘The Contest,’ Kramer bursts into Jerry’s apartment and declares, “I’m out!!”
That’s how I feel this week, reading through all of the AI news. And it’s only Wednesday.
No, no … I’m not really ‘out’… but would you blame me if I was? As we’ve heard so many times, we haven’t truly started yet. Some have compared it to a baseball game – we’re only in the first inning. Well, if that’s true … and we’re in the early part of the game, this week was the equivalent of getting out of a bases-loaded, no-outs, heart-of-the-order jam.
Why? Well, I’m glad you asked.
The Big 5
1. GPT4o is here…
…just like we all thought when we found out OpenAI was holding an event on Monday.
Search? Nah. GPT5? Uh-uh.
We have GPT4o, a multimodal, mind-blowing AI assistant, here to interrupt and lean on for any help we need.
Here’s what you can do (in other words, not everything is available to us yet).
Here’s Ethan Mollick’s take.
2. One … day … later, Google gets all Googly with it at its I/O conference.
Want to learn more about:
• Project Astra (you will want to watch this video)
• Veo, the text-to-video rival to Sora
• Google Overview, the link killer?
Or maybe you just want the quickie version from Google PM Liam Bolling (great summary here).
3. Let’s dig a little deeper on a product highlighted at the Google I/O conference:
Web publishers brace for carnage as Google adds AI answers (WaPo)
This has happened a few times during this AI journey we’ve been on: X has to affect Y (right?). I read, watch and listen to a lot, and there are times when I just have to say aloud, “There’s no way this won’t cause issues.” In this case, it’s all about search.
Here’s a quick comment/thought from Paul Roetzer’s LinkedIn that’s worth a read.
4. Major US newspapers sue OpenAI, Microsoft for copyright infringement
This story is from April 30. Which might as well be five years ago in the AI world.
BUT, I have a good reason to share: if you read about the reasons these major media outlets have the concerns they do, the inaccuracy and hallucinations are what caught my attention. Not because they could happen (do happen), but because I wonder if people care?
Early on in the AI conversation, I raised the concern of general laziness as maybe being one of the biggest accelerants of AI. We have proven that we don’t fact-check links, stories, etc. And even when we do, if we don’t like the truth, we (choose to) insist that the story isn’t real anyway.
So what makes you think we’re going to stop and validate what AI tells us? These publishers have a right to be concerned. We all do.
5. Finally … thought we could use this reminder:
Learn a little
When to use AI? And why?
Christopher Penn delivers with his TRIPS Framework. Available for free here.
Did you hear about…
…Lobbyists who are advocating for less AI restrictions (Politico)
…OpenAI’s chief scientist, Ilya Sutskever, is leaving? (The Verge)
…CEO of the world’s biggest ad firm targeted by deepfake scam (The Guardian)
…People getting lost after reviewing the government’s proposed AI roadmap (Fast Company)
…OpenAI releasing Model Spec to detail how it wants AI to behave (VentureBeat)
…OpenAI allegedly allowing AI to create ‘porn’ (The Guardian)
…Everyone in Hollywood using AI? But is afraid to admit it. (The Hollywood Reporter)
Must read/must discuss:
This is one of the most raw, down-to-earth blogs I’ve read about AI devouring the internet – all of its content and us as users.
We are seeing a lot about publishers rushing to sign deals with AI companies. However, not a lot is being made about where that content is coming from. And what will happen to those companies (and people) when 1.) AI eats it all, and b.) AI improves itself enough to the point of … well, you can guess what then happens.
Take a look and see for yourself. Casey Newton outdoes himself, in my opinion, with this very real, very direct post:
How AI changed the bargain between platforms and users.
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.