Newsletter 81. Using machines to enforce prejudice backfires, don’t use AI to apply to AI companies, a copyright legal shocker, and a list of words to avoid. Plus, three people to follow and three books to read. Machines can’t make trans people disappear — but they can sure do a lot of damage when they…
After a year of study and more than 10,000 comments, the US Copyright Office issued its second report on AI and copyright. This report attempts to address the question of when works created with AI tools can be copyrighted. (A third report, to be released later, will address the contentious issue of the legality of…
A.I. is hotter than hot. If you have a unique point of view, by all means write an article about it. But I don’t care how much you know, this is no time to write a book about it. Five kinds of A.I. books and why you shouldn’t write them There are more than 20,000…
Newsletter 71. Why technology’s long-term impact is unknowable, HarperCollins pays you to train AI on your books, Robert F. Kennedy Jr.’s imaginary world, plus three people to follow and three books to read. Everyone predicting the AI future is wrong I spent last Friday at MIT, attending a conference called “BIG.AI@MIT” (Business Implications of Generative…
Newsletter 70. When artists should (or mustn’t) use AI; standing desks aren’t worth it; low satisfaction for publishing workers. Plus three people to follow and three books to read. Should you use AI to create? Many of us make our living by creating. This includes both freelancers in the so-called creator economy and people who…
I recently saw a Substack post from a technology analyst titled “Crowdstrike publicly confirms AI Caused worldwide computer outage.” Since none of the other coverage I’ve seen suggested that AI was the cause of the outage, I looked into it. My conclusion: AI did not cause the outage, and it’s irresponsible to suggest that it…
If you’re watching the Olympics, you’ve probably seen this sad Google commercial about a father who wants his daughter to use the Google Gemini AI assistant to write a fan letter to her favorite athlete, hurdler Sydney McLaughlin-Levrone. Here’s the commercial: Let’s put it to the test Ok, Google, let’s see what you’ve got. Here’s…
Use ChatGPT to close more leads! Use ChatGPT to write more blog posts! Umm, no. Here are some clickbait headlines that, if you see them, you should immediately stop following the source: Creating makes us human ChatGPT and similar tools are good helpers. They can read and summarize vast amounts of information. ChatGPT is good…
In its latest announcement of the recent update ChatGPT-4o, OpenAI demonstrated how it more naturally interacts in voice conversations. (You can see some of that in this clip.) The AI’s voice, known as Sky, sounds a lot like the popular actress Scarlett Johansson. The question I’m pondering today is, if the voice was actually built…