If you’re behind on what’s happening with the robot uprising, have no fear. Here’s a quick look at some of the weirdest and wildest artificial intelligence news from the past week.
Robots: a gateway to slackerdom
A new study shows that, actually, AI makes workers less productive, not more. Who knew that giving the lion’s share of your daily tasks to a computer program would allow you to slack off more? Go figure!
ChatGPT has officially been fused to the open internet
ChatGPT users who have been hoping to use the chatbot to browse the web will now be able to via its new “Browse with Bing” feature. If you’re one of the subscriber tier users—either Plus or Enterprise—the feature will be available.
Eric Adams: Let’s not let AI get totally out of control, okay?
New York City Mayor Eric Adams is going to save New Yorkers from AI. Well, maybe. Actually, probably not, but he wants you to think he will! This week, Adams rolled out an “Action Plan” that he says was designed to mitigate the “risks” of the new technology, whatever those happen to be for denizens of the Big Apple. Apparently, Adams’ action plan did not include protecting New Yorkers from AI-fueled robocalls, which is something his office has been subjecting city residents to.
The Biden White House ramps up its chip war with China
The U.S. and China are in an ongoing tech war and, lately, that tech war has centred around the high-octane computer chips that power many of our new AI technologies. This week, the Biden administration decided to kick things up a notch, with a new maneuver to limit the amount of U.S.-made chips that could be sold to China. Read the full story here.
Meta’s AI guy: Please don’t regulate us, we aren’t worthy
As federal regulations loom for the AI industry, Meta’s top AI guy seems to be attempting an interesting strategy to dissuade regulators from cracking down: tell them that, actually, AI isn’t all that impressive so how about just don’t bother with any new laws, alright? Yann LeCun, Meta’s chief AI scientist, said in an interview with the Financial Times that other tech alarmists were actually pushing for “regulatory capture under the guise of AI safety.” Firms like OpenAI, Google, and Microsoft, have been running around greatly exaggerating the threat of their new technology so that they can goad regulators into passing laws that they (the tech firms) have some hand in writing.
ChatGPT knows too much
In what is less than comforting news, new research suggests that ChatGPT and other large language models can figure out personal details about you (stuff like your race, occupation, or location) merely by semantically analysing your anonymous inputs. Yikes.