TG-AI-F: Uncertainty + AI = Unease
Happy Friday!
Here, a few extra thoughts on the AI week that was. Subscribe to get these (hopefully sparkling) missives directly in your inbox, and also just to stay in touch (let me know what you think!). 😊 ~ Sharon (P.S. For my regular AI news and trend takes, find me on VentureBeat)
🌲 A walk in the woods, tree hugging and rising AI disillusionment
I wrote a column this week that got a lot of attention — Why AI is teetering on the edge of a disillusionment cliff.
In the piece, I described a walk among the California Redwoods after a jam-packed week of Big Tech AI news — where I realized that AI may have incredible positive potential for humanity’s future (transforming medicine, finance and the development of products and services, for example) but I don’t think companies are doing a great job of communicating what that is. Where is the “why” — as in, why are we going through all the angst of building all of this? What is the current and future value of generative AI to individuals, workers, enterprises, and society at large? How do the benefits outweigh the risks?
Without that full understanding of the “why” that goes beyond vague pronouncements like AI will “benefit humanity,” I explained, I believe disillusionment around the technology — accompanied by anxiety and unease — will only grow.
To be honest, I hesitated to press “publish” on this article — and I actually asked my editor to be honest and let me know if he thought it was an awful take. But I’m glad I did, because it really does seem to me that the vast uncertainty around today’s AI — how it will be used, how it will impact our lives — is beginning to create significant unease among most people who are not in the AI “bubble” of tech companies and first-mover users.
Look, I’m certainly not immune to the excitement and enthusiasm accompanying the latest AI product announcements from Big Tech and the most notable AI startups disrupting industries. I clapped along with glee like everyone else with the demos from Amazon around the new generative Al Alexa; the Microsoft Copilot being integrated across Windows 11 and Meta’s new Ray Ban glasses featuring audio AI chat.
But no one should ignore the brewing discontent amid the fast-paced development and implementation of AI tools. I spoke to computer scientist Dr. Joy Buolamwini this morning, author of the upcoming Unmasking AI, and she agreed out that disillusionment around generative AI and a “techlash” around it could threaten the promise and potential uses of these technology tools.
Also: Some extra thoughts on…
Meta’s AI sticker meltdown: So I’m not exactly proud to say that I was the first to post a story about Meta’s “interesting” (read: hilariously inappropriate) AI-generated stickers from text prompts in Facebook Messenger and Instagram Messenger. But yes, I was! It was nearly 10 pm ET and I so wanted to go to sleep…but how could I sleep on Mickey Mouse smoking a marijuana cigar (blunt) or Justin Trudeau’s bare buttocks? I won’t even mention Elon with a dildo…yikes.
But I was fascinated by the fact that Meta didn’t respond with any significant statement or apology — and while several publications jumped on it the next morning, I didn’t see Meta getting any real pushback. Sure, it’s not “AI killing humanity,” but I still think the stickers, while funny, are, well, “interesting.” Let’s see what happens when parents have to deal with this one.Artist vs. artist post-FTC roundtable: The other story I wrote this week that got a big response on Twitter (I will die on the non-X hill) is this piece I wrote about the chorus of creative workers that demanded AI regulation at an FTC roundtable this week. I’m surprised that no other mainstream media outlets covered this event, which I thought was stellar. I had not seen such a large group of representatives from artist-focused organizations before all speaking about how AI is currently impacting their livelihoods.
But on Twitter yesterday, Derek Slater, a consultant for Creative Commons, wrote that he enjoyed my work, but “would love to see you lift up the chorus of artists using generative AI (who were erased and excluded by the FTC)” — he shared an open letter from Creative Commons, “Artists Using Generative AI Demand Seat at Table from US Congress.” Definitely check out the thread — lots of interesting responses from AI researcher Dr. Margaret Mitchell of Hugging Face, artist Karla Ortiz, and many MANY others.