The Big Y #314
To AI or not to AI
Hi! 👋 Welcome to The Big Y!
We’re entering a weird, new paradigm where AI is at work, at school, and at home, but we don’t quite have the social constructs in place to guide usage or even how we actually feel about it being everywhere. A recent Gallup poll found that 50% of American workers use AI at least a few times a year at work, and 13% use it daily. At the same time, 18% of workers think it is “very” or “somewhat” likely that their role will be eliminated by AI in the next five years.
Just in the past week, Cloudflare announced it was reducing its workforce by 20% (1,100 people) due to AI and Meta is planning to lay off 10% (8,000 people) to invest more in AI. These seem to be pretty regular headlines these days, and I think we’ve moved past AI being an excuse and now is maybe actually the cause of the layoffs.
I think there is a lot of panic because we can’t predict the future and we’re seeing AI quickly become increasingly competent. It is an exceptionally confusing and brutal time to be a college student as well. This is an interesting essay from a professor whose students feel the pressure to use AI to improve the quality of their work, but without thinking about how they should instead focus on improving their own (human) writing skills to become better writers.
The end result is that no AI is allowed in the class. But, these are the same students that need to graduate into a workforce that is now relying on AI and if they’re behind on their use of and the ability to get the most out of the technology, they’ll be less competitive.
There is a tricky balance here that will be key to get right as the world evolves, and we need to set up more clear social guidelines on how AI should be used and how use of AI needs to be made clear. Do I need to have a more clear label that this newsletter continues to be thought about and typed without AI?
The Tidbit: If you thought ping pong was safe from AI… you’d be wrong about that. An AI-powered robot has beaten elite table tennis players, which is a challenging game for robots since it requires fast reaction time and solid perception of a quick moving object.
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Thanks for reading! Have a great week! 😁