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- Could AI help to rebuild the middle class?
Could AI help to rebuild the middle class?
Plus, how to build the skills needed for the age of AI
Steve Brown
May 02, 2024
Sponsored by
This Week in AI
Music generation platforms like Udio and Suno are amazing, but how were they built and trained using artists’ music without permission? It looks that way. Prompted in the right way, these models will write songs and lyrics that very closely approximate classic music from ABBA, The Beatles, Oasis, and Coldplay.
In related news, a coalition of news publishers sued Microsoft and Open AI this week for copyright infringement, The Financial Times made a deal, and artists sued Google, alleging its Imagen AI model was trained on their works without permission.
Make no mistake, AI is a giant race with huge prizes for winners: The first to build AI agents (that work), the first to build artificial general intelligence, and the race to build infrastructure at the scale needed to win. It’s estimated there are 8000 data centers globally; another is built every 3 days. Data center power consumption is expected to double from 2022 to 2026. Google currently leads the data center capacity race, with AWS and Microsoft chasing hard. Microsoft is expected to spend up to $100 billion on Azure data center capacity. AI infrastructure build-out is expected to capture the lion’s share of AI investment in the next few years, eventually shifting to look more like the cloud model with apps generating the most value, once AI applications are deployed at scale.
AI is developing at a rapid pace and our educational system has yet to respond in a meaningful way. People want help to develop the skills needed for the workplace of the future; a future where workers partner closely with machine intelligence. The IMF recently estimated 60% of jobs in advanced economies will be impacted by AI. The education sector, estimated to be worth more than $7 trillion by 2027, must equip workers to understand and operate evolving technologies with applied technical training, lifelong learning, and continuous upskilling. Success will require the combined effort of all stakeholders including government, industry, and academia.
Video: Astribot S1 does domestic chores
Not to be outdone by recent robot demos from Figure and Sanctuary, Chinese company, Astribot, has released a video showing their S1 robot performing a range of impressive and dextrous tasks, many of them domestic chores including food preparation, ironing, folding, cleaning, and opening drinks. What’s impressive is the fluidity and speed of motion the S1 delivers. Less impressive: it’s unclear if S1 has any legs. Maybe that’ll come with S2….?
Interestingly, on their website, Astribot compares their robot’s capabilities against the average adult male.
AI Tech and Innovation
Chipmaker TSMC has announced plans to make much bigger chips with 40 times the compute power of today’s systems. By 2027, TSMC plans to offer wafer-scale AI processors with new advanced packaging technology that uses 3D stacking to integrate high-speed memory. These giant chips could be used for AI training and as network switches for AI data centers.
Apple continues to release interesting research. This paper explores potential modifications to the transformer architecture (transformers sit at the heart of all the major AI breakthroughs in the last few years) to improve reasoning, abstraction, and generalization capabilities, abilities that are vital to building smarter AI systems that can learn and adapt like humans can.
A study at the University of Cambridge put human eye doctors up against a range of AI models and found that GPT-4 compared favorably with expert ophthalmologists and beat unspecialized junior doctors in exams. An earlier study of AMIE, a medical chatbot from Google, found that it outperformed general practitioners both on clinical knowledge and empathy, as judged by experts and patients.
AI Insights
“We see a future where general-purpose robots are as ubiquitous as cars”
Geordie Rose, Co-founder & CEO, Sanctuary AI, maker of the Phoenix humanoid robot
Competition is heating up in the humanoid robot space. Recent advances in AI, machine vision, sensors, electric motors, and a host of other technologies have led to major leaps in capability for robots shaped like humans. Freethink explores the top 8 contenders and shares the details currently known about each robot.
A recent Gallup poll revealed that 75% of U.S. adults believe AI will lead to fewer jobs. This study by MIT economics professor, Dr. David Autor, argues that AI will augment and elevate the capabilities of lower-skilled workers, empowering them to do more valuable work, and thus fill higher-skilled positions in the workforce. If you prefer to consume information via video, check out Walter Isaacson’s interview with Dr. Autor on Amanpour & Co.
Harvard Business Review explains how leading companies are using generative AI to synthesize, summarize, and take action on feedback from customers. Generative AI models are used to respond to customer messages, identify the root cause of issues, and route information to the right person in the organization for action.
Toolkit for the Future
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AI extracts information from your receipts and organizes it in an easy-to-search database alongside IRS-approved, secure image scans. Capture receipts on the go📱, forward receipts 📧, use the web portal, or mail in a pile of physical receipts🧾. Try it free for 30 days.
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