AI disrupts everyone. What can you do?

Threats and treats. Music, movies, markets, marketing, and management.

"Right now, they're not more intelligent than us, as far as I can tell. But I think they soon may be."

- “The Father of AI”, Geoffrey Hinton with BBC

When my family came to America from India in the early 80s, Americans were up in arms about immigrants taking their jobs. Then post 2008, the offshoring of jobs was the new threat to American workers. The anti-immigrants-taking-our-jobs sentiment still smoldered under the surface and erupted again pre-COVID.

The sentiment was a vague expression of a rational frustration. A frustration as old as time. The fear of a narrowed future dim in opportunity.

AI is the new arrival. First ChatGPT. Fascinating. Other AI. A threat?

Then in a week the world changed. The threat is real.

What is scarier than previous disruptions is that the enemy is faceless and there is nowhere for workers to vent. Imagine the workers and creators trying to fend off AI. It is like fighting ghosts. Fighting invisible demons drains the psyche.

We are in a mental health crisis already. We are all swimming in a deep ocean of uncertainty and I think AI will be too much for many people. What is the solution? Use an AI psych tool (I did…read to the end)?! The cruel irony. AI is simultaneously ails and cures.

Geoffrey Hilton, the father of AI, who recently quit Google, agrees. The average person will “not be able to know what is true anymore.” Technology is a always a new source of power, extending human potential. Like any new power, he is worried about “how you can prevent the bad actors from using it for bad things”.

AI is definitely going to cause pain. The main story so far had been one of AI as a tool to enhance your work or handle drudgery. That was until the news this week. Now it is clear that AI can do your work.

How do we adjust? We have no choice but to adapt or die because this is not going to stop. And we have no choice but to keep going. From AI’s godfather:

“The idea that this stuff could actually get smarter than people…I thought it was way off.”

"I don't think we should stop developing this stuff…even if everybody in the US stopped developing it, China would just get a big lead."

Into the brave new world we must go. What are the implications for AI on our society, our work, and our economy? It is going to add chaos into an already swirling mess of dystopia. But for those who can embrace its potential, as Hinton said, "there's an enormous upside from this technology”. Just like any technology, it is both a curse and cure.

Some eye and ear catching events coincided with Hinton’s departure. I think they have left a lasting impression on everyone. Everyone is left wondering, what next?

What do you think? Read on.

AI THREATS

Music. Your AI idol?

AI is going to do what what the street vendors in Canal Street do for Gucci bags. A flood of imitations will dilute the market and could reduce compensation for producers.

“Heart on My Sleeve” was produced by an anonymous songwriter and went viral over the last 2 weeks. Listeners thought they were listening to Drake and the Weeknd. But the entire thing was AI generated.

Universal Group sent a letter to streaming platforms asking them to block developers from using the label’s catalog to “train” AI technology.

“The training of generative AI using our artists’ music — which represents both a breach of our agreements and a violation of copyright law as well as the availability of infringing content created with generative AI on digital service providers – begs the question as to which side of history all stakeholders in the music ecosystem want to be on: the side of artists, fans and human creative expression, or on the side of deep fakes, fraud and denying artists their due compensation,” the company said in a statement this week to CNN.

Who is the creator? In a TikTok comment, Ghostwriter977 claimed to be a ghostwriter in the music industry who “got paid close to nothing just for major labels to profit”.

I think this brings up an important point. Pop music is a myth. There is an entire industry of writers and composers who are never seen but produce a vast amount of the music. We all know this but fans still need an artist. Fans flock to artists because artists represent something.

Artists are avatars of a movement, a style, a belief. Fans are always in search of heroes that represent their inner worlds. The music industry knows it and will continue to produce heroes. AI is not going to change this.

A quick aside. There are now online AI avatars on social media with huge followings. But there is room for both in my opinion. Just like there are cartoon/anime heroes and IRL movie heroes. Humanity’s capacity for fantasy is limitless.

Back to music. AI will impact writers, composers, and artists. On one hand it could replace the ones that are not creative enough. Then there are the ones that will excel. Like our friend Ghostwriter977. They have the power to create empires just like Youtube has enabled one-person creator empires. Or think about what electronic turntables did for DJs. Or I should say what great DJs did with electronic turntables.

Screenwriters won’t share compensation with AI

AI coming to the theater near you! That is the “existential crisis” the Writers Guild is fearing.

The Writers Guild of America, which represents more than 11,500 Hollywood writers, included the regulation of AI among their demands as they started their first strike in 15 years.

The guild added that the studios have been “stonewalling” on AI issues such as AI in script production. The writers are scared that generative AI could cut them out of the creative process. They are scared of sharing credits and residuals. How do you pay an anonymous AI content?

The bigger issue is not AI but how do screenwriters add value on top of AI. And how do they prevent studios from using AI as an excuse to reduce screenwriter salaries? I think in some cases those with leverage use technology or any change as an excuse to undercut the other side. In some cases technology can flip the power dynamics. Could screenwriters produce movies with AI?

Think about GhostWriter977 who got paid “close to nothing” before AI.

Educate Yourself with AI

Chegg shares lost half their value Tuesday after the company said OpenAI’s ChatGPT is threatening the growth of its homework-help services. The San Diego-based company makes most of its money from subscriptions and offers online guidance for test taking and essay-writing. Some of these tasks students are outsourcing to freely available ChatGPT tools. Especially essay writing.

Chegg’s solution to AI? More AI!

If you can’t beat them. Join them!

Chegg announced its new AI-enhanced learning service, CheggMate, which leverages OpenAI's most advanced model, GPT-4, to provide students with personalized learning pathways, quizzes and tests, and context to guide their learning journey.

It will take quarters before we see any positive impact from this. Embracing AI is really the only solution for Chegg and many other companies. The key for companies is to enhance current offerings or build new possibilities with AI before they get replaced. Like how the internet completely rewrote marketing over the last 20 years.

Human Resources needs less humans

Can you take the human out of human resources? IBM thinks so.

Hiring in back-office functions — such as human resources — will be suspended or slowed, IBM CEO Arvind Krishna said in an interview. These non-customer-facing roles amount to roughly 26,000 workers, Krishna said. “I could easily see 30% of that getting replaced by AI and automation over a five-year period.”

This might be the first time a large corporation has directly cited an AI competitor for firing real human beings. I think this why this got so much press. It has been common knowledge that technology allows companies to do more with less people.

But this announcement makes AI and human worker seem more interchangeable.

IBM makes a very important point. Breath a sigh of relief. The AI evolution is not an event but a transition. Much likes how long it took for the computers (logic machines) to replace computers (occupation). That’s right! Computers were actual people! People computing was tedious before computers.

AI TREATS

AI is also opening new opportunities as reality unfolds into the future. Here are a few.

Companies are paying $325k+ for prompt engineers.

Have you been playing with ChatGPT, Dall-e, or Midjourney to create AI generated AI and text? There is a marketplace for this.

Want to communicate better with artificial intelligence? Join this group.

Finally I leave you with Hey Pi. An AI startup from LinkedIn co-founder Reid Hoffman and DeepMind co-founder Mustafa Suleyman.

Hey Pi is a chatbot intended to serve as a supportive personal companion that gives friendly advice. I asked it to help me feel better.

Do you believe it?

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If you have any questions, leave a comment. Thanks for reading Embrace the Chaos! Sharing perspective that makes sense.

Hours of effort and research went into making this eight-minute read. If you found it insightful, please help me out by clicking the like button and sharing this article.

- Vikas Kalra, CFA

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