AI Coming for Professional Jobs

 Coming?

Recent reports show it is already happening but we can't measure the impact yet. Those benefitting, meaning the money interest behind it, will minimize the numbers to ensure complacency. Those worried about it might inflate the numbers through ignorance.

What happens next?

Here is a little story that wonders about that, with an informed view based on past experience. It has a paywall.

https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/2024/04/29/ai-professional-class-low-skill-jobs/

Here is a snippet from that piece:

As a Bloomberg News headline put it in February, “AI Is Driving More Layoffs Than Companies Want to Admit.” And though the numbers aren’t enormous — Bloomberg cites one source that found 4,600 AI-related layoffs during the previous nine months — that’s a pretty big number considering that ChatGPT was released to the public only in November 2022. It’s going to get bigger still.

...

But if so, we are also likely to see a revolt of the educated people who are losing ground, similar to the revolt that led the working class to embrace protectionism — and Donald Trump. Or at least that’s how it seems to me when I try to imagine the upper middle class offering their own kids the advice they’ve so liberally dispensed to working-class men: “I’m sorry, but the jobs your parents had aren’t going to be around, and it’s time to face reality and look for steady work in food service or a warehouse.”

“I’d be fine with that!” some educated parent will inevitably write me, “as long as they have good health insurance and a strong social safety net.” I applaud those public-minded people, but, realistically, I doubt they’re the majority. For most upper-middle-class families, I expect there will be a lot of outrage and fear, and demands that the government do something to help them maintain their position and pass what they have onto their children.

Happy Reading,

J.W. Gant

PS The world's richest man recently declared all work will be eliminated for AI.

Tech Sector Job Bloodbath Continues

 The head economist at Moody's was recently quoted in a Washington Post article as saying, roughly, "The American form of capitalism is ruthless in how it reallocates resources."

That means layoffs. Means lives destroyed so shareholder value can be maximized.

Since the Federal Reserve began raising interest rates to battle inflation the business calculation to invest in tech and speculate has shifted and now the companies who employed those workers have to adjust to meet the numbers Wall Street expects of them. Executives, heavily incentivized to meet Wall Street demands, are culling the work force at these companies to cut costs--the only avenue remaining when growth options are limited. The U.S. lags behind other western democracies in protecting workers--read, people who don't hold enormous loads of capital, money--so these kinds of wave layoffs are only possible in this country.

The bloodbath started early in 2023 and continue.

Here is an article detailing how ex-Googlers are handling it:

https://www.nbcnews.com/business/economy/tech-workers-layoffs-job-cuts-careers-rcna141735

Here is a snippet from that piece:

“There was a time when working in tech seemed like the most stable career you could have,” said Ayomi Samaraweera, who was laid off as chief of staff at the content creator platform Jellysmack in December 2022. After about 10 years in the industry, she said, “tech does not seem safe and secure.”

Here is an article announcing yet another round of layoffs at Google:

https://siliconangle.com/2024/04/17/google-announces-second-major-round-layoffs-year/ 

Here is an article tracking the major layoffs in tech:

https://techcrunch.com/2024/05/07/tech-layoffs-2023-list/

Here is a snippet from that piece:

The tech layoff wave is still going strong in 2024. Following significant workforce reductions in 2022 and 2023, this year has already seen 60,000 job cuts across 254 companies, according to independent layoffs tracker Layoffs.fyi. Companies like Tesla, Amazon, Google, TikTok, Snap and Microsoft have conducted sizable layoffs in the first months of 2024. Smaller-sized startups have also seen a fair amount of cuts, and in some cases, have shut down operations altogether.

If you are fortunate enough to have a chair during this gigantic game of musical chairs, where more than a half a million are outside looking in trying to survive, please consider others.

The society we live in is a choice. We can choose to stay on the current path, or deviate. The evidence strongly suggests the current path only benefits a very small portion of society and is creating waves of destruction for the majority of society. We should consider the alternatives.

Happy Reading,

J.W. Gant

BRotD Entry 0268 - The Looming Social Upheaval from AI

Best Reading of the Day

The article frames the discussion as a lack of preparedness by politicians for the coming AI revolution, that some refer to as the third industrial revolution.

The U.S. is a democracy with a system of laws for governing. Free market people will say it is as it should be. Keep politicos and their regulations out.

What will come of it?

Here is the complete article:

https://www.cnn.com/2024/05/13/investing/premarket-stocks-trading/index.html

Here are a few snippets from the piece, that is a lengthy interview with economist Glenn Hubbard.

Glenn Hubbard is worried the United States isn’t ready to accept the disruptions that come along with [the coming AI revolution] 

...

Over the past three or four decades, technological change and some globalization has caused a slow-mo disruption of the job market and communities around the country. Now look at AI, we’re going to have that same disruption except it’s going to be much faster. We’re talking about five years, not 30.

...

Social support for our system is unraveling and it’s been unraveling for a while. There are many communities and many groups of individuals who don’t really feel like contemporary capitalism is serving them well. And the longer we let that go, we’re really running the risk of killing the golden goose.

That last part really struck me.

We have literally seen the populace of the U.S. rise up with pitchforks and torches to overthrow our current system (January 6 Capital Riots). Income inequality and wealth disparity, inherent in capitalism, have been growing rapidly for decades and is well-known to be a source to destabilize a society. 

When will the people of the U.S. wake up? The younger generation is already moving rapidly anti-capitalist and pro-socialism because of where we are. A sea-change is coming. I see tumultuous times ahead.

Happy Reading,

J.W. Gant

BRotD Entry 0267 - Major League Baseball and AI

Best Reading of the Day

 Data is the currency of sports in the modern era. 

We have seen the major leagues transformed over the last two decades--moneyball in baseball--and the effort is ongoing and continuous.

The latest is AI-driven analysis of extreme video footage of baseball players: both pitchers and hitters.

This story is eye-opening:

https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/2024/04/10/op-moneyballai/

Here is a snippet from the piece.

Boddy [the owner of the data company] and his engineering team now rely on AI to blend dozens of data streams to create customized coaching regimens. I cannot emphasize enough how little this is like your weekly personal training session. Video analysis breaks down individual muscles and movements by the inch. Hardware (bats and balls) is equipped with software (sensors) that tracks every baseball action and renders them into equations that measure force and torque. Like all data-gobbling AI software, the process gets smarter as it goes; Driveline has collected enough historical performance data that it can correlate five non-baseball related physical tests into dead solid predictions of fastball velocity and bat speed.

Even in its infancy, Driveline helped Bauer become one of baseball’s best pitchers. 

The most shocking part of the story? This is coming for all of our jobs yet almost none of us will be able to afford to protect our data from our employers. The conclusion of this piece is telling:

“I have friends who are lawyers and prop traders, and it’s shocking to me how far ahead sports is when it comes to these technologies,” says Boddy. “A lot of them don’t see what’s coming.” 

Got your attention yet?

Happy Reading,

J.W. Gant

BRotD Entry 0266 - AI Deepfake Scam for Twenty Five Million Dollars

 Best Reading of the Day

Oh boy.

A sophisticated phishing scam hit a Hong Kong company - as yet undisclosed - and convinced an employee to move HK$200 Million, or about $25 USD Million, to a variety of banks.

Deep fake technology, including accurate voices, on a video conference call simulated the Chief Financial Officer and a number of other employees and convinced the real life employee to make the transfer.

Phew!

The days of shootouts in banks are way behind us.

Here's the story:

arstechnica.com -first-of-its-kind-ai-heist/

And here is a snippet from that piece:

The scam was initially uncovered following a phishing attempt, when an employee in the finance department of the company's Hong Kong branch received what seemed to be a phishing message, purportedly from the company’s UK-based chief financial officer, instructing them to execute a secret transaction. 

Happy Reading,

J.W. Gant

Will AI Save the World?

 Technological advances are driven by a few things such as need.

In Product Management we talk about Jobs, Pains and Gains.

Someone has some kind of "job" they want done and will consider hiring a solution to that job such as a bagel for breakfast.

Someone has a "pain" of some kind and a solution to that pain is valuable. Such as an unstable form of high explosive like nitroglycerin causing death and uncertainty, eventually replaced by TNT, a stable high explosive.  Of course, this led to artillery shells and the massive loss of life in The Great War (WWI).

Someone has a "gain" they wish to realize such as revenue and will consider your solution to help them.

Artificial Intelligence advances are being driven by these and other reasons such as intellectual curiosity, scientific curiosity, etc. Will all of AI be of benefit to humankind?  Will all of it be to the detriment of human kind?  This little writeup, by a capital management firm (hmm, does this writer perhaps have motivations for writing something like this?) says AI will save the world. 

Will it?

You decide?

Here is the article:

/ai-will-save-the-world/

And here is a blurb from that piece:

What AI offers us is the opportunity to profoundly augment human intelligence to make all of these outcomes of intelligence – and many others, from the creation of new medicines to ways to solve climate change to technologies to reach the stars – much, much better from here.
AI augmentation of human intelligence has already started – AI is already around us in the form of computer control systems of many kinds, is now rapidly escalating with AI Large Language Models like ChatGPT, and will accelerate very quickly from here – if we let it.

Happy Reading,

J.W. Gant

The Danger of General Artificial Intelligence

 The sci-fi stories are becoming reality, becoming whispers at water coolers, becoming the nightmares of researchers at AI labs, becoming a voice in the halls of Congress, becoming a shout, and becoming a clarion call.

AI could kill us all.

That is the conclusion of the top minds in Artificial Intelligence.  Even the skeptics generally say it only "might" kill us all.

Might?

Time to hit the pause button?

Here is a Time article on the subject:

We Are Not Doing Enough to Stop General AI

Here is a snippet from that piece:

We are not prepared. We are not on course to be prepared in any reasonable time window. There is no plan. Progress in AI capabilities is running vastly, vastly ahead of progress in AI alignment or even progress in understanding what the hell is going on inside those systems. If we actually do this, we are all going to die.

Here is a recent 

AI Poses an Extinction Risk

Here is a snippet from that piece:

Leaders from OpenAI, Google Deepmind, Anthropic and other A.I. labs warn that future systems could be as deadly as pandemics and nuclear weapons.

Wow.

Then I think of The Great Filter that I wrote about in this blog and I wonder if we are really on this planet, if our purpose in life, is to create an intelligence greater than ours.  And I wonder, what happens after that?

Happy Tuesday. :-)

Best Regards,

J.W. Gant

The New AI and ChatGPT

 AI

Artificial Intelligence

ML

Machine Learning

No it is not coming for your job but will rather augment what you do today.

More on that in a moment.

Here is a quick story about a Sci-fi magazine that had to close submissions because of the swarm of AI written material:

https://arstechnica.com/information-technology/2023/02/sci-fi-becomes-real-as-renowned-magazine-closes-submissions-due-to-ai-writers/

Here is a blurb about 

https://arstechnica.com/information-technology/2023/02/generative-ai-is-coming-for-the-lawyers/

... and a quick clip from that one ...

“Legal document drafting can be a very labor-intensive task that AI seems to be able to grasp quite well. Contracts, policies, and other legal documents tend to be normative, so AI's capabilities in gathering and synthesizing information can do a lot of heavy lifting.”

The strength of AI is in the performance of repetitive tasks.  You can visualize this as a machine in say an assembly line of a car. Where do we put robots today? Highly repetitive tasks of a very uniform standard nature.  Yes. Now take that to the intellectual world such as writing (see above) and apply the same concept. However it cannot fully replace the human in the task.

There is a lot of space there in the world to fill in the work with machines. It is already happening and has been happening for centuries.  Think of washing machines for your laundry. We used to do all the work washing each item of clothing by hand. Now the human manages the machine that does the grunt work of washing. The human is still present.

Tomorrow (today) we will have new jobs that manage the AI to ensure it is staying on task and target. Some jobs will go away, some will be created, some groups of people will gain, and some will lose. 

The wealthiest in the world see two solutions to staying ahead in the coming decades: capital and creativity.  All else will become tertiary.

Best,

J.W. Gant

AI and Beethoven's 10th

 Yes.

His tenth.

But he only has nine you say.

Yes, but he had many sketches for his tenth at the time of his death.

So what?

Yes, we can never know exactly what he would have created had he finished it but we can gleam something from it, through Artificial Intelligence.

AI works through a process of cognition through a hero sketch and repetition, followed by an execution effort.

So we might take a very clear photo of a person, teach the AI system who that person is, then run thousands of video files through it to find instances where a person is in the frame who looks like that hero photo.

With Beethoven we have nine completed symphonies to teach the AI and a sketch of the tenth.  Why not finish it?

Here is a brief history of the 10th as it was prior to AI:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Symphony_No._10_(Beethoven/Cooper)

And here is a story about he completion of the 10th using AI:

https://www.smithsonianmag.com/innovation/how-artificial-intelligence-completed-beethovens-unfinished-10th-symphony-180978753/

Here is a snippet from that piece:

The task at hand eventually crystallized. We would need to use notes and completed compositions from Beethoven’s entire body of work - along with the available sketches from the Tenth Symphony - to create something that Beethoven himself might have written.

This was a tremendous challenge. We didn’t have a machine that we could feed sketches to, push a button and have it spit out a symphony. Most A.I. available at the time couldn’t continue an uncompleted piece of music beyond a few additional seconds.

Best,

J.W. Gant

BRotD Entry 0264 - Car Sensors Focused on Humans

We have sensors for many things in the systems we use, the devices.  Many of our devices are quite personalized.  "Siri, when do the RedSox play again?"  Our voice is known, our location, our history, all kinds of things unique to "you" are known by the AI and used (for convenience, and, to sell you things).

Cars spend all their time monitoring the road and other drivers.  What about the driver in the car? You? 

Referred to as human-centric sensors. The idea is for the system to know the human as well as so many other devices and systems do.

Read more here:

https://europe.autonews.com/guest-columnist/get-ready-wave-human-centric-sensors

Here is a snippet from that piece:

But this dynamic is changing because of the growing popularity of driver monitoring systems (DMS) that add AI-powered intelligent safety features to cars, which can detect the state and behavior of drivers.

For example, DMS can determine if a driver is experiencing symptoms of sickness or nausea and course correct the in-vehicle experience through controls such as regulating air conditioning or releasing aromatherapy, just as cruise control slows down or speeds up the vehicle depending on real-time sensor inputs.

All the best,

J.W. Gant

BRotD - Entry 0263 Artificial Intelligence an Beethoven's 10th

Hello and welcome after a lengthy hiatus blogging!

The 'Best Reading of the Day' articles are intended to highlight useful and interesting stories I have found in technology. The domains can be quite disparate and are intended to shed light on how tech is being used.

Today's really caught my eye because of the two subjects it captures: AI and Beethoven. His 9th Symphony (a choral) is probably the best ever and my favorite. 

Turns out he had sketches of a 10th Symphony but did not complete it before his passing. Well, AI has "learned" his style of writing, taking simple movements and expanding them to whole movements, and has completed the symphony. To be released on October 9th, 2021. 

Wow!

Read more:

AI Completes the 10th

This is an amazing story!

J.W. Gant