Will Google Charge for AI Features? Of Course
July 2, 2024
Will AI spur Google to branch out from its ad-revenue business model? Possibly, Dataconomy concludes in, “AI Is Draining Google’s Money and We May Be Charged for It.” Writer Eray Eliaç?k cites reporting from the Financial Times when stating:
“Google, the search engine used by billions, is considering charging for special features made possible by artificial intelligence (AI). This would be different from its usual practice of offering most of its services for free. Here’s what this could mean: Google might offer some cool AI-driven tools, like a smarter assistant or personalized search options, but only to those who pay for them. The regular Google search would stay free, but these extra features would come with a price tag, such as Gemini, SGE, and Image generation with AI and more.”
Would Google really make more charging for AI than on serving up ads alongside it? Perhaps it will do both?
Eliaç?k reminds us AI is still far from perfect. There are several reasons he does not address:
- Google faces a challenge to maintain its ad monopolies as investigations into its advertising business which has been running without interference for more than two decades
- AI is likely to be a sector with a big dog and a couple of mid sized dogs, and a bunch of French bulldogs (over valued and stubborn). Google wants to be the winner because it invented the transformer and now has to deal with the consequences of that decision. Some of the pretenders are likely to be really big dogs and capable of tearing off Googzilla’s tail
- Cost control is easy to talk about in MBA class and financial columns. In real online life, cost control is a thorny problem. No matter how much the bean counters squeeze, the costs of new gear, innovation, and fixing stuff when it flames out over the weekend blasts many IT budgets into orbit. Yep, even Google’s wizards face this problem.
Net net: Google will have little choice but find a way to monetize clicks, eye balls, customer service, cloud access, storage, and any thing that can be slapped with a price tag. Take that to MBA class.
Cynthia Murrell, July 2, 2024
Smart Software and Non-Essential Jobs Rubble-ized
June 27, 2024
This essay is the work of a dinobaby. Unlike some folks, no smart software improved my native ineptness.
I am not convinced that the end of the world is nigh. I am amused by the accelerationists and the “put on the brakes” crowd. I do find it interesting that some suggest the banking sector will replace one-fifth of its oh so wonderful staff with smart software. Every penny matters when one’s bonus is on the line in carpetland.
Who will be harmed by rolling the AI dice to see who pulls a card from a precarious structure? The people working at AI companies perceive themselves as safe. Others — in jobs that should not exist — are likely to find van life, making TikToks, and cruising less rewarding than making art or working in a bank. Thanks, MSFT good enough like many things these days.
The most interesting comment about the people who will soon be able to find their future elsewhere emerged from that bastion of management excellence OpenAI. The article “OpenAI CTO: AI Could Kill Some Creative Jobs That Maybe Shouldn’t Exist Anyway” presents some startling information allegedly emitted by the Chief Technical Officer of OpenAI. (The same individual who did not know from whence the content processed by OpenAI came.)
The write up reports:
OpenAI’s CTO Mira Murati isn’t worried about such potential negative impacts, suggesting during a talk this month that if AI does kill some creative jobs, those jobs were maybe always a bit replaceable anyway. "I think it’s really going to be a collaborative tool, especially in the creative spaces," [OpenAI’s CTO Ms. Murati allegedly said].
The article explains:
Since OpenAI released ChatGPT to the public, fears that different types of generative AI could take or eliminate jobs have swirled across a range of industries. OpenAI has been pushing its text-to-video Sora tool to Hollywood. Game developers, writers, and voice actors have also expressed anger and frustration over generative AI tools and voices that could take their jobs as companies like Microsoft and Electronic Arts embrace AI.
Several observations:
First, my view is that if a good enough solution replaces a really good but expensive human, smart software will get the job. Money talks.
Second, smart software is percolating through niche and specialized software businesses. Israel plays host to an AI cyber conference. Will policeware and intelware vendors and customers get excited about automating and making smart certain routine business processes. Some of these are just begging to get the old smart software treatment. Some of these systems will have unanticipated job consequences.
Third, each year training of professionals becomes more time consuming, expensive, and difficult. The individuals in the classes want to learn, but in my own lectures I see the impact of less-than-optimal high school, college, and graduate education. When something “new” must be integrated into a process, developers will deliver systems that “just do it.” We’re not talking about putting on sneakers and hitting the gym. We are entering a phase when people don’t know what smart software is doing and don’t have the mental equipment to figure out what’s right and what’s absolutely a waste of time. Dealing with legal consequences and the need for more skilled humans, smart software is now starting to deliver a fresh set of challenges for keeping professionals up to date and adept.
Net net: Houses of cards can be sensitive to mild perturbations. Then the structure demonstrates structural deficiencies. Watch out below.
Stephen E Arnold, June 27, 2024
Prediction: Next Target Up — Public Libraries
June 26, 2024
This essay is the work of a dinobaby. Unlike some folks, no smart software improved my native ineptness.
The publishers (in spirit at least) have kneecapped the Internet Archive. If you don’t know what the online service does or did, it does not matter. I learned from the estimable ShowBiz411.com site, a cultural treasure is gone. Forget digital books, the article “Paramount Erases Archives of MTV Website, Wipes Music, Culture History After 30 Plus Years” says:
Parent company Paramount, formerly Viacom, has tossed twenty plus years of news archives. All that’s left is a placeholder site for reality shows. The M in MTV – music — is gone, and so is all the reporting and all the journalism performed by music and political writers ever written. It’s as if MTV never existed. (It’s the same for VH1.com, all gone.)
Why? The write up couches the savvy business decision of the Paramount leadership this way:
There’s no precedent for this, and no valid reason. Just cheapness and stupidity.
Tibby, my floppy ear Frenchie, is listening to music from the Internet Archive. He knows the publishers removed 500,000 books. Will he lose access to his beloved early 20th century hill music? Will he ever be able to watch reruns of the rock the casbah music video? No. He is a risk. A threat. A despicable knowledge seeker. Thanks to myself for this nifty picture.
My knowledge of MTV and VH1 is limited. I do recall telling my children, “Would you turn that down, please?” What a waste of energy. Future students of American culture will have a void. I assume some artifacts of the music videos will remain. But the motherlode is gone. Is this a loss? On one hand, no. Thank goodness I will not have to glimpse performs rocking the casbah. On the other hand, yes. Archaeologists study bits of stone, trying to figure out how those who left them built Machu Pichu did it. The value of lost information to those in the future is tough to discuss. But knowledge products may be like mine tailings. At some point, a bright person can figure out how to extract trace elements in quantity.
I have a slightly different view of these two recent cultural milestones. I have a hunch that the publishers want to protect their intellectual property. Internet Archive rolled over because its senior executives learned from their lawyers that lawsuits about copyright violations would be tough to win. The informed approach was to delete 500,000 books. Imagine an online service like the Internet Archive trying to be a library.
That brings me to what I think is going on. Copyright litigation will make quite a lot of digital information disappear. That means that increasing fees to public libraries for digital copies of books to “loan” to patrons must go up. Libraries who don’t play ball may find that those institutions will be faced with other publisher punishments: No American Library Association after parties, no consortia discounts, and at some point no free books.
Yes, libraries will have to charge a patron to check out a physical book and then the “publishers” will get a percentage.
The Andrew Carnegie “free” thing is wrong. Libraries rip off the publishers. Authors may be mentioned, but what publisher cares about 99 percent of its authors? (I hear crickets.)
Several thoughts struck me as I was walking my floppy ear Frenchie:
- The loss of information (some of which may have knowledge value) is no big deal in a social structure which does not value education. If people cannot read, who cares about books? Publishers and the wretches who write them. Period.
- The video copyright timebomb of the Paramount video content has been defused. Let’s keep those lawyers at bay, please. Who will care? Nostalgia buffs and the parents of the “stars”?
- The Internet Archive has music; libraries have music. Those are targets not on Paramount’s back. Who will shoot at these targets? Copyright litigators. Go go go.
Net net: My prediction is that libraries must change to a pay-to-loan model or get shut down. Who wants informed people running around disagreeing with lawyers, accountants, and art history majors?
Stephen E Arnold, June 26, 2024
Microsoft: Not Deteriorating, Just Normal Behavior
June 26, 2024
This essay is the work of a dinobaby. Unlike some folks, no smart software improved my native ineptness.
Gee, Microsoft, you are amazing. We just fired up a new Windows 11 Professional machine and guess what? Yep, the printers are not recognized. Nice work and consistent good enough quality.
Then I read “Microsoft Admits to Problems Upgrading Windows 11 Pro to Enterprise.” That write up says:
There are problems with Microsoft’s last few Windows 11 updates, leaving some users unable to make the move from Windows 11 Pro to Enterprise. Microsoft made the admission in an update to the "known issues" list for the June 11, 2024, update for Windows 11 22H2 and 23H2 – KB5039212. According to Microsoft, "After installing this update or later updates, you might face issues while upgrading from Windows Pro to a valid Windows Enterprise subscription."
Bad? Yes. But then I worked through this write up: “Microsoft Chose Profit Over Security and Left U.S. Government Vulnerable to Russian Hack, Whistleblower Says.” Is the information in the article on the money? I don’t know. I do know that bad actors find Windows the equivalent of an unlocked candy store. Goodies are there for greedy teens to cart off the chocolate-covered peanuts and gummy worms.
Everyone interested in entering the Microsoft Windows Theme Park wants to enjoy the thrills of a potentially lucrative experience. Thanks, MSFT Copilot. Why is everyone in your illustration the same?
This remarkable story of willful ignorance explains:
U.S. officials confirmed reports that a state-sponsored team of Russian hackers had carried out SolarWinds, one of the largest cyberattacks in U.S. history.
How did this happen? The write up asserts:
The federal government was preparing to make a massive investment in cloud computing, and Microsoft wanted the business. Acknowledging this security flaw could jeopardize the company’s chances, Harris [a former Microsoft security expert and whistleblower] recalled one product leader telling him. The financial consequences were enormous. Not only could Microsoft lose a multibillion-dollar deal, but it could also lose the race to dominate the market for cloud computing.
Bad things happened. The article includes this interesting item:
From the moment the hack surfaced, Microsoft insisted it was blameless. Microsoft President Brad Smith assured Congress in 2021 that “there was no vulnerability in any Microsoft product or service that was exploited” in SolarWinds.
Okay, that’s the main idea: Money.
Several observations are warranted:
- There seems to be an issue with procurement. The US government creates an incentive for Microsoft to go after big contracts and then does not require Microsoft products to work or be secure. I know generals love PowerPoint, but it seems that national security is at risk.
- Microsoft itself operates with a policy of doing what’s necessary to make as much money as possible and avoiding the cost of engineering products that deliver what the customer wants: Stable, secure software and services.
- Individual users have to figure out how to make the most basic functions work without stopping business operations. Printers should print; an operating system should be able to handle what my first personal computer could do in the early 1980s. After 25 years, printing is not a new thing.
Net net: In a consequence-filled business environment, I am concerned that Microsoft will not improve its security and the most basic computer operations. I am not sure the company knows how to remediate what I think of as a Disneyland for bad actors. And I wanted the new Windows 11 Professional to work. How stupid of me?
Stephen E Arnold, June 26, 2024
Falling Apples: So Many to Harvest and Sell to Pay the EU
June 25, 2024
This essay is the work of a dinobaby. Unlike some folks, no smart software improved my native ineptness.
What’s goes up seems to come down. Apple is peeling back on the weird headset gizmo. The company’s AI response — despite the thrills Apple Intelligence produced in some acolytes — is “to be” AI or vaporware. China dependence remains a sticky wicket. And if the information in “Apple Has Very Serious Issues Under Sweeping EU Digital Rules, Competition Chief Says,” the happy giant in Cupertino will be writing some Jupiter-sized checks. Imagine. Pesky Europeans are asserting that Apple has a monopoly and has been acting less like Johnny Appleseed and more like Andrew Carnegie.
A powerful force causes Tim Apple to wonder why so many objects are falling on his head. Thanks, MSFT Copilot. Good enough.
The write up says:
… regulators are preparing charges against the iPhone maker. In March [2024], the European Commission, the EU’s executive arm, opened a probe into Apple, Alphabet and Meta, under the sweeping Digital Markets Act tech legislation that became applicable this year. The investigation featured several concerns about Apple, including whether the tech giant is blocking businesses from telling their users about cheaper options for products or about subscriptions outside of the App Store.
Would Apple, the flag bearer for almost-impossible to repaid products and software that just won’t charge laptop batteries no matter what the user needs to do prior to a long airplane flight prevent the free flow of information?
The EU nit pickers believe that Apple’s principles and policies are a “serious issue.”
How much money is possibly involved if the EU finds Apple a — pardon the pun — a bad apple in a barrel of rotten US high technology companies? The write up says:
If it is found in breach of Digital Markets Act rules, Apple could face fines of up to 10% of the company’s total worldwide annual turnover.
For FY2023, Apple captured about $380 billion, this works out to a potential payday for the EU of about US$ 38 billion and change.
Speaking of change, will a big fine cause those Apples to levitate? Nope.
Stephen E Arnold, June 25, 2024
Thomson Reuters: A Trust Report about Trust from an Outfit with Trust Principles
June 21, 2024
This essay is the work of a dinobaby. Unlike some folks, no smart software improved my native ineptness.
Thomson Reuters is into trust. The company has a Web page called “Trust Principles.” Here’s a snippet:
The Trust Principles were created in 1941, in the midst of World War II, in agreement with The Newspaper Proprietors Association Limited and The Press Association Limited (being the Reuters shareholders at that time). The Trust Principles imposed obligations on Reuters and its employees to act at all times with integrity, independence, and freedom from bias. Reuters Directors and shareholders were determined to protect and preserve the Trust Principles when Reuters became a publicly traded company on the London Stock Exchange and Nasdaq. A unique structure was put in place to achieve this. A new company was formed and given the name ‘Reuters Founders Share Company Limited’, its purpose being to hold a ‘Founders Share’ in Reuters.
Trust nestles in some legalese and a bit of business history. The only reason I mention this anchoring in trust is that Thomson Reuters reported quarterly revenue of $1.88 billion in May 2024, up from $1.74 billion in May 2023. The financial crowd had expected $1.85 billion in the quarter, and Thomson Reuters beat that. Surplus funds makes it possible to fund many important tasks; for example, a study of trust.
The ouroboros, according to some big thinkers, symbolizes the entity’s journey and the unity of all things; for example, defining trust, studying trust, and writing about trust as embodied in the symbol.
My conclusion is that trust as a marketing and business principle seems to be good for business. Therefore, I trust, and I am confident that the information in “Global Audiences Suspicious of AI-Powered Newsrooms, Report Finds.” The subject of the trusted news story is the Reuters Institute for the Study of Journalism. The Thomson Reuters reporter presents in a trusted way this statement:
According to the survey, 52% of U.S. respondents and 63% of UK respondents said they would be uncomfortable with news produced mostly with AI. The report surveyed 2,000 people in each country, noting that respondents were more comfortable with behind-the-scenes uses of AI to make journalists’ work more efficient.
To make the point a person working for the trusted outfit’s trusted report says in what strikes me as a trustworthy way:
“It was surprising to see the level of suspicion,” said Nic Newman, senior research associate at the Reuters Institute and lead author of the Digital News Report. “People broadly had fears about what might happen to content reliability and trust.”
In case you have lost the thread, let me summarize. The trusted outfit Thomson Reuters funded a study about trust. The research was conducted by the trusted outfit’s own Reuters Institute for the Study of Journalism. The conclusion of the report, as presented by the trusted outfit, is that people want news they can trust. I think I have covered the post card with enough trust stickers.
I know I can trust the information. Here’s a factoid from the “real” news report:
Vitus “V” Spehar, a TikTok creator with 3.1 million followers, was one news personality cited by some of the survey respondents. Spehar has become known for their unique style of delivering the top headlines of the day while laying on the floor under their desk, which they previously told Reuters is intended to offer a more gentle perspective on current events and contrast with a traditional news anchor who sits at a desk.
How can one not trust a report that includes a need met by a TikTok creator? Would a Thomson Reuters’ professional write a news story from under his or her desk or cube or home office kitchen table?
I think self funded research which finds that the funding entity’s approach to trust is exactly what those in search of “real” news need. Wikipedia includes some interesting information about Thomson Reuters in its discussion of the company in the section titled “Involvement in Surveillance.” Wikipedia alleges that Thomson Reuters licenses data to Palantir Technologies, an assertion which if accurate I find orthogonal to my interpretation of the word “trust.” But Wikipedia is not Thomson Reuters.
I will not ask questions about the methodology of the study. I trust the Thomson Reuters’ professionals. I will not ask questions about the link between revenue and digital information. I have the trust principles to assuage any doubt. I will not comment on the wonderful ouroboros-like quality of an enterprise embodying trust, funding a study of trust, and converting those data into a news story about itself. The symmetry is delicious and, of course, trustworthy. For information about Thomson Reuters’s trust use of artificial intelligence see this Web page.
Stephen E Arnold, June 21, 2024
There Must Be a Fix? Sorry. Nope.
June 20, 2024
This essay is the work of a dinobaby. Unlike some folks, no smart software improved my native ineptness.
I enjoy stories like “Microsoft Chose Profit Over Security and Left U.S. Government Vulnerable to Russian Hack, Whistleblower Says.” It combines a number of fascinating elements; for example, corporate green, Russia, a whistleblower, and the security of the United States. Figuring out who did what to whom when and under what circumstances is not something a dinobaby at my pay grade of zero can do. However, I can highlight some of the moving parts asserted in the write up and pose a handful of questions. Will these make you feel warm and fuzzy? I hope not. I get a thrill capturing the ideas as they manifest in my very aged brain.
The capture officer proudly explains to the giant corporation, “You have won the money?” Can money buy security happiness? Answer: Nope. Thanks, MSFT Copilot. Good enough, the new standard of excellence.
First, what is the primum movens for this exposé? I think that for this story, one candidate is Microsoft. The company has to decide to do what slays the evil competitors, remains the leader in all things smart, and generates what Wall Street and most stakeholders crave: Money. Security is neither sexy nor a massive revenue producer when measured in terms of fixing up the vulnerabilities in legacy code, the previous fixes, and the new vulnerabilities cranked out with gay abandon. Recall any recent MSFT service which may create a small security risk or two? Despite this somewhat questionable approach to security, Microsoft has convinced the US government that core software like PowerPoint definitely requires the full panoply of MSFT software, services, features, and apps. Unfortunately articles like “Microsoft Chose Profit Over Security” converts the drudgery of cyber security into a snazzy story. A hard worker finds the MSFT flaw, reports it, and departs for a more salubrious work life. The write up says:
U.S. officials confirmed reports that a state-sponsored team of Russian hackers had carried out SolarWinds, one of the largest cyberattacks in U.S. history. They used the flaw Harris had identified to vacuum up sensitive data from a number of federal agencies, including, ProPublica has learned, the National Nuclear Security Administration, which maintains the United States’ nuclear weapons stockpile, and the National Institutes of Health, which at the time was engaged in COVID-19 research and vaccine distribution. The Russians also used the weakness to compromise dozens of email accounts in the Treasury Department, including those of its highest-ranking officials. One federal official described the breach as “an espionage campaign designed for long-term intelligence collection.”
Cute. SolarWinds, big-money deals, and hand-waving about security. What has changed? Nothing. A report criticized MSFT; the company issued appropriate slick-talking, lawyer-vetted, PR-crafted assurances that security is Job One. What has changed? Nothing.
The write up asserts about MSFT’s priorities:
the race to dominate the market for new and high-growth areas like the cloud drove the decisions of Microsoft’s product teams. “That is always like, ‘Do whatever it frickin’ takes to win because you have to win.’ Because if you don’t win, it’s much harder to win it back in the future. Customers tend to buy that product forever.”
I understand. I am not sure corporations and government agencies do. That PowerPoint software is the go-to tool for many agencies. One high-ranking military professional told me: “The PowerPoints have to be slick.” Yep, slick. But reports are written in PowerPoints. Congress is briefed with PowerPoints. Secret operations are mapped out in PowerPoints. Therefore, buy whatever it takes to make, save, and distribute the PowerPoints.
The appropriate response is, “Yes, sir.”
So what’s the fix? There is no fix. The Microsoft legacy security, cloud, AI “conglomeration” is entrenched. The Certified Partners will do patch ups. The whistleblowers will toot, but their tune will be downed out in the post-contract-capture party at the Old Ebbitt Grill.
Observations:
- Third-party solutions are going to have to step up. Microsoft does not fix; it creates.
- More serious breaches are coming. Too many nation-states view the US as a problem and want to take it down and put it out.
- Existing staff in the government and at third-party specialist firms are in “knee jerk mode.” The idea of pro-actively getting ahead of the numerous bad actors is an interesting thought experiment. But like most thought experiments, it can morph into becoming a BFF of Don Quixote and going after those windmills.
Net net: Folks, we have some cyber challenges on our hands, in our systems, and in the cloud. I wish reality were different, but it is what it is. (Didn’t President Clinton define “is”?)
Stephen E Arnold, June 20, 2024
The Gray Lady Tap Dances
June 17, 2024
This essay is the work of a dinobaby. Unlike some folks, no smart software improved my native ineptness.
The collision of myth, double talk, technology, and money produces some fascinating tap dancing. Tip tap tip tap. Tap tap. That’s the sound of the folks involved with explaining that technology is no big deal. Drum roll. Then the coda. Tip tap tip tap. Tap tap tap. It is not money. Tip tap tip tap. tap tap.
I think quite a few business decisions are about money; specifically, getting a bonus or a hefty raise because “efficiency” improves “quality.” One can dance around the dead horse, but at some point that horse needs to be relocated.
The “real” Mona Lisa. Can she be enhanced, managed, and be populated with metadata without a human art director? Yep. Thanks, MSFT Copilot. Good enough.
I read “New York Times Union Urges Management to Reconsider 9 Art Department Cuts as Paper Ramps Up AI Tools | Exclusive.” The write up weaves a number of themes together. There is the possibility of management waffling, a common practice these days. Recall, an incident, Microsoft? The ever-present next big thing makes an appearance. Plus, there is the Gray Lady, working hard to maintain its position as the newspaper for for the USA today. (That sounds familiar, doesn’t it?)
The main point of the write up is that the NYT’s art department might lose staff. The culprit is not smart software. Money is not the issue. Quality will not suffer. Yada yada. The write up says:
The Times denies that the reductions are in any way related to the newspaper’s AI initiatives.
And the check is in the mail.
I also noted:
A spokesman for the Times said the affected employees are being offered a buyout, and have nothing to do with the use of AI. “Last month, The Times’s newsroom made the difficult decision to reduce the size of its art production team with workflow changes to make photo toning and color correction work more efficient,” Charlie Stadtlander told TheWrap.”On May 30th, we offered generous voluntary buyouts for 9 employees to accept. These changes involve the adoption of new workflows and the expanded use of industry-standard tools that have been in use for years — they are not related to The Times’s AI efforts.”
Nope. Never. Impossible. Unthinkable.
What is the smart software identified as a staff reducer? It is Claro but that is not the name of the company. The current name of the service is Pixometry, which is a mashup of Claro and Elpical. So what does this controversial smart software do? The firm’s Web site says:
Pixometry is the latest evolution of Claro, the leading automated image enhancement platform for Publishers and Retailers around the globe. Combining exceptional software with outstanding layered AI services, Pixometry delivers a powerful image processing engine capable of creating stunning looking images, highly accurate cut-outs and automatic keywording in seconds. Reducing the demands upon the Photoshop teams, Pixometry integrates seamlessly with production systems and prepares images for use in printed and digital media.
The Pixometry software delivers:
Cloud based automatic image enhancement & visual asset management solutions for publishers & retail business.
Its functions include:
- Automatic image “correction” because “real” is better than real
- Automatic cut outs and key wording (I think a cut out is a background remover so a single image can be plucked from a “real” photo
- Consistent, high quality results. None of that bleary art director eye contact.
- Multi-channel utilization. The software eliminates telling a Photoshop wizard I need a high-res image for the magazine and a then a 96 spot per inch version for the Web. How long will that take? What? I need the images now.
- Applied AI image intelligence. Hey, no hallucinations here. This is “real” image enhancement and better than what those Cooper Union space cadets produce when they are not wandering around looking for inspiration or whatever.
Does that sound like reality shaping or deep fake territory? Hmmm. That’s a question none of the hair-on-fire write ups addresses. But if you are a Photoshop and Lightroom wizard, the software means hasta la vista in my opinion. Smart software may suck at office parties but it does not require vacays, health care (just minor system updates), or unions. Software does not argue, wear political buttons, or sit around staring into space because of a late night at the “library.”
Pretty obscure unless you are a Photoshop wizard. The Pixometry Web site explains that it provides a searchable database of images and what looks like one click enhancement of images. Hey, every image needs a bit of help to be “real”, just like “real” news and “real” management explanations. The Pixometry Web site identifies some organizations as “loving” Pixometry; for example, the star-crossed BBC, News UK, El Mercurio, and the New York Times. Yes, love!
Let’s recap. Most of the reporting about this use of applied smart software gets the name of the system wrong. None of the write ups point out that art director functions in the hands of a latte guzzling professional are not quick, easy, or without numerous glitches. Furthermore, the humans in the “art” department must be managed.
The NYT is, it appears, trying to do the two-step around software that is better, faster, and cheaper than the human powered options. Other observations are:
- The fast-talking is not going to change the economic benefit of smart software
- The notion of a newspaper fixing up photos underscores that deep fakes have permeated institutions which operate as if it were 1923 skidoo time
- The skilled and semi-skilled workers in knowledge industries may taste blood when the titanium snake of AI bites them on the ankle. Some bites will be fatal.
Net net: Being up front may have some benefits. Skip the old soft shoe, please.
Stephen E Arnold, June 17, 2024
A Fancy Way of Saying AI May Involve Dragons
June 14, 2024
This essay is the work of a dinobaby. Unlike some folks, no smart software improved my native ineptness.
The essay “What Apple’s AI Tells Us: Experimental Models” makes clear that pinning down artificial intelligence is proving to be more difficult than some anticipated in January 2023, the day when Google’s Red Alert squawked and many people said, “AI is the silver bullet I want for my innovation cannon.”
Image source: https://www.geographyrealm.com/here-be-dragons/
Here’s a sentence I found important in the One Useful Thing essay:
What is worth paying attention to is how all the AI giants are trying many different approaches to see what works.
The write up explains different approach to AI that the author has identified. These are:
- Apps
- Business models with subscription fees
The essay concludes with a specter “haunting AI.” The write up says:
I do not know if AGI[artificial general intelligence] is achievable, but I know that the mere idea of AGI being possible soon bends everything around it, resulting in wide differences in approach and philosophy in AI implementations.
Today’s smart software environment has an upside other than the money churn the craziness vortices generate:
Having companies take many approaches to AI is likely to lead to faster adoption in the long term. And, as companies experiment, we will learn more about which sets of models are correct.
Several observations are warranted.
First, the confessions of McKinsey’s AI team make it clear that smart outfits may not know what they are doing. The firms just plunge forward and then after months of work recycle the floundering into lessons. Presumably these lessons are “hire McKinsey.” See my write up “What Is McKinsey & Co. Telling Its Clients about AI?”
Second, another approach is to use AI in the hopes that staff costs can be reduced. I think this is the motivation of some AI enthusiasts. PwC (I am not sure if it is a consulting firm, an accounting firm, or some 21st century mutation) fell in lust with OpenAI. Not only did the firm kick OpenAI’s tires, PwC signed up to be what’s called an “enterprise reseller.” A client pays PwC to just make something work. In this case, PwC becomes the equivalent of a fix it shop with a classy address and workers with clean fingernails. The motivation, in my opinion, is cutting staff. “PwC Is Doing Quiet Layoffs. It’s a Brilliant Example of What Not to Do” says:
This is PwC in the U.K., and obviously, they operate under different laws than we do here in the United States. But in case you’re thinking about following this bad example, I asked employment attorney Jon Hyman for advice. He said, "This request would seem to fall under the umbrella of ‘protected concerted activity’ that the NLRB would take issue with. That said, the National Labor Relations Act does not apply to supervisors — defined as one with the authority to make personnel decisions using independent judgment. "Thus," he continues, "whether this specific PwC request runs afoul of the NLRA’s legal protections for employees to engage in protected concerted activity would depend on whether the laid-off employees were ‘supervisors’ under the Act."
I am a simpler person. The quiet layoffs complement the AI initiative. Quiet helps keep staff from making the connection I am suggesting. But consulting firms keep one eye on expenses and the other on partners’ profits. AI is a catalyst, not a technology.
Third, more AI fatigue write ups are appearing. One example is “The AI Fatigue: Are We Getting Tired of Artificial Intelligence?” reports:
Hema Sridhar, Strategic Advisor for Technological Futures at the University of Auckland, says that there is a lot of “noise on the topic” so it is clear that “people are overwhelmed”. “Almost every company is using AI. Pretty much every app that you’re currently using on your phone has recently released some version with some kind of AI-feature or AI-enhanced features,” she adds. “Everyone’s using it and [it’s] going to be part of day-to-day life, so there are going to be some significant improvements in everything from how you search for your own content on your phone, to more improved directions or productivity tools that just fundamentally change the simple things you do every day that are repetitive.”
Let me reference Apple Intelligence to close this write up. Apple did not announce hardware. It talked about “to be” services. Instead of doing the Meta open source thing, the Google wrong answers with historically flawed images, or the MSFT on-again, off-again roll outs — Apple just did “to be.”
My hunch is that Apple is not cautious; its professionals know that AI products and services may be like those old maps which say, “Here be dragons.” Sailing close to the shore makes sense.
Stephen E Arnold, June 14, 2024
Will the Judge Notice? Will the Clients If Convicted?
June 12, 2024
This essay is the work of a dinobaby. Unlike some folks, no smart software improved my native ineptness.
Law offices are eager to lighten their humans’ workload with generative AI. Perhaps too eager. Stanford University’s HAI reports, “AI on Trial: Legal Models Hallucinate in 1 out of 6 (or More) Benchmarking Queries.” Close enough for horseshoes, but for justice? And that statistic is with improved, law-specific software. We learn:
“In one highly-publicized case, a New York lawyer faced sanctions for citing ChatGPT-invented fictional cases in a legal brief; many similar cases have since been reported. And our previous study of general-purpose chatbots found that they hallucinated between 58% and 82% of the time on legal queries, highlighting the risks of incorporating AI into legal practice. In his 2023 annual report on the judiciary, Chief Justice Roberts took note and warned lawyers of hallucinations.”
But that was before tailor-made retrieval-augmented generation tools. The article continues:
“Across all areas of industry, retrieval-augmented generation (RAG) is seen and promoted as the solution for reducing hallucinations in domain-specific contexts. Relying on RAG, leading legal research services have released AI-powered legal research products that they claim ‘avoid’ hallucinations and guarantee ‘hallucination-free’ legal citations. RAG systems promise to deliver more accurate and trustworthy legal information by integrating a language model with a database of legal documents. Yet providers have not provided hard evidence for such claims or even precisely defined ‘hallucination,’ making it difficult to assess their real-world reliability.”
So the Stanford team tested three of the RAG systems for themselves, Lexis+ AI from LexisNexis and Westlaw AI-Assisted Research & Ask Practical Law AI from Thomson Reuters. The authors note they are not singling out LexisNexis or Thomson Reuters for opprobrium. On the contrary, these tools are less opaque than their competition and so more easily examined. They found that these systems are more accurate than the general-purpose models like GPT-4. However, the authors write:
“But even these bespoke legal AI tools still hallucinate an alarming amount of the time: the Lexis+ AI and Ask Practical Law AI systems produced incorrect information more than 17% of the time, while Westlaw’s AI-Assisted Research hallucinated more than 34% of the time.”
These hallucinations come in two flavors. Many responses are flat out wrong. Others are misgrounded: they are correct about the law but cite irrelevant sources. The authors stress this second type of error is more dangerous than it may seem, for it may lure users into a false sense of security about the tool’s accuracy.
The post examines challenges particular to RAG-based legal AI systems and discusses responsible, transparent ways to use them, if one must. In short, it recommends public benchmarking and rigorous evaluations. Will law firms listen?
Cynthia Murrell, June 12, 2024
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