Philosopher Nick Bostrom is surprisingly cheerful for someone who has spent so much time worrying about ways that humanity might destroy itself. In photographs he often looks deadly serious, perhaps appropriately haunted by the existential dangers roaming around his brain. When we talk over Zoom, he looks relaxed and is …
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Keith Peiris says he started to see the generative AI writing on the wall six months ago. Peiris is the cofounder and chief executive of Tome, a San Francisco startup that makes presentation software juiced with generative AI. The company launched its product in early 2022 with a healthy cushion …
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One task where AI tools have proven to be particularly superhuman is analyzing vast troves of data to find patterns that humans can't see, or automating and accelerating the discovery of those we can. That makes Bitcoin's blockchain, a public record of nearly a billion transactions between pseudonymous addresses, the …
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One day in March 2023, Arati Prabhakar brought a laptop into the Oval Office and showed the future to Joe Biden. Six months later, the president issued a sweeping executive order that set a regulatory course for AI. This all happened because ChatGPT had stunned the world. In an instant …
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Detecting when text has been generated by tools like ChatGPT is a difficult task. Popular artificial- intelligence-detection tools, like GPTZero, may provide some guidance for users by telling them when something was written by a bot and not a human, but even specialized software is not foolproof and can spit …
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So far, over 3,000 people have applied to one open data science vacancy at a US health tech company this year. The top candidates are given a lengthy and difficult task assessment, which very few pass, says a recruiter at the company, who asked to remain anonymous because they are …
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I’m a guy “in real life,” but I’ve always played female characters in video games. More and more people say this means I’m either secretly gay/trans or a total creep. Am I allowed to just prefer it? —Gender Player Dear Player, It sounds like you have a lot of people …
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The algorithm has won. The most powerful social, video, and shopping platforms have all converged on a philosophy of coddling users in automated recommendations. Whether through Spotify’s personalized playlists, TikTok’s all-knowing For You page, or Amazon’s product suggestions, the internet is hell-bent on micromanaging your online activity. At the same …
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I eagerly refreshed the website, awaiting my brand-new headshots. When they finally appeared, I squinted, bewildered. I laughed out loud alone in my office, then sent a very confused email to customer support. Every writer I know is talking about AI tools and whether they’re ethical to use. But what’s …
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Alphabet CEO Sundar Pichai is confident that Google will find a way to make money selling access to generative AI tools. Microsoft CEO Satya Nadella says his company is already doing it. Both companies reported better-than-expected quarterly sales and profit on Thursday. And the stock prices of both soared on …
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