Can You Create Better with AI? Sure, Even If You Are Picasso or a TikTok Star

June 15, 2023

Vea4_thumb_thumb_thumb_thumb_thumb_t[1]Note: This essay is the work of a real and still-alive dinobaby. No smart software involved, just a dumb humanoid.

Do we need to worry about how generative AI will change the world? Yes, but no more than we had to fear automation, the printing press, horseless carriages, and the Internet. The current technology revolution is analogous to the Industrial Revolutions and technology advancements of past centuries. University of Chicago history professor Ada Palmer is aware of humanity’s cyclical relationship with technology and she discusses it in her Microsoft Unlocked piece: “We Are An Information Revolution Species.”

Palmer explains that the human species has been living in an information revolution for twenty generations. She provides historical examples and how people bemoan changes. The changes arguably remove the “art” from tasks. These tasks, however, are simplified and allow humans to create more. It also frees up humanity’s time to conquer harder problems. Changes in technology spur a democratization of information. They also mean that jobs change, so humans need to adapt their skills for continual survival.

Palmer says that AI is just another tool as humanity progresses. She asserts that the bigger problems are outdated systems that no longer serve the current society. While technology has evolved so has humanity:

“This revolution will be faster, but we have something the Gutenberg generations lacked: we understand social safety nets. We know we need them, how to make them. We have centuries of examples of how to handle information revolutions well or badly. We know the cup is already leaking, the actor and the artist already struggling as the megacorp grows rich. Policy is everything. We know we can do this well or badly. The only sure road to real life dystopia is if we convince ourselves dystopia is unavoidable, and fail to try for something better.”

AI does need a social safety net so it does not transform into a sentient computer hell-bent on world domination. Palmer should point out that humans learn from their imaginations too. Star Trek or 2001: A Space Odyssey anyone?

A digital Sistine Chapel from a savant in Cairo, Illinois. Oh, right, Cairo, Illinois, is gone. But nevertheless…

Whitney Grace, June 15, 2023

Is This for Interns, Contractors, and Others Whom You Trust?

June 14, 2023

Vea4_thumb_thumb_thumb_thumb_thumb_t[1]_thumb_thumbNote: This essay is the work of a real and still-alive dinobaby. No smart software involved, just a dumb humanoid.

Not too far from where my office is located, an esteemed health care institution is in its second month of a slight glitch. The word in Harrod’s Creek is that security methods at use at a major hospital were — how shall I frame this — a bit like the 2022-2023 University of Kentucky’s’ basketball team’s defense. In Harrod’s Creek lingo, this statement would translate to standard English as “them ‘Cats did truly suck.”

6 12 temp worker

A young temporary worker looks at her boss. She says, “Yes, I plugged a USB drive into this computer because I need to move your PowerPoint to a different machine to complete the presentation.” The boss says, “Okay, you can use the desktop in my office. I have to go to a cyber security meeting. See you after lunch. Text me if you need a password to something.” The illustration for this hypothetical conversation emerged from the fountain of innovation known as MidJourney.

The chatter about assorted Federal agencies’ cyber personnel meeting with the institution’s own cyber experts are flitting around. When multiple Federal entities park their unobtrusive and sometimes large black SUVs close to the main entrance, someone is likely to notice.

This short blog post, however, is not about the lame duck cyber security at the health care facility. (I would add an anecdote about an experience I had in 2022. I showed up for a check up at a unit of the health care facility. Upon arriving, I pronounced my date of birth and my name. The professional on duty said, “We have an appointment for your wife and we have her medical records.” Well, that was a trivial administrative error: Wrong patient, confidential information shipped to another facility, and zero idea how that could happen. I made the appointment myself and provided the required information. That’s a great computer systems and super duper security in my book.)

The question at hand, however, is: “How can a profitable, marketing oriented, big time in their mind health care outfit, suffer a catastrophic security breach?”

I shall point you to one possible pathway: Temporary workers, interns, and contractors. I will not mention other types of insiders.

Please, point your browser to Hak5.org and read about the USB Rubber Ducky. With a starting price of $80US, this USB stick has some functions which can accomplish some interesting actions. The marketing collateral explains:

Computers trust humans. Humans use keyboards. Hence the universal spec — HID, or Human Interface Device. A keyboard presents itself as a HID, and in turn it’s inherently trusted as human by the computer. The USB Rubber Ducky — which looks like an innocent flash drive to humans — abuses this trust to deliver powerful payloads, injecting keystrokes at superhuman speeds.

With the USB Rubby Ducky, one can:

  • Install backdoors
  • Covertly exfiltrate documents
  • Capture credential
  • Execute compound actions.

Plus, if there is a USB port, the Rubber Ducky will work.

I mention this device because it may not too difficult for a bad actor to find ways into certain types of super duper cyber secure networks. Plus temporary workers and even interns welcome a coffee in an organization’s cafeteria or a nearby coffee shop. Kick in a donut and a smile and someone may plug the drive in for free!

Stephen E Arnold, June 14, 2023

Smart Software: The Dream of Big Money Raining for Decades

June 14, 2023

Vea4_thumb_thumb_thumb_thumb_thumb_t[1]_thumb_thumbNote: This essay is the work of a real and still-alive dinobaby. No smart software involved, just a dumb humanoid.

The illustration — from the crafty zeros and ones at MidJourney — depicts a young computer scientist reveling in the cash generated from his AI-infused innovation.

6 10 raining cash

For a budding wizard, the idea of cash falling around the humanoid is invigorating. It is called a “coder’s high” or Silicon Valley fever. There is no known cure, even when FTX-type implosions doom a fellow traveler to months of litigation and some hard time among individuals typically not in an advanced math program.

Where’s the cyclone of cash originate?

I would submit that articles like “Generative AI Revenue Is Set to Reach US$1.3 Trillion in 2032” are like catnip to a typical feline living amidst the cubes at a Google-type company or in the apartment of a significant other adjacent a blue chip university in the US.

Here’s the chart that makes it easy to see the slope of the growth:

image

I want to point out that this confection is the result of the mid tier outfit IDC and the fascinating Bloomberg terminal. Therefore, I assume that it is rock solid, based on in-depth primary research, and deep analysis by third-party consultants. I do, however, reserve the right to think that the chart could have been produced by an intern eager to hit the gym and grabbing a sushi special before the good stuff was gone.

Will generative AI hit the $1.3 trillion target in nine years? In the hospital for recovering victims of spreadsheet fever, the coder’s high might slow recovery. But many believe — indeed, fervently hope to experience the realities of William James’s mystics in his Varieties of Religious Experience.

My goodness, the vision of money from Generative AI is infectious. So regulate mysticism? Erect guard rails to prevent those with a coder’s high from driving off the Information Superhighway?

Get real.

Stephen E Arnold, June 12, 2023

Can One Be Accurate, Responsible, and Trusted If One Plagiarizes

June 14, 2023

Vea4_thumb_thumb_thumb_thumb_thumb_t[1]Note: This essay is the work of a real and still-alive dinobaby. No smart software involved, just a dumb humanoid.

Now that AI is such a hot topic, tech companies cannot afford to hold back due to small flaws. Like a tendency to spit out incorrect information, for example. One behemoth seems to have found a quick fix for that particular wrinkle: simple plagiarism. Eager to incorporate AI into its flagship Search platform, Google recently released a beta version to select users. Forbes contributor Matt Novak was among the lucky few and shares his observations in, “Google’s New AI-Powered Search Is a Beautiful Plagiarism Machine.”

The author takes us through his query and results on storing live oysters in the fridge, complete with screenshots of the Googlebot’s response. (Short answer: you can for a few days if you cover them with a damp towel.) He highlights passages that were lifted from websites, some with and some without tiny tweaks. To be fair, Google does link to its source pages alongside the pilfered passages. But why click through when you’ve already gotten what you came for? Novak writes:

“There are positive and negative things about this new Google Search experience. If you followed Google’s advice, you’d probably be just fine storing your oysters in the fridge, which is to say you won’t get sick. But, again, the reason Google’s advice is accurate brings us immediately to the negative: It’s just copying from websites and giving people no incentive to actually visit those websites.

Why does any of this matter? Because Google Search is easily the biggest driver of traffic for the vast majority of online publishers, whether it’s major newspapers or small independent blogs. And this change to Google’s most important product has the potential to devastate their already dwindling coffers. … Online publishers rely on people clicking on their stories. It’s how they generate revenue, whether that’s in the sale of subscriptions or the sale of those eyeballs to advertisers. But it’s not clear that this new form of Google Search will drive the same kind of traffic that it did over the past two decades.”

Ironically, Google’s AI may shoot itself in the foot by reducing traffic to informative websites: it needs their content to answer queries. Quite the conundrum it has made for itself.

Cynthia Murrell, June 14, 2023

Trust: Some in the European Union Do Not Believe the Google. Gee, Why?

June 13, 2023

Vea4_thumb_thumb_thumb_thumb_thumb_t[1]_thumb_thumb_thumb_thumb_thumbNote: This essay is the work of a real and still-alive dinobaby. No smart software involved, just a dumb humanoid.

I read “Google’s Ad Tech Dominance Spurs More Antitrust Charges, Report Says.” The write up seems to say that some EU regulators do not trust the Google. Trust is a popular word at the alleged monopoly. Yep, trust is what makes Google’s smart software so darned good.

6 13 fat man

A lawyer for a high tech outfit in the ad game says, “Commissioner, thank you for the question. You can trust my client. We adhere to the highest standards of ethical behavior. We put our customers first. We are the embodiment of ethical behavior. We use advanced technology to enhance everyone’s experience with our systems.” The rotund lawyer is a confection generated by MidJourney, an example of in this case, pretty smart software.

The write up says:

These latest charges come after Google spent years battling and frequently bending to the EU on antitrust complaints. Seeming to get bigger and bigger every year, Google has faced billions in antitrust fines since 2017, following EU challenges probing Google’s search monopoly, Android licensing, Shopping integration with search, and bundling of its advertising platform with its custom search engine program.

The article makes an interesting point, almost as an afterthought:

…Google’s ad revenue has continued increasing, even as online advertising competition has become much stiffer…

The article does not ask this question, “Why is Google making more money when scrutiny and restrictions are ramping up?”

From my vantage point in the old age “home” in rural Kentucky, I certainly have zero useful data about this interesting situation, assuming that it is true of course. But, for the nonce, let’s speculate, shall we?

Possibility A: Google is a monopoly and makes money no matter what laws, rules, and policies are articulated. Game is now in extra time. Could the referee be bent?

This idea is simple. Google’s control of ad inventory, ad options, and ad channels is just a good, old-fashioned system monopoly. Maybe TikTok and Facebook offer options, but even with those channels, Google offers options. Who can resist this pitch: “Buy from us, not the Chinese. Or, buy from us, not the metaverse guy.”

Possibility B: Google advertising is addictive and maybe instinctual. Mice never learn and just repeat their behaviors.

Once there is a cheese pay off for the mouse, those mice are learning creatures and in some wild and non-reproducible experiments inherit their parents’ prior learning. Wow. Genetics dictate the use of Google advertising by people who are hard wired to be Googley.

Possibility C: Google’s home base does not regulate the company in a meaningful way.

The result is an advanced and hardened technology which is better, faster, and maybe cheaper than other options. How can the EU, with is squabbling “union”, hope to compete with what is weaponized content delivery build on a smart, adaptive global system? The answer is, “It can’t.”

Net net: After a quarter century, what’s more organized for action, a regulatory entity or the Google? I bet you know the answer, don’t you?

Stephen E Arnold, June xx, 2023

Sam AI-man Speak: What I Meant about India Was… Really, Really Positive

June 13, 2023

Vea4_thumb_thumb_thumb_thumb_thumb_t[1]_thumb_thumb_thumb_thumbNote: This essay is the work of a real and still-alive dinobaby. No smart software involved, just a dumb humanoid.

I have noted Sam AI-man of OpenAI and his way with words. I called attention to an article which quoted him as suggesting that India would be forever chasing the Usain Bolt of smart software. Who is that? you may ask. The answer is, Sam AI-man.

6 12 robot helping sam aiman

MidJourney’s incredible insight engine generated an image of a young, impatient business man getting a robot to write his next speech. Good move, young business man. Go with regressing to the norm and recycling truisms.

The remarkable explainer appears in “Unacademy CEO Responds To Sam Altman’s Hopeless Remark; Says Accept The Reality.” Here’s the statement I noted:

Following the initial response, Altman clarified his remarks, stating that they were taken out of context. He emphasized that his comments were specifically focused on the challenge of competing with OpenAI using a mere $10 million investment. Altman clarified that his intention was to highlight the difficulty of attempting to rival OpenAI under such constrained financial circumstances. By providing this clarification, he aimed to address any misconceptions that may have arisen from his earlier statement.

To see the original “hopeless” remark, navigate to this link.

Sam AI-man is an icon. My hunch is that his public statements have most people in awe, maybe breathless. But India as hopeless in smart software. Just not too swift. Why not let ChatGPT craft one’s public statements. Those answers are usually quite diplomatic, even if wrong or wonky some times.

Stephen E Arnold, June 13, 2023

Sam AI-man: India Is Hopeless When It Comes to AI. What, Sam? Hopeless!

June 13, 2023

Vea4_thumb_thumb_thumb_thumb_thumb_t[1]_thumbNote: This essay is the work of a real and still-alive dinobaby. No smart software involved, just a dumb humanoid.

Sam Altman (aka to me and my research team as Sam AI-man) comes up with interesting statements. I am not sure if Sam AI-man crafts them himself or if his utterances are the work of ChatGPT or a well-paid, carefully groomed publicist. I don’t think it matters. I just find his statements interesting examples of worshipped tech leader speak.

6 10 you dont understand

MidJourney presents an image of a young Sam AI-man explaining to one of his mentors that he is hopeless. Sam AI-man has been riding this particular pony named arrogance since he was a wee lad. At least that’s what I take away from the machine generated illustration. Your interpretation may be different. Sam AI is just being helpful.

Navigate to “Sam Altman Calls India Building ChatGPT-Like Tool Hopeless. Tech Mahindra CEO Says Challenge Accepted.” The write up reports that a former Google wizard asked Sam AI-man about India’s ability to craft its own smart software, an equivalent to OpenAI. Sam AI-man replied in true Silicon Valley style:

“The way this works is we’re going to tell you, it’s totally hopeless to compete with us on training foundation models you shouldn’t try, and it’s your job to like try anyway. And I believe both of those things. I think it is pretty hopeless,” Altman said, in reply.

That’s a sporty answer. Sam AI-man may have a future working as an ambassador or as a negotiator in the Hague for the exciting war crimes trials bound to come.

I would suggest that Sam AI-man, prepare for this new role by gathering basic information to answer these questions:

  1. Why are so many of India’s best and brightest generating math tutorials on YouTube which describe computational tricks which are insightful, not usually taught in Palo Alto high schools, and relevant to smart software math?
  2. How many mathematicians are generated in India each graduation cycle? How many does the US produce in the same time period? (Include India’s nationals studying in US universities and graduating with their cohort?
  3. How many Srinivasa Ramanujans are chugging along in India’s mathy environment? How many are projected to come along in the next five years?
  4. How many Indian nationals work on smart software at Facebook, Google, Microsoft, and OpenAI and similar firms at this time?
  5. What open source tools are available to Indian mathematicians to use as a launch pad for smart software frameworks and systems?

My thought is that “pretty hopeless” is a very Sam AI-man phrase. It captures the essence of arrogance, cultural insensitivity, and bluntness that makes Silicon Valley prose so memorable.

Congrats, Sam AI-man. Great insight. Classy too if the write up is “real news” and not generated by ChatGPT.

Stephen E Arnold, June 12, 2023

Handwaving at Light Speed: Control Smart Software Now!

June 13, 2023

Vea4_thumb_thumb_thumb_thumb_thumb_t[1]_thumbNote: This essay is the work of a real and still-alive dinobaby. No smart software involved, just a dumb humanoid.

Here is an easy one: Vox ponders, “What Will Stop AI from Flooding the Internet with Fake Images?” “Nothing” is the obvious answer. Nevertheless, tech companies are making a show of making an effort. Writer Shirin Ghaffary begins by recalling the recent kerfuffle caused by a realistic but fake photo of a Pentagon explosion. The spoof even affected the stock market, though briefly. We are poised to see many more AI-created images swamp the Internet, and they won’t all be so easily fact checked. The article explains:

“This isn’t an entirely new problem. Online misinformation has existed since the dawn of the internet, and crudely photoshopped images fooled people long before generative AI became mainstream. But recently, tools like ChatGPT, DALL-E, Midjourney, and even new AI feature updates to Photoshop have supercharged the issue by making it easier and cheaper to create hyper realistic fake images, video, and text, at scale. Experts say we can expect to see more fake images like the Pentagon one, especially when they can cause political disruption. One report by Europol, the European Union’s law enforcement agency, predicted that as much as 90 percent of content on the internet could be created or edited by AI by 2026. Already, spammy news sites seemingly generated entirely by AI are popping up. The anti-misinformation platform NewsGuard started tracking such sites and found nearly three times as many as they did a few weeks prior.”

Several ideas are being explored. One is to tag AI-generated images with watermarks, metadata, and disclosure labels, but of course those can be altered or removed. Then there is the tool from Adobe that tracks whether images are edited by AI, tagging each with “content credentials” that supposedly stick with a file forever. Another is to approach from the other direction and stamp content that has been verified as real. The Coalition for Content Provenance and Authenticity (C2PA) has created a specification for this purpose.

But even if bad actors could not find ways around such measures, and they can, will audiences care? So far it looks like that is a big no. We already knew confirmation bias trumps facts for many. Watermarks and authenticity seals will hold little sway for those already inclined to take what their filter bubbles feed them at face value.

Cynthia Murrell, June 13, 2023

Two Polemics about the Same Thing: Info Control

June 12, 2023

Vea4_thumb_thumb_thumb_thumb_thumb_t[1]_thumbNote: This essay is the work of a real and still-alive dinobaby. No smart software involved, just a dumb humanoid.

Polemics are fun. The term, as I use it, means:

a speech or piece of writing expressing a strongly critical attack on or controversial opinion about someone or something.

I took the definition from Google’s presentation of the “Oxford Languages.” I am not sure what that means, but since we are considering two polemics, the definition is close enough for horseshoes. Furthermore, polemics are not into facts, verifiable assertions, or hard data. I think of polemics as blog posts by individuals whom some might consider fanatics, apologists, crusaders, or zealots.

Ah, you don’t agree? Tough noogies, gentle reader.

The first document I read and fed into Browserling’s free word frequency tool was Marc Andreessen’s delightful “Why AI Will Save the World.” The document has a repetitive contents listing, which some readers may find useful. For me, the effort to stay on track added duplicate words.

The second document I read and stuffed into the Browserling tool was the entertaining, and in my opinion, fluffy, Aeropagitica, made available by Dartmouth.

The mechanics of the analysis were simple. I compared the frequency of words which I find indicative of a specific rhetorical intent. Mr. Andreessen is probably more well known to modern readers than John Milton. Mr. Andreessen’s contribution to polemic literature is arguably more readable. There’s the clumsy organization impedimenta. There are shorter sentences. There are what I would describe as Silicon Valley words. Furthermore, based on Bing, Google, and Yandex searches for the text of the document, one can find Mr. Andreessen’s contribution to the canon in more places than John Milton’s lame effort. I want to point out that Mr. Milton’s polemic is longer than Mr. Andreessen’s by a couple of orders of magnitude. I did what most careless analysts would do: I took the full text of Mr. Andreessen’s screed and snagged the first 8000 words of Mr. Milton’s writing. A writing known to bring tears to the eyes of first year college students asked to read the prose and write an analytic essay about Aeropagitica in 500 words. Good training for either a debate student, a future lawyer, or a person who wants to write for Reader’s Digest magazine I believe.

So what did I find?

First, both Mr. Andreessen and Mr. Milton needed to speak out for their ideas. Mr. Andreessen is an advocate of smart software. Mr. Milton wanted a censorship free approach to publishing. Both assumed that “they” or people not on their wave length needed convincing about the importance of their ideas. It is safe to say that the audiences for these two polemics are not clued into the subject. Mr. Andreessen is speaking to those who are jazzed on smart software, neglecting to point out that smart software is pretty common in the online advertising sector. Mr. Milton assumed that censorship was a new threat, electing to ignore that religious authorities, educational institutions, and publishers were happily censoring information 24×7. But that’s the world of polemicists.

Second, what about the words used by each author. Since this is written for my personal blog, I will boil down my findings to a handful of words.

The table below presents selected 12 words and a count of each:

Words

Andreessen

Milton

AI

157

0

All

34

54

Ethics

1

0

Every

20

8

Everyone

7

0

Everything

6

0

Everywhere

4

0

Infinitely

9

0

Moral

9

0

Morality

2

0

Obviously

4

0

Should

23

22

Would

21

10

Several observations:

  1. Messrs. Andreessen and Milton share an absolutist approach. The word “all” figures prominently in both polemics.
  2. Mr. Andreessen uses “every” words to make clear that AI is applicable to just about anything one cares to name. Logical? Hey, these are polemics. The logic is internal.
  3. Messrs. Andreessen share a fondness for adulting. Note the frequency of “should” and “would.”
  4. Mr. Andreessen has an interest in ethical and moral behavior. Mr. Milton writes around these notions.

Net net: Polemics are designed as marketing collateral. Mr. Andreessen is marketing as is Mr. Milton. Which pitch is better? The answer depends on the criteria one uses to judge polemics. I give the nod to Mr. Milton. His polemic is longer, has freight train scale sentences, and is for a modern college freshman almost unreadable. Mr. Andreessen’s polemic is sportier. It’s about smart software, not censorship directly. However, both polemics boil down to who has his or her hands on the content levers.

Stephen E Arnold, June 12, 2023

Bad News for Humanoids: AI Writes Better Pitch Decks But KFC Is Hiring

June 12, 2023

Vea4_thumb_thumb_thumb_thumb_thumb_t[1]Note: This essay is the work of a real and still-alive dinobaby. No smart software involved, just a dumb humanoid.

Who would have envisioned a time when MBA with undergraduate finance majors would be given an opportunity to work at a Kentucky Fried Chicken store. What was the slogan about fingers? I can’t remember.

“If You’re Thinking about Writing Your Own Pitch Decks, Think Again” provides some interesting information. I assume that today’s version of Henry Robinson Luce’s flagship magazine (no the Sports Illustrated swimsuit edition) would shatter the work life of those who create pitch decks. A “pitch deck” is a sonnet for our digital era. The phrase is often associated with a group of PowerPoint slides designed to bet a funding source to write a check. That use case, however, is not where pitch decks come into play: Academics use them when trying to explain why a research project deserves funding. Ad agencies craft them to win client work or, in some cases, to convince a client to not fire the creative team. (Hello, Bud Light advisors, are you paying attention.) Real estate professionals created them to show to high net worth individuals. The objective is to close a deal for one of those bizarro vacant mansions shown by YouTube explorers. See, for instance, this white elephant lovingly presented by Dark Explorations. And there are more pitch deck applications. That’s why the phrase, “Death by PowerPoint is real”, is semi poignant.

What if a pitch deck could be made better? What is pitch decks could be produced quickly? What if pitch decks could be graphically enhanced without fooling around with Fiverr.com artists in Armenia or the professionals with orange and blue hair?

The Fortune article states: The study [funded by Clarify Capital] revealed that machine-generated pitch decks consistently outperformed their human counterparts in terms of quality, thoroughness, and clarity. A staggering 80% of respondents found the GPT-4 decks compelling, while only 39% felt the same way about the human-created decks. [Emphasis added]

The cited article continues:

What’s more, GPT-4-presented ventures were twice as convincing to investors and business owners compared to those backed by human-made pitch decks. In an even more astonishing revelation, GPT-4 proved to be more successful in securing funding in the creative industries than in the tech industry, defying assumptions that machine learning could not match human creativity due to its lack of life experience and emotions. [Emphasis added]

6 10 grad at kfc

Would you like regular or crispy? asks the MBA who wants to write pitch decks for a VC firm whose managing director his father knows. The image emerged from the murky math of MidJourney. Better, faster, and cheaper than a contractor I might add.

Here’s a link to the KFC.com Web site. Smart software works better, faster, and cheaper. But it has a drawback: At this time, the KFC professional is needed to put those thighs in the fryer.

Stephen E Arnold, June 12, 2023


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