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Sascha Lobo on artificial intelligence: Where is your turmoil?

2023-03-01T15:34:41.810Z


Do you really think that artificial intelligence cannot replace you in your beautiful creative workplace? You will be surprised.


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AI lettering (Artificial Intelligence) at the Mobile World Congress: Spectacular misjudgment of the effective power

Photo: JOSEP LAGO / AFP

Every few years I have this recurring nightmare: I find myself in a world that is almost identical to the real one.

Except for one detail, which is completely different.

The details may differ, for example that the colors of the traffic lights were not red, yellow and green, but red, yellow and blue.

That's all, just this minimal difference.

The dream feels like a nightmare mostly because everyone around me is acting like it's normal.

Traffic lights are green!

In the end, it's about either normality being faked where there is none.

Or that the absolute exceptionality is simply not recognized.

A disturbing feeling roughly corresponding to this nightmare has solidified in me in the last few weeks, and I would like to track it down.

It can be summed up as: where is the AI ​​riot?

Behind this is my firm conviction that we are witnessing the public start of a revolution that will be at least as big as industrialization or the widespread introduction of electricity.

My disturbing feeling is fed by the fact that incredibly few people seem to realize how radical the upheavals caused by artificial intelligence will be.

Especially those who should actually know.

In the last few weeks I have spoken to many people whose main job is to write texts.

Not a single person among them has shown the slightest hint of concern about their current job, although many of the conversations have revolved around AI and its capabilities.

The Axel Springer publishing house has just announced its restructuring – in particular because of artificial intelligence, which will “revolutionize journalism and the media business”, and because AI can “support or replace” journalism.

We are talking about the automation of journalistic production.

Actually, this should be news of the greatest explosive force, but it is discussed almost as a trivial matter by journalists who are potentially directly affected.

You can literally feel the attitude: "Haha, yes, which AI should replace my great text work?".

And of course the union sings the song about the superiority of human performance, literally: »journalistic diversity«, which is apparently only possible with human intelligence.

I think that's a spectacular misjudgment of the effectiveness of this technology.

It is a matter of time before articles produced by artificial intelligence appear regularly in SPIEGEL.

And podcasts.

And movies.

A part of journalism can be replaced immediately by AI

The social debate and the people who lead it have always been bad at correctly assessing the impact of technologies.

Especially in Germany.

In 2008, Twitter was discussed as if it came straight from hell and would eat brains.

Google Street View triggered a debate in 2010, as if Google had announced that it would equip all of Germany's bathrooms with public live cameras.

From around 2012, an entire generation was accused of being narcissistic, selfish, depressed and mentally ill because of Instagram.

In 2014 people were still laughing at the wacky bangers who relied on electromobility, in 2016 malice and mass contempt poured out over the people who played Pokémon Go and so on - practically every time there were major social debates about the pros and cons, the consequences and strategies for dealing with them.

So it's not like Germany can't have a big debate on tech issues, even if most of it is defensive, negative, pessimistic.

But compared to, say, the hyperventilating giant discussion about Google Street View, complete with X talk shows and front pages, the current AI debate is tiny, harmless and irrelevant.

With instruments like ChatGPT, we are just beginning to see the beginning of an artificial intelligence that will shape everyday life.

Every tech company is in the process of developing its own AI products or entire system landscapes.

Most recently, Meta boss Mark Zuckerberg announced his own »generative AI«.

The basis for this is »LLaMA«, its own »LLM«, which means Large Language Model and essentially consists of making language usable for computers.

ChatGPT for example is an LLM.

It works via learning pattern recognition that calculates probabilities, put simply: Which word comes after the word "cook" in a text about potatoes and how likely it is?

In this way, the AI ​​wrestles statistical meaning from the billions and billions of words and parts of words it has evaluated in training.

I can only repeat that every person should try how ChatGPT works immediately.

You can do that in German too, and if you don't approach it defensively, you'll be very fascinated.

And on the other hand very alarmed when you look at the various professional tasks.

A part of journalism can be replaced by AI immediately, union or not.

A part of creative text work, a part of legal text work, a part of classic office and organizational work as well.

more on the subject

  • Artificial intelligence: We decide what becomes of itThe SPIEGEL editorial by Markus Brauck

  • Underestimated AI revolution: Is your work really irreplaceable? A column by Sascha Lobo

  • Job destroyer ChatGPT?: The fear of the office terminatorBy Ines Zöttl, Washington

Until recently, many people, even experts, claimed that "creativity" was one of the strengths that the machine could never replace, which is why one should rely on creativity professionally to position oneself for the future.

That was nonsense even back then, because, for example, in classic German corporations, »creativity« is rarely asked for, and certainly not in all departments.

Now it's double nonsense because AI is creating.

And now, right at the beginning, in a quality that many people don't even reach.

Just for fun, here is a very incomplete list of activities for which people have been paid for who can now do machines much more cheaply: writing translations, operating instructions and instruction books, comparing and evaluating contracts, summarizing texts or entire books, making symbol photos, functional drawings or illustrations, questions about Answering how software works, structuring Excel tables, providing tutoring, writing utility or information articles, summarizing a video conference in a structured way, creating, booking and delivering advertisements and entire campaigns, designing logos, writing screenplays, producing music,

AI is a blessing for the skills shortage

There are now dozens of providers for almost every one of these tasks.

If you are more interested in this, take a look at one of the many AI tool collection sites such as eluna.ai or futurepedia.io.

Of course, some of the AI ​​instruments are not yet optimally positioned, to put it mildly.

Nevertheless, it no longer makes sense to say: This AI article is too bad to replace an author, or this app is much worse at tutoring than our tutor.

Because the decisive word is: still.

There's been an improving AI therapist named Cass for years.

It has one great advantage: it is always available.

Sometimes a mediocre, available machine therapist today is better than a really great, very experienced human therapist who won't be able to offer a trial for eight months.

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It's often said that technology doesn't kill jobs, it just moves them, and that's probably true of artificial intelligence broadly as well.

But in the age of AI, this shift often means for those affected that their most important skills become less valuable.

Of course, AI is a blessing for the shortage of skilled workers, because there is often a different mechanism behind this shortage: We need someone with skill X;

hiring the person is only worthwhile if they earn a maximum of Y.

With artificial intelligence, however, you suddenly get high quality for the price of a worker who does not have to master the work themselves, but only manages a machine.

Or managed a hundred machines.

We are facing an AI revolution at least as big as industrialization, and it will affect people in the next five years who today do not even nightmare about being replaced by machines.

Or even: to be shifted to lower-paying jobs.

This is perhaps the biggest difference to all previous automations through technology.

So far, automation has mainly affected people in factories and workshops, i.e. workers.

This time the people in the offices are affected, those with high school diplomas and studies, with career plans and assistants, with suits and costumes.

So where is the AI ​​outcry?

Where is the big AI debate?

Where's the AI ​​riot?

Or are traffic lights really blue?

Source: spiegel

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