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As we enter 2024, there is a lot of speculation about what lies ahead for artificial intelligence. AI was the hottest industry in the world last year, and it will probably stay that way in 2024 – and maybe for the rest of your godforsaken life. However, many of the concerns surrounding this surprising new technology have not been addressed or alleviated. While AI promises bold new possibilities for businesses and web users, it could do us a lot of potential harm over the next twelve months. On that topic, here are some ways AI could totally suck this year:
- AI could cause more people to lose their jobs. Last year was a year of unprecedented layoffs, and it's hard to draw a clear line between that fact and the fact that it was also the year that companies pivoted to new types of automation. This year probably won't be much different. A recent survey of business leaders found that around 40 percent of respondents said they were likely to carry out more layoffs in 2024. Likewise, 40 percent of respondents said they plan to replace laid-off workers with AI. I have argued that the main “advantage” of AI – at least as far as businesses are concerned – is that it is a cost-saving mechanism that allows them to ramp up and replace certain workers with software.
- AI will continue to be an important disinformation generator. Everyone knows that the internet is full of misinformation and disinformation, but experts believe the problem is about to get much worse thanks to AI. In fact, there has been no shortage of warnings from engineers about how bad the disinformation problem could become, as web users can generate massive amounts of visual, text and video content with a click. As America prepares for a very important presidential election, the internet seems prepared for a perfect storm of AI-generated bullshit. God, help us.
- AI will continue to make the entertainment industry more annoying. Last year, AI made its way into the entertainment industry en masse, from AI-generated music (some of which has been the subject of lawsuits) to AI influencers, actors and porn stars. This year, much of the same will continue, and I for one am not thrilled about it. Even before AI came along, pop culture in America was already in trouble. Now that people are hellbent on “disturbing” things like music, movies, and comedy with AI avatars and auto-generated songs and jokes, it seems destined to create a pop culture wasteland somewhere between fascinating and Car accident type lies and clearly unbearable.
- Get ready for more over-the-top enthusiasm from the worst parts of the tech world. 2023 was the year a new techno-utopian ideology emerged to support the emerging AI industry. The Techno-Optimists, as they call themselves, have launched what is little more than a PR campaign for their own greed, bragging about a crazy pseudo-philosophy that uncritically rejects the dual principles of “innovation” and “capitalism.” celebrates and attacks everything that has to do with it, threatens them or is moderately critical of them. I think we can expect much, much more from a year like this, and most of it will be spread in an effort to head off things like government regulations or attempts to introduce ethical guidelines in AI development.
- Police technologies are getting a lot scarier. The hideous industry that produces police surveillance and enforcement equipment is already scary, but some experts claim that AI is poised to increase its scariness to an exponential level. Combined with existing biometric and digital surveillance technologies, AI has the potential to make government surveillance systems even more powerful and comprehensive, which can lead to infringements on civil liberties.
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In fairness, we'll try to provide an overview over the coming weeks of how AI could actually be pretty cool this year. Even if the benefits of the technology are a little less obvious to me than those on the junk list, I'll still do my best to play devil's advocate.
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Question of the day: What is “botshit”?
AI has spawned more than a few enigmatic terms in recent years, but this week we have an all-timer: “Botshit.” For that, we can thank a team of academic researchers who laid it out in a recent paper about generating AI -content. Essentially, botshit is a play on bullshit and refers to the way generative AI can be used to create content filled with inaccurate or misleading information. In other words, it is essentially a rebranding of “hallucination,” the well-known term that refers to LLMs’ penchant for peddling false or completely made-up “facts.” Researchers have highlighted the need to use risk management approaches to combat the spread of “botshit” online, especially as the upcoming 2024 presidential election presents numerous opportunities for such content to directly intervene in America’s political process.
More headlines this week
- The King is back, with a little help from the AI. Elvis Presley died in a toilet 40 years ago and he is just as popular as ever. Aside from being the focus of two new feature films and a plethora of documentaries and books, it now looks like the king will rise from the dead! Well, not literally. Rather, an AI-powered hologram of him will be used to perform a “concert” in London this November. “Elvis Evolution” promises to use a combination of augmented reality and on-stage special effects to bring the rock star back to the stage. This unholy resurrection is brought to you by Layered Reality, a technology startup that worked with the Elvis Presley estate, Authentic Brands Group, to make the show possible. In addition to his “appearance” in London, AI Elvis will make tour stops in Berlin, Tokyo and of course Las Vegas.
- It turns out that OpenAI is a complete miser when it comes to paying news publishers. Companies like OpenAI have trained their algorithms on massive amounts of articles from major newspapers like the New York Times and Washington Post, leading to accusations that the companies are stealing and repackaging copyrighted content from the media. AI companies have tried to head off such legal action by negotiating deals with news organizations to license their content. However, it doesn't look like the newspapers are benefiting much from these deals. This week we learned that OpenAI is paying just $1 million to $5 million to cooperating news organizations, a pretty paltry pittance compared to what the content is potentially worth.
- Jeff Bezos is coming to Google with a new AI startup. Everyone's favorite bald billionaire is trying to break into the AI business by backing a new startup. Yes, the guy who destroyed your local bookstore and built the most gigantic e-commerce company ever put some money behind Perplexity, a small California company that the Wall Street Journal reports has “the dominant position of Google strives for in web search”. Perplexity promises to change the way people browse the Internet by offering what it calls an “answer engine.” The engine in question is similar to other AI-powered search products that have launched recently, using an interface to answer web users' questions directly rather than directing them to scads of indexed links. Bezos and other wealthy investors recently poured $74 million into Perplexity in the hopes that it will be the next big thing.