I love your subheading, it's so true re: telomeres :-) AI is such a double-edged sword, it's amazing to have a personal research assistant, less amazing to have one who lies some random percentage of the time, but disturbing to see AI already in use for mission-critical applications (what's the bar for letting AI diagnose me and dispense customized medicine? I hope it's sky-high!).
I've been observing the ability of AI to identify mushrooms and fungi via apps. So far, for plants, the apps are not bad with decent specimens and mediocre for fungi. I'm yet to see an app which can identify the kinds of specimens that my group of human experts deals with.
Identifying plants and fungi isn't a concentrated task, but it is something which requires a huge amount of stored knowledge, something computers do better than humans. I'll continue to watch with interest.
What if there was an upside to AI? Your article almost guarantees it, even for the welders who don't like it now. Ive lived through how we went from Texas Instrument calculators w red screens ( and belt clips) to where we are now with computers w amazing memory for $25O in just 40 years. We fight change. It's always coming. Great article Mark.
Great point about no one cursing the robot welders. PS we need welders. When my daughter thought she wanted to be a doctor her biotech fiancé said, “I will put you out of business.”
You always give us something to think about, Mark. I'm not as optimistic as you about AI providing solutions to human-created problems like war and inequality. So far, I've seen students use it to help them with ideas for their essays--or writing those essays for them, after which they make minor corrections. I'm not sure what I think about that. My husband said he asked ChatGPT to tell him who he was and it claimed he'd written a book that he hadn't. Then he asked it to write the book for him and it came up with chapter headings that sounded credible, but on closer examination weren't. Maybe someday AI will do great things, but so far, it's an imperfect tool.
Very cool! I'm going to play Guinea pig with the sound therapy - after reading about it here, I searched around Google and learned that listening to something called "binaural beats" for 20 to 30 minutes daily may help reduce anxiety. There are binaural beat tracks all over YouTube. I'll give it a try and let you know how it works our.
Maybe someone will write a modern John Henry story about AI....
I love your subheading, it's so true re: telomeres :-) AI is such a double-edged sword, it's amazing to have a personal research assistant, less amazing to have one who lies some random percentage of the time, but disturbing to see AI already in use for mission-critical applications (what's the bar for letting AI diagnose me and dispense customized medicine? I hope it's sky-high!).
I've been observing the ability of AI to identify mushrooms and fungi via apps. So far, for plants, the apps are not bad with decent specimens and mediocre for fungi. I'm yet to see an app which can identify the kinds of specimens that my group of human experts deals with.
Identifying plants and fungi isn't a concentrated task, but it is something which requires a huge amount of stored knowledge, something computers do better than humans. I'll continue to watch with interest.
What if there was an upside to AI? Your article almost guarantees it, even for the welders who don't like it now. Ive lived through how we went from Texas Instrument calculators w red screens ( and belt clips) to where we are now with computers w amazing memory for $25O in just 40 years. We fight change. It's always coming. Great article Mark.
I like to think that the more AI takes over the busy work the more time we will have to employ the skills and talents that make us essentially human.
Great point about no one cursing the robot welders. PS we need welders. When my daughter thought she wanted to be a doctor her biotech fiancé said, “I will put you out of business.”
You always give us something to think about, Mark. I'm not as optimistic as you about AI providing solutions to human-created problems like war and inequality. So far, I've seen students use it to help them with ideas for their essays--or writing those essays for them, after which they make minor corrections. I'm not sure what I think about that. My husband said he asked ChatGPT to tell him who he was and it claimed he'd written a book that he hadn't. Then he asked it to write the book for him and it came up with chapter headings that sounded credible, but on closer examination weren't. Maybe someday AI will do great things, but so far, it's an imperfect tool.
Very cool! I'm going to play Guinea pig with the sound therapy - after reading about it here, I searched around Google and learned that listening to something called "binaural beats" for 20 to 30 minutes daily may help reduce anxiety. There are binaural beat tracks all over YouTube. I'll give it a try and let you know how it works our.
Maybe someone will write a modern John Henry story about AI....
I didn't know that about sound therapy. I've only just heard of it from a massage therapist in town. What a world!