Beep boop - this is a robot. A new show has been posted to TWiT…
What are your thoughts about today’s show? We’d love to hear from you!
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Well…IMHO, this was a great show. As a business owner, I really enjoyed the open and honest discussion not only of where the TWIT network is now, but the serious introspective look at the past. It was very open and personal. Im glad Jeff said “Dont beat yourself up” to the Chief Twit. Hindsight is always 20/20.
My business is much smaller (400K a year in sales) , but I so understand the challenges, and how tough it is to make decisions, based on an unknown future. I over extended myself during covid, when internet sales were over the top, and then was scared to death when sales calmed down, and i hadnt appropriately planned for it. And there were other things of course, like suppliers not sticking to their word on things and flooding the marketplace with product.
So its great, at least for me, to hear the “where have we been, and where are we now, and how did we get here” discussion about another business.
And as always, I just love the discussion between Jeff, Paris, and Leo on all topics.
beth marshall
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The one thing I am still missing from @JeffJarvis and @Leo when they are talking about AI reading everything is how they see the AIs data thirst being sustained over the long term.
I have said this before, here, that at the moment the AIs are parasites, they are eating up all the information they can find and regurgitating it, usually in modified form, but, as has been proven, they can also regurgitate word-for-word. That isn’t the problem so much as they are talking views, and thus revenue, away from the people who actually research and create the information the AI needs to continue to be relevant.
If they gobble up all the news from news sites and people start just asking AI about the news, who is going to do the reporting, when all of these news services fold, because they can’t make any money? The way the economy currently works, reporters aren’t going to continue do in-deptch reporting (like Paris), if they also have to go and find another job that actually pays the bills.
Either we need to change the economy to cope with AI removing the ability for reporters to make a living, or the AIs are going to have to pay the reporters directly or we will have to get rid of money as a form of compensation altogether.
If we want to retain the current economic model, the AIs (or rather the companies behind them) will need to learn to be symbiots with the creators of information for the AIs. Or the AIs will need some form of agency in the real world, so that they can go and interview people, go and report on live events etc.
I agree, that an AI needs information to make it relevant, but that doesn’t mean they should go and kill their host in the process, that will only bring on their own demise in the long run, and then we will be left with “dumb” AI, because it can’t learn anything new, at least in key areas, and there will be nobody left to go back and build a model of actually reporting or creating.
Given the current model, licensing content to AIs, especially new content, makes sense you need to keep those creating new information around.
Right to Read Doctrine - doesn’t that relate to actual people, not businesses? I don’t understand the argument that if we refuse AIs the right to read our data, that we will damage the RtRD for humans, the one has nothing to do with the other, does it?
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One aspect that was glossed over when discussing whether humans are competing with AI is that fact that people are already losing jobs to AI. I know people who work in art jobs who were fired because the business can just use AI art and not pay a actual person for the skill.
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That’s one of the things Silicon Valley is good at doing, which is instrumentalizing their ability to make money off the back of someone else’s labor without compensation. As much as Jeff wants to advocate for a ideal AI that knows everything, the NYTs and others know that if they give their data to Windows, Google, or whoever, those business are going to enrich themselves without measure while the NYTs withers away.
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In general, AI taking away jobs is a tough subject. The most vulnerable people are threatened by it, both in the Global North and South, but most of the discussion seems to not incorporate geography.
Yes, I agree. The question: “Don’t you think AI deserves the right to read material?” is inherently anthropomorphic. AI doesn’t read. It trains, then predicts. The prediction is the problem, and it so happens that it is lucrative.
None of these concerns, like bias and representation, explain why Microsoft shouldn’t have to compensate others. The argument shows just how valuable that data is in the first place to a corporate giant like Microsoft.
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Companies are rushing into things and are going to regret it. The big ones will always have candidates lining up for interviews so they don’t care, but the smaller ones will pay the price when they lose their talent and have a hard time attracting new when the AI gold rush settles down.