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September 23, 2024: What if no one wants AI?

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(By Jen Sorensen)

(By Jen Sorensen)

Today: What if no one wants AI?

The bubble of hype around AI is showing signs of impending collapse, even as the environmental costs of AI are skyrocketing. What happens when people get tired of AI being jammed into their cars, candy stores, and basketball hoops, and just want to go back to normal life?

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1. The AI bubble is ready to pop.

• Brands should avoid this popular term. It’s turning off customers (CNN Aug 10, 2024). The term is AI.

A study published in the Journal of Hospitality Marketing & Management in June found that describing a product as using AI lowers a customer’s intention to buy it. . . .

“We looked at vacuum cleaners, TVs, consumer services, health services,” said Dogan Gursoy, one of the study’s authors and the Taco Bell Distinguished Professor of hospitality business management at Washington State University, in an interview with CNN. “In every single case, the intention to buy or use the product or service was significantly lower whenever we mentioned AI in the product description.”

(Yes, it’s a quote from the Taco Bell Distinguished Professor.)

• AI’s Productivity Theater (Cory Doctorow, Aug 4, 2024):

A new research report from the Upwork Research Institute offers a look into the bizarre situation unfolding in workplaces where bosses have been conned into buying AI and now face the challenge of getting it to work as advertised:

The headline findings tell the whole story:

96% of bosses expect that AI will make their workers more productive;
85% of companies are either requiring or strongly encouraging workers to use AI;
49% of workers have no idea how AI is supposed to increase their productivity;
77% of workers say using AI decreases their productivity.

• Against the commercial internet (Cory Dransfeldt, May 10, 2024):

We’re pursuing artificial general intelligence — it’ll solve everything. Look at the industry’s track record, right?

They’ve solved all of our transportation woes — oh wait.
They’ve revolutionized journalism — oh wait.
They’ve lifted up musicians and solved all of their problems — oh wait.
They’ve revolutionized and fixed TV and content production — oh wait.
They’ve given everyone a platform for a healthy public discourse — oh wait.
They’ve revolutionized work-life balance and flexibility with gig work — oh wait.
They’ve revolutionized and decentralized the financial system — oh wait.
They’ve created breakthrough medical technology — oh wait.
They’ve revolutionized planning new cities and municipalities — oh wait.
Don’t worry though, it’ll all work out this time.

• Ed Zitron on the Goldman AI report (July 8, 2024), referring to a Goldman Sachs report called Gen AI: Too Much Spend, Too Little Benefit? (PDF June 25, 2024):

The report covers AI’s productivity benefits (which Goldman remarks are likely limited), AI’s returns (which are likely to be significantly more limited than anticipated), and AI’s power demands (which are likely so significant that utility companies will have to spend nearly 40% more in the next three years to keep up with the demand from hyperscalers like Google and Microsoft).

This report is so significant because Goldman Sachs, like any investment bank, does not care about anyone’s feelings unless doing so is profitable. It will gladly hype anything if it thinks it’ll make a buck.

For Goldman to suddenly turn on the AI movement suggests that it’s extremely anxious about the future of generative AI . . .

• The Subprime AI Crisis (Ed Zitron, Sep 16, 2024):

I believe that the artificial intelligence boom — which would be better described as a generative AI boom — is unsustainable, and will ultimately collapse.

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2. AI is being jammed everywhere.

• I visited the huupe, NYC’s 1st public ‘smart basketball hoop,’ in the East Village (Gothamist, Sep 9, 2024):

When the city unveiled its first-ever “smart basketball hoop” last month, a host of television crews and city officials crowded into Tompkins Square Park to herald its arrival.

A week later, the huupe, as the gadget is called, stood alone, quite literally on the sidelines of the court, while two friends went one-on-one at the newly refurbished “dumb” hoops a few feet away.

[It] displayed a “no internet connection” alert and was restricted to counting shots made vs. shots missed.

All for the low, low price of $10,000. The company has received $11 million in funding so far.



• Kabata Sets Price for AI-Powered Dumbbells, Plans To Ship This Year (Athletech News, Sep 3, 2024): Kabata is a tech startup making dumbbells with AI jammed inside 4.

[The dumbbells use] AI to count reps, track velocity and analyze form in real-time. The dumbbells send haptic feedback to users as they’re performing movements, vibrating as sets and reps are completed or if a form correction is required.

With the Kabata app, users get access to personalized strength training programs that adapt over time as they use the dumbbells. The app also tracks advanced metrics like velocity and symmetry, giving users unique insights into their strength training performance.

Because regular dumbbells really have never worked well, right?

The company has raised $5 million for this idea.

• LinkedIn Is Training AI on User Data Before Updating Its Terms of Service (Joseph Cox in 404 Media, Sep 18, 2024): “LinkedIn appears to have gone ahead with training AI on its users’ data, even creating a new option in its settings, without updating its terms of service.”

There’s an option in LinkedIn privacy settings, already set to ON:

“Can Linkedin and its affiliates use your personal data and content you created on LinkedIn to train generative AI models that create content?” the option asks. The next line says “Use my data for training content creation AI models,” with an off and on switch.

• Snapchat Reserves the Right to Use AI-Generated Images of Your Face in Ads (by Emanuel Maiberg in 404 Media, Sep 17, 2024):

Snapchat is reserving the right to put its users’ faces in ads, according to terms of service related to its “My Selfie” tool (formerly “AI Selfies”), which allows users and their friends to create AI-generated images trained on their selfies.

Users have the option to opt out of this by toggling off a “feature” in the app called “See My Selfie in Ads,” but according to 404 Media’s testing this feature is on by default.

• And, of course, Google . . .

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3. If nothing changes, spreading AI will ruin your day

• Billionaire Larry Ellison says a vast AI-fueled surveillance system can ensure ‘citizens will be on their best behavior’ (Business Insider, Sep 15, 2024):

Larry Ellison, the billionaire cofounder of Oracle . . . said AI will usher in a new era of surveillance that he gleefully said will ensure “citizens will be on their best behavior.”

Ellison made the comments as he spoke to investors earlier this week during an Oracle financial analysts meeting, where he shared his thoughts on the future of AI-powered surveillance tools.

Ellison said AI would be used in the future to constantly watch and analyze vast surveillance systems, like security cameras, police body cameras, doorbell cameras, and vehicle dashboard cameras.

“We’re going to have supervision,” Ellison said. “Every police officer is going to be supervised at all times, and if there’s a problem, AI will report that problem and report it to the appropriate person. Citizens will be on their best behavior because we are constantly recording and reporting everything that’s going on.”

Ellison also expects AI drones to replace police cars in high-speed chases. “You just have a drone follow the car,” Ellison said. “It’s very simple in the age of autonomous drones.”

• Data center emissions probably 662% higher than big tech claims. Can it keep up the ruse? (Guardian, Sep 15, 2024): “Emissions from in-house data centers of Google, Microsoft, Meta and Apple may be 7.62 times higher than official tally.” Also:

AI is far more energy-intensive on data centers than typical cloud-based applications. According to Goldman Sachs, a ChatGPT query needs nearly 10 times as much electricity to process as a Google search, and data center power demand will grow 160% by 2030.

• Or as McSweeney’s puts it, The Department of Energy Wants You to Know Your Conservation Efforts Are Making a Difference (Sep 10, 2024):

– By turning off your lights all day every day for a month, you conserved about 1 percent of the energy needed for AI to generate a picture of a duck wearing sunglasses. Isn’t he cute? Aside from the fact that he has the feet of a human man, of course.

– By switching all the lightbulbs in your house to LED, you saved enough energy for a self-driving car to make an unprotected lefthand turn across three lanes of traffic.

– Waking up at 4 a.m. to do your laundry conserved a ton of energy—energy that was used by ChatGPT to help a seventh grader plagiarize his entire essay on George Orwell’s 1984. Who needs to read a book on technology, totalitarianism, and propaganda, anyway?

• And finally . . . How AI is changing warfare (Economist, June 20, 2024):

There is even talk of using ai in nuclear decision-making. The idea is that countries could not only fuse data to keep track of incoming threats but also retaliate automatically if the political leadership is killed in a first strike. The Soviet Union's . . . “Perimetr” system . . . is now rumoured to be reliant on AI-driven software, notes Leonid Ryabikhin, a former Soviet air-force officer and arms-control expert. In 2023 a group of American senators even introduced a new bill: the Block Nuclear Launch by Autonomous Artificial Intelligence Act.

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