In other and perhaps much more consequential AI news, we are approaching a full-blown crisis of AI-generated child-sex-abuse images. From Matteo Wong: www.theatlantic.com/technology/a...
Schools, tech companies, and the government aren’t prepared to stop them.
New: Karen Hao on the latest shakeups at OpenAI. "For the first time, OpenAI’s public structure and leadership are simply honest reflections of what the company has been—in effect, the will of a single person." www.theatlantic.com/technology/a...
Another restructure, and the clearest signal yet of what OpenAI really is
Karen Hao: Hundreds of pages of internal documents plus interviews "show that the tech giant has sought to market the technology to companies such as ExxonMobil and Chevron as a powerful tool for finding and developing new oil and gas reserves" while publicly committing to reduce emissions.
Can artificial intelligence really enrich fossil-fuel companies and fight climate change at the same time? The tech giant says yes.
This story was a months-long effort from Karen especially, but also my colleague Matteo Wong, who did a heroic job contributing research and fact checking. I hope you read, think about, enjoy, and share it. www.theatlantic.com/technology/a...
Can artificial intelligence really enrich fossil-fuel companies and fight climate change at the same time? The tech giant says yes.
The core question: Can AI honestly be said to offer environmental benefits given the technology's own immense energy demands, and given that it is being used to help companies extract more oil and gas from the earth? Microsoft gives its POV, and advocates give theirs.
I found this graf about Shell's use of AI illuminating. The company says AI makes its operations more efficient, reducing one facility's emisisons by 340,000 metric tons of CO2 per year. Yet the company emitted 1.2 billion metric tons of CO2 last year. (3,529x the reduction.)
Fundamentally, this is a story about tension. Between employee advocates and their company, and between AI's supposed promise to create a better world and the actual use cases today.
This is interesting: Although the feature is optional, many people opt into the facial-recognition program at LA's new Dome arena after they arrive. (Faster concessions, etc. Plus, the cameras are scanning you anyway...) www.theatlantic.com/technology/a...@mimbs.bsky.social
Had a great time working with the peerless @rossandersen.bsky.socialwww.theatlantic.com/technology/a...
Did they waste it?