Learning about AI

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I know academics whose research focuses on artificial intelligence (AI), along with businesses whose products use AI and workers integrating it more into their everyday tasks.

Some marvel at this technology. Others are very concerned about how the future will look given the introduction of it.

Personally, I still feel like I don't know enough to have a firm perspective regarding it. As one article described it, I'm in the 'wait-and-see camp.'

Nonetheless, while I 'wait-and-see', I would like to be somewhat aware of what is being discussed. So, I've played with ChatGPT a bit. I've listened to those who rave about it as well as those who want nothing to do with it. I'm trying to follow those who use AI more often and in different ways to get a sense of what are current understandings and concerns around this technology.

Hence, this page is a place where I'm compiling the articles and resources I am appreciating as I come across them. (Last updated September 4, 2024)

Articles

'What is AI?' by Will Douglas Heaven, MIT Technology Review.
This article dives into the different 'camps' around AI, pointing out how we lack a common understanding of what we are discussing when talking about this technology. Namely, some focus on the behaviour of this technology whereas others want to dive more into the mechanics of how this behaviour occurs. These different foci are how we can see the polarization regarding AI, there simultaneously being excitement and concern. As part of this discussion, the article considers the origins of artificial intelligence. While the article doesn't provide an answer to its titular question, I think it provides a nice broad overview to understanding the different sentiments around AI.
This LinkedIn post considering how AI could be used to identify microaggressions while helping to encourage an inclusive environment. I appreciate the note that we would need to consider AI's capacity to recognize when someone is being enthusiastic versus aggressive.
This opinion piece published through the Centre for International Governance Innovation about how discourse around AI has changed. I appreciate the last line summarizing thoughts around current stage of conversation, as I think it reflects my thoughts: "Sustaining this discourse will be key to getting the kinds of AI systems that we want: those that will advance, and not hinder, human flourishing."

Resources

Dr. Ethan Mollick is a management scholar who has been writing about teaching with AI, along with providing updates on AI's capabilities via his Substack. I'm not always the best at keeping up to date with Dr. Mollick's writing, but I appreciate what I've read and hope to check out his book.

Developments

Given concerns that people have with AI, specifically around how it is used and what biases it may reproduce, I'm glad when I read about researchers working on AI-related projects such as this hate speech detector that considers the contexts around certain words, such as community norms, to better understand a word's usage and connotations, or this tool that tells you what references that an AI-bot is drawing upon.