Unbound: No 139
Letter signed by Elon Musk demanding AI research pause sparks controversy
by Betsy Reed | The Gaurdian
A letter co-signed by Elon Musk and thousands of others demanding a pause in artificial intelligence research has created a firestorm, after the researchers cited in the letter condemned its use of their work, some signatories were revealed to be fake, and others backed out on their support.
On 22 March more than 1,800 signatories – including Musk, the cognitive scientist Gary Marcus and Apple co-founder Steve Wozniak – called for a six-month pause on the development of systems “more powerful” than that of GPT-4. Engineers from Amazon, DeepMind, Google, Meta and Microsoft also lent their support.
Developed by OpenAI, a company co-founded by Musk and now backed by Microsoft, GPT-4 has developed the ability to hold human-like conversation, compose songs and summarise lengthy documents. Such AI systems with “human-competitive intelligence” pose profound risks to humanity, the letter claimed.
The case for how and why AI might kill us all
By Loz Blain | New Atlas
Forget the collapse of employment, forget the spam and misinformation, forget human obsolescence and the upending of society. Some believe AI is flat-out going to wipe out all of biological life at its earliest opportunity.
This is not the first time humanity has stared down the possibility of extinction due to its technological creations. But the threat of AI is very different from the nuclear weapons we've learned to live with. Nukes can't think. They can't lie, deceive or manipulate. They can't plan and execute. Somebody has to push the big red button.
The shocking emergence of general-purpose AI, even at the slow, buggy level of GPT-4, has forced the genuine risk of extermination back into the conversation.
Let's be clear from the outset: if we agree that artificial superintelligence has a chance of wiping out all life on Earth, there doesn't seem to be much we can do about it anyway. It's not just that we don't know how to stop something smarter than us. We can't even, as a species, stop ourselves from racing to create it. Who's going to make the laws? The US Congress? The United Nations? This is a global issue. Desperate open letters from industry leaders asking for a six-month pause to figure out where we're at may be about the best we can do.
What’s Generative AI’s Role in AR Shopping?
by Adib Zaher | AR Insider
AR shopping has revolutionized the retail industry by offering customers an immersive and interactive shopping experience. By blending the virtual and real worlds, AR shopping significantly boosts customer engagement and experience, leading to increased sales and conversion rates. Moreover, it can also reduce return rates and costs, making it a cost-effective and efficient marketing strategy. However, for small and medium businesses, the implementation of AR shopping has always been a challenge due to the high costs and efforts required to create 3D models for their products.
Traditionally, creating high-quality 3D models for AR shopping requires significant time, expertise, and financial resources as a large portion of the process is still manual. Furthermore, logistics issues arise when businesses need to send their products to a studio for scanning, which can sometimes require international shipping. As a result, small businesses experience negative ROI and are discouraged from pursuing AR shopping, while more established businesses may only risk a limited number of products, leaving most of their catalog behind. This process can cost several thousands of US dollars and take up to 2-3 months before yielding results, which creates a bottleneck that only worsens as more businesses adopt AR shopping.
🌙 NASA - Best Photo from Last Week
Patagonian Plankton Swirls
Phytoplankton create rich blooms of color in the Atlantic Ocean near South America in this enhanced color image from Dec. 2, 2014. The Patagonian Shelf Break is a biologically rich patch of ocean where airborne dust from the land, iron-rich currents from the south, and upwelling currents from the depths provide a bounty of nutrients for phytoplankton. The bands of color seen here not only reveal the location of plankton, but also the dynamic eddies and currents that carry them.
Image Credit: NASA/Norman Kuring; NOAA; DOD
Last Updated: Mar 31, 2023
Editor: Monika Luabeya
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