The Robots Have Come for This Newsletter
Okay…maybe the bots haven't come for this newsletter just yet. But recent advances in artificial intelligence certainly have many of us scrambling to predict what’s next.
Of course, as my colleague Greg Ip?wrote in a recent column, for centuries, new waves of automation have been greeted by warnings of widespread job loss and disruption, and those predictions have proven to be wrong. But?the revolutionary nature of ChatGPT?begs us to consider the possibility that this time could be different.
According to some industry executives,?it already is.
Several tech executives and top artificial-intelligence researchers, including Tesla Inc. Chief Executive Officer Elon Musk and AI pioneer Yoshua Bengio,?are calling for a pause?in the breakneck development of powerful new AI tools. Just this week, the Biden administration?began weighing possible rules for AI tools?amid growing concerns that the technology could be used to discriminate or spread harmful information.?China recently laid out stricter rules?for ChatGPT-like AI tools, and?Italy went so far as to ban ChatGPT?over data-privacy concerns.
Still a skeptic? See if you can?tell a real tweet from one written by a chatbot.?Then try to?discern the difference between these audiobook excerpts.?(Hint: One is the AI-rendered voice of a man who died more than ten years ago.)
If you’re wondering?how AI might affect your career, looking for?opportunities to improve?your performance or just trying to keep up with the latest developments, we’ve put together a comprehensive guide, by industry, of everything we know right now.
What outstanding questions do you have about AI? Has AI already affected your line of work? How can we help you stay ahead of the curve? We want to hear from you. Send us a note at [email protected].
–Gretchen
This is a short version of The Wall Street Journal’s Careers & Leadership newsletter. Sign up here to get the full edition in your inbox every week.
Medicine & Healthcare
The AI Will See You Now
Perhaps one of the most promising uses of artificial intelligence is in healthcare. Advances in AI are already?transforming the practice of medicine, harnessing the power of big data to help doctors provide individualized treatments, avoid common errors and make more accurate diagnoses.
How Hospitals Are Using AI to Save Lives
Hospitals are making a bet?that artificial intelligence can help identify and treat patients at highest risk in their ERs, inpatient wards and intensive-care units, for dangers including the deadly infection sepsis and an impending cardiac arrest or stroke.?GE Healthcare is one of the most high-profile adopters,?pursuing a software platform?that can collect and analyze disparate data on patients to help hospitals find open beds and identify patients at risk.
How AI and Facial Recognition Could Spot Stroke and Other Diseases
The Johns Hopkins team is?training a computer algorithm to recognize changes in patients’ features, such as the paralysis of certain facial muscles or unusual eye movements, that might indicate damage to the brain from a stroke
Confronting Your Fears in Virtual Reality Therapy
AI could be transformative in behavioral health, too. Virtual-reality therapy similar to that used in veterans hospitals to treat PTSD is finding new avenues for at-home use. And AI technology such as ChatGPT is going to be helpful in?creating the immersive experiences that patients need?to confront and overcome their fears.
Artificial Intelligence Is Teaching Us New, Surprising Things About the Human Mind
Scientists use AI to?decode how neurons in our brains communicate?and explore the nature of cognition. This new research could one day lead to humans connecting with computers merely by thinking, as opposed to typing or voice commands.
Finance
AI Can Write a Song, but It Can’t Beat the Market
If medicine is embracing AI, the financial industry is doing the opposite. Wall Street has long used automated algorithms for tasks such as placing trades and managing risk. But thus far,?investors haven’t made much progress relying on AI to tackle their biggest challenge: beating the market.
JPMorgan Restricts Employees From Using ChatGPT
Part of the problem may be the industry’s aversion to risk. Some banks, including JPMorgan,?have restricted employees' use of ChatGPT and other AI.
Regulators Look at Potential Bias in Life-Insurance Algorithms
State regulators are pushing back on U.S. life insurers’ use of data science to speed up cumbersome application processes, citing?concerns that artificial intelligence could unfairly discriminate?against minorities.
Education
Professors Turn to ChatGPT to Teach Students a Lesson
Educators face a unique challenge when it comes to generative AI: Should they ban it or build on it? Whichever path they take, some?teachers say they are scrambling to update curriculum, launch new learning guidelines and deploy tactics that stymie cheating and make sure students learn to think for themselves.
领英推荐
ChatGPT Banned in New York City Public Schools Over Concerns About Cheating, Learning Development
Some districts aren’t leaving the decision to individual teachers.?New York City public schools moved to ban ChatGPT?in January over concerns about cheating and learning development.
Evaluating ChatGPT's Performance on School Assignments
The concerns are understandable. When the Journal’s columnist Joanna Stern?used ChatGPT to submit an AP Literature paper, she passed. But there is, perhaps surprisingly, one subject area that doesn’t seem threatened by AI. It turns out ChatGPT is quite bad at math.
Media
BuzzFeed to Use ChatGPT Creator OpenAI to Help Create Quizzes and Other Content
If there’s one industry ChatGPT might disrupt the most, it’s the media world. BuzzFeed Inc. recently announced it would rely on ChatGPT creator OpenAI?to enhance its quizzes and personalize some content for its audiences, becoming the latest digital publisher to embrace artificial intelligence.
Who Owns SpongeBob? AI Shakes Hollywood’s Creative Foundation
One of the most pressing unanswered questions about generative AI technology is?how and where intellectual property rules apply. If a user prompts an AI tool to build a new character influenced by say, SpongeBob, should the original creators have to grant permission? Who owns it? Can the new work itself be copyrighted?
The Trouble with AI-Generated Images
A fabricated image of?Pope Francis wearing a fashionable white puffer?was a funny viral moment for many. But artificial-intelligence experts say its implications are no laughing matter. Some developers are?building tools that can analyze images for signs of AI origin. The trouble is, unless the tools keep pace with the image generators they’re monitoring, even they can be fooled.
Customer Service
AI in the Workplace Is Already Here. The First Battleground? Call Centers
As artificial intelligence rolls out across American workplaces it’s prompting a power struggle between humans and machines.?Call centers are the epicenter of the experiment, and workers are finding their jobs are really changing with new AI supervisors.
In This Worker vs. Bot Battle, Humans Are Winning by a Mile??????
Some online retailers are working with a venture-backed startup called Feel, a company founded on the conviction that human touch is still the best way to close a sale. The company’s representatives?are more successful than their AI counterparts. Their challenge is staying better than the bots as the company they work for actively feeds transcripts of their sales techniques to ChatGPT. Once the bots are as good as the humans, who will the company keep?.
Expedia Wants ChatGPT to Be Your Travel Adviser
Expedia is rolling out a new feature in its app that will allow users to?plan trips by conversing with a chatbot?powered by OpenAI’s ChatGPT technology. Through the feature, which is in its beta-testing phase, travelers can ask for recommendations in categories such as destinations, flights or hotels.
Robotics and Automation
NYPD Plans to Deploy Robotic Dogs
The New York Police Department will?use more robots to fight crime, Mayor Eric Adams said Tuesday. The initiative includes the deployment of a “K5” unit in Times Square that will help officers with surveillance. The city also acquired two robotic dogs—which the NYPD calls “Digidogs”—that will be used at incidents such as hostage situations, officials said.
Robotics Researchers Focus on Teamwork
It isn’t unusual to find robots doing jobs in factories, warehouses and elsewhere these days. But if the goal is to automate more-complex tasks, and do so efficiently, researchers say groups of autonomous robots will?need to be able to communicate, cooperate and respond?to each other and their environment in ways many of them can’t today.
When Will Cars Be Fully Self-Driving?
The technology isn’t anywhere near where it needs to be to replace human drivers. Three experts weigh in on?what the future holds for autonomous vehicles.
Further Reading & Listening
This is a condensed version of WSJ’s Careers & Leadership newsletter. Sign up here to get the WSJ’s comprehensive work coverage in your inbox each week.
This newsletter was curated by Gretchen Tarrant, WSJ Producer. Let us know what you think by dropping us a note at [email protected].