First Half of 2023 full of AI and ChatGPT

We can all agree that the first half of the year has been co-opted by the rise of generative AI, in particular ChatGPT, being used for anything and anyone in any context, disrupting any kind of market or industry just for the sake of it.

I’ve been collecting links to the things that have caught my attention the most, and here’s a quick summary of stuff that happened roughly from January to July 2023 around AI and GPT things.

Impact on Work

This is where these tools will hurt the most, and the most visible effect these days is the writers and actors strike in Hollywood.

Articles in French

One in Spanish

Quotes

Quote by Jan Wildeboer on Mastodon:

After the great “success” of #ShadowIT: Introducing #ShadowAI — where employees will feed tons of highly sensitive and internal data and code to some LLM (Large Language Model) like #ChatGPT in the vague hope of becoming more productive or finally getting that promotion. Without any kind of review or approval. This will get people fired. Le sigh. So, so predictable.

A recent quote from Dare Obasanjo on Mastodon:

When they said generative AI would change everything, I didn’t think that meant by causing so many strikes.

Another quote, this time by Cory Doctorow from his piece Google’s AI Hype Circle:

The entire case for “AI” as a disruptive tool worth trillions of dollars is grounded in the idea that chatbots and image-generators will let bosses fire hundred of thousands or even millions of workers.

That’s it.

Impact on Society

I don’t think we’re ready to handle AI as a society, so brace for impact.

Impact on Business

New Business Models

AI is giving birth to countless new business ideas; here are some I found.

Another quote by Dare Obasanjo (@carnage4life@mas.to):

After some consideration, I expect AI will cause companies to find ways to shrink cost centers. Companies will find ways to shrink departments like HR, legal and even IT.

On the other hand, it’ll be a force multiplier in context of core businesses versus a cost cutting tool.

Microsoft into Copilots

Microsoft has trademarked the word “Copilot” apparently, and is going all-in with generative AIs.

Services Detecting Plagiarism

The automated generation of text has caused a huge problem of plagiarism, and there’s AI that helps detect text generated by other AI. All very meta! (Source)

Found on Linkedin

I found this list of links on LinkedIn, and it’s impressive.

Impact in Computer Security

Imagine AIs used to break into systems. Well, guess what, it’s already happening.

ThisGPT, ThatGPT

A sure way to raise venture capital (or at least to get some web traffic) in 2023 is to add the suffix (or prefix) “GPT” to your product.

Research

There’s so much serious investigation going on in this area, it’s hard to keep up.

Free and Open Source

The generation, production, and management of FOSS code will be among the first sectors of activity to be completely transformed.

Risks, Hype, and Hysteria

There’s so many people screaming, it’s hard to think.

Learning

Learn more of what’s going on in this space.

Humour

Finally, some funny stuff. The images are hilarious; credit to whoever created them.

Teachers demostrating against calculators in the 1980s:

(Source)

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