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An AI-generated image of a techno brain crashing against the waves.
You say you want AI revolution?
A year after the launch of ChatGPT, who are the winners and losers, and what's next? Our new columnist Azeem Azhar, founder of Exponential View, and an author and analyst, weighs in.
It’s hard to believe it’s been less than a year since ChatGPT was unveiled by Sam Altman, the boss of OpenAI. Far from the razzmatazz that normally accompanies Silicon Valley launches, Altman posted an innocuous tweet. And the initial responses could be characterized as bemused delight at seeing a new trinket.
But looking back, we can see that ChatGPT was about to unleash a tidal wave of chaos, not merely on the technology industry but the world at large. That chaos has seen the world’s largest technology firms swing their supertankers volte-face.
The industry thrives off having a new technology platform: Crypto is a bust, and the metaverse is still a pipe dream. But today’s AI — the large language models that operate as the brains in ChatGPT — seems like the real deal.
Precarious presumptions
Many of the Big Tech firms, like Alphabet, which initially developed the transformer technologies that underpin the large language model — along with Amazon, Meta, and Apple — underestimated the impact ChatGPT would have. They have since feverishly chased the generative AI train: Alphabet reorganized all its AI talent under Demis Hassabis and rushed out new products, such as Bard; Meta publicly released an impressive range of open-source AI models; Amazon invested $4 billion in OpenAI's competitor, Anthropic; and Apple is readying its own generative tools. Microsoft, meanwhile, had its ducks in a row. The company had built an important strategic deal with OpenAI, brokered by Reid Hoffman, a much-respected Silicon Valley investor who at the time sat on the board of both firms.
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For years, the received wisdom about artificial intelligence was that it would automate many types of white-collar tasks, starting with routine desk work. The research and market forecasts suggested that those of us doing nonroutine cognitive work — lawyers, strategy consultants, policy wonks, readers like you — perform tasks that are too complex for early AI systems. Rather it would be methodical desk work, such as data entry, document review, and customer service, that would be the easiest to automate.
A very different reality
A new study from Harvard Business School and Boston Consulting Group, the white shoe consultants, ixnayed that assumption. They tested nearly 800 consultants, likely graduates of the world’s most selective schools, on typical strategy consulting tasks. Half the group had help from ChatGPT, and the other half worked on their own. The results were stunning. On average, the consultants using ChatGPT completed their work 25.1% faster. And the bottom half of consultants saw the quality of their output increase by 43% — taking their average performance to well above that of the unaided consultant.
This result — matched by other research — throws received wisdom out the window. Even nonroutine work can benefit from AI. And we're not talking about highly advanced AI but rather garden-variety AI people can access on their phones. As a result, employees will be enticed by the productivity gains of using ChatGPT to ignore corporate security policies. The personal win — better quality work, more free time — will be too great for workers. Employers will struggle to rein in this behavior and expose their firms to new potential liabilities.
The road to standardization
At the same time, powerful general technologies do not necessarily work in favor of the employee, as bosses are tempted to substitute capital (machines) for labor (people). Historically, general-purpose technologies have become the sites of political contestation: Think of workers protesting power looms and assembly lines. The dispute is not about the technologies themselves but rather how the gains from the technology are split. It is a fight over power.
The recent screenwriters' strike in Hollywood is just such a battle. In a sense, it is less about the technology and more about the terms on which it is introduced. Similar fights will erupt in different industries and countries in the coming years until new norms emerge. Several artists and writers have filed lawsuits against OpenAI for training its systems in their creative endeavors.
During the Industrial Revolution, the process of normalizing standards took several decades in 18th and 19th century England. The workers’ plight worsened as the gains from automation went to shareholders, giving rise to heart-rending stories Charles Dickens tells. It was likely the success of labor movements that helped wages catch up.
And the tension with workers will be only one fault line. Governments are critical to the process of developing standards and norms, and yet their record of dealing with the impact of technologies in recent decades has been poor. Once the internet went mainstream in the late 1990s, catalyzed by the Clinton-Gore administration, successive American and European governments did little to advance the institutional or regulatory reform this expanded industry needed.
After 9/11, the US government became overly enamored with the surveillance capabilities afforded by the internet and the soft power big American tech firms offered. Washington did little to address the anti-competitive and politically polarizing side effects that allowed tech to morph into Big Tech.
Even late last year, governments were moving in mass but slowly to confront these questions. ChatGPT woke everyone up. Whether in China, the US, the EU, or the UK, figuring out what the institutional guardrails around AI should be has become a belated priority. In the UK, Rishi Sunak is making a late play for global leadership by hosting, this week, an AI Safety Summit with a view toward building a scientifically robust international agency, like the IPCC, to help evaluate, identify, and manage the most worrisome risks posed by AI.
The UN’s Antonio Guterres has announced his own AI advisory body, which may help the Global South develop a voice in how we contend with the beneficial deployment of AI.
Even perfectly designed, which nothing can be, a general-purpose technology will force changes to the rules and behaviors in a society. As I write in my book, the accelerating pace of change means we have a smaller window than normal to turn this chaos into some semblance of order. And that order will require effective national and multilateral governance and institutions that support them. No one quite knows, nor will we know for a while, what “effective” means in this context. Acting too quickly raises more risks: rash regulation, a paucity of deliberation, and, most likely, the exclusion of groups lacking the resources to mount effective lobbying.
If the first year of ChatGPT’s launch was marked by chaos, I doubt, given the accelerating pace of technology, the next year will have less turmoil. But it may, at least, be accompanied by a wider consensus endeavoring to erect some scaffolding from which effective governance, leading to more equitable prosperity, might emerge in the coming years.
Canadian Heritage Minister Pascale St-Onge
Meta faces Canadian watchdog probe
Meta, which owns Facebook and Instagram, started blocking news articles for Canadians in response to a federal law that would force it to share revenue with news outlets. The law won’t take effect for six months, but Meta has reacted aggressively. Rather than comply or consult with the government about next steps, it has moved to just block news links, arguing that people don’t come to the site for that purpose. The federal government has denounced the move.
"We’re going to keep standing our ground,” said Canadian Heritage Minister Pascale St-Onge. “After all, if the government can’t stand up for Canadians against tech giants, who will?”
Both Meta and Alphabet, which owns Google, have said they will block news rather than pay for it, although Google has not responded as aggressively.
Observers think both companies have reason to be uneasy about setting a precedent that governments in other jurisdictions might emulate. But so far, the tech giants appear to be winning the game of chicken. In June, a California link tax bill stalled in the legislature and a similar bill seems to be stuck in Congress.
Canadian media outlets have seen their traffic from Facebook cut — some have seen their page views halved — which has a knock-on effect on potential advertising revenue. But they should not hold their breath hoping to be rescued by the Competition Bureau, according to an analysis by University of Ottawa professor Michael Geist, an expert in e-commerce law, who described the industry’s complaint as “exceptionally weak.”
Tech talent wars & the role of ethics in Big Tech success (long-term)
Facebook whistleblower Frances Haugen still has hope that the corporate culture inside tech companies can change for the better.
"Huge things that seemed impossible [...] all came to be," she says, comparing the idea to historical tectonic shifts like the end of the Cold War or apartheid in South Africa.
Speaking to Ian Bremmer on GZERO World, Haugen says that she doesn't want to tear down social media companies. In fact, she wants them to be successful in the long run "because culture change will come along with that."
Google recently had to ditch a lucrative Pentagon contract in order to retain the best talent.
Facebook, on the other hand, is at a huge disadvantage because it struggles to recruit top talent because of their negative image in the industry.
Watch the GZERO World episode: Why social media is broken & how to fix it
Biden’s executive order cracks down on Big Tech and protects consumers
Marietje Schaake, International Policy Director at Stanford's Cyber Policy Center, Eurasia Group senior advisor and former MEP, discusses tech policy in the United States and the new White House executive order with no less than 72 competition enhancing measures.
How will Biden's executive order crack down on big tech?
The answer is in almost every way. The order clearly seeks stronger antitrust enforcement with specific provisions on data and the impact of its assembling on privacy. The order asks for new rules on surveillance from the FTC but will also allow for assessments of not only future but also past mergers. And that is important because the very wealthy, very powerful tech companies are known to buy up competitors that they may fear, and through those mergers grow their data piles. So, the executive order must cause concern in Silicon Valley. The order goes on to restore net neutrality, which is crucial for smaller companies and noncommercial websites. And the position of consumers improves with the possibility to have products repaired or to see others doing that, which is a practice that is often banned today. So once these various measures are in place, the public interest, innovation, consumer rights, and privacy protection should be better safeguarded from abuse of power by big tech.
Will tech giants be taxed for worldwide profits with a global tax rate?
Get insights on the latest news about emerging trends in cyberspace from Marietje Schaake, International Policy Director at Stanford University's Cyber Policy Center and former European Parliamentarian:
Today, we talk about the "T word", as I often refer to: taxation. But that taboo is finally broken in the United States.
How would a global minimum corporate tax rate, like the one Janet Yellen has called for, affect Big Tech?
Now, ideally, it would ensure a level playing field for all companies, and European leaders embrace the US change of course, but they did add that there should be ways to tax tech giants for their global profits. It's a demand that is widely shared in Europe. So the hope is that that can be arranged between all OECD members.
What has been Silicon Valley's reaction so far?
I haven't heard so much from Silicon Valley, so perhaps they're lobbying US leaders behind the scenes, more so than publicly. But it does look like the US government needs to compromise on that digital tax question to get their global minimum corporate tax rate done at all.
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Podcast: Kara Swisher on Big Tech's Big Problem
Listen: Renowned tech journalist Kara Swisher has no qualms about saying that social media companies bear responsibility for the January 6th pro-Trump riots at the Capitol and will likely be complicit in the civil unrest that may continue well into Biden's presidency. It's no surprise, she argues, that the online rage that platforms like Facebook and Twitter intentionally foment translated into real-life violence. But if Silicon Valley's current role in our national discourse is untenable, how can the US government rein it in? That, it turns out, is a bit more complicated. Swisher joins Ian Bremmer on our podcast.
Subscribe to the GZERO World Podcast on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, Stitcher, or your preferred podcast platform to receive new episodes as soon as they're published.
Uber, Lyft, Epic & Apple: what's at stake in Big Tech lawsuits
Watch as Nicholas Thompson, editor-in-chief of WIRED, explains what's at stake in Big Tech lawsuits in 2020:
What's going on between Uber & Lyft and the state of California?
California would like Uber and Lyft to classify all of their drivers as employees, not as contractors. And Lyft would like to save money and classify them as contractors, not employees. There is a lawsuit, there's been an injunction most likely issue will be settled at the ballot box. I should add that Uber and Lyft have threatened to leave California if they lose.
What is going on between Epic and Apple?
This fight is also pretty interesting. So, Apple charges all developers who sell products in their apps on iPhones a 30% tax. Epic, the maker a Fortnite, a hugely popular game you may have heard of, decided they did not want to pay 30%. They said they wanted to control sales themselves and not pay that giant tax. So, Apple kicked them out. Now there is a lawsuit. There are spicy e-mails going back and forth. There is a lot, a lot at stake in this fight.
Toronto the next Silicon Valley; AI in policing; NYC Marathon
Nicholas Thompson, editor-in-chief of WIRED, discusses technology industry news today:
Will Toronto become the next Silicon Valley?
A lot of really smart engineers are going to Toronto instead of the United States because of this country's self-defeating immigration policies. Building Silicon Valley requires even more. And ideally, there will be time for the United States to reverse all of its bad policies.
What role should AI play in policing?
There's a big scandal. Face recognition algorithms leading to an unjust arrest of a man for the very first time. Not surprisingly, this algorithms tend to not recognize black people. The man who was arrested in Detroit was black. I do not think that police departments should be relying on facial recognition for anything more than basic lead generation.
The New York City Marathon was just canceled. When will you next feel comfortable running a marathon?
I think it's going to be a while. I'd run a small marathon. People spaced out. Not one where there are thousands of people hunched together at the start.