Malihe Alikhani: “Recommendation algorithms on social media and e-commerce platforms optimize for engagement by feeding us content we already like. The difference now is that generative AI presents itself as an intelligent collaborator. It can write your code, draft your essay, advise your business. That makes it feel more authoritative, even when it’s just echoing what you said…These systems are created and trained using large amounts of data, and inevitably reflect biases present in that data. Another factor is feedback from human reviewers who rate the AI’s responses based on how helpful, polite or engaging they are. The model is then adjusted based on these ratings. Over time, the AI system learns that agreeing with confident statements often receives higher ratings, creating a feedback loop.”
Fred Smith: “People talk about capitalism and socialism and communism. There’s only two kinds of economic systems: the market-driven and the government-directed. That’s it! The more you move toward a state-directed economy, the less efficient and more corrupt it becomes.” [via CafeHayek]
NYTimes: “A year ago, a 1,200-acre stretch of farmland outside New Carlisle, Ind., was an empty cornfield. Now, seven Amazon data centers rise up from the rich soil, each larger than a football stadium. Over the next several years, Amazon plans to build around 30 data centers at the site, packed with hundreds of thousands of specialized computer chips. With hundreds of thousands of miles of fiber connecting every chip and computer together, the entire complex will form one giant machine intended just for artificial intelligence. The facility will consume 2.2 gigawatts of electricity — enough to power a million homes. Each year, it will use millions of gallons of water to keep the chips from overheating. And it was built with a single customer in mind: the A.I. start-up Anthropic, which aims to create an A.I. system that matches the human brain.”
FT: “Mark Zuckerberg is betting more than $14bn that a well-connected 28-year-old is the catalyst his company needs to catch up with rivals racing to develop and commercialise artificial intelligence. The Meta chief struck a deal…to buy 49 per cent of data labelling business Scale AI and hire its leader Alexandr Wang. Zuckerberg paid $14.3bn, marginally ahead of Scale’s last valuation. But ownership of the start-up is “basically incidental”, according to one Scale investor. The real prize was Wang. An executive at one of Meta’s biggest rivals said the move came after Zuckerberg decided Wang was the “wartime CEO” he needed at the centre of the Big Tech group’s “superintelligence” lab — at a time when Meta was falling behind its AI rivals.”
