AAIA's AI Beat Newsletter: Chapter events, the week's news, Chapter President Spotlight: Jim Rodriguez (Atlanta, GA, USA)

In today’s newsletter:

• Recent and upcoming Chapter events (Portland, Seattle, Silicon Valley, San Francisco)

• Recent AI news stories that caught our (and Perplexity AI’s!) eye

• Chapter President Spotlight: Jim Rodriguez, AAIA Atlanta, GA, USA Chapter

• Become an AAIA member

AI in business and the enterprise news:

Recent AI news stories that caught our (and Perplexity AI’s!) eye over the last week:

• Research: How Gen AI Is Already Impacting the Labor Market (Harvard Business Review (November 11, 2024)

  • “...unlike past automation technologies, gen AI has the unique potential to impact all job sectors, particularly given its fundamental ability to improve its capabilities over time — which promises to affect the workforce in ways that go beyond simple job replacement.”

  • “We find that the introduction of ChatGPT and image-generating tools led to nearly immediate decreases in posts for online gig workers across job types, but particularly for automation-prone jobs. After the introduction of ChatGPT, there was a 21% decrease in the weekly number of posts in automation-prone jobs compared to manual-intensive jobs. Writing jobs were affected the most (30.37% decrease), followed by software, app, and web development (20.62%) and engineering (10.42%).”

  • “Within a year of introducing image-generating AI tools, demand for graphic design and 3D modeling freelancers decreased by 17.01%.”

  • “The rapid advancement of gen AI technologies presents both opportunities and challenges for businesses, particularly regarding workforce management. Our research demonstrates that while some job replacements are inevitable, companies have a critical role in shaping how AI is integrated into their operations. Below, we outline key implications for managers and organizations to navigate this shift effectively.”

• Here’s the full list of 44 US AI startups that have raised $100M or more in 2024 (TechCrunch, November 15, 2024)

  • “AI deals continued to dominate venture funding during the third quarter. AI companies raised $18.9 billion in Q3, according to Crunchbase data. That figure represents 28% of all venture funding.”

• New secret math benchmark stumps AI models and PhDs alike (Ars Technica, November 12, 2024)

  • “The design of FrontierMath differs from many existing AI benchmarks because the problem set remains private and unpublished to prevent data contamination. Many existing AI models are trained on other test problem datasets, allowing the AI models to easily solve the problems and appear more generally capable than they actually are. Many experts cite this as evidence that current large language models (LLMs) are poor generalist learners.”

• ‘More connecting with students’: Khan Academy founder discusses future of AI, education (The Daily Texan, November 17, 2024)

  • “Khanmigo can also assist teachers with their lesson plans and generate in-class exercises to aid learning. He said he expects the AI model to help teachers grade papers in the next two to three years. However, he said it doesn’t diminish the need for real people teaching in classrooms.”

  • ““(AI) will allow teachers to anchor more in what I think they got in the job for,” Khan said. “Less time lesson planning, less time grading papers and more time connecting with students, which I think is a great fit for everyone.””

• OpenAI reportedly plans to launch an AI agent early next year (The Verge, November 13, 2024)

  • “This move intensifies the competition among tech giants developing AI agents: Anthropic recently introduced its “computer use” capability, while Google is reportedly preparing its own version for a December release. The timing of Operator’s eventual consumer release remains under wraps, but its development signals a pivotal shift toward AI systems that can actively engage with computer interfaces rather than just process text and images.”

• Denmark launches landmark framework for using AI under EU rules — with Microsoft backing (CNBC, November 13, 2024)

  • White paper here

  • “A government-backed alliance of major Danish corporates, led by IT consultancy Netcompany, launched the “Responsible Use of AI Assistants in the Public and Private Sector” white paper, a blueprint that sets out “best-practice examples” for how firms should use and support employees in deploying AI systems in a regulated environment.”

  • “Netcompany CEO André Rogaczewski said the provisions laid out in the white paper were primarily aimed at companies in heavily regulated industries, such as in financial services. He told CNBC he’s aiming to address one core question: “How can we scale the responsible usage of AI?””

  • “Netcompany’s Rogaczewski told CNBC that pitched the idea for a white paper to some of Denmark’s biggest banks and insurance firms some months ago. He found that, though each organization was “experimenting” with AI, institutions lacked a “common standard” to get the most out of the tech.”

• CONFIRMED: LLMs have indeed reached a point of diminishing returns (Marcus on AI, November 9, 2024)

  • “LLMs will not disappear, even if improvements diminish, but the economics will likely never make sense: additional training is expensive, the more scaling, the more costly. And, as I have been warning, everyone is landing in more or less the same place, which leaves nobody with a moat. LLMs such as they are, will become a commodity; price wars will keep revenue low. Given the cost of chips, profits will be elusive. When everyone realizes this, the financial bubble may burst quickly; even NVidia might take a hit, when people realize the extent to which its valuation was based on a false premise.”

• AI Chatbot Added to Mushroom Foraging Facebook Group Immediately Gives Tips for Cooking Dangerous Mushroom (404 Media, November 12, 2024)

AAIA Chapters updates:

We’ll be introducing a Chapter President to you each week.  This week, we feature Jim Rodriguez, AAIA Chapter President for Atlanta, GA, USA:

Company and position: Global Technical Sales Manager, Lenovo

Bio:

The Applied AI Association (AAIA) welcomes Jim Rodriguez as the Chapter President for Atlanta, GA, USA. Jim brings a wealth of experience and expertise to this role. As the Global Technical Sales Manager at Lenovo, he leads Hybrid Cloud and AI business solutions for top Global System Integrator accounts. Jim has also demonstrated his entrepreneurial and innovative spirit as the founder of SalesReply.ai, creating a platform that uses AI to streamline sales and marketing processes for small businesses.

Jim's passion for helping others achieve their goals, combined with his commitment to fostering a collaborative environment, makes him an ideal leader for our Atlanta chapter. He is dedicated to building a vibrant AI community in Atlanta, encouraging networking and promoting the practical application of AI technologies across various sectors.

Email Jim Rodriguez at: [email protected]

Our list of AAIA Chapters continues to grow!  If you live in a Chapter city/region and would like to get involved, email your city’s/region’s Chapter President.