A Brave Newish World

THE INTERNET AND YOU

Greetings from the summer of AI slop, raids, and revolutions. I don’t know about you, but my head has been spinning from the constant bombardment of calamity happening across the globe.

In this edition, I will be examining where we are and how we got here. It's about the surprising, yet true, and the excitement in between. I hope it is more pleasant than whatever you’ve been doomscrolling lately.

As always, I’ve included a practical AI video below, this time showcasing how designers are utilizing tools these days. When you’re done, let's walk a bit further.

ARTIFICIAL POWER

Growing Pains

It’s all about speed. AI use cases that were once seen as something to be careful about are getting a second chance. For Google this means using AI for weapons , and Spotify’s CEO has joined these ranks, as well.

With the push to integrate AI into nearly everything imaginable, we should pause and ask ourselves: why? If the reasoning is productivity, then at what cost? I’ve always thought of AI as a tool that accelerates the stuff we don’t want to do, so we can have time for the stuff we do want to do. This calculus gets more complex as you involve scalability and how it augments larger processes.

In one case, National Nurses United, a union that protested against AI in healthcare, successfully argued that AI oversight was needed before making clinical judgments. However, this is more of an exception than the rule, as a new report from AI Now details.

Their Roadmap for Action, which is part of a larger report on the current landscape, states that we should be making AI “a fight about power” instead of “progress.”

Below is a list of some other organizations that are keeping tabs on AI ethics + accountability:

• Auth Social - an applied research lab at the intersection of sociology and technology

• REAL ML - a non-profit championing AI accountability

• Montreal AI Ethics Institute - focusing on increasing AI literacy

CASE STUDY

Want to leave your job? Read this

After a couple folks have reached out to learn about how I got involved with AI in the first place, I started to think back to an article I read in 2021, when the term “conversation designer” had just turned from a buzzword to my job title.

4 years later, that same author released an article titled “I don’t feel like a conversation designer anymore.”

The industry tides are changing. I, too, quit my job in 2020 with nothing lined up, taking on projects that ultimately led me to be here with you today.

The article below perfectly encapsulates the thought process I wish I had known back then, and how you can employ it now if you find yourself without a full-time job.

OUTLOOK

Fun Facts

In this list of surprising but true things, a few stood out.

• The word “oxymoron” is itself an oxymoron. It comes from the Greek words “oxy” (sharp) and “moron” (dull).

• 25% of all of the bones in your body are in your feet.

• There are more trees on Earth than stars in our galaxy. (~ 3 Trillion)

• Oranges aren’t named after the color, the color is named after the fruit — before orange trees made it to Europe the color was referred to as “yellow-red.”

But, this is the one that unsettled me most:

• The average internet user spends 2 hours and 20 minutes per day on social media. Assuming they sleep for 8 hours per day, this is 14.4% of their waking time. If they live to age 72 and start using social media at age 12, they will spend the equivalent of 5.8 of their 40 waking years on social media.

I encountered a content creator who claimed to make a TikTok video every time she opened the app. The 1:1 creator-consumer ratio stunned me.

But maybe it shouldn’t. Maybe if we gave as much as we took, we would know exactly how much attention we are willing to give.

I spoke briefly about Robin’s Sloan’s Secret Playbook last edition, which is pro-human creation in the post-AI world. Below is another screenshot from a carousel that showcases this approach and where we stand.

FOR YOUR ENTERTAINMENT

Delightful finds

Some productive and pleasant finds

☼ For the yoga lovers: Free Yoga Video Library

☼ Vintage hat anyone?: Make Your Own Hat

☼ Back-to-back meetings savior: Granola AI

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