Category: Artificial Intelligence
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Hundreds of millions of people are now regularly interacting with systems that can write, analyze, advise, code, and increasingly act on their behalf. Never before have so many people had immediate access to such a powerful intellectual tool. But as AI becomes increasingly ubiquitous, a more fundamental question is emerging: What are we asking AI…
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Can AI actually help us become better writers? I’ve been thinking about this question since reading “AI Didn’t Make Programming Easier. It Just Made It Differently Difficult,” an article recently published in Communications of the ACM (CACM) by Jeremy Osborn. Osborn explained that programming has traditionally been a demanding cognitive activity in which developers rely heavily…
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Will AI eventually replace software developers? Over the past few years, predictions have ranged from “The End of Programming,” which argued that “The end of classical computer science is coming, and most of us are dinosaurs waiting for the meteor to hit,” to claims that “ChatGPT Will Replace Programmers Within 10 Years.” But something more interesting…
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On August 11, MIT Nobel laureate economist Daron Acemoglu published his latest book, What Happened to Liberal Democracy?: Remaking a Politics of Shared Prosperity. For much of the second half of the 20th century, liberal democracy appeared to be remarkably successful. Economic growth raised living standards across broad segments of society, technological advances created new…
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Artificial intelligence is rapidly spreading across the enterprise. Employees are using AI tools to improve their productivity, companies are launching pilots across a growing number of business functions, and executives are investing heavily in AI initiatives. Yet for most organizations, a major gap remains between experimenting with AI and making it a core operational capability.…
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Artificial intelligence is often discussed in terms of faster economic growth, higher productivity, and greater corporate profits. But those are not the only outcomes that matter. Another very important question is whether AI will actually improve human welfare by broadening opportunity, strengthening institutions, and raising living standards across society. That question is at the heart…
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When I began writing a weekly blog in May of 2005, I expected that artificial intelligence would someday become one of the subjects I would write about. I didn’t expect that AI would eventually become my editor. Writing each weekly post takes many hours. Before I write a single sentence, I spend considerable time thinking…
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“The launch of ChatGPT in 2022 ignited the artificial-intelligence boom — and elicited a chorus of warnings from AI bosses of an impending jobs apocalypse,” said The Economist in “Prepare for an AI jobs apocalypse,” the lead article in its May 16 issue. “Never mind that they have reason to talk up the disruptiveness of…
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Earlier this year I wrote a blog about the continuing debate across higher education on whether — and how — university students should be taught to properly use generative AI, “How Should University Students Be Taught the Proper Use of AI.” I mentioned in the blog that the debate about AI reminds me of my…
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Open AI models present an intriguing economic puzzle. They can often deliver performance approaching that of leading proprietary models at a fraction of the cost. Yet enterprises continue to overwhelmingly favor closed, proprietary models — and by some measures, their share of enterprise AI spending is actually increasing. Why is that the case? The answer…
