AI Definitions: Quantum Computers

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Quantum Computers – The computers we use today operate on a traditional binary code, which represents information with 0s and 1s. Quantum machines, on the other hand, use quantum bits, or qubits. The unusual properties of qubits make quantum computers far more powerful for some kinds of calculations, including the mathematical problems that underpin much of modern encryption.

More AI definitions here.

Wonder and humility

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It seems reasonable to believe — and I do believe — that the more clearly we can focus our attention on the wonders and realities of the universe about us the less taste we shall have for the destruction of our race. Wonder and humility are wholesome emotions, and they do not exist side by side with a lust for destruction.

Rachel Carson acceptance speech for the John Burroughs Medal, April 7, 1952

23 Recent Articles about the Business of Running an AI Company

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ChatGPT users have generated over 700M images since last week, OpenAI says - TechCrunch

Are LLM firewalls the future of AI security? – Computer Weekly

Google Gemini is shaking up its AI leadership ranks – Semafor  

More pre-training data may not always lead to better large language models - VentureBeat

A Big Coal Plant Was Just Imploded to Make Way for an AI Data Center – Wall Street Journal

Open source devs are fighting AI crawlers with cleverness and vengeance – TechCrunch

The AI Data-Center Boom Is Coming to America’s Heartland - Wall Street Journal 

We were promised “Star Trek,” so why did we settle for these lousy chatbots? – BigThink

Nvidia CEO Says AI Computing Needs to Surge 100-Fold - Wall Street Journal 

The Quest for A.I. ‘Scientific Superintelligence’ – New York Times  

Elon Musk’s AI company, xAI, acquires a generative AI video startup – TechCrunch 

OpenAI urges U.S. to allow AI models to train on copyrighted material – NBC  

Delays cast a cloud over Apple Intelligence - Axios

The tiny chips behind Amazon’s big AI investment – Semafor

China tells its AI leaders to avoid US travel over security concerns, WSJ reports – Reuters

ChatGPT firm reveals AI model that is ‘good at creative writing’ – The Guardian

Google looks to give AI its arms and legs - Axios 

New Chinese AI agent draws DeepSeek comparison - Axios 

A.I. Is Changing How Silicon Valley Builds Start-Ups - New York Times  

What the Dot-Com Bust Can Tell Us About Today’s AI Boom - Wall Street Journal 

GenAI synthetic data create ethical challenges for scientists – PNAS  

Turing Award Goes to 2 Pioneers of Artificial Intelligence – New York Times  

Just how badly OpenAI and Perplexity are screwing over publishers - Forbes

The Designer as Conductor

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The emergence and impact of AI isn’t about replacing designers. It’s about repositioning them. The future designer won’t be the one who can code every micro-animation by hand. They’ll be the one who can see the big picture, communicate it crisply, and orchestrate a system toward that vision. They’ll be less like a craftsman and more like a director or editor.  -Francesco Bertelli

18 Articles about How AI is Affecting Jobs

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Is AI eroding our critical thinking?

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As AI has grown more commonplace in everyday life, psychologists theorize that it reduces users’ engagement in deep, reflective thinking, causing their critical thinking skills to atrophy over time. If individuals use the cognitive resources freed up by AI for innovative tasks, the promise holds. However, studies suggest that many users channel these resources into passive consumption, driven by AI-enhanced content curation. This trend aligns with findings on digital dependence, where the convenience of AI fosters a feedback loop that prioritizes entertainment over critical engagement. While it enhances efficiency and convenience, it inadvertently fosters dependence, which can compromise critical thinking skills over time. -Ross Pomeroy writing in BigThink

Going in Circles

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When people get lost, they really do tend to walk in circles. German researchers discovered that volunteers who could not see the sun or moon often walked for hours in circles, sometimes in circles as small as 20 yards across. Some participants didn’t believe the researchers until they were shown proof.

What makes the difference are external signposts. Landmarks like the sun or moon completely changed the result.

One of the researchers offers this advice: “Don’t trust your senses. You might think you are walking in a straight line when you’re not.”

Isn’t that how life is? We know people who trust their senses and have no external guideposts to keep their lives on track. They believe they are marching forward, but all the while, they are going nowhere. They repeat the same mistakes. The people who get somewhere in life carefully choose their landmarks and trust these life-anchors.

Stephen Goforth

15 Articles about AI’s impact on College Faculty & Administrators

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No one is completely immune

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Psychological research shows that misinformation is cleverly designed to bypass careful analytical reasoning, meaning that it can easily slip under the radar of even the most intelligent and educated people. No one is completely immune. Indeed, there is now evidence that smarter people may sometimes be even more vulnerable to certain ideas, since their greater brainpower simply allows them to rationalise their (incorrect) beliefs. 

David Robson writing in The Guardian 

Why Humans are Better Storytellers Than AI

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Literary agent Jamie Carr of the Book Group describes great storytelling as something that makes “connections between things and ideas that are totally nonsensical — which is something only humans can do.” Can ChatGPT bring together disparate parts of your life and use a summer job to illuminate a fraught friendship? Can it link a favorite song to an identity crisis? So far, nope. Crucially, ChatGPT can’t do one major thing that all my clients can: have a random thought. “I’m not sure why I’m telling you this” is something I love to hear from students, because it means I’m about to go on a wild ride that only the teenage brain can offer. It’s frequently in these tangents about collecting cologne or not paying it forward at the Starbucks drive-thru that we discover the key to the essay. I often describe my main task as helping students turn over stones they didn’t know existed, or stones they assumed were off-limits. ChatGPT can’t tap into the unpredictable because it can only turn over the precise stones you tell it to — and if you’re issuing these orders, chances are you already know what’s under the stone. 

Sanibel Chai writing in New York Magazine

Do I have Value?

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To say a person has worth or value formulates only half a sentence. It begs two questions and raises a third: Worth what? To whom? Who says? These questions reveal a search for a source, a valuer, an authority behind the action of attaching worth. This quest implies our awareness of a person larger than us, who initiates relationships with us. Our parents stood as the original superhumans in whose eyes we wanted much worth. Now as adults, when we feel worthless, we ache with the dangling half-question. Do I have any value?  We used to seek evidence from Mom and Dad of our importance to them. Though we no longer look to them as our source, we have not yet identified a new one. We spin our wheels with the unanswered questions of our half-sentences. We wistfully yearn for some authority to come along and fill those gaps that our parents left.

Dennis Gibson, The Strong-Willed Adult

20 Articles about the Limitations of AI

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"Humans in the loop" make AI work, for now - Axios

We were promised “Star Trek,” so why did we settle for these lousy chatbots? – Big Think

Having AI Mock Up An Old Game Is Not The Same As Preserving It – Tech Dirt  

"Humans in the loop" make AI work, for now - Axios 

AI is ‘beating’ humans at empathy and creativity. But these games are rigged – The Guardian 

The truth about DOGE’s AI plans: The tech can’t do that – Washington Post   

The Cultural Backlash Against Generative AI – Toward Data Science  

Why Do AI Chatbots Have Such a Hard Time Admitting ‘I Don’t Know’? – Wall Street Journal  

China has more trust in AI than the United States – Axios

AI can solve math olympiad problems but flunks tic-tac-toe – Stat Modeling

The Words That Stop ChatGPT in Its Tracks Why won’t the bot say my name? – The Atlantic 

7 ways gen AI can create more work than it saves – CIO

AI’s Trust Problem – MIT Tech Review

I'm the CEO of an AI company, and this is the BS behind AI – Fast Company 

Despite its impressive output, generative AI doesn’t have a coherent understanding of the world – MIT    

The Death of Search AI is transforming how billions navigate the web. A lot will be lost in the process.  – The Atlantic

ChatGPT outperforms undergrads in intro-level courses, falls short later – ArsTechnica  

AI polling company defends wrong predictions on the US election – Semafor

Detroit police falsely arrested woman after faulty facial recognition hit: lawsuit  - Detroit News

DOGE's "AI-first" strategy courts disaster - Axios

15 Articles about AI & the Bigger Questions

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