The best Social Network for Success is Often Overlooked

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Several years ago sociologist Brian Uzzi did a study of why certain Broadway musicals made between 1945 and 1989 were successful and others flopped. The explanation he arrived at had to do with the people behind the productions. For failed productions, one of two extremes was common. The first was a collaboration between creative artists and producers who tended to all know one another. When there were mostly strong ties, the production lacked the fresh, creative insights that come from diverse experience. The other type of failed production was one in which none of the artists had experience working together. When the group was made up of mostly weak ties, teamwork and group cohesion suffered.

In contrast, the social networks of the people behind successful productions had a healthy balance: There were some strong ties, some weak ties. There was some established trust, but also enough new blood in the system to generate new ideas. Think of your network of relationships in the same way: The best professional network is both narrow/deep (allies with whom you collaborate regularly) and wide/ shallow (weak-tie acquaintances who offer fresh information and ideas). 

Reid Hoffman and Ben Casnocha, The Startup of You

14 Surprising Things AI Can Do Now

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The Impact of AI on Computer Science Degrees

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Computer science has consistently been one of the top majors in the United States for the last decade. But with the ability to task A.I. to code, startups and tech giants alike are hiring fewer and fewer entry-level computer scientists. Reports suggest that at major A.I. companies, the hiring rate for software engineering jobs has fallen over the course of 2024 from a high of about 3,000 per month to near zero. If enrollments in computer science degrees dry up as jobs disappear, the whole pipeline from education to employment could crash.  It’s not so surprising that chatbots might threaten technical jobs before writing ones. -Leif Weatherby, director of the Digital Theory Lab at New York University, writing in the New York Times

Fast, Frictionless, and “Good Enough”

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The Industrial Revolution replaced artisanal craftsmanship with mechanized production, enabling goods to be replicated and manufactured on a mass scale.  Shoes, cars, and crops could be produced efficiently and uniformly. But products also became more bland, predictable, and stripped of individuality. Craftsmanship retreated to the margins, as a luxury or a form of resistance.  Today, there’s a similar risk with the automation of thought. Generative AI tempts users to conflate speed with quality, productivity with originality.  The danger is not that AI will fail us, but that people will accept the mediocrity of its outputs as the norm. When everything is fast, frictionless, and “good enough,” there’s the risk of losing the depth, nuance, and intellectual richness that define exceptional human work. -Fast Company

Measuring Intelligence

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People have been measuring what they believe is intelligence without having a really firm understanding of what it is that they are measuring. Many theorists in psychology believe that conventional tests of intelligence measures only a relatively narrow aspect of intelligence. The result is that what we may take as a difference between two people in their levels of intelligence may reflect only a difference in a fairly small portions of their levels of intelligence.

Robert Sternberg, Thinking Styles

The Best AI Bot to Use

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"In a head-to-head test of AI bots, 'An AI tool’s capability in one field didn’t necessarily translate to another. ChatGPT, for example, might have been tops in politics and literature but ranked near the bottom in law. I’d also recommend running your document through at least two AI tools, so you can compare the results. And for anything that’s actually important in your life, it’s definitely worth taking the time to read it yourself.” - Geoffrey A. Fowler writing in the Washington Post 

Encouraging Critical Thinking in Children

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If we want our children or students or employees to express themselves creatively, then we have to give them the opportunity to do so. It doesn’t matter much if we tell them that we value their creative thinking, and then criticize or forestall every idea they propose.

From time to time, I do workshops for teachers, parents, and businesses that are eager to encourage open-ended, exploratory, creative thinking. One unfavorable sign is when someone asks me exactly what they should do to encourage creativity. They want me to tell them step by step, blow by blow. Their desire is an unfavorable sign because if they want a recipe for creativity, the won’t find it. Moreover, someone who wants to be told exactly what to do is not likely to model a creative style, no matter how much they may wish to do so.

Ultimately, you must encourage creative thinking by modeling it. It is hard to encourage creative thinking if you do not model it.

Robert Sternberg, Thinking Styles

"I use ChatGPT for Comedy"

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"I use ChatGPT for comedy. It's not going to give me a finished joke, but it's going to start the conversation. I find it useful when I'm writing the setup for a joke. With a parody, it's not one-to-one. You're taking things that are different and exaggerating them. I was writing a roast speech for a guy at a coding conference. I asked ChatGPT to delve into the inside jokes of coding communities. What's amazing to me is I do not have writer's block anymore — like truly. I think writer's block is the feeling of solipsism and it is the feeling of being totally alone. And I don't feel alone anymore because of this tool." - Sarah Rose Siskind, comedian

21 Articles about AI & Legal Issues

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 Trouble with AI 'hallucinations' spreads to big law firms – Reuters

Alabama paid a law firm millions to defend its prisons. It used AI and turned in fake citations – The Guardian  

New Arizona law prevents AI from making health insurance denials – AZ Family 

Australian authors say no to AI using their work – even if money is on the table – The Conversation  

AI firms say they can’t respect copyright. These researchers tried. – Washington Post

Artificial Intelligence is now an A+ law student, study finds - Reuters

Arizona Supreme Court unveils AI avatars to announce rulings - Arizona PBS

In lawsuit over teen’s death, judge rejects arguments that AI chatbots have free speech rights – Associated Press  

Law&Crime Recreates Scenes From Diddy Trial With AI and Official Transcripts – Mediaite 

ChatGPT Turned Into a Studio Ghibli Machine. How Is That Legal? – The Atlantic

Deepfakes on trial: How judges are navigating AI evidence authentication -Reuters

Former school athletic director gets 4 months in jail in racist AI deepfake case – Associated Press

AI copyright report sparks new fight - Axios

White House fires head of Copyright Office amid Library of Congress shakeup – Washington Post

An AI-created video of a murdered man is used to deliver a victim's statement at a killer's sentencing – BBC

This ‘College Protester’ Isn’t Real. It’s an AI-Powered Undercover Bot for Cops – 404 Media

AI Can Assist Human Judges, But It Can’t Replace Them (Yet) – David Lat Blog

Lawyers face sanctions for citing fake cases with AI, warns UK judge – Reuters

White House fires Copyright Office leaders as controversial AI report surfaces – Mashable

Anthropic's lawyers take blame for AI 'hallucination' in music publishers' lawsuit – Reuters

Disney and Universal Sue A.I. Firm for Copyright Infringement – New York Times