The Nobel Prizes Need A Makeover

"This Monday, at precisely 11:30 a.m. Stockholm time, the winners of the 2023 Nobel Prizes will start rolling out in marathon fashion, as befits the world's most coveted award. The Pulitzer Prizes are distributed over lunch; the Academy Awards require a long evening. The Nobel announcements will cover eight full days, not counting the banquets and formal presentations.

The prize for physiology or medicine will be announced on Monday, physics on Tuesday, chemistry on Wednesday, literature on Thursday, peace on Friday and economics on the following Monday. Most laureates will learn of their good fortune in a quick phone call just minutes before the world is informed. A few, given human error and different time zones, may find out only after the formal announcement. In one notorious incident in 1987, a call meant for UCLA chemist Donald J. Cram was directed to a sleepy Los Angeles rug shampooer named Donald O. Cram, who could barely understand the heavily accented caller. "Now, I do a good job on carpets," he remarked, "but this seemed a little excessive."

The Nobels have long been this way -- steeped in tradition, resistant to major change. Historically, most complaints have centered on the carefully shielded selection process -- the nominations are kept secret for 50 years -- as well as on the honorees themselves. The prizes for peace and literature have borne the brunt of criticism because their laureates are far better known to the public. What can one say of a peace prize that consistently rejected Mahatma Gandhi while honoring the likes of Henry Kissinger and Yasser Arafat? Or that selected Barack Obama in the early months of his presidency? "Why not give him the literature prize?" one observer quipped. "At least he's actually written a couple of books."

Why not, indeed? The famously Eurocentric literature prize has gone to just two Americans in the past 30 years -- one of them being Bob Dylan, whose award raised suspicions that the Nobel Committee, fearing a loss of relevance, was actively courting publicity, as it most likely had done with Obama. If true, it proved a losing gamble. Dylan skipped the ceremony, citing a previous commitment.

The latest wave of criticism, however, has focused on the awards for physics, chemistry and, especially, physiology or medicine. A 2017 article by Ed Yong in the Atlantic was titled "The Absurdity of the Nobel Prizes in Science." The criticism has less to do with the judgments of the selection committees than with the clash between the changing needs of these disciplines and the archaic rules imposed by founder Alfred Nobel more than a century ago. To informed observers, it has been clear for some time that the Nobels are in desperate need of a makeover.

Nobel, the Swedish-born inventor of dynamite, left most of his substantial fortune to the establishment of the five annual prizes that bear his name. (Economics was added in 1969.) His motive remains a mystery. Some historians cite Nobel's genuine love for the arts and sciences. Others point to his brother Ludvig's obituary, published several years before Alfred's death in 1895, which mixed up the two men and described the mistakenly deceased Alfred as "a merchant of death." He became "so obsessed with [his] posthumous reputation," said one biographer, "that he rewrote his last will" to ensure a safe send-off.

The document laid out Nobel's plan in meticulous detail. The prize money, "divided into five equal parts," would go to "those who during the preceding year shall have conferred the greatest benefit on mankind." The prizes would be open to all comers -- though the words "whether he be Scandinavian or not" certainly implied male dominance -- and there could be but one winner in each category.

A few grudging improvements have been made since the first prizes were announced in 1901. Three nominees may now share the award in each category, and their prize-winning contributions can occur at any point in their lives, not simply "during the preceding year." But the governing committee has also tightened the screws by ruling that the prize cannot be awarded posthumously -- or revoked.

Each change, however small, has been magnified by the Nobel mystique. Take revocation, for example. It's no secret that prizes in science have been awarded to Nazis, racists and misogynists, all of whom made vital discoveries benefiting humankind. There have been no serious public campaigns to revoke these prizes, and rightly so. The discoveries speak for themselves. But what should be done when the reverse situation arises -- when the work itself is later found to be flawed or even dangerous?

It's not an abstract question. In 1949, the prize in physiology or medicine was awarded to a Portuguese neurologist named Antonio Egas Moniz for introducing the lobotomy, a procedure designed to treat various mental disorders by severing the connection between the frontal cortex and the rest of the brain. News of his Nobel almost single-handedly turned this ghastly, irreversible procedure into a routine medical treatment, which 20,000 Americans -- most in state asylums -- received over the next four years. To this day, there are periodic calls for the revocation of Moniz's prize, which the Nobel Committee routinely ignores.

The science juries have always favored the individual over the group. It goes back to Nobel's preference for one winner per category, which made good sense when most scientists toiled alone and the best of them -- a Louis Pasteur or a Joseph Lister -- might single-handedly pull off a miracle. Times have changed, yet the rules, amended slightly to include three yearly recipients, still project a "winner-take-all" attitude in an increasingly collaborative scientific world.

Complicating this problem is the committee's preference for "original discoveries" over "practical applications." In doing so, it has denied the prize in physiology or medicine to some of the most fabled researchers of the past century, including Jonas Salk, developer of the polio vaccine. With his file now open for inspection, we can see that Salk was nominated and rejected for the prize on several occasions, the main obstacle being one juror's repeated charge that his work relied too heavily on the building blocks of others -- in short, it provided "nothing new."

Many scientists today consider this to be a serious misreading of Salk's research. His discovery not only saved countless children from paralysis and death, they note; it also proved that a killed-virus vaccine can provide a level of immunity equal to that of a natural infection -- something previously thought unlikely, if not impossible. Asked years later about the snub, Salk, beloved by the public, joked that it hardly mattered because "most people think I did win the Nobel Prize."

If one were to make a composite of the typical Nobel Prize winner in science, it would be a middle-aged American man, nurtured in elite surroundings, whose eureka moment occurred about 15 years or so before winning the prize. 

The U.S. has dominated these competitions, winning close to half the science Nobels since 1901, and the reasons are clear. The federal government pours billions of dollars into basic scientific research, supplemented by NGOs and academic institutions. Nine of the world's top 10 universities boasting the most Nobel laureates in science are in the U.S.: Harvard, MIT, Caltech, UC Berkeley, Stanford, Chicago, Columbia, Princeton and Rockefeller. The only outlier is the University of Cambridge.

There have been some notable exceptions. Between 1930 and 1943, the City Colleges of New York graduated 10 future Nobel Prize winners -- nine in the sciences. It's a stunning achievement, surpassing the combined undergraduate total of Harvard, Yale and Princeton in this period. These fiercely competitive children of immigrants faced religious prejudices that limited their access to the nation's top private institutions. All 10 were Jewish -- an ironic twist given the vitriolic antisemitism found in Alfred Nobel's private correspondence.

America's dominance can be partly attributed, in fact, to its role as a haven for scientists seeking freedom and opportunity. What began as a trickle in the 1930s with the arrival of refugees from Nazism became a steady stream by the 1960s, as the U.S. liberalized its more restrictive immigration laws. Since then, the number of Nobels in science won by Americans born elsewhere has skyrocketed. 

Immigrants have accounted for close to 40% of the prizes awarded to Americans in the 21st century. 

"The U.S. has built a phenomenal culture of welcoming," says Stefano Bertuzzi, an Italian emigre who heads the American Society for Microbiology.

The U.S. and much of Europe, including Scandinavia, now hold a virtual monopoly in these fields. There are a few exceptions -- Australia, Israel and Japan have won multiple awards in the new century -- but the world's two most populous countries, India and China, have been shut out almost entirely. India simply lacks the infrastructure to be competitive at this point, and China is plagued by a state-run scientific system short on creativity and mired in corruption.

The most serious inequity plaguing the science awards is the dearth of women laureates. It began with great promise when Marie Curie shared the physics prize with her husband, Pierre, in 1903, and won the chemistry prize outright eight years later, making her the only person to receive a Nobel Prize in two different scientific fields. But then the bottom dropped out. No woman would win another Nobel in chemistry until 1935 or in physics until 1963. The prize in physiology or medicine would not be awarded to a female researcher until 1947.

It wasn't for lack of deserving candidates. The record includes such luminaries as Lise Meitner, who discovered the phenomenon of nuclear fission with her colleague, Otto Hahn. Described by Albert Einstein as the "Marie Curie of Germany," Meitner would be nominated 48 times for a Nobel Prize, without success. Hahn alone received the chemistry prize in 1944.

Women have won just 61 of the 989 awards in all Nobel categories since the inception of the prizes, faring somewhat better in peace and literature than in the sciences, where the percentage of laureates hovers at around 3%. Even in modern times, the disdain for women scientists is on public display. 

At a conference in 2015, Tim Hunt, winner of the 2001 Nobel in physiology and medicine, declared: "Three things can happen when [women] are in the lab. You fall in love with them, they fall in love with you, and when you criticize them, they cry."

But the landscape in science is improving, with the number of female science laureates since 2000 equaling the total of the previous century. Last year, Carolyn Bertozzi won the prize for her work on bioorthogonal chemistry, which enables scientists to more easily build complex molecules and map how cells function. The 2020 prize in chemistry went to Emmanuelle Charpentier and Jennifer A. Doudna in recognition of their breakthrough work in gene editing, and the 2020 prize in physics was shared by Andrea Mia Ghez for the discovery of a "supermassive compact object" at the center of our galaxy.

And women are rapidly entering fields once dominated by men. According to the National Science Foundation, the percentage of academic doctoral positions held by American women in engineering and the sciences has increased from 26.4% in 1991 to 38.5% in 2019. This may not translate into immediate gains, since the average age of a Nobel Prize winner in the sciences is close to 60. But change is on the way.

The problems with the Nobel Prizes in science today rest not with the winners, who represent the cream of their professions, but rather with the process that rewards them -- the obsolete rules, the lack of interest in collaboration, the limited categories, the yawning gender gap, the focus on academic pedigree. Few critics want to do away with the prizes, which provide an opportunity to celebrate scientific achievements on the grandest scale. The goal is to modernize the Nobels by getting them to better represent how cutting-edge research is now conducted.

That would require, in the first place, increasing the number of winners in each category. The "lone wolf" of scientific discovery is a disappearing species; collaboration is now the norm. Some have suggested that the science juries follow the lead of the peace prize jury, which has selected entire organizations in the past, such as Amnesty International, Doctors Without Borders and the 2022 winner, the Center for Civil Liberties in Ukraine. Why not give the prize to a laboratory in which a groundbreaking discovery occurs, or at least to its major contributors, rather than to a single star?

Increasing the range of prize categories would also help. The Nobels simply have not kept up with a rapidly changing world. "The environmental sciences -- oceans and ecology -- aren't covered," writes the distinguished astronomer Martin Rees. "Nor are computing, robotics, and artificial intelligence." Given the prestige of the Nobel Prizes, he adds, "these exclusions distort the public perception of what sciences are important."

Nobel officials must also find a mechanism for reexamining the past. They could start by forming a committee to scour the files for cases where a truly deserving candidate was denied the prize for reasons of obvious prejudice -- a move that might require amending the rule regarding posthumous awards. Lise Meitner, for example. Or Jonas Salk. Or Rosalind Franklin, the crystallographer whose invaluable contributions to discovering the molecular structure of DNA were exploited, but barely recognized, by James Watson, Francis Crick and Maurice Wilkins, the three men who went on to win the Nobel Prize and worldwide acclaim.

Alfred Nobel might have rejected some of these changes, but the prizes he endowed have already evolved beyond his original instructions and 19th-century social views. What remains, and should guide the prizes into the future, is the noble goal of his bequest: to honestly recognize those among us whose work has "conferred the greatest benefit" on humankind.

---

David Oshinsky directs the Division of Medical Humanities at NYU Langone Health. His books include "Bellevue: Three Centuries of Medicine and Mayhem at America's Most Storied Hospital" and "Polio: An American Story," which won the 2006 Pulitzer Prize for history." [1]

1. REVIEW --- The Nobel Prizes Need A Makeover --- The world's most prestigious prize no longer reflects how science is done or what fields matter, and it has been notably biased against women. It's time for reform. Oshinsky, David.  Wall Street Journal, Eastern edition; New York, N.Y.. 30 Sep 2023: C.1.

 

Dirbtinis intelektas netrukus bus visur. Skeptikai rizikuoja likti už nugaros. --- Daugelis iš mūsų netrukus naudos dirbtinį intelektą. Tie, kurie to nedaro? Jie bus sujungti su žmonėmis, kurie prilipo prie kortelių katalogo

 

     „Jacky Liangas gyvena ateityje.

 

     Dirbtinio intelekto (AI) inžinierius iš Filadelfijos jis naudoja generatyvųjį AI darbe ir asmeniniame gyvenime „kiek įmanoma“.

 

     Įrankiai, kuriuos jis naudoja – ieškoti dalykų prastovos metu, ieškoti darbo, atnaujinti savo gyvenimo aprašymą ar rašyti tinklaraščio įrašus – gerokai viršija pirmosios kartos dirbtinį intelektą, kuris jau yra įtrauktas į mūsų kasdienį gyvenimą, socialinės žiniasklaidos sklaidos kanalus, sistemas, kad sugauti kreditinių kortelių sukčiavimą ir atpažinti veidus mūsų nuotraukose. Įrankiai, kuriais remiasi Liang, yra visi naujos kartos generuojantys AI, tokie, kaip OpenAI ChatGPT, Google Bard, Anthropic Claude ir Inflection Pi.

 

     Netrukus dauguma iš mūsų naudos tokius įrankius, net jei netiesiogiai, nebent norėtume rizikuoti atsilikti. Susidursime su vis didesniu skaičiumi pranešimų, sugeneruotų, naudojant AI pagalbą, su jų indėliu parengtais planais ir net produktais, kuriuos jie padėjo įkvėpti. Produktyvumą didinanti technologija linkusi pagerinti mūsų produkciją arba padaryti ją gausesnę, verčia žmones keisti darbo būdą, bet nesumažina darbo valandų. Tai reiškia, kad atotrūkis tarp tų, kurie naudoja dirbtinį intelektą produktyvumui, ir visų kitų, gali išaugti į bedugnę, nes mes kovojame su vis daugiau dalykų, kuriuos sukuria žmogaus protas ir naujos mašinų pagalbos rūšys.

 

     Neseniai technologijų ir konsultacijų įmonės „Capgemini“ atlikta pasaulinė apklausa, kurioje dalyvavo 10 000 žmonių, parodė, kad žmonės, kurie naudojo generatyvius AI įrankius pagrindinėms užduotims, pvz., informacijos paieškai ir apibendrinimui, buvo jais labai patenkinti. Kol kas generatyvūs AI įrankiai, galintys padidinti žmonių produktyvumą, reikalauja ankstyvo naudotojo mąstymo, nes daugelis šių įrankių tiekėjai vis dar nežinomi, o jų naudojimas, siekiant geriausio rezultato, tebėra neįprastas įgūdis.

 

     Tačiau neseniai JAV technologijų pramonės gigantai aiškiai pasakė, kad planuoja panaudoti generatyvaus AI galimybes į įrankius, kuriuos dauguma iš mūsų naudoja kasdien, kur jų bus beveik neįmanoma išvengti.

 

     Vos per pastarąsias dvi savaites „Microsoft“ paskelbė apie gilią generuojamųjų AI įrankių integraciją sistemoje „Windows 11“; „Google“ įdiegė „Bard“ generuojamojo AI pakeitimus, leidžiančius naudoti visus jūsų dokumentus, el. laiškus ir kalendoriaus elementus, kaip pašarą; „Amazon“ pristatė naujos kartos generuojamąsias AI galimybes savo „Alexa“ išmaniajam asistentui, todėl jis turėtų būti linksmesnis ir lankstesnis; ir „Meta“ paskelbė, kad „Instagram“, „WhatsApp“ ir „Facebook“ sukurs pokalbiais pagrįstą asistentą, taip pat daugybę kitų pokalbių robotų, pagrįstų įžymybėmis.

 

     Netgi „Apple“, kuri dar nepaskelbė apie savo tekstu pagrįstą generuojamąjį AI, tačiau jį kuria, praėjusią savaitę išleido naują „iPhone“ pritaikymo neįgaliesiems funkciją, kuri naudoja kitokią generuojamojo AI formą, kad būtų galima klonuoti vartotojo balsą.

 

     Staigus generatyvinių AI įrankių prieinamumas ir paplitimas negarantuoja, kad jie bus naudojami. Ir tai labai pirmosios kartos technologijos, kupinos varginančių apribojimų. Tačiau jei naudos, kurią ankstyvieji įsisavintojai jau gauna iš jų, yra koks nors požymis, netrukus bus priimta masė.

 

     Kadangi vis daugiau žmonių naudoja dirbtinį intelektą, kad padėtų jiems greičiau generuoti rašytinę ir vaizdinę komunikaciją, to turinio apimtis, greičiausiai, padidės. Tai gali reikšti, kad dirbtinis intelektas taip pat bus reikalingas, norint reaguoti į šį informacijos padidėjimą – geresnių jos filtrų pavidalu, taip pat naudojant AI, padedantį generuoti atsakymus į jį.

 

     Tie, kurie nepasirenka dirbtinio intelekto, kad padėtų apibendrinti kitų ataskaitas (greičiausiai sugeneruotas, naudojant AI), atsakyti į el. laiškus (taip pat) ar prisitaikyti prie naujų verslo procesų (taip pat sukurtų naudojant AI), rizikuoja paskęsti ryšių gaisrinės žarnos sraute ir padidėjusiame sudėtingumo lygyje.

 

     Kitas būdas, kuriame būtų neįmanoma išvengti generuojančio dirbtinio intelekto: tapus numatytąja informacijos, gaunamos iš interneto ir įmonėse, sąsaja. Jau dabar vienas iš dalykų, kuriuos kalbomis pagrįstos generacinės AI sistemos puikiai išmano, yra paieška ir apibendrinimas.

 

     Viena galima AI naudojimo kliūtis tokiu būdu: jis dažnai sugalvoja dalykų, o tai būdinga jo veikimui ir gali būti neišvengiama. Tai šiek tiek sumažina jo vertę, nes tai reiškia, kad negalime tiesiog perduoti užduočių AI, o visas jo darbas turi būti patikrintas. Tačiau dirbtinis intelektas vis dar gana gerai atlieka daugybę įprastų užduočių, pvz., dažnai naudojamo kodo ar teksto rašymą, ir gali sutaupyti naudotojų laiko, paversdamas juos redaktoriais, o ne turinio kūrėjais.

 

     Šis talentas padaryti informaciją labiau prieinamą ir lengviau ją paversti kitokio pobūdžio informacija yra akivaizdus naujojoje „Google“ Bard versijoje, vadinamoje plėtiniais.

 

     Leidžiant Bardui ieškoti ir apibendrinti viską, kas yra jūsų „Google“ paskyroje, duoda nuostabių rezultatų. Pavyzdžiui, paprašiau apibendrinti naujausius mano sukurtus dokumentus, kuriuose buvo idėjų konkrečiam kūrybiniam projektui. Jis ne tik pateikė glaustą šių skirtingų dokumentų turinio santrauką, bet ir teisingai suformulavo, kad juose pateiktos idėjos buvo ankstyvoje stadijoje. (Pastaba būsimiems istorikams: toks mažas pažeminimas, kurį reprezentuoja robotas, aistringai stebintis, kad žmogaus idėjos yra pusiau gatavos, prasidėjo maždaug... dabar.)

 

     Becca Chambers yra Otavoje įsikūrusios programinės įrangos įmonės „Alludo“ (anksčiau žinomos kaip „Corel“) vyresnioji viceprezidentė. Kai ji planuoja atostogas, ji naudoja OpenAI ChatGPT ir Google Bard. Neseniai ji sako, kad ji naudojo šiuos du variklius, planuodama 8 dienų atostogas Havajuose, įskaitant pagalbą išsirinkti viešbutį ir sudaryti maršrutus kiekvienai kelionės dienai.

 

     Visas procesas truko dvi dienas ir vyko kaip jos ir pokalbių robotų dialogas. Ji nurodydavo robotams parametrus – kiek žmonių atvyks, jų mitybos apribojimus, faktą, kad jie nuomosis automobilį – ir paprašė patikslinti savo pasiūlymus, pvz., reitinguoti viešbučius pagal kainą ir pridėti arba atimti elementus iš jų siūlomų maršrutų.

 

     Neseniai Liang turėjo ruoštis darbo pokalbiams. Į pagalbą ji pasitelkė Claude'ą ir ChatGPT, leisdamas robotams apsimesti pašnekovais, norinčiais pasamdyti ją produkto valdymo vaidmeniui. Ji taip pat jas naudoja ir tinklaraščio įrašo rašymo proceso pradžioje – kad padėtų susimąstyti – ir pabaigoje – kad jos užrašų kratinys taptų baigtu tinklaraščio įrašu, kurį gali redaguoti, prieš paskelbdama.

 

     Liang netgi naudoja vieną pokalbių robotą – Pi – kaip savotišką patarėją, kad padėtų jam susidoroti su jo gyvenimo iššūkiais. „Kartais jūs neieškote, kas pasiūlytų jums sprendimus, jūs tiesiog ieškote, kas jus išklausytų ir užduotų tikslingus klausimus“, – priduria jis.

 

     Kadangi vis daugiau žmonių pasikliauja pokalbiais pagrįstu informacijos gavimu, neinvestavimas į seną veiklos būdą gali reikšti, kad tie, kurie laikosi paprastos senos paieškos, gali rasti šiuolaikinį atitikmenį žmonėms, kurie vis dar naudojosi kortelių katalogais ir spausdintais indeksais, kai atsirado skaitmeninė paieška.

 

     Tai, kad generatyvusis dirbtinis intelektas yra plačiai paplitęs tiek, kaip būdas atlikti veiksmus, tiek kaip įtakojantis viską, su kuo susiduriame, nereiškia, kad kuriam nors iš šių įrankių ar jų įmonių pasiseks. Visų šių daugybės technologijų įmonių pranešimų tempas ir vienalaikiškumas rodo, kad tai, kas dabar vyksta, yra maniakiškas mūsų dėmesio, pinigų ir laiko griebimas. Ne visi šie įrankiai atlaikys, ypač atsižvelgiant į montavimo išlaidas, susijusias su jų eksploatavimu.

 

     Tačiau bendra generatyvaus AI trajektorija atrodo aiški – bent jau tiems, kurie šiuo metu yra labiausiai atsidavę jo vartotojai. O našumą didinančios automatikos istorija rodo, kad jie gali būti teisūs.

 

     „AI jaučiasi tokia svarbia priemone, kad jei jo nenaudosite, prarasite“, – sako Chambersas. "Manau, kad tai yra AI – mažiau pastangų, geresni rezultatai." [1]

 

1. EXCHANGE --- Keywords: AI Is About to Be Everywhere. Skeptics Risk Being Left Behind. --- Most of us will be using artificial intelligence soon enough. Those who don't? They'll be lumped in with the people who clung to the card catalog. Mims, Christopher.  Wall Street Journal, Eastern edition; New York, N.Y.. 30 Sep 2023: B.5.

 

AI Is About to Be Everywhere. Skeptics Risk Being Left Behind. --- Most of us will be using artificial intelligence soon enough. Those who don't? They'll be lumped in with the people who clung to the card catalog.

"Jacky Liang is living in the future.

An artificial-intelligence engineer in Philadelphia, he uses generative AI at work and in his personal life "as much as possible -- to the point that even my girlfriend is like 'Babe, please.'"

The tools he's using -- to look things up during his downtime, brainstorm for work, punch up his resume, or write blog posts -- go well beyond the kind of first-generation AI that is already embedded in our daily lives, sorting our social media feeds, catching credit card fraud and recognizing faces in our photos. The tools Liang relies on are all next-generation generative AIs, things like OpenAI's ChatGPT, Google's Bard, Anthropic's Claude, and Inflection's Pi.

Soon, most of us will use tools like these, even if indirectly, unless we want to risk falling behind. We will face a growing number of communications generated with AI assistance, plans made with their input, and even products they helped inspire. Productivity-enhancing technology tends to improve our output or make it more plentiful, forcing people to change how they work but not reducing the hours they spend at it. This means the gap between those using AI for productivity, and everyone else, threatens to widen into a chasm as we contend with more and more stuff produced by the combination of human minds and new kinds of machine assistance.

A recent global survey of 10,000 people by tech and consulting firm Capgemini found that people who have used generative AI tools for basic tasks like searching for and summarizing information were on the whole highly satisfied with them. For now, the generative AI tools that can boost people's productivity require an early adopter's mindset, since the purveyors of these tools are still unknown to many, and using them to best effect remains an uncommon skill.

But recently, the giants of the U.S. tech industry made it clear they have plans to bring the capabilities of generative AI deep into tools most of us use every day, where they will be nearly impossible to avoid.

In just the past two weeks, Microsoft announced deep integration of generative AI tools across Windows 11; Google rolled out changes to its Bard generative AI that allow it to use all your documents, emails and calendar items as fodder; Amazon showed off the next generation of generative AI capabilities for its Alexa smart assistant, which should make it chattier and more flexible; and Meta announced it would make a chat-based assistant, as well as a host of other chatbots based on celebrities, available in Instagram, WhatsApp and Facebook.

Even Apple -- which has yet to announce its own text-based generative AI but is developing one -- last week rolled out a new accessibility feature for iPhones that uses a different form of generative AI to clone a user's voice.

The sudden accessibility and ubiquity of generative AI tools do not guarantee that they'll be used. And these are very much first-generation technologies, full of frustrating limitations. But if the utility that early adopters already get out of them is any indication, adoption by the masses will soon follow.

As more people use AI to help them generate written and visual communications more quickly, the volume of that content is likely to increase. This could mean AI will also be needed to respond to this uptick in information -- in the form of better filters for it, but also in the use of AI to help generate responses to it.

Those who don't opt to use AI to help them summarize others' reports (likely generated with the help of AI), respond to emails (ditto) or adapt to new business processes (also created with the help of AI) risk drowning in a fire hose of communications and increased complexity.

Another way generative AI could make itself impossible to avoid: by becoming the default interface for information retrieved from the internet, and within companies. Already, one of the things language-based generative AI systems are pretty good at is search and summarization.

One potential stumbling block to the use of AI in this way: It often makes stuff up, a tendency that is inherent to the way it works, and may be unavoidable. This reduces its value somewhat, as it means that we can't just hand tasks over to AI, and all of its work must be checked. But AI is still pretty good at taking care of a lot of rote tasks -- like writing often-used, boilerplate code or text -- and can save its users time by turning them into editors, rather than content creators.

This talent for making information more accessible -- and transforming it into other kinds of information more easily -- is apparent in Google's new Bard rollout, called Extensions.

Enabling Bard to search and summarize across everything in your Google account yields, in my own experience, some astonishing results. For example, I asked it to summarize recent documents I'd created that contained ideas for a specific creative project. It not only delivered a succinct summary of the contents of these disparate documents, but it also editorialized -- correctly -- that the ideas contained in them were at an early stage. (Note to future historians: The kind of low-key humiliation represented by a robot dispassionately observing that a human's ideas are half-baked began approximately . . . now.)

Becca Chambers is a senior vice president at Ottawa-based software company Alludo (formerly known as Corel). When she's planning a vacation, she uses OpenAI's ChatGPT and Google's Bard. Recently, she says, she used the two engines to plan an 8-day Hawaiian vacation, including helping her pick a hotel and coming up with itineraries for every day of the trip.

The whole process took two days, and played out as a dialogue between her and the chatbots. She'd give the bots parameters -- how many people were coming, their dietary restrictions, the fact that they'd be renting a car -- and then she asked them to refine their suggestions, such as ranking hotels by price, and adding or subtracting items from their suggested itineraries.

Recently, Liang had to prepare for job interviews. He used Claude and ChatGPT to help, by having the bots pretend to be interviewers interested in hiring him for a product management role. He also uses them both at the beginning of the process of writing a blog post -- to help brainstorm -- and at the end -- to turn his jumble of notes into a finished blog post, which he can then edit before posting.

Liang even uses one chatbot -- Pi -- as a kind of counselor, to help him process challenges in his life. "Sometimes you're not looking for someone to give you solutions, you're just looking for someone to listen to you and ask you targeted questions," he adds.

As more people come to rely on chat-based information retrieval, disinvestment in the old way of doing things could mean those who stick with plain-old search find themselves the contemporary equivalent of people who still used card catalogs and printed indexes when digital search was first ascendant.

The creeping ubiquity of generative AI both as a way to do things and an influencer of everything we're exposed to doesn't mean that any one of these tools or companies will succeed. The pace and simultaneity of all of these announcements from so many tech companies suggests that what's going on now is a manic land grab for our attention, money, and time. Not all of these tools will endure, especially given the mounting costs of running them.

But the overall trajectory of generative AI seems clear -- at least to those who are currently its most devoted users. And the history of productivity-enhancing automation suggests they may be right.

"AI feels like such an important tool, that if you're not using it, you're missing out," says Chambers. "I think that's what AI is -- less effort, better results."" [1]

1. EXCHANGE --- Keywords: AI Is About to Be Everywhere. Skeptics Risk Being Left Behind. --- Most of us will be using artificial intelligence soon enough. Those who don't? They'll be lumped in with the people who clung to the card catalog. Mims, Christopher.  Wall Street Journal, Eastern edition; New York, N.Y.. 30 Sep 2023: B.5.

 

Europa sužinojo, kad jos elektromobiliai bus gaminami Kinijoje

„Mūsų besivystančiame meilės ir neapykantos elektromobiliams romane apstu ironijos, o rugsėjis atnešė keletą nesėkmių: europiečiai aistringiau tiki klimato veiksmais, nei amerikiečiai, tačiau Europos politinės kovos dėl elektrinių transporto priemonių bus kur kas niūresnės nei tai, kas vykst. JAV, taip yra todėl, kad Europa – taip, ta Europa – taip pat, matyt, labiau tiki laisvąja rinka, nei Amerika.

 

     Šios nepatogios tiesos slypi po šio mėnesio pranešimo, kad Europos Komisija pasvers galimus naujus tarifus iš Kinijos importuojamiems elektromobiliams.

 

     Nepaisant kelių dešimtmečių politinių pažadų padaryti priešingai, žaliasis perėjimas gali tapti darbo vietų žudiku išsivysčiusiose ekonomikose. 

 

Automobiliai yra pavyzdys. Europoje yra didelė ir klestinti automobilių pramonė, kuri sukuria apie 10 % visos Europos Sąjungos gamybos pridėtinės vertės, o kai kuriose Vidurio ir Rytų Europos šalyse – iki 23 %. Tačiau pramonė sukurta taip, kad būtų pelninga, atsižvelgiant į unikalų žaliavų rinkinį, tiekimo grandines, darbo sąnaudas, energijos sąnaudas ir prekybos politiką, kuria siekiama gaminti modernius vidaus degimo automobilius.

 

     Elektros automobiliai bus sunkiau. Briuselis tikisi, kad Europa iki 2025 m. importuos iš Kinijos 15 % elektromobilių, kuriuos europiečiai perka. Kaina yra esminis Kinijos pranašumas, kuris iš dalies susijęs su darbo sąnaudomis, iš dalies su žaliavų, pvz., retųjų žemių metalų, prieinamumu ir, taip,  iš dalies su Pekino pramonės politika.

 

     Tai neturėtų būti svarbu, nes Europos gamyklos konkurencingomis kainomis išleidžia benzininius ir dyzelinius automobilius, kurių pirkėjai vis dar nori. Išskyrus tai, kad Europos politikai naudoja daugybę vartotojų subsidijų ir griežtos jėgos mandatų, kad priverstų visuomenę pirkti produktą, kurį Europa gamina ne taip konkurencingai. Taigi nenustebkite, jei Kinijos dalis Europos elektromobilių rinkoje smarkiai išaugs dėl Kinijos kainų pranašumų, nes Europos siūlomi elektromobilių įgaliojimai vis labiau pasiekia vidutines ir mažesnes pajamas gaunančius namų ūkius, kur automobilio kaina bus svarbesnė.

 

     Europiečiai skundžiasi tokia situacija, kad Europa nėra Amerika. Vašingtonas turi daugiau juokingų pasaulinės valiutos rezervų pinigų, kad galėtų išmesti pramonės subsidijas elektromobiliams ir viskam. ES vyriausybėms trūksta finansinių išteklių, kad galėtų tokiu pat būdu tiesiogiai subsidijuoti savo pramonės šakas. Jie taip pat vis labiau nerimauja dėl EV gamintojų subsidijavimo politikos, verčiant namų ūkius pirkti brangesnius elektromobilius didesniais kiekiais.

 

     Vašingtonas taip pat turi mažiau skrupulų, nei Briuselis dėl laisvųjų rinkų ir laisvos prekybos. Šis begėdiškumas leido Bideno administracijai ir Kongreso demokratams į Infliacijos mažinimo įstatymą įtraukti didžiules prekybą iškreipiančias elektromobilių subsidijas, pavyzdžiui, vietinio turinio taisykles, pagal kurias vartotojams mokami elektromobilių mokesčių kreditai, perkant, Amerikoje pagamintas, transporto priemones.

 

     ES įsipareigojimas santykinai laisvesnei prekybai reiškia, kad ji jau dabar taiko mažesnius tarifus automobilių importui, nei tai daro JAV. O dėl ilgalaikių ES taisyklių beveik neįmanoma įvesti „pirk-Europą“ nuostatų. Šių taisyklių keitimas būtų nemenkas reikalas, nes prekybos liberalizavimas, kurio nesupranta ES amerikietiški kritikai, yra viena iš nedaugelio gijų, laikančių ES vieninga.

 

     Pasibaigus subsidijoms ir Europos pirkimo mandatams, ES tarifas Kinijos elektromobiliams reikštų bandymą kitu būdu sureguliuoti Vakarų subsidijų, perkant elektromobilius, ir Pekino subsidijų jų gamybai sąveiką. Deja, Briuseliui, vargu ar pavyks.

 

     Kinija iš tikrųjų turi Europos ir Amerikos elektromobilių pramonę Kinijos žemėje. Maždaug pusė elktromobilių, kuriuos Kinija eksportavo pirmąjį šių metų pusmetį, buvo pagaminta Tesla arba bendrose Europos automobilių gamintojų ir Kinijos įmonių įmonėse. Dauguma naujų elektromobilių registracijų Vokietijoje, pavyzdžiui, yra arba šių firmų produktai, arba parduodami tokiomis markėmis, kaip MG ar Volvo, kurių nuosavybė yra Kinijoje, bet Europos šaknys. Tikriausiai, neįmanoma rasti teisinio metodo, kaip taikyti tarifą vien Kinijos gamintojų gaminamiems elektromobiliams, o atleisti visus kitus, tačiau prekybos teisininkai bus tuo užimti daugelį metų.

 

     Galų gale kas nors supras, kad paprasčiausias būdas apsaugoti Europos automobilių darbo vietas – leisti vartotojams pirkti geriausius pramonės gaminius. Europa gali ten patekti greičiau, nei JAV, nes fiskaliniai ir laisvosios prekybos suvaržymai tiesiog per griežti, kad būtų galima elgtis kitaip. JK, dabar nepriklausanti ES, pirmavo anksčiau šį mėnesį, kai ministras pirmininkas Rishi Sunak atšaukė Londono mandatą, kad visi nauji automobiliai iki 2030 m. būtų elektromobiliai.

 

     Tačiau būtent dėl to, kad politikai sužadino tokį populiarų entuziazmą klimato kaitos veiksmams ir jau prašė mokesčių mokėtojų bei komunalinių paslaugų vartotojų į savo pastangas įnešti tiek pinigų, šis grįžimas prie sveiko proto bus skausmingas. P. Sunako konservatorių partija per visą savo buvimą griauna grynojo nulio pažadus. Europos elektromobilių tarifas gali padėti kitiems lyderiams pabandyti įgyvendinti sklandesnį politikos piruetą, tačiau laikas yra viskas, ką galima nusipirkti – ne daugiau Europoje pagamintų elektromobilių." [1]

 

Komunistams pasitraukus iš Lietuvos, pražydo kapitalizmas. Kai kurios naujos įmonės gamino nekokybiškas prekes. Lietuviai jas vadino: „Pagaminta rūsyje“ (liet. tarmiškai: sklepo darbas). Taip pasaulis sutiks ir amerikietiškus elektromobilius, pagamintus, nežinant, kaip pritaikyti serijinei gamybai šiuolaikines technologijas, ir be apmokytų darbuotojų. Visas pasaulis perka kiniškus elektromobilius. Jūsų sušiktos subsidijos yra mažos, palyginti su tuo. Išvada: Kinija laimi, Vakarai atsilieka elektromobiliuose, ir jau nieko negalima padaryti.

 

  1. Europe Learns Its Electric Cars Will Be Made in China. Sternberg, Joseph C.  Wall Street Journal, Eastern edition; New York, N.Y.. 29 Sep 2023: A.17.