You can read this, or any other previous Mom Weeklies, by going to the home page here.
Notes:
I shared a Cal Newport podcast episode a couple of months ago, but he’s been doing his “AI Reality Check” episodes and they are well worth listening to!
Also, see if you can notice the word I use here that is associated with one of my dear children. 🙂
Remember how much I love you,
Mom
AI Reality Check
As many of you know, I am not a fan of AI.
When I’ve used an LLM to tell me things about what I know well, the mistakes and hallucinations are often laughable. It makes me wonder about what else it gets wrong. AI art is atrocious, and that is not even an opinion. The environmental and social impact of people using AI for nefarious purposes is real.
I know there might be use cases for using AI responsibly and well, so I’m not saying it’s irredeemable. And AI and machine learning are part of many technologies we have used for years. The idea of using AI tools to make us smarter is not bad, but I fear that lately, people have been accepting uncritically the narrative that AI is inevitable for everything.
However, the current hype around AI, especially the news around the large companies involved in it, seems to both over-promise the benefits and understate the negative impacts.
So I was happy that Cal Newport, the MIT-trained computer science professor and bestselling writer, has started a new series on his podcast/YouTube channel called “AI Reality Check.” Here’s a recent episode.
Almost every Thursday, Newport does a short episode explaining a news item(s) related to AI. He’ll spend the episode explaining the technology, and explaining why usually the media has gotten some element of AI wrong.
I enjoy the technology primers since Newport is a computer science professor at Georgetown and really understands the technology.
What I like best about these? Newport conveys that media literacy and critical thinking are even more important because the media is often getting it wrong.
Newport calls the tendency for media to start with a conclusion “vibe reporting.” Journalists start with a thesis, and then make their story fit the narrative, instead of fact-gathering.
Having been involved in both journalism and public relations on contentious issues, I’m no stranger to media fitting their stories to their thesis, instead of reporting what’s true.
More than once, I had reporters repeatedly (to well past the “badgering” point) ask me questions. That was so they could get me to say the line that they wanted to put into their story, instead of what I was actually saying. I wish 20something me had been able to cut those reporters off sooner, instead of politely repeating myself.
Newport thinks, as do I, that the “vibe reporting” aspect of AI coverage is most damaging, because people eventually learn not to trust media coverage of a topic, in this case AI.
Newport ends each episode with the line: “Care about AI, but not everything you read about it.”
Interesting/Notable:
There’s a Good Reason You Can’t Concentrate (NY Times Gift Link)
Dad shared this article with me recently, and I just noticed it was written by Cal Newport! Making a good case here for exercising our brains wisely.
I Found It: The Best Free Restaurant Bread in America (The Atlantic gift link)
This article made me laugh so very much. It is 1,000 percent worth reading as a balm to all the wild craziness that is the news cycle.
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