March 28, 2024
Hi everyone!
Welcome to the 90 new subscribers who signed up since the March 11 issue! There are now 2,005 subscribers — mostly because this newsletter under its former name (Mobile Apps News) has been around since 2014.
In this issues we’ll look at
An interesting article: How People Are Really Using GenAI - Harvard Business Review
A defense of open source for AI models: Open Weights, Open Society, Open Future - Danial Jeffries
Several stories about how generative AI can help with accessibility.
Lots of examples of how higher ed instructors are using generative AI in classrooms: Incorporating Generative AI in Teaching and Learning: Faculty Examples Across Disciplines - Columbia Center for Teaching & Learning
AI in Libraries. a fun and interesting 3-hour event on March 21 now has the recordings available for free on this YouTube playlist.
I hope you enjoy it! And spread the news to your friends and colleagues.
Foundation model news
OpenAI Gears Up for Mid-Year Launch of GPT-5: Report - Voicebot
How Apple's Discussions with Google and OpenAI Could Impact Generative AI - Synthedia
Microsoft Taps Inflection AI Co-Founders to Run Microsoft AI - Voicebot
ChatGPT Can ‘Read Aloud’ Responses in 5 Voices and 37 Languages - Voicebot
Open Weights, Open Society, Open Future - Danial Jeffries
A passionate defense of open source for AI models.
Nvidia unveils next-gen Blackwell GPUs with 25X lower costs and energy consumption - VentureBeat
Understanding the technology
Explainable AI: Thinking Like a Machine - Towards AI
Interesting details about the field of “explainable AI.” Learn the difference between understandability, transparency, and interpretability.
How Chain-of-Thought Reasoning Helps Neural Networks Compute - Quanta Magazine
”Large language models do better at solving problems when they show their work. Researchers are beginning to understand why.”
Generative AI for multimedia
Photographer Annie Leibovitz: 'AI doesn't worry me at all' - France24
"With each technological progress, there are hesitations and concerns. You just have to take the plunge and learn how to use it." She says AI-generated images are no less authentic than photography.
The Art of Prompt Engineering: BU Researchers Explore How Generative AI Impacts Human Creativity in Artistic Communities - BU Experts (Boston University)
Seven Arguments about AI Images and Generative Media (PDF) - Lev Manovich, Computer Science professor at the City University of New York's Graduate Center
More free book chapters: Artificial Aesthetics: Generative AI, art and visual media
A ChatGPT for Music Is Here. Inside Suno, the Startup Changing Everything - Rolling Stone
I’ve been experimenting with music generation with Suno and will write more about that in an upcoming newsletter.
AI is changing music forever | Holly Herndon and Mat Dryhurst - YouTube
Interesting video about voice cloning (not for deepfakes, but with permission for artistic use).
‘We Cannot Fight A.I.’: How Art Schools Are Navigating the Challenge of Artificial Intelligence - Artnet
It’s good to hear from art school professors.
Will A.I. Usher in the End of Human Artists? Fear Not, Some Say - Artnet
Interesting thoughts from some professional artists who are more optimistic than pessimistic.
Tips & practical info
How to unleash the power of AI, with Ethan Mollick - YouTube
Azeem Azhar of Exponential View interviews professor Ethan Mollick. Very interesting (but there are some audio issues in the recording).
The 6Cs of prompt writing - Tianyu Xu on LinkedIn
Clarity, context, cases, chunking, composition, creativity.
Midjourney Finally Does Consistent Characters. Let's Play! - Why Try AI
How to use this new feature in Midjourney.
How People Are Really Using GenAI - Harvard Business Review
Interesting use cases, grouped into six themes.
Bias
Solutions to AI image bias raise their own ethical questions - Marketplace
Should AI images depict the world as it is? Or as it should be?
AI safety is not a model property: Trying to make an AI model that can’t be misused is like trying to make a computer that can’t be used for bad things - AI Snake Oil
From one of my favorite newsletters by two academics from Princeton University.
Deepfakes
YouTube Tells Creators: ‘Label AI-Generated Content’ - PetaPixel
Counterfeit Books Are a Growing Problem, but a Solution May Be Near - Publishers Weekly
It’s very easy to remove watermarks.
4 Tips for Spotting AI-Generated Pics - Snopes
Why AI Image Generators Can’t Get Hands Right - PetaPixel
Generative AI is forcing people to rethink what it means to be authentic - The Conversation
Accessibility
AI for ADHD: How to Make ChatGPT Work for You - ADDitude
Examples of people with ADHD using artificial intelligence to manage their day-to-day tasks.
AI & Accessibility: The present and potential future of automated transcriptions - JISC
Mentions a couple of interesting projects that seek to create a large data set which represents voices traditionally excluded: including non-English speakers, disabled people and LGBTQIA+ people.
Using AI Tools To Help With Dyslexia and ADHD Assessment - LD Resources Foundation Action
Discusses the advantages of AI for helping individuals with challenges related to Dyslexia and Executive Functioning.
Generative AI and accessibility in education - JISC
Personalizing content and collaborating with AI.
AI: Empowering Inclusive Education - JISC
A neurodiverse master’s student talks about how generative AI helps her process and understand complex information.
Generative AI in education
Universities Build Their Own ChatGPT-like Tools - Inside Higher Ed
University of Michigan, UC Irvine, and others.
Changing AI landscape pushes campus departments to increase AI literacy programing - The Badger, University of Wisconsin
”Microsoft Copilot, a generative AI tool currently available to UW faculty and staff, will be available to students later this semester, despite non-universal permission to use it for coursework.”
Teachers Are Using AI to Create New Worlds, Help Students with Homework, and Teach English - The Markup
Hear from teachers around the world about how they are using AI in teaching.
Student perceptions of generative AI - JISC
”To ensure a broad range of perspectives, we conducted both online and face-to-face sessions, allowing students to engage and express their thoughts anonymously.”
We need to address the generative AI literacy gap in higher education - Inside Higher Ed
A faculty member from Arizona State University discusses how they are focusing on improving generative AI literacy in faculty, staff and students.
Incorporating Generative AI in Teaching and Learning: Faculty Examples Across Disciplines - Columbia Center for Teaching & Learning
At Columbia University, faculty across disciplines provide a glimpse into their approaches as they experiment with AI in their classrooms and teach AI literacy to their students. Lots of examples here.
Generative AI in libraries
AI in Libraries was a fun and interesting 3-hour event on March 21. I especially enjoyed the opening keynote panel, and the closing keynote with Dr. Maggie Melo. She focused on equity issues for students — I agree that all students need experience with generative AI these days. The recordings are available on YouTube.
The Challenges Posed By The Emergence Of Generative AI - Ian Clark
Clark writes about his presentation at this event: A Practical look at AI and HE Libraries. He makes many good points.
Just for fun
Pooky Park: AI-generated 1950s TV commercial for a family theme park, where customers are chased by giant, somewhat terrifying puppets.
The video generation tools can be weird and uncanny, so this video uses that to its advantage!
AI - Tinpot Jazz Orchestra - on Vimeo
Here’s another AI-generated video where the crazy effects are kind of fun!
How to lo-fi with A.I. - Nobody & the Computer
A fun channel about AI music generation.
My offerings
Student guide to ChatGPT - University of Arizona Libraries
I worked with several colleagues to create this guide, along with a similar guide for instructors: AI Literacy in the age of ChatGPT. Both guides are free to copy and share, with a CC 4.0 license.
Recently, I added a chart to both guides: Which AI tool for your task? Take a look and think about the difference between tools that are “wordsmiths” vs. tools for search.
Last summer I worked with a colleague to create four Tutorials about generative AI. I recently updated them and will soon add additional tutorials about multimedia generation.
Find all of our University of Arizona Libraries generative AI resources here: https://libguides.library.arizona.edu/genAI/guides .
The future
Evolving New Foundation Models: Unleashing the Power of Automating Model Development — Sakana.ai
“We expect there will be a growing trend in AI development: evolving new models with unexpected abilities by combining existing ones. This is especially exciting when we consider the skyrocketing costs of training massive foundation models from scratch. By leveraging the vast open-source ecosystem of diverse foundation models, large organizations like government institutions and enterprises can explore a more cost-effective evolutionary approach. This lets us develop early stage foundation models faster before committing significant resources to building entirely custom models, if that is even needed at all. It’s essentially getting more out of what we already have, paving the way for quicker innovation cycles.”
AI Agents Take the Wheel: Devin, SIMA, Figure 01 and The Future of Jobs
—From AI Explained on YouTube, one of my favorite channels.
Learn more
If you want to learn more about generative AI, contact me about doing a webinar for your group.
Later this year I’ll offer a 4-6 week asynchronous online course about generative AI. Sign up here if you’d like to be notified when it’s ready.
And as always, you can follow me on X, Mastodon, or Bluesky, where I post daily about generative AI.