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What to decode:

• 👴 The ‘Godfather of AI’ quits Google

• 🧠 AI makes mind-reading possible

• 💻 IBM plans to replace 7800 jobs with AI

Read time: 3 minutes

👴 The ‘Godfather of AI’ quits Google

Geoffrey Hinton, a prominent figure in the AI world often referred to as the "Godfather" of AI, has resigned from Google to facilitate open discussions about AI safety. According to a New York Times article, Hinton wants the freedom to discuss potential risks associated with AI without worrying about how it might impact Google.

He has even expressed regret about his life's work, acknowledging that bad actors will inevitably misuse AI technology. This news comes amid growing concerns raised by experts such as Yudkowsky and Gary Marcus, making it a significant development in the field of AI. For more background on Hinton, refer to this article.

🧠 Researchers use fMRI and language models to read people’s minds

Scientists have employed a cutting-edge method to analyze people's thoughts - utilizing fMRI and language models. By utilizing a combination of fMRI scans and GPT technology, researchers were able to demonstrate that they could decode the general theme of a film shown to patients.

This incredible feat of effectively reading a person's mind was achieved by training the model to associate fMRI scan activity with known audio-visual content, then utilizing that understanding to comprehend what the individuals were viewing or hearing. In addition to the potential for frighteningly dystopian implications, this technology could potentially assist people with disabilities in communicating, which is quite promising!

Here is the The New York Times article without a paywall

💻 IBM plans to replace 7800 jobs with AI

After Dropbox's decision to terminate 500 employees and substitute them with AI, IBM has announced its plan to automate 7,800 jobs and put a hold on hiring for positions that could be fulfilled by automated technology.

Arvind Krishna, the CEO of IBM, revealed that the majority of back-office jobs, including accounting and HR roles, would be replaced by AI. He predicted that within five years, around 30% of those jobs could be automated.

As AI is already having a significant impact on employment, what steps are you taking to prepare for the future job market?

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FASCINATING FINDS

• On this day - On May 2, 1780, William Herschel discovered the first binary star. Named Xi Ursae Majoris, this star system was the first of its kind to be discovered. A binary star system is two stars that orbit around their common center of mass. (link)

• Weird but interesting - Banks have therapists known as Wealth Psychologist who help ultra-rich clients, who are unable to mentally cope with their immense wealth. (link)

• Mind-boggling statistics - There is more processing power in a TI-83 calculator than in the computer that landed Apollo 11 on the moon.

MISCELLANEOUS

(News, podcasts, videos, blogs etc)

• AI will make our society even more unequal, economists warn. (link)

• The computer scientist peering inside AI’s black boxes. (link)

• IBM to pause hiring in plan to replace 7,800 jobs with AI. (link)

• AI isn’t the app, it’s the UI. (link)

• What do self-supervised vision transformers learn? (link)

• Speak, Memory - An archaeology of books known to ChatGPT/GPT-4. (link)

• The attack of AI-generated news content farms is just beginning. (link)

That's all for now!

As always, thanks for reading, and see you next time. 🫡