Then what are we afraid of?

https://skventures.substack.com/p/ai-isnt-good-enough

AI Isn’t Good Enough

… As we’ve written previously, what’s important about this wave of automation is how it is more skewed toward jobs that can be described as requiring “tacit knowledge,” where we know what to do but can’t always create programmatic ways of doing things. These jobs are not assembly lines, so simply throwing capital (orthodox automation) at the problem doesn’t work.

That is why, in a sense, the current wave of AI has come along at the perfect time. It is the first automation technology to be applicable to tacit knowledge, to tasks where we can’t describe in a linear ABC way how inputs turn into outputs. To that way of thinking, we should embrace and not fear the current wave of technological change, in that it can help with the observed shortages in U.S. workers, and do so in a replicable and continuous way, not unlike traditional automation. 

The trouble is—not to put too fine a point on it—current-generation AI is mostly crap. Sure, it is terrific at using its statistical models to come up with textual passages that read better than the average human’s writing, but that’s not a particularly high hurdle. Most humans are terrible writers and have no interest in getting better. Similarly, current LLM-based AI is very good at comparing input text to rules-based models, impairing the livelihood of cascading stylesheet pedants who mostly shouted at people (fine, at Paul) on StackExchange and Reddit. Now you can just ask LLMs to write that code for you or check crap code you’ve created yourself.

A fallback position? Do we not have enough already?

https://www.bespacific.com/the-constitutional-case-for-barring-trump-from-the-presidency/

The Constitutional Case for Barring Trump from the Presidency

The New Yorker [free to read ]: “Earlier this month, two conservative law professors announced that they would be publishing an article, which will appear in the University of Pennsylvania Law Review next year, arguing that Donald Trump is ineligible for the Presidency. The professors, William Baude and Michael Stokes Paulsen, make the case that unless Congress grants Trump amnesty, he cannot run for or hold the office of the Presidency again because of his behavior surrounding the events of January 6th. The argument rests on Baude and Paulsen’s interpretation of Section 3 of the Fourteenth Amendment, which states that officeholders, such as the President, who have taken an oath to “support” the Constitution and “shall have engaged in insurrection or rebellion against the same, or given aid or comfort to the enemies thereof” will no longer hold such an office. Several days ago, Laurence Tribe, a liberal law professor, and J. Michael Luttig, a conservative former judge for the U.S. Court of Appeals, wrote an article for The Atlantic, in which they essentially endorsed the view advanced by Baude and Paulsen: “The former president’s efforts to overturn the 2020 presidential election, and the resulting attack on the U.S. Capitol, place him squarely within the ambit of the disqualification clause, and he is therefore ineligible to serve as president ever again.” …If you just step back from the legalese, the clause has its origins in the postbellum era. It was to disqualify persons who had previously taken an oath and then engaged in insurrection or rebellion. I have had so many people in the past forty-eight hours say to me, It just makes common sense, doesn’t it? And I say to them, Yes, I think it does in its application to the former President. He had taken an oath to support the Constitution, and he engaged in insurrection or rebellion, or he had provided assistance, aid, or comfort to a rebellion in or around January 6th, when he attempted to overturn the 2020 Presidential election. And he inspired and at least gave aid and comfort to the attack on the United States Capitol for the purpose of interfering with and preventing the joint session from counting the electoral votes for the Presidency, the former President knowing that the electoral votes had been cast for then candidate Joe Biden. That’s a classic understanding of an insurrection or rebellion against the authority of the United States…”

Tools & Techniques. Automating teachers?

https://www.bespacific.com/5-free-ai-sites-that-use-chatgpt-to-generate-custom-online-courses/

5 Free AI Sites That Use ChatGPT to Generate Custom Online Courses

MakeUseOf: “There are millions of free online courses to choose from online to study any subject. But if you want something very specific, you can also turn to ChatGPT. These websites use the power of GPT-4 to create a guided online course on any topic you ask, often complete with quizzes, tests, and exercises…

101 School already hosts a library of GPT-generated courses for you to browse and enroll in. They’re classified in categories such as science and mathematics, engineering and technology, arts, literature, communication, social sciences, legal, admin, personal services, health and safety, business and management, etc. Any course you start has a simple three-pane format. The first pane is the index, showing you each chapter or section. The middle pane displays the current unit’s content of text and images; so far, we haven’t found any GPT-generated course on 101 School with video content. The last pane is a ChatGPT window, where you can ask AI to give you a test on the material you just read, conduct practical exercises, or ask for further reading. Of course, you can also ask any other question using the best prompting techniques for ChatGPT. You can go through the whole course in one go or ask to get a daily, bi-daily, or weekly email containing the next unit. You’ll need to register for a free account to keep track of your progress in courses, or to create your own course…”