2024 UPDATE!! Altman: prepare for AI to be "uncomfortable" 33% US jobs gone..SKYNET, AI medical advances? BASIC INCOME? 1st AI MOVIE! AI MAYOR!!

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AI Doesn’t Kill Jobs? Tell That to Freelancers​


There’s now data to back up what freelancers have been saying for months​

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Reid Southen, a freelance concept artist for TV and movies, says his income fell sharply last year. Brittany Greeson for WSJ



Christopher Mims



By Christopher Mims

June 21, 2024 9:00 pm ET

Jennifer Kelly, a freelance copywriter in the picturesque New England town of Walpole, N.H., feels bad for any young people who might try to follow in her footsteps.

Not long after OpenAI’s ChatGPT made its debut, financial advisers who had depended on her 30 years of experience writing about wealth management stopped calling. New clients failed to replace them. Her income dried up almost completely.

When she asked, the clients she lost insisted they weren’t using artificial intelligence. But then, months later, some came back to her with an unusual request. The copy they’d been using AI to generate, they sheepishly admitted, wasn’t very good—and could she make it better?

“It’s not a fix,” she says of the empty-headed, generic pabulum that AI excels at writing. “You redo it.”

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Freelance copywriter Jennifer Kelly watched clients disappear after the debut of OpenAI’s ChatGPT. Photo: Jennifer Kelly

Kelly’s story is specific to her skills and circumstances, but it’s also an embodiment of what has happened to freelancers all over the U.S. and the world.

It is also, perhaps, an early sign of how Al could replace other types of workers. Most jobs are a collection of different tasks, so the ability of Al to complete those tasks is the ultimate measure of future job security — or lack thereof.

We can be reasonably certain her story is typical of the experience of tens of thousands, perhaps millions of people, because at least a half dozen studies using data from freelance job boards have been published in the past year, each one building on the previous. Nonpublic data from within at least one such service corroborates this work.

It’s a remarkably fast turnaround for such research, considering that ChatGPT is less than two years old. Wall Street Journal owner News Corp has a content-licensing partnership with OpenAI.

Freelance jobs that require basic writing, coding or translation are disappearing across postings on job board Upwork, said Kelly Monahan, managing director of the company’s Research Institute.

Her findings echo those of more than a dozen other researchers at institutions including Harvard Business School, Washington University in St. Louis and the University of Hong Kong. They have found that since the debut of ChatGPT and other generative AI models, the number of freelance jobs posted on Upwork, Fiverr and related platforms, in the areas in which generative AI excels, have dropped by as much as 21%.

Impact of Generative AI by task typePercentage change in pay since ChatGPT rolled out in November 2022Source: UpworkNote: High value tasks are defined as complex and requiring skill, while low value ones are repetitive,routine and can often be automated.

High valueLow value

Economists are fond of saying that AI will automate away some tasks, but is unlikely to eliminate many jobs, since most jobs are much broader and more demanding than the parts that can be handed to AI.

But freelancers represent an increasing proportion of the workforce: One study by Upwork found 38% of Americans did some kind of freelance work in 2022. For this type of work, it’s sometimes the case that the bulk of a person’s job is doing precisely the tasks that can be automated—and that can put their entire livelihood at risk.

Reid Southen is a concept artist for TV and movies, including ones you’ve probably heard of, including Blue Beetle and the Matrix Resurrections. His income in 2023 was less than half of what he would make in a typical year, he says. That’s even worse than 2020, when the entire film and TV industry effectively shut down.

Southen’s work typically happens in the early stages of a project, when producers need detailed sketches to help them establish the look of a film or show. This kind of behind-the-scenes work is being handed to AI faster than any other part of the film and TV business, as producers seek to cut costs in the face of a broader slowdown in their industry. Much of it is being handled by Midjourney, the image generation AI which by late 2022 was capable of producing photorealistic images from nothing but a short text prompt. If concept artists are brought in at all, it’s to tweak the images already generated by AI, says Southen.

Southen’s experience has been echoed by others in his field, across social media and in the whisper networks that artists like him rely on.

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Reid Southen’s concept-designer job has been one of the first to be replaced by AI, with generative AI programs like Midjourney being used by film and TV producers. Photo: Brittany Greeson for WSJ

“You can talk to any artist at this point, and they have a story about how they were given AI reference material to work from, or lost a job,” says Southen.

In addition to fewer projects, studios and production companies are cutting the amount of time for which they typically hire artists. What was once a three-to-six-month project is now perhaps a few weeks, and often pays rates far below what is typical, says Southen. He was recently offered a job that included a lot of Al-generated art in its pitch deck already, and the producers offered him half his usual rate to create more.

As in other periods of rapid adoption of automation, there are those who benefit from the shift. Freelancers who become more productive when using AI, but can’t yet be replaced by it, such as data science and IT, earn on average 40% more, says a spokeswoman for Upwork.

And then there are the freelancers who report that demand for their work is up because, at least in their more demanding and specialized roles, AI isn’t living up to the hype.

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David Erik Nelson, a freelance sales and marketing copywriter, is being asked to rewrite prose produced by AI. Photo: Justin Lundquist

Not long after ChatGPT debuted in November 2022, David Erik Nelson, a freelance sales and marketing copywriter in Ann Arbor, Mich., saw a jump in inquiries.

“I was picking up new clients whose specific complaint was that their previous vendor had been giving them AI-generated content, and hadn’t been straightforward about it,” says Nelson. The AI had produced smooth prose intended for sales materials, but it was so generic, and often wrong, that it wasn’t about to convince people making six- and seven-figure purchasing decisions.

“The marketing people think it looks fine,” says Nelson, “but then you hand it to someone who actually knows something about industrial fluid purification, and they’re like, ‘This is word salad.’”

In some ways, what AI is doing to freelancers is a tale as old as technology, says Monahan, the researcher at Upwork. Routine, low-skilled tasks that can be fully automated will mean lower wages for freelancers who once did those tasks, she adds.

Kelly, the copywriter in New Hampshire, is glad that at 62, she won’t have to endure many more years of being asked why she doesn’t use AI to speed up her work, or to clean up the dreck it generates. “We’ll be OK—our house is paid for, and I can get social security,” she says.

But the way that writing by humans is being replaced by what she sees as inferior material generated by AI still irks her. AI-generated content might still rank in Google search, but having seen so much of it, she can now spot it easily.

“When I see something that looks like it was written by AI, I just switch off,” she adds. “The internet has just gotten so much duller.”
 

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Who Is AI Replacing? The Impact of Generative AI on Online Freelancing Platforms

PDF:




Generative AI Leads to 21% Decline in Freelance Writing and Coding Jobs​

Research reveals a notable reduction in the demand for freelancers with skills in writing and coding due to advancements in generative AI.



Markus Kasanmascheff


By Markus Kasanmascheff

June 22, 2024 4:42 pm CEST

0


Freelancer home office

A new analysis conducted by researchers from Harvard Business School, the German Institute for Economic Research, Technische Universität Berlin, and Imperial College Business School highlights a significant change in the freelance job market. It concludes that the launch of ChatGPT has resulted in a 21 percent drop in job postings for writing and coding roles on a major freelance platform.

The team examined data from a prominent global freelancing platform and compared it with Google Trends data. This thorough approach enabled them to draw conclusions about AI's impact on freelance jobs.

Decline in Writing and Coding Jobs



Researchers Ozge Demirci, Jonas Hannane, and Xinrong Zhu revealed a notable reduction in the demand for freelancers with skills in writing and coding. The study attributes this decline to advancements in generative AI such as ChatGPT, which can efficiently handle these tasks. They write:

“Using data from a global freelancer platform, we quantify a 21% greater decline in demand for automation-prone jobs compared to manual-intensive jobs after ChatGPT introduction. Writing is the job category most affected by ChatGPT, followed by software, app and web development, and engineering.”

Interestingly, the study shows that jobs requiring manual labor have remained steady. This indicates that while AI has taken over certain cognitive tasks, it has not yet made inroads into jobs that require physical skills.

Impact of Image-Generating AI



The rise of AI technologies that generate images has also influenced the market, causing a 17 percent decrease in job postings for image creation. This aspect further demonstrates AI's growing role in automating traditionally human-driven creative tasks, say the authors:

“We also find a 17% more pronounced decrease in demand for graphic design and 3D odeling jobs following the release of Image-generating AI technologies. Our findings also suggest that freelancers with certain skills may face more competition after the introduction of GenAI tools. Given the already intense competition for job opportunities in online labor markets […], the increased substitutability between freelancer jobs and GenAI could further decrease earnings in the short term.”

The study's findings emphasize how generative AI is reshaping the freelancing landscape. Fields, where AI can replace human workers, are witnessing a significant reduction in job opportunities for freelancers.

Other Research


Henley Wing Chiu, an analyst at Bloomberry, reports similar findings regarding generative AI's impact on the freelance sector. He analyzed real freelancing positions on Upwork, the prominent freelance platform, from November 1, 2022—a month prior to the release of ChatGPT—until February 14, 2024, to determine which jobs have been most adversely affected.

The 3 categories with the largest declines were writing, translation and customer service jobs. The # of writing jobs declined 33%, translation jobs declined 19%, and customer service jobs declined 16%. Outside of these 3-4 job categories, most of the other job categories were not negatively impacted.


Source: Henley Wing Chiu / Bloomberry

Regarding pay, there have also been substantial shifts since ChatGPT and other generative AI tools emerged. Translation jobs were the worst hit, with more than a 20% decrease in hourly rates, followed by video editing/production and market research. Graphic design and web design jobs were the most resilient. Both of them not only increased in volume but also increased in hourly pay a bit.


Source: Henley Wing Chiu / Bloomberry

Upwork: AI Skills in High Demand


Research from Upwork also highlights the significant impact of generative AI on the freelance job market. According to an internal study, there has been a remarkable increase in job posts and searches related to generative AI on the platform. From Q1 to Q2 of 2023, job posts in this category surged by over 1000%, while related searches grew by more than 1500%. This indicates a growing recognition of the value and potential applications of generative AI among businesses.

Key findings from the research include the top generative AI-related skills in demand, such as ChatGPT, BERT, Stable Diffusion, TensorFlow, and in general AI chatbots. The demand is not limited to specific tools but extends to comprehensive applications and services that utilize these technologies. This shift shows that businesses are moving beyond searching for singular AI tools to exploring broader applications and services that can enhance various aspects of their operations.

Upwork has responded to this trend by launching a new AI Services Hub, which connects businesses with skilled AI professionals and offers tools like the AI-powered job post generator and enhanced chat features to streamline the hiring process. Additionally, Upwork has partnered with Jasper, a leading generative AI content generation platform, to provide freelancers with advanced tools that boost productivity and quality of work.
 

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OpenAI CTO: AI Could Kill Some Creative Jobs That Maybe Shouldn't Exist Anyway​

OpenAI's CTO Mira Murati isn't worried about AI's impact on creative professions.

https://www.pcmag.com/authors/kate-irwin

By Kate Irwin

June 21, 2024

Mira Murati, who wears a striped sweater and has brown hair, speaking with her hand up expressively.
(Credit: Bloomberg/Contributor via Getty Images)

Is generative AI a tool for creative empowerment and efficiency—or a threat to a swath of creative professions?

OpenAI's CTO Mira Murati isn't worried about such potential negative impacts, suggesting during a talk this month that if AI does kill some creative jobs, those jobs were maybe always a bit replaceable anyway.

"I think it's really going to be a collaborative tool, especially in the creative spaces," Murati told Darmouth University Trustee Jeffrey Blackburn during a conversation about AI hosted at the university's engineering department.

"Some creative jobs maybe will go away, but maybe they shouldn't have been there in the first place," the CTO said of AI's role in the workplace. "I really believe that using it as a tool for education, [and] creativity, will expand our intelligence."

During the Cannes Lions International Festival of Creativity this week, Murati predicted during another talk that the future will involve a "collaboration" between humans and AI. In her view, AI will largely become a tool for continued human work.

Since OpenAI released ChatGPT to the public, fears that different types of generative AI could take or eliminate jobs have swirled across a range of industries. OpenAI has been pushing its text-to-video Sora tool to Hollywood. Game developers, writers, and voice actors have also expressed anger and frustration over generative AI tools and voices that could take their jobs as companies like Microsoft and Electronic Arts embrace AI.

It isn't all bad, though. AI could create some jobs and reduce the time it takes to do certain tedious tasks. And if AI's outputs are lackluster or generic, humans will still be needed to recreate or fix AI-generated work. From a legal standpoint, however, AI outputs may not be a great solution for a final product as they may not be protected by existing copyright laws in the US. This means companies might use AI as a brainstorming tool or jumping-off point, but ultimately opt for unique, human-created outputs for their final products.

Creatives aren't the only ones whose jobs could be at risk, of course. Some tech firms are convinced AI is coming for human jobs. Companies like Google and Intel have reportedly made plans to replace some human staff with automated AI tools. And software engineers and cybersecurity workers could also lose jobs thanks to AI as startups like Cognition Labs are accused of coding their own replacements into existence.
 

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1/11
OpenAI just acquired this startup that basically lets someone remotely control your computer... i think we can all guess how this might fit in with ChatGPT desktop... 👀👀👀👀

2/11
I guess they are going to make ChatGPT be able to draw on your screen, edit code, etc

3/11


4/11
follow me if you're interested in creative uses of LLMs.

5/11
i love being featured in the twitter things

6/11
Agents

7/11
Makes a lot of sense, they also get cracked people like @jnpdx

8/11
If the company building AGI is buying a desktop remote company, then we are safe 😀

9/11
I just recently saw some posts about AI zoom styled apps. This fits that mold.

10/11
the cursor will be ChatGPT pointing and drawing comments around while you use voice mode.

11/11
@inversebrah


To post tweets in this format, more info here: https://www.thecoli.com/threads/tips-and-tricks-for-posting-the-coli-megathread.984734/post-52211196
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1/11
Multi is joining OpenAI Multi Blog – Multi is joining OpenAI

2/11
What if desktop computers were inherently multiplayer? What if the operating system placed people on equal footing to apps? Those were the questions we explored in building Multi, and before that, Remotion.

3/11
Recently, we’ve been asking ourselves how we should work with computers. Not _on_ or _using_, but truly _with_ computers. With AI. We think it’s one of the most important product questions of our time. And so, we’re beyond excited to share that Multi is joining OpenAI!

4/11
Unfortunately, this means we’re sunsetting Multi. We’ve closed new team signups, and existing teams will be able to use the app until July 24th 2024, after which we’ll delete all user data. If you need help or more time finding a replacement, DM @embirico. We’re happy to suggest alternatives depending on what exactly you loved about Multi, and we can also grant extensions on a case by case basis.

5/11
Thank you to everybody who used Multi. It was a privilege building with you, and we learnt a ton from you. We'll miss your feedback and bug reports, but we can’t wait to show you what we’re up to next.

6/11
See you around, @artlasovsky, Chantelle, @embirico, @fbarbat, @jnpdx, @kevintunc, @likethespy, @potatoarecool, @samjau

7/11
Why are you joining one of the most unethical, reckless, hubris-driven, wisely-despised companies in human history? Oh for the money. OK we get it.

8/11
🔥❤️

9/11
This is amazing!

10/11
Congrats!

11/11
Huge congrats @kevintunc and @samjau!


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Apple wants to replace 50% of iPhone final assembly line workers with automation​




Avatar for Chance Miller
Chance Miller | Jun 24 2024 - 6:24 am PT


9 Comments

Photo: iPhone 13 Pro teardown with tweezers holding camera module | Apple asked Foxconn to recruit iPhone 14 assembly workers early

A new report from The Information today details Apple’s efforts to automate more of the iPhone production process. The report explains that Apple has told managers to “reduce the number of workers on iPhone final assembly lines by as much as 50% over the next few years.”

According to the report, this edict was handed down by Sabih Khan, Apple’s senior vice president of operations. The decision was reportedly made shortly after violent clashes between iPhone workers and police outside of Foxconn’s primary assembly plant in November 2022.

In order to reduce its overall headcount, The Information reports that Apple is moving forward with supply chain and production automation projects that it “had previously mothballed due to high up-front costs.”

The machinery necessary to automate iPhone production can sometimes cost hundreds of millions of dollars each year. In some instances, Apple pressured manufacturing partners to make this up-front investment, with varying degrees of success.

According to data published by Apple in annual supply chain reports, “the total number of employees it monitors at its manufacturing partners for work-hour compliance” fell from 1.6 million in 2022 to 1.4 million in 2023.

The report says there is a “significant amount of automation” in the final assembly of the iPhone 15. Much of this work is led by Peter Thompson, an operations vice president at Apple:

Over the past year, Thompson’s team has successfully automated parts of the iPhone’s assembly, working closely with manufacturing partners such as Foxconn, Luxshare Precision and Pegatron. Those successes include machines that install metal brackets and flexible printed circuit boards onto components without human aid, said multiple people with direct knowledge of the effort.

These and similar efforts have allowed Apple and its partners to eliminate positions for thousands of workers in China, according to people who work in Apple’s supply chain. For some processes, they have reduced headcount by as much as 30%, according to one employee at an iPhone manufacturing partner.

The Information also points to a pair of acquisitions that have helped Apple’s supply chain automation efforts, including DarwinAI. Apple also reportedly acquired a company called Drishti last year, which analyzes video footage of assembly lines to “identify bottlenecks and production problems in real-time.

For the iPhone 16 this year, Apple had initially planned to automate the process of installing iPhone buttons and other components. However, these plans were canceled “because of the high rate of defects.”

Still, even as it hits stumbling blocks along the way, Apple’s end goal is to reduce the number of workers on the final iPhone assembly lines by up to 50%.
 

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1/11
Introducing the ElevenLabs Reader App. Listen to any article, PDF, ePub, or any text on the go with the highest quality AI voices.

Download now and have your life narrated: Listen to anything on the go with the highest quality voices

2/11
Hear from a few of our beta testers:

“Overall, it's been perfect. Enunciations, tone, accents, fluidity have been amazing.”

“I've had the pleasure of using your mobile reader service in the last few weeks-- and it has been fantastic. It's been perfect for reviewing documents and drafts, catching up on items, and the incorporation of the different voices recently has made it an amazing experience.”

“The seamless maintenance of tone and voice across extensive articles is a testament to the app's sophistication, distinguishing it from its counterparts in the market. It's absolutely outstanding to be able to have a voice that keeps its consistency and tone even through very long text.”

3/11
The app is available today for iOS users in the United States, United Kingdom, and Canada. Once we add multilingual support, we’ll launch globally.

Download it on iOS, or sign up for launch notifications, here: ‎ElevenLabs Reader: AI Audio
Join the Android waitlist here: ElevenLabs Reader Waitlist (Android)

4/11
I hear ya ElevenLabs!

5/11
It would be nice to create our own custom voice pack for GPS.

6/11
Awesome work, can't wait to use it!

7/11
This feels like it's been a long time coming

8/11
I work extensively with AI and many LLMs and why the fukk didn't I think about this or know about this ????

This is so going to make my driving and workout time so much more productive!

9/11
This app is amazing.

You can import any content from safari directly into the app. It scrapes the page, generates a transcript and reads it to you.

Bonus; the transcript can be copied making this a great lite web scraper.

10/11
I really like this app!

11/11
Can you add an option for it to skip over reading URL’s in the text?


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FINANCE


Morgan Stanley wealth advisors are about to get an OpenAI-powered assistant to do their grunt work​

PUBLISHED WED, JUN 26 20249:01 AM EDTUPDATED 4 HOURS AGO

Hugh Son @HUGH_SON

SHAREShare Article via FacebookShare Article via TwitterShare Article via LinkedInShare Article via Email

KEY POINTS

  • Morgan Stanley is pushing further into its adoption of artificial intelligence with a new assistant that is expected to take over thousands of hours of labor for the bank’s financial advisors.
  • The assistant, called Debrief, keeps detailed logs of advisors’ meetings and automatically creates draft emails and summaries of the discussions, bank executives told CNBC.
  • The program, built using OpenAI’s GPT4, essentially sits in on client Zoom meetings, replacing the note-taking that advisors or junior employees have been doing by hand, according to Jeff McMillan, Morgan Stanley’s head of firmwide artificial intelligence.


In this article



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Signage is displayed outside Morgan Stanley & Co. headquarters in the Times Square neighborhood of New York.

Signage is displayed outside Morgan Stanley & Co. headquarters in the Times Square neighborhood of New York.

Michael Nagle | Bloomberg | Getty Images

Morgan Stanley is pushing further into its adoption of artificial intelligence with a new assistant that is expected to take over thousands of hours of labor for the bank’s financial advisors.

The assistant, called Debrief, keeps detailed logs of advisors’ meetings and automatically creates draft emails and summaries of the discussions, bank executives told CNBC. Morgan Stanley plans to release the program to the firm’s roughly 15,000 advisors by early July, marking one of the most significant steps yet for the use of generative AI at a major Wall Street bank.

While the company’s earlier efforts involved creating a ChatGPT-like service to help advisors navigate the firm’s reams of research, Debrief brings AI into direct contact with advisors’ most prized resource: their relationships with rich clients.

The program, built using OpenAI’s GPT-4, essentially sits in on client Zoom meetings, replacing the note-taking that advisors or junior employees have been doing by hand, according to Jeff McMillan, Morgan Stanley’s head of firmwide artificial intelligence.

“What we’re finding is that the quality and depth of the notes are just significantly better,” McMillan told CNBC. “The truth is, this does a better job of taking notes than the average human.”

Importantly, clients must consent to being recorded each time Debrief is used. Future versions will allow advisors to use the program on corporate devices during in-person meetings, said McMillan.

The rollout will serve as a real-world test for the vaunted productivity gains of generative AI, which took Wall Street by storm in recent months and has bolstered the value of chipmakers, tech giants and the broader U.S. stock market.

Morgan Stanley’s wealth management division hosts about 1 million Zoom calls a year, the bank told CNBC. While estimates vary, one Morgan Stanley advisor involved in the Debrief pilot said the program saves 30 minutes of work per meeting; advisors typically spend time after meetings creating notes and action plans to address client needs.

Morgan Stanley’s new Debrief program, a new AI tool for wealth management advisors based on OpenAI’s GPT-4.

Morgan Stanley’s new Debrief program, a new AI tool for wealth management advisors based on OpenAI’s GPT-4.

Courtesy: Morgan Stanley

“As a financial adviser I’m doing four, five or six meetings a day,” said Don Whitehead, a Houston-based advisor who’s been testing the software. By “having the note-taking service built in through AI, you can really be invested in the meeting, you’re actually a lot more present.”

It remains to be seen what advisors will do with the hours reclaimed from essential grunt work. In a sense, Morgan Stanley’s projects in generative AI amount to a “grand experiment in productivity,” said McMillan.

If, as McMillan and others believe, advisors will spend more time serving clients and prospecting for new ones, the technology should boost Morgan Stanley’s growth in assets under management, as well as retention of clients and advisors.

Morgan Stanley’s wealth management division is one of the world’s largest with $5.5 trillion in client assets as of March; the firm wants to reach $10 trillion.

It will take at least a year to determine whether the technology is boosting advisor productivity, McMillan said.

“I’m the analytics guy, but the advisors will tell you that they’re at their best when they’re engaging” with clients, said McMillan. “None of them will tell you they love taking notes or looking at research reports, right? That’s not why they got into this business.”

Ultimately, Morgan Stanley’s vision for AI is creating a layer of technology that seamlessly helps advisors perform all of their tasks — sending proposals, balancing portfolios, creating reports — with simple prompts, Morgan Stanley wealth management head Jed Finn told investors in February.

Many of the core tasks set to be automated, such as parsing contracts and opening accounts, are universal throughout Morgan Stanley, including at trading and banking divisions, McMillan noted.

Finance jobs are among the most prone to displacement by AI, according to a recent Citigroup report. AI adoption could boost the industry’s profit by $170 billion by 2028, Citigroup said.

While the process is still in its infancy, McMillan acknowledged that business models will likely change in ways that are hard to predict.

“I think that there will be disruption in some areas,” he said. “We look back on all the things that we think we’re going to lose, but we don’t see what’s ahead.”

What’s ahead is the need for millions of prompt engineers to train AI to create the desired outcomes for companies, McMillan said; it took Morgan Stanley months to fine-tune prompts for Debrief, he noted.

McMillan said he even told his teenage children to consider careers as prompt engineers.

“They’re going to learn how to talk to machines, and tell those machines what to do, and engage with people and collaborate,” he said. “It’s a whole different game than how we’ve been doing work.”
 

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A voice actor at work. Companies may come to regret the lack of human connection if the voice reading an audiobook is AI-generated, Simon Kennedy says. Photograph: visualspace/Getty Images

Artificial intelligence (AI)

Cheap AI voice clones may wipe out jobs of 5,000 Australian actors​

Industry group says rise of vocal technology could upend many creative fields, including audiobooks – the canary in the coalmine for voice actors

Josh Taylor

Sat 29 Jun 2024 16.00 EDT

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Voice actors say they’re on the precipice of their work being replaced completely by artificial intelligence, with corporate and radio roles already beginning to be replaced by cheap generative AI clones.

While a high-profile actor like Scarlett Johansson can make the most prominent AI company in the world back down within a day from using her voice likeness in their AI products, everyday actors working on commercials, audiobook and video games worry they risk having their own voices cloned, or miss out on work entirely due to the rise of AI voice clones.

The Australian Association of Voice Actors (AAVA) told a parliamentary committee investigating AI the jobs of an estimated 5,000 local voice actors are already in danger, with the group pointing to one national radio network actively investing in technology to replace human voice actors.


In its submission, the group criticised the development as “a disappointing move from a player in an industry that has relied on voice artists to bring quality, credibility and humanity to their medium for over 100 years.”

The recently formed association’s president, Simon Kennedy, told Guardian Australia, the advent of AI and its impact on the voice industry was partly the catalyst for setting up the group, but he says they’re “not anti-tech and we’re certainly not anti-AI”. The group, he said, just wants fair rules around how the technology will be used, and protection for people’s voices against being misused by AI.

He said the canary in the coalmine for voice actors will be audiobooks.

“Audiobooks is frontline because of the volume of material and the perceived cost-saving that the companies that create them think that they’ll make.”

He said companies may come to regret the lack of human connection if the voice reading a book is AI.

“When it’s an AI voice, I think they’re going to find people just don’t bother with their audiobooks any more. They are just like, ‘I’m feeling nothing’.”

Kennedy said corporate work and education material were also low-hanging fruit for organisations looking to cut human voice work, but advertising will take longer.

“Big advertisers want quality and AI is not going to be given to them for quite some time.”

He said voice actors selling their likeness had not thought through the long-term impacts.

“I don’t think that the endgame was really top of mind for people; that your voice will now exist in the marketplace, as a digital clone of yourself, that will basically take work that you could normally get yourself,” he said.

Last year, Guardian Australia reported Australian software developer Replica Studios had licensed 120 voices from actors for video game development that will pay a fee to actors when clones of their voices are used in video games. In January the company signed an agreement with the Screen Actors Guild in what it says is an ethical approach to AI voice use – where all content is licensed.

‘Wide as an ocean, shallow as a puddle’​

The reaction from actors has been mixed. Cooper Mortlock, an Australian actor who began working in voice acting at the start of the Covid-19 pandemic, said it would undercut work by up and coming voice actors trying to get a foothold in the industry – particularly if they use AI-generated scratch voices as a place holder for the final voice, during the production process.

“It’s not only things like that, and not only limiting opportunities for the artists themselves, but also the creative scope of the projects,” he said. “There’s no opportunity for happy accidents or surprises – because AI is taking already existing things and just repurposing [them].”

Cooper Mortlock says an animation project he had worked on cloned his voice and used it without consent after the work stopped.
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Cooper Mortlock says an animation project he had worked on cloned his voice and used it without consent after the work stopped.

He said using AI voices to generate dialogue will lack the creativity that comes with using a human voice actor on scripted dialogue.

“It’s as wide as an ocean but as shallow as a puddle,” he said.

“You compare something like some recent video games that are very focused on story narrative and character like Cyberpunk 2077, The Witcher 3, Baldur’s Gate 3 … those games are so meticulously crafted.”

Up until now, AI voice clones often struggled with non-American accents. Australian voices, for example, often keep an American inflection. Newer services now offer a full suite of different accents of Australians at different ages. Kennedy said he hoped the delay was a sign Australians were holding out giving over their voices.

“We’re holding back until there are ethical frameworks in place where we can license our voice knowing that we are going to be treated fairly and compensated fairly,” he said.

But Mortlock said the lag was due to Australia being a smaller market, without the big dataset for the AI to learn the nuances of Australian voices.

There’s more data available now. I think it was [a] very US-centric thing … It’s just expanding – I don’t necessarily think it has to do with the accent itself.”

Liz Bonnin stands in front of wood panelling, framed by tall plants.
BBC presenter’s likeness used in advert after firm tricked by AI-generated voice
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The AAVA has called for laws to govern consent, control and compensation around how AI voices are used, making sure artists are paid fairly and have complete control how – if licensed – their voices are used.

Mortlock has said an animation project he worked on cloned his voice and used it without consent after the work stopped – something the company he worked for denies – and part of the issue is there is no transparency when AI is being used.

He would like AI banned from the creative industry to ensure workers could remain employed, but said a tax on the use of technology to compensate workers, as well as greater transparency, would be appropriate.

“The actors should be reimbursed and I think there needs to be disclosure as to who each voice is they’re hiring. Because otherwise they could take this actor off the internet … it’s become the ‘wild west’.”
 

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Nearly half of US firms using AI say goal is to cut staffing costs​

ByBrian Delk

June 29, 2024 — 5.30pm

Washington: Workers fearing that their employers could use artificial intelligence to replace them might be right, according to data in a Federal Reserve Bank of Richmond report.

In a survey conducted earlier this month of firms using AI since early 2022 in the Richmond, Virginia region, 45 per cent said they were automating tasks to reduce staffing and labour costs.

Artificial intelligence generated text - another possibility for the technology.

Artificial intelligence generated text - another possibility for the technology.CREDIT:GETTY IMAGES

The survey also found that almost all the firms are using automation technology to increase output.

“CFOs say their firms are tapping AI to automate a host of tasks, from paying suppliers, invoicing, procurement, financial reporting, and optimising facilities utilisation,” said Duke finance professor John Graham, academic director of the survey of 450 financial executives.

“This is on top of companies using ChatGPT to generate creative ideas and to draft job descriptions, contracts, marketing plans, and press releases.”


The report stated that over the past year almost 60 per cent of companies surveyed have “have implemented software, equipment, or technology to automate tasks previously completed by employees.”

“These companies indicate that they use automation to increase product quality (58 per cent of firms), increase output (49 per cent), reduce labor costs (47 per cent), and substitute for workers (33 per cent).”

In a speech on Friday, Richmond Fed President Thomas Barkin said, “we may well also be seeing a move up in productivity, driven perhaps by automation or even AI”.

But workers can take comfort from Federal Reserve Bank of Dallas data, which showed that among the nearly 40 per cent of Texas firms now using AI, the impact on employment so far has been minimal.

And AI has not yet taken over all workplaces, the Richmond Fed survey found.

Only 46 per cent of all the firms said they had added technology to automate what had been employees’ tasks since January 2022.

AI adaptation was more common among manufacturing firms, with 53 per cent of them using the technology, than service sector companies, which reported just 43 per cent.

Bloomberg with Chris Zappone
 

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Xiaomi’s new «smart» factory will operate 24/7 without people and produce 60 smartphones per minute​

Vadym Karpus

News writer

Xiaomi CEO Lei Jun has announced that a new generation factory designed to produce smartphones will soon start operating. It is located in Changping, Beijing.

The new factory will be a «dark factory», which will be able to work 24 hours a day without people. In addition, the machines in the factory can cooperate with each other. The factory can also create a dust-free environment by itself through micron-level dust removal.



Нова «розумна» фабрика Xiaomi працюватиме 24/7 без людей і випускатиме по 60 смартфонів за хвилину


The quality of production at the plant will be controlled by intelligent machines of its own design. It is claimed that the automated production process will make it possible to produce one smartphone every second. Theoretically, if the factory is able to operate smoothly around the clock all year round, its production capacity will be 31.5 million smartphones per year.

Xiaomi has invested 2.4 billion yuan (about $330 million) in the development of the new production process. The new plant in Changping covers a construction area of 81,000 square meters. It has been certified as a «national intelligent manufacturing enterprise» with an annual production capacity of 10 million flagship smartphones. This factory will produce the upcoming foldable phones – Xiaomi MIX Fold 4 and Xiaomi MIX Filp.

According to the commercial, the smart factory — is just a small step for Xiaomi in exploring the future, which has just begun.

Source: gizmochina
 

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I'm pretty sure the video is from a demo of robotics research and this wasn't actually happening in a production environment but it does show that this future is very near.
 

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1/11
3.1 8b is under-discussed imo
>crazy benchmarks
>crushing gemma 2 (already great model)
>on groq my response was instant lol
>no streaming
>the response just appeared
>we have instant brains now?

2/11
We finally have SOTA at home 🥲

3/11
for QA what we need is multi-stage responses where it generates a presentation then it presents it (optionally). So the presenter would walk you through the presentation, highlighting the points/images and discussing them. even without voice it could be as tap/hover

4/11
Yup, even if it's not THE BEST, we have gpt3.5~ at home

5/11
How clean's the distillation? Does it have that overly-synthetic Phi3/4o/Sonnet3.5 feel?

6/11
Wait till you see what I can do with this model at home. LOL.

7/11
It's insane

You really have to use it live to "feel" the insane speed

8/11
Definitely, model is insane in its category

9/11
i think meta should be putting gpt-4o-mini on the charts instead of 3.5

10/11
mini models are the future, we just need to learn how to go wide with them.

gotta do a bit of unhobbling to coordinate thousands/millions of instances together with the instant outputs.

11/11
And I can actually run it on my PC lmao


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1/11
What can you do with Llama quality and Groq speed? You can do Instant. That's what. Try Llama 3.1 8B for instant intelligence on Groq is Fast AI Inference.

2/11
This is so cool. Feeling the AGI - you just talk to your computer and it does stuff, instantly. Speed really makes AI so much more pleasing.

3/11
Well, I stand corrected. I thought it was going to take your team at least 24 hours to get this going, but I should’ve known better.

4/11
Holy crap this is fast AND smart

5/11
Speed like that is going to enable a new wave of innovative uses. 🔥

6/11
will u update the pricing for the new llama 3.1 models?

7/11
Very quick.
Very impressive.
Can’t wait to try 🙌🏿!

8/11
I do like me some 'Guu with Garlic' at 7 pm.

9/11
What's the best way to do custom models (not fine tuned) with Groq chips?

10/11
Extremely impressive!

11/11
ASI will happen soon. 👍


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