I note that none of the advances in AI this year have helped google make blogger more usable. Sorry about the formatting!
If you want to read the answers of many other people engaged in the (German) Digital Scene, here's the original article:
KI-Tools, Erfolge und Hoffnung zum Jahreswechsel
But if you want to read my answers before they were translated into German (and edited) here you go:
Was lief 2023 richtig gut? // A silver lining / success of 2023
I’m extremely happy that the EU’s AI Act has passed in 2023. It is something I and many others have put immense time in to. I’m also very glad that it still reflects our core concerns about how AI is actually being used – as a component of products, most of which are useful, but some of which are having some perverse effects on our lives, societies, and democracies. This is in contrast to a lot of other regulators that are only looking at the new kid on the block, generative AI, which no one is actually making money from yet. Now that one of the world’s leading jurisdictions is applying product law into the digital sector, we can all look forward to an increased application of best practice, and better – and enforced – avoidance of bad practice.
I am also encouraged by the early steps being taken under the Digital Services Act and the Digital Markets Act. To be honest, these two acts cover my primary concerns about AI – how it may be used to target and manipulate people, ensuring that all such uses are done openly and with full consent (that’s the DSA), and addressing the power concentrations we are seeing in digital (as well as other) markets (that’s the DMA).
Also on a more personal note I’ve had my first real philosophical publication. I mean, I’ve published in philosophy journals before, but this one is coauthored with real, trained philosophers and you can tell it’s a level up. It was titled "Do we collaborate with what we design" tl;dr – no. Something subject to design, that we or our employers buy, is not a peer or colleague, but rather an extension of capital.
Welche KI-Tools oder -Hacks nutzen Sie? // Which AI tools do you personally use?
AI is ubiquitous now, all my digital products are enhancing my spelling, grammar, translation abilities, centring of my images, etc. If what you really mean is generative AI, I’m in the category of high-throughput users that don’t get a lot of benefit from them except I’ve constructed a couple of images and I do use Bard a little not only to test the technology (to produce examples) but also for “how to’s” though of course then you have to test them. I’ve found both bard and chatgpt to be pretty useless for the research assistance that I need, and indeed I’ve caught my real research assistants using them when I’ve read errors introduced into text – LLM always favour what is stereotypical over an interesting but unusual idea or phrase. So I have to do new proofreading now even though I myself seldom use the technology.
Wie nutzen Sie Social Media (noch) und welche Plattform bietet Ihrer Meinung nach einen Mehrwert und warum? // Which social media platforms do you still use, why and what do you personally still find intriguing about it?
I know this is controversial to some, but I still use twitter quite a lot. It is still a powerful network for learning and communication among those who already know of each other. Musk has only broken the recommendation algorithms, but if you avoid those, if you use lists, you can still interact with the wide range of humanity including other experts. I know some people see this only as giving money to someone with incredibly offensive motives, opinions, and actions. I see twitter as a city we are battling over, and I am not willing to abandon. It is essential communication infrastructure. Sort of like telephones or electricity, twitter moved beyond being a novelty that playboys can play with as they choose. Though differently from those other utilities, a lot of its power came from OUR work constructing histories and effective networks there, not only from the corporately-provided infrastructure. I hold the US government more to account for what is going on than any private individual, because it should be applying its own utility law to this situation. I still hope it will, and that we will win. In the meantime though, more people see my posts on LinkedIn, so I try to post there 5-7 times a week (that’s the optimal number for their algorithm.) I am also using bluesky, for the community, and mastodon, for the interface (I like ivory.)
Was haben Sie 2023 gern gelesen / gehört / gespielt / geschaut? // A book you read/podcast or music you listened to//a game you played or a series/movie you watched in 2023 and can recommend?
Again, I know this is stereotypical, but I did enjoy Openheimer, especially the first part where he is roaming alone around Europe lonely but amazed by all the ideas he has, and then the second part where he is building up a group of excited young researchers more talented than he is himself. That was great. For books, right now I’m reading Chip War and really finding it useful. There are not enough people tying the security and the commercial aspects of the power games around the digital and AI together. It’s like no one is willing to touch all of security, economics, and humanities, but they are tied together, so if you aren’t willing to look you can be outmanoeuvred. With respect to music, to be honest I got addicted to novelty when I was at MIT, so generally listen to DJs from WMBR, WPRB, or WFMU online. But I did get introduced to the new / experimental jazz nights Wednesday at the Panda Stage in the Kulturbrauerei in Berlin, that’s really great. I don’t even like jazz but I love whatever it is they play there! In general, I prefer meeting people in real life–over good food and drink–to more passive entertainment.
Was gibt Hoffnung für 2024? // What gives you hope for 2024?
I’ve had a few things give me real hope this year, though of course many things happened this year that scare me too, like the acceleration of the climate crisis. But I attended some talks about geothermal energy at the Icelandic embassy here in Berlin, and that was just super. People really are figuring out how to get truly green power that is under many of our feet – and of course, where it is not readily available, it can be traded for, we are getting much better at power transmission. Speaking of, learning how Germany got through the 2022-2023 Winter despite the sudden loss of Russian fuels gives me real hope that humanity can change course radically if only we clearly see the necessity. I saw a talk quite recently about the amazing advances in digital government services that are being made collaboratively by developers in Ukraine. The will, intelligence, and resilience of the Ukrainian people should give us all hope. Though to be fair, they can easily look over their borders, see the boys being thrown at them with only shovels to fight with, and know that their fate would be even worse in the Russian Federation. The Ukrainian situation is so unfair; I hope we all are doing whatever we can to help them. But back to their digital services, they are being built not only for Russia’s war, but to help us all with the upcoming disruptions we know are coming, by climate change (at a minimum). That the AI Act was completed and so many other shows of government competence and human cooperation makes me hopeful. That automated translation keeps getting better and easier to deploy makes it so much easier to work with people. And finally, I’m so excited that I will be able to get back my EU passport soon – and to become German! Thanks to the "traffic light coalition" for the best possible present, we just received today :-)
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Somehow I spoke to three government and two academic conferences in four cities and three countries on two or three continents (depending how you count) in the last three weeks, but also some journalists as above. Solstice was last night and the days are getting longer now in this hemisphere. Let's hope we turn mostly the right corners. |
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