Navigating AI: This Week's Business Highlights #15

July 06, 2024

Welcome to the AI Trailblazers Newsletter and Happy July 4th! It was a BIG news week in the world of AI with news from Apple and Google as well as some thought provoking insights from HBR and more. Our curated list of the top stories is below.

The Making of Super-Employees

Studies show AI can significantly enhance work speed and quality. The Harvard Business Review explores how companies should encourage experimentation, pilot programs, and create AI champions while maintaining data protocols. Teams and individuals should engage with AI tools to maximize their benefits.

  • Enhancing Internal Capabilities with AI: AI can infer skills from employee profiles and activities, making learning more personalized and accessible. It can also classify and summarize learning content, aiding the entire workforce. Generative AI (Gen AI) can boost performance for knowledge workers, integrating seamlessly into daily tasks.

  • Research and Productivity Gains: Studies show AI can significantly enhance productivity, with Gen AI potentially increasing knowledge work speed by 25% and quality by 40%. Despite the challenges in measuring productivity gains, practical approaches can help infer improvements across different business areas. Historical precedents show that rapid adoption of transformative technology, like AI, can lead to substantial growth.

  • Corporate Adoption Strategies: Corporations should encourage curiosity, experimentation, and pilot programs to integrate AI effectively. Establishing Gen AI champions and measuring success through case studies and existing benchmarks are crucial. Clear protocols for handling sensitive data will mitigate risks and maximize AI benefits.

  • Team and Individual Integration: Teams can lead by example, using AI tools like ChatGPT in meetings to solve problems and generate ideas. Individuals should find practical use cases in their daily work to build trust in AI. Even if workplace restrictions exist, experimenting with AI outside of work can maintain engagement and skill development.

AI Trailblazer Takeaways: Innovation has a long history of making humans better. The bicycle made us faster. The phone made us more communicative. AI will provide a similar leap in our capabilities. In the world of business, it has the potential to turn already productive employees into ‘super-employees’.

AI Content Challenges Google Search

Wired reviews Google's recent policy updates to combat AI-generated spam and yet plagiarized content still ranks higher than original reporting in search results. SEO experts are unsure why this persists, affecting the credibility of search results and frustrating legitimate publishers. This issue underscores the challenges Google faces in maintaining the quality of its search engine.

  • Despite Google's policy adjustments targeting AI spam, plagiarized content still ranks higher than original reporting in search results. An example involved a spam site that copied a WIRED article, slightly altering its phrasing but maintaining the original quotes. This issue persists across multiple languages and reputable sources.

  • Google's algorithm updates aimed to reduce low-quality content by 45%, but AI-generated spam remains prevalent. SEO experts are puzzled by the persistence of such content, despite Google's efforts. Some AI-generated articles blatantly plagiarize content from established publications like TechCrunch and Reuters.

  • The persistence of AI spam creates anxiety among SEO experts and content creators. Despite Google's policies prohibiting abusive scraping and republishing of modified content, the enforcement appears inconsistent. Experts highlight the trauma and frustration caused by sudden traffic drops due to algorithm changes.

  • While Google has made progress in preventing certain types of spam, like adult sites appearing in unrelated searches, the fight against AI-generated plagiarized content continues. Some experts acknowledge Google's challenges with spam, but there is a call for more robust measures to protect original content. The situation affects publisher incentives and user trust in search results.

AI Trailblazer Takeaways: Plagiarism will be the biggest hurdle Gen AI must overcome, with the adoption of the technology in many use cases at stake. Lawyers are already thumping their chests at the prospect of unauthorized content proliferation leading to legal actions. Google seems to be struggling to address this issue in search. Will this problem be fixed, or will it doom the public use cases of AI to failure? Let the debate begin.

AI Exploits Kids': Human Rights Watch Warns

Human Rights Watch (HRW) has revealed that children's photos, even those posted with strict privacy settings, are being used to train AI models. Ashley Belanger of Ars Technica examines how this unauthorized use poses significant privacy and safety risks, highlighting the need for stronger regulations. As Australia updates its Privacy Act, HRW urges comprehensive protections against the nonconsensual use of children's images in AI systems.

  • Human Rights Watch (HRW) reports that photos of children posted online, even with strict privacy settings, are being used to train AI models. HRW researcher Hye Jung Han discovered 190 photos of Australian children in an AI dataset. These photos include identifying information, posing privacy and safety risks.

  • Even unlisted YouTube videos are not safe from AI training, as demonstrated by an example where a supposedly private video was scraped. This violates YouTube's Terms of Service, but action against such abuses remains insufficient. HRW emphasizes the need for stronger regulatory interventions to protect children.

  • LAION, the nonprofit managing the dataset, has not yet removed flagged photos, highlighting the slow process of cleanup. Removing links from datasets does not undo the training already done by AI models. Children’s images in these datasets can lead to harmful uses, such as deepfake generation.

  • Upcoming reforms to Australia's Privacy Act aim to enhance online privacy and provide legal remedies for data breaches. However, current discussions lack specific measures to protect children's data from AI training. HRW advocates for comprehensive legal protections to prevent nonconsensual use of children's images in AI systems.

AI Trailblazer Takeaways: The unauthorized use of these images underscores the need for stronger regulations. As Australia updates its Privacy Act, HRW calls for comprehensive protections against the nonconsensual use of children's images in AI systems. Look for a lot more debate on this topic in the future.

What is AI Trailblazers?

AI Trailblazers is a vibrant platform dedicated to uniting marketers, technologists, entrepreneurs, and venture capitalists at the forefront of artificial intelligence (AI). We want to thank everyone who joined us for the incredibly successful AI Trailblazers Summit on June 6th in New York. We’ve compiled a short video for all to enjoy. See you at our next forum.

This platform is designed to fuel growth, innovation, and career development among its members, who all want to be at the forefront of incorporating artificial intelligence into their businesses and their lives for strategic advantage. More information here.

Quote of the Week

Once in a while, the technology comes along that is so powerful and so broadly applicable that it accelerates the normal march of economic progress. And like a lot of economists, I believe that generative AI belongs in that category.

- Andrew McAfee, author