The AI Round-up: Don't Choose Fear.

AI news covering...the week of September 14

Remember last week when we heard AI was going to take us all out? And not to dinner, but out. Like Tony Soprano out.

We had to pump the brakes a bit, right? Because we’ve been talking about this for a bit. Especially if you follow this newsletter, which follows The Artificial Intelligence Show podcast. We talked last week about this reality was always there…as is the reality that other things could result in the same outcome.

Well, if you still need some assurances that this news isn’t as heavy as it seems, I’d highly recommend this week’s episode of The AI Show pod. At least the first section. Because if it can make Mike’s mom feel ‘better’, we can all feel better.

Don’t choose fear.

Let’s get to it.

Shhhhh.

The New York Times ran a piece titled “The Quiet Way AI is Hitting the Workforce.”

The overall theme? AI is freezing the existing labor force while putting more work on their plates. I remember way back in 2024 when Paul Roetzer was talking about the high likelihood we’d see the first 10 person billion dollar company. I didn’t think that was far-fetched then…and I don’t think it is now. Mainly because we are now starting to see the ‘secret’ of AI revealed: it can help you X your effort.

And as I talk about in my OTHER newsletter, the fact that employee retention and engagement isn’t that high up the list of CEO priorities, I don’t think this formula favors the working white collar public.

GPTs are being retired.

But you can migrate them via a plug-in. Or you can just use the new powerful models from OpenAI in place of the GPTs.

“AI visibility software is bullshit.”

Christopher Penn with some strong words! (You can see him at MAICON!)

Hard Fork sunsets. And a new podcast dawns.

Two of my favs – Casey Newton and Kevin Roose (you can see him at MAICON!) are ending their crypto turned AI/tech podcast, Hard Fork, and partnering with NPR to launch a new one titled ‘Machine Gods.’

So, be prepared for me to be linking to that podcast a lot going forward.

Seems like a good year to attend MAICON, no?

How can I save on MAICON registration?

Click the link, enter promo code BENTHINKING200 for a $200 savings.

Stop guessing.

So how much of an impact will AI have on our economy? Anthropic decided to build an interactive tool for all of us to play with so we can see for ourselves.

AI creates ‘safety by proxy’ and three other patterns to watch for regarding psychological safety.

This is a fascinating ready from HBR. It’s all about how AI is being used as the new anonymous survey/suggestion box to surface issues when employees feel they can’t articulate them or have the voice to do so.

Does AI need a kill switch?

Not…so…fast.

Meet your Muse.

It’s your AI agent that just gets shit done!! Yeah!!!

Microsoft does solemnly swear its AI will behave itself.

Microsoft AI published its code of conduct. You can review it and provide any feedback but overall it is written with a very heavy hand, promising that AI is all about you. The human.

Here’s an excerpt that jumped out to me:

MAI Models should protect and enhance the wellbeing of Users. This includes responding or acting in a way that supports Users’ emotional, mental, physical, and material wellbeing, especially in contexts where people may be seeking help in moments that matter. As such, an MAI Model is intended to connect people rather than to replace human connection.

Do you want a non-scary way to see how good Claude Fable is?

Cool, then check out this breakdown from Ethan Mollick.

Here’s a closer look at the assignment:

I asked Fable in Claude Projects to select famous historical mysteries that it could try to resolve. It initiated research agents, selected the mysteries based on data it could access, and spun up eighteen separate threads, each with an agent each focused on one mystery. Then each thread launched additional agents (simulating avalanches, breaking codes) before summarizing those and passing them to still more agents for write up and another set of skeptical agents to fact check. It did this over a day of work, with the central orchestrator agent organizing it all.

Also, just a reminder you can order his next book, now, before it comes out next month.

Smarter X’s AI for Marketers course is free.

But only for September.

Some Nopes.

Jensen Huang has declared that AGI is here. Ben Brugler declares this a very promotional and self-serving spin of a statement.
OpenAI discovered six new incidents of its AI showing concerning behavior. And TechCrunch wins for the best image to accompany this story.
Report from Salesforce’s Dreamforce: Business leaders say AI is moving too fast for them. Dang, can you image how those leaders who think AI is just a fad must feel?
OpenAI ‘ethically hacked’ with help from Claude. In related news, Tom Brady claims he ethically deflated balls and Emmanuel Clase claims he ethically threw games and….eh, you get it.

Thanks for reading and supporting!

Live life, love life,

Ben

As a reminder, this is a round-up of the biggest stories, often hitting multiple newsletters I receive/review. The sources are many … which I’m happy to read on your behalf. Let me know if there’s one you’d like me to track or have questions about a topic you’re not seeing here.