Authors and publishers are worried about the threat of AI – and they’re fighting back. But there are still important ways human authors can’t be replaced with machines.
Generative AI, those astonishingly powerful language- and image-generating tools taking the world by storm, come at a price: a big carbon footprint. But not all AIs are equally dirty.
Words have meaning for people because we use them to make sense of the world.
RyanJLane/E+ via Getty Images
Now that AI systems can generate realistic images and convincing prose, are creative and knowledge workers endangered or poised for productivity gains? A panel of experts says it’s not so clear-cut.
Linguists have long considered grammar to be the glue of language, and key to how children learn it. But new prose-writing AIs suggest language experience may be more important than grammar.
‘Théâtre D’opéra Spatial’
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Kyle Mahowald, The University of Texas at Austin and Anna A. Ivanova, Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT)
Fluent expression is not always evidence of a mind at work, but the human brain is primed to believe so. A pair of cognitive linguistics experts explain why language is not a good test of sentience.
An image created by DALL-E 2 in response to the prompt ‘a robot hand drawing’.
OpenAI
New software that can generate images and text on command may deliver ‘good enough’ creativity in advertising, copywriting, stock imagery and graphic design.
If a piece of writing was 49 per cent written by AI, with the remaining 51 per cent written by a human, is this original work?
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Common sense is a broad and diverse set of abilities that help define what it means to be human. AI researchers are struggling to endow computers with it.
Associate Professor, Werklund School of Education and Educational Leader in Residence, Taylor Institute of Teaching and Learning, University of Calgary