Bravo to AI Companies That Agreed to Voluntary Commitments! Now Let's See Action: The commitment by major AI companies to develop watermarks to identify AI-generated output is a test of the voluntary approach to regulation.
Letters

Bravo to AI Companies That Agreed to Voluntary Commitments! Now Let's See Action: The commitment by major AI companies to develop watermarks to identify AI-generated output is a test of the voluntary approach to regulation.

Last week, the White House announced voluntary commitments by seven AI companies. Most of the points were sufficiently vague that it seems easy for the White House...

July 26, 20232 min read
Bravo to AI Companies That Agreed to Voluntary Commitments! Now Let's See Action: The commitment by major AI companies to develop watermarks to identify AI-generated output is a test of the voluntary approach to regulation.
Letters

Bravo to AI Companies That Agreed to Voluntary Commitments! Now Let's See Action: The commitment by major AI companies to develop watermarks to identify AI-generated output is a test of the voluntary approach to regulation.

Last week, the White House announced voluntary commitments by seven AI companies. Most of the points were sufficiently vague that it seems easy for the White House...

July 26, 20232 min read
It's Time to Update Copyright for Generative AI: We need new copyright laws that enable generative AI developers and users to move forward without risking lawsuits.
Letters

It's Time to Update Copyright for Generative AI: We need new copyright laws that enable generative AI developers and users to move forward without risking lawsuits.

Many laws will need to be updated to encourage beneficial AI innovations while mitigating potential harms. One example: Copyright law as it relates to generative AI is a mess!

July 19, 20233 min read
It's Time to Update Copyright for Generative AI: We need new copyright laws that enable generative AI developers and users to move forward without risking lawsuits.
Letters

It's Time to Update Copyright for Generative AI: We need new copyright laws that enable generative AI developers and users to move forward without risking lawsuits.

Many laws will need to be updated to encourage beneficial AI innovations while mitigating potential harms. One example: Copyright law as it relates to generative AI is a mess!

July 19, 20233 min read
Building Machine Learning Systems is More Debugging Than Development: Traditional software development requires meticulous planning. With machine learning, it's better to jump right in.
Letters

Building Machine Learning Systems is More Debugging Than Development: Traditional software development requires meticulous planning. With machine learning, it's better to jump right in.

Internalizing this mental framework has made me a more efficient machine learning engineer: Most of the work of building a machine learning system is debugging rather than development.

July 12, 20233 min read
Building Machine Learning Systems is More Debugging Than Development: Traditional software development requires meticulous planning. With machine learning, it's better to jump right in.
Letters

Building Machine Learning Systems is More Debugging Than Development: Traditional software development requires meticulous planning. With machine learning, it's better to jump right in.

Internalizing this mental framework has made me a more efficient machine learning engineer: Most of the work of building a machine learning system is debugging rather than development.

July 12, 20233 min read
AI at the Speed of Prompting: Prompt-based development enables you to try out ideas quickly and cheaply — no need to scope projects carefully.
Letters

AI at the Speed of Prompting: Prompt-based development enables you to try out ideas quickly and cheaply — no need to scope projects carefully.

Prompt-based development is making the machine learning development cycle much faster: Projects that used to take months now may take days. I wrote in an earlier letter that this rapid development is causing developers to do away with test sets.

July 5, 20233 min read
AI at the Speed of Prompting: Prompt-based development enables you to try out ideas quickly and cheaply — no need to scope projects carefully.
Letters

AI at the Speed of Prompting: Prompt-based development enables you to try out ideas quickly and cheaply — no need to scope projects carefully.

Prompt-based development is making the machine learning development cycle much faster: Projects that used to take months now may take days. I wrote in an earlier letter that this rapid development is causing developers to do away with test sets.

July 5, 20233 min read
What Lawmakers Need to Know About AI: Few people in the world have the information required to regulate AI effectively. Governments need to get it.
Letters

What Lawmakers Need to Know About AI: Few people in the world have the information required to regulate AI effectively. Governments need to get it.

Suddenly it seems like everyone wants to regulate AI. The European Union is on the verge of enacting a comprehensive AI Act that’s intended to mitigate risks and protect individual rights. In the United States, Senate Majority leader Chuck Schumer foresees legislation possibly within months.

June 28, 20232 min read
What Lawmakers Need to Know About AI: Few people in the world have the information required to regulate AI effectively. Governments need to get it.
Letters

What Lawmakers Need to Know About AI: Few people in the world have the information required to regulate AI effectively. Governments need to get it.

Suddenly it seems like everyone wants to regulate AI. The European Union is on the verge of enacting a comprehensive AI Act that’s intended to mitigate risks and protect individual rights. In the United States, Senate Majority leader Chuck Schumer foresees legislation possibly within months.

June 28, 20232 min read
Breakthroughs on the Horizon?: Innovations in computer vision stole the spotlight at this year's CVPR conference.
Letters

Breakthroughs on the Horizon?: Innovations in computer vision stole the spotlight at this year's CVPR conference.

I spent Sunday through Tuesday at the CVPR computer vision conference in Vancouver, Canada, along with over 4,000 other attendees. With the easing of the pandemic, it’s fantastic that large conferences are being held in person again!

June 22, 20233 min read
Breakthroughs on the Horizon?: Innovations in computer vision stole the spotlight at this year's CVPR conference.
Letters

Breakthroughs on the Horizon?: Innovations in computer vision stole the spotlight at this year's CVPR conference.

I spent Sunday through Tuesday at the CVPR computer vision conference in Vancouver, Canada, along with over 4,000 other attendees. With the easing of the pandemic, it’s fantastic that large conferences are being held in person again!

June 22, 20233 min read
AI Risk and the Resource Curse: Concentration of AI in the hands of a few could undermine human rights. The solution is to make it available to everyone.
Letters

AI Risk and the Resource Curse: Concentration of AI in the hands of a few could undermine human rights. The solution is to make it available to everyone.

AI risks are in the air — from speculation that AI, decades or centuries from now, could bring about human extinction to ongoing problems like bias and fairness.

June 14, 20233 min read
AI Risk and the Resource Curse: Concentration of AI in the hands of a few could undermine human rights. The solution is to make it available to everyone.
Letters

AI Risk and the Resource Curse: Concentration of AI in the hands of a few could undermine human rights. The solution is to make it available to everyone.

AI risks are in the air — from speculation that AI, decades or centuries from now, could bring about human extinction to ongoing problems like bias and fairness.

June 14, 20233 min read
Existential Risk? I Don't Get It!: Prominent computer scientists fear that AI could trigger human extinction. It's time to have a real conversation about the realistic risks.
Letters

Existential Risk? I Don't Get It!: Prominent computer scientists fear that AI could trigger human extinction. It's time to have a real conversation about the realistic risks.

Last week, safe.org asserted that “Mitigating the risk of extinction from AI should be a global priority alongside other societal-scale risks such as pandemics and nuclear war.

June 7, 20232 min read

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