Washington Post [no paywall] Companies are rushing to embrace artificial intelligence to cut costs, increase efficiency and better understand this new technology. IBM has replaced a couple hundred human resources workers with AI applications. At Microsoft and Google, AI writes more than one-quarter of the code. Writers can now use AI as their personal assistant and editor. These reports have provoked untold worries that AI could ultimately replace us in the workplace. Indeed, unlike AI experts, only 23 percent of the general public recently surveyed believed that the technology would have a positive impact on jobs. That’s partially because it’s still difficult to grasp how AI might affect U.S. labor markets. When examining AI’s impact on job markets, some economists try to draw a line between automation and augmentation:

• Automation happens when AI systems can independently carry out a task without human input.
• Augmentation means AI needs human supervision to complete a task, complementing the human worker.

A recently published study examining the impact of AI on the U.S. labor market between 2015 and 2022 found that though AI-driven automation leads to lower wages and higher unemployment, AI-driven augmentation increases wages of more experienced workers and creates jobs in new areas…”

See also: Public Notice: “Last week, the White House released an “AI Action Plan” and three executive orders on artificial intelligence: “Accelerating Federal Permitting of Data Center Infrastructure,” “Promoting the Export of the American AI Technology Stack,” and “Preventing Woke AI In the Federal Government.” The overall goal is to develop AI as fast as possible by removing bureaucratic impediments and export controls on chips and other equipment, placing data centers on federal land, promoting energy production to power them (as long as it isn’t renewable energy), and integrating AI systems into the federal government. All that’s asked of the AI companies themselves is to make sure their large language models (LLMs) promote a Trump-friendly view of the world. After a strategic charm offensive helped along by Trump’s falling-out with Elon Musk, Altman now has the president’s ear on artificial intelligence. But it’s not just him — the top chieftains in Silicon Valley have delivered million-dollar contributions to the president and assured him that they share the same goals. After enduring skepticism about the dangers of rapid AI development from the Biden administration — which many of them found deeply offensive — they realized that Trump could be both bought off and persuaded relatively easily…”

See also AP: “Most U.S. adults say they use artificial intelligence to search for information, but fewer are using it for work, drafting email or shopping. Younger adults are most likely to be leaning into AI, with many using it for brainstorming and work tasks. The new findings from an Associated Press-NORC Center for Public Affairs Research poll show that 60% of Americans overall — and 74% of those under 30 — use AI to find information at least some of the time…”