 |
|
|
|||||
The generative AI revolution shows no sign of slowing as OpenAI recently rolled out its GPT-4.5 model to paying ChatGPT users, while competitors have announced plans to introduce their own latest modelsincluding Anthropic, which unveiled Claude 3.7 Sonnet, its latest language model, late last month. But the ease of use of these AI models is having a material impact on the information we encounter daily, according to a new study published in Cornell Universitys preprint server arXiv. An analysis of more than 300 million documents, including consumer complaints, corporate press releases, job postings, and messages for the media published by the United Nations suggests that the web is being swamped with AI-generated slop. The study tracks the purported involvement of generative AI tools to create content across those key sectors, above, between January 2022 and September 2024. We wanted to quantify how many people are using these tools, says Yaohui Zhang, one of the study’s coauthors, and a researcher at Stanford University. The answer was, a lot. Following the November 30, 2022, release of ChatGPT, the estimated proportion of content in each domain that saw suggestions of AI generation or involvement skyrocketed. From a baseline of around 1.5% in the 11 months prior to the release of ChatGPT, the proportion of customer complaints that exhibited some sort of AI help increased tenfold. Similarly, the share of press releases that had hints of AI involvement rapidly increased in the months after ChatGPT became widely available. Which areas of the United States were more likely to adopt AI to help write complaints was made possible by the data accompanying the text of each complaint made to the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau (CFPB), the government agency that Donald Trump has now dissolved. In the 2024 data analyzed by the academics, complainants in Arkansas, Missouri, and North Dakota were the most likely to use AI, with its presence in around one in four complaints; while West Virginia, Idaho, and Vermont residents were least likelywhere between one in 20 and one in 40 showed AI evidence. Unlike off-the-shelf AI detection tools, Zhang and his colleagues developed their own statistical framework to determine whether something was likely AI-generated that compared linguistic patternsincluding word frequency distributionsin texts written before the release of ChatGPT against those known to have been generated or modified by large language models. The outputs were then tested against known human- or AI-written texts, with prediction errors lower than 3.3%, suggesting it was able to accurately discern one from the other. Like many, the team behind the work is worried about the impact of samizdat content flooding the webparticularly in so many areas, from consumer complaints to corporate and non-governmental organization press releases. I think [generative AI] is somehow constraining the creativity of humans, says Zhang.
Category:
E-Commerce
In business and sports, team dynamics impact outcomes. Whether youre pursuing profits or championships, knowing what triggers your teammates can help you avoid conflict and stay on task. The problem is that taking time to better understand each other isnt always our default setting, say John Eliot and Jim Guinn, authors of How To Get Along with Anyone: The Playbook for Predicting and Preventing Conflict at Work and at Home. Blowups appear to be substance-driven, but theyre actually people-driven, says Eliot. The first step toward preventing and resolving conflict is to focus on figuring out the people participating in it not the underlying problem. To work well with others, Guinn and Eliot recommend learning your teammates conflict triggers and go-to method of resolution. Three Conflict Triggers There are three distinct types of conflict, according to Eliot and Guinn. Not all conflicts trigger all people, and its common to have a blind spot for your own. Task conflict centers on getting things done. The person who is triggered by this type is goal- and deadline-driven. Their attitude is one where the ends justify the means. Process conflict centers on the way things get done. Someone who is bothered by process conflict doesnt focus on end goals or delivery dates. They care about methods, systems, or policies with a my way or the highway attitude. Relational conflict involves the people in disagreement and their habits, preferences, or tastes. In this case, the parties will fight over anything simply because they dont like one another. If there is no objective reason for a dispute, its likely relational. You can determine if a conflict type has triggered someone by watching how quickly they bring up the problem and if their tone changes. Knowing someones hot buttons can help you prevent a lot of conflict, says Eliot. You know what situation you should or should not go to with this person. Five Conflict Personalities How we handle conflict also follows patterns. When riled by one another, Eliot and Guinn say humans instinctively avoid, compete, analyze, collaborate, or accommodate, forming five go-to conflict personalities. The avoider sits back and waits to see if a conflict escalates before getting involved. This style lends itself to work efficiency and would rather get a job done themselves than delegate it. However, an avoider will also let a conflict fester or grow before resolving it. The competitor personality likes action and results. They prefer doing, and they thrive on clearly defined protocols. The downside is that a competitor can become impatient, rushing work, and they are often seen as being hard-nosed and inflexible. The analyzer has a penchant for evidence-based decision-making. They are patient and good at listening and gathering information. The weakness of an analyzer is that they can struggle with tight deadlines. They can also appear as controlling. The collaborator is a great communicator and has strong empathy for others. They make a good partner; however, they can lack time-management skills and are more prone to burnout. Finally, the accommodator is great at teamwork. In sports, they are the quarterback, often charismatic with an ability to account for different team members needs. Their weakness is that theyre often ego-driven, trying to do everything themselves. Conflict personality types and triggers work hand in hand. For example, someone who has a competitive conflict-handling approach will often be triggered by process. You don’t want to [resolve the conflict] with a lot of small talk, says Guinn. Instead, use what’s called the ‘domino technique.’ Knock the biggest issue first, which will knock over all of the minor issues. If someone has an analyzer personality style, they can be triggered by task conflicts, especially if they feel they are being rushed. Resolve this type of conflict with what Guinn calls a “momentum process.” Identify and knock out the most inconsequential issues, one punch at a time, he says. Then move onto relevant issues that represent low-hanging fruit. By understanding triggers and go-to styles for addressing them, you can get on the front side of conflict, predicting and preventing problems, says Guinn. In order to have good teams, you don’t need to have a complex understanding of psychology, he says. Just take a couple of simple steps in terms of listening and understanding. Know what tone of voice to use and what pace to move with this person. These are simple things everybody can do. Little steps go a long way in relationship- and team-building.
Category:
E-Commerce
If youve ever wondered what a dinosaur might have actually sounded like, now theres a way to find out. It comes in the form of the Dinosaur Choir, a musical instrument created by artists Courtney Brown and Cezary Gajewski. The instrument, which takes the form of an accurate, life-sized dinosaur skull, allows human musicians to recreate possible dinosaur vocalizations by blowing into a mouthpiece. Its set to debut this weekend at the 27th Guthman Competition, a global contest to select the years most innovative new instrument of the future. The 10 semi-finalists hail from seven different countries, proposing prototypes that include everything from a customizable trumpet to a kind of guitar-harp combo and a flute-esque instrument called the Udderbot. Each of the contenders presents new musical possibilities, whether through the form of the instrument, the sound it produces, the user input, or some combination of the three. The Dinosaur Choir takes an extensive body of research into the anatomy of the adult Corythosaurus dinosaur and converts it into a playable, interactive experienceletting the musician actually embody the extinct creature itself. [Image: courtesy Guthman Musical Instrument Competition] Building an accurate dinosaur skull To begin mapping out the structure of the Dinosaur Choir, Brown and Gajewski first partnered up with paleontologist Thomas Dudgeon at the Royal Ontario Museum/University of Toronto, who provided them with a CT scan of a fossilized Corythosaurus skull. The scan allowed them to create an initial model of the dinosaurs skull and nasal passage structure. Then, using this 3D skull, Dudgeon and Brown carried out a process called retrodeformation. This is essentially a kind of restoration, performed using existing diagrams and scientific papers for reference, to resolve any damage to the structure caused by prolonged burial. After a skull is buried underneath the ground for millions of years, parts of it crush or bend, Brown explains. We use 3D modeling to restore the fossil so that it is closer to its original form. With the retrodeformation step complete, the Corythosaurus skull replica (including internal nasal passages) was ready to be 3D printed. Next, Brown set out to encode the dinosaurs actual vocalizations. Researchers in biology and human anatomy have created computational models of the mechanics of the voice: human, bird, and alligator, Brown says. These are sets of mathematical equations that describe the air pressure change (ie, sound) that result from the biological and physical processes of the vocal folds. [. . .] I take these equations and put them into computer code to create sound in real-time. Brown started by recreating bird vocal models based on existing models of the syrinx, or the avian vocal box. Then, she says, because the sound is created by simulating the physical anatomy with math, she was able to modify the model to fit with estimated dinosaur anatomy. We may never know exactly how dinosaurs sounded Despite all of these steps, theres still an inevitable uncertainty as to the accuracy of the final sounds. No non-avian dinosaur vocal organs have yet been found, Brown says, as the vocal organs tend to be made of soft tissue such as cartilage, and therefore are much less likely to fossilize or preserve. Additionally, vocalization is a behavior, Brown adds. An animal can potentially make more sounds using their anatomy than they actually producethis is true on an individual level but also on a species level. This behavior is very difficultperhaps impossibleto detect via the fossil record. What traces would the sounds leave behind? To account for this variability, Brown made two different vocal models for the Dinosaur Choir: one based on a dove syrinx and one based on a raven syrinx. Currently, she notes, shes also working on a third model based on an alligator larynx, as it is not settled science whether most dinosaurs had vocal organs closer to alligators or birds. The Dinosaur Choir is controlled by a camera and microphone, which detect the users mouth shape and breath, respectively. By manipulating these inputs, the musician can essentially play the Corythosauruss theorized vocal cords across a range of pitches and volumes, from a high, bright call to a low, almost mournful groan. Ultimately, we may never know exactly how our extinct predecessors sounded when they walked the Earthbut with the Dinosaur Choir, we can get pretty damn close.
Category:
E-Commerce
All news |
||||||||||||||||||
|
||||||||||||||||||