China and AI, Code Interpreter, THREADS, and NATO Summit

The world keeps artificially changing, but the reality on the ground cannot be ignored

Programming Note: we have rebranded to Unartificially Intelligent, with a human focus on artificial intelligence and the goal of enhancing human critical thinking generally. Be sure to check out polispandit.com and my Medium page for more.

Photo by Kayla Kozlowski on Unsplash

China is beating the world at artificial intelligence (AI) regulation. While it’s debatable who has the overall AI lead, there’s not much debate when it comes to regulation and governance. China is winning.

This is important for multiple reasons:

1. Whoever can effectively regulate AI first will likely set the rules of the game for everyone globally (as others will seek to replicate them);

2. Clear rules of the road potentially boost innovation (assuming the rules are not too draconian) by telling the industry where the guardrails are; and

3. There’s better safety and soundness for consumers using AI products when clearer regulations are implemented and enforced.

Of course, there’s a major caveat here. China is governed by an autocratic regime. As this great article by Matt Sheehan describes, the Chinese government has significant influence over AI policy and regulation. Regardless, what they have accomplished is impressive:

“China is in the midst of rolling out some of the world’s earliest and most detailed regulations governing artificial intelligence (AI). These include measures governing recommendation algorithms—the most omnipresent form of AI deployed on the internet—as well as new rules for synthetically generated images and chatbots in the mold of ChatGPT. China’s emerging AI governance framework will reshape how the technology is built and deployed within China and internationally, impacting both Chinese technology exports and global AI research networks.”

America and the European Union must catch up before China sets the AI rules of the game for everyone.

Code Interpreter is here

OpenAI and ChatGPT recently released a new tool in its generative AI toolbox. It’s called Code Interpreter. Here’s a great summary of it from a researcher who tested the alpha version for a couple of months:

What AI can do with a toolbox... Getting started with Code Interpreter

Basically, Code Interpreter can help you code - even with no coding experience - and it allows you to upload data, which it can then analyze based on plain English commands.

Right now its use is limited to ChatGPT Plus users, but I wouldn’t be surprised if it was rolled out to everyone soon. It’s one of the most impressive generative AI tools I’ve read about to date. The ability to parse through relatively complex data, apply rules/directions, and analyze the data based on those instructions, is huge for many industries.

I wonder what this type of tool might mean for apprenticeships though.

Many junior employees in finance, for example, spend much of their time doing what Code Interpreter promises to do. Will this AI tool make them more efficient? Will it act as a task agent for them? Or will it replace more of them?

Thread the Twitter needle

Probably the biggest announcement from this past week was the launch of Threads. Here’s a good summary of Instagram’s new Thread app, with good answers to FAQs.

In short, Meta is going full throttle towards its takedown of (a largely dysfunctional) Twitter. No wonder Elon Musk wants a cage match with Mark Zuckerberg. He wants to distract everyone from Twitter’s bleak reality: it was a terrible purchase and its operation since has been nothing short of chaotic.

He should be scared:

“Within hours of launch, Threads has crossed the mark of 10 million signups and it passed 30 million signups within 24 hours. Threads reached 100 million users within just five days of launch.”

Threads has not even launched in the European Union yet! It’s only getting started.

Outside AI and Tech - NATO Summit

World leaders from more than 40 countries are descending on Vilnius, Lithuania this week. It’s NATO summit time.

The top of the agenda is whether Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan will approve Sweden’s membership to join NATO. What will he expect in return? Expect a deal to be done, potentially more American weapons in exchange for Sweden’s entrance into the alliance.

Also, expect more security guarantees for Ukraine, but don’t get your hopes up for any sort of roadmap to NATO membership. There are simply too many concerns (and questions) around the success of Ukraine’s counteroffensive and provoking Putin. That’s despite the fact many EU leaders - including Erdogan - think Ukraine has earned NATO membership.

For more reading on NATO, Putin, and Ukraine, check out my previous article: To Those Blaming NATO or the United States For Russian Aggression.

Here’s an excerpt:

While NATO has maintained a peaceful deterrence posture towards Russia, the same cannot be said about Putin. As I have mentioned in previous articles, Putin has invaded countries like Georgia (2008), annexed others like Crimea (2014), orchestrated numerous offensive cyber attacks across borders, and poisoned and murdered Russian dissidents on NATO soil.

Yet some still think NATO and the United States are the aggressors here. An accurate reading of history — free from Kremlin controlled propaganda — suggests otherwise.

Read more here.

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