What can the dot-com bubble teach us about the future of AI?

Apr 18, 2024
In the 1990s, Wall Street was very enthusiastic about the internet — and lost a ton of money because of that enthusiasm.
The burgeoning field of artificial intelligence is often compared to the birth of the internet in the 1990s, when many tech companies did too much too quickly and collapsed.
Frederic J. Brown/AFP via Getty Images

For some job seekers, AI-powered "resume spammers" are a good fit

Mar 28, 2024
These bots send out job applications in high volume for a fee. Reporter Aki Ito at Business Insider tried a few and reported the results.
"When I first started hearing about these services, I thought it was crazy," says Aki Ito, reporter at Business Insider. But based on what she learned, she'd consider using one in the future, she says.
Rawpixel/Getty Images

First stop on the road to regulating AI? Finding humans to do the job.

Mar 25, 2024
Passing AI regulations wasn't easy for the EU. Finding people to enforce it may be even harder.
Because generative AI is so young, there isn’t a huge talent pool for regulatory offices to draw from. And big tech companies can pay way more than governments.
Clement Mahoudeau/AFP via Getty Images

Need to get a grip on AI? There are classes for that.

Mar 14, 2024
"In 2023, someone enrolled on Coursera in [generative] AI content every minute," the company's chief content officer says.
Jules White, an AI instructor with Coursera, says most of his courses are designed to get users excited about how to amplify their own creativity with AI, not just how to automate tedious tasks.
Josep Lago/AFP via Getty Images

Workers are worried about AI on the job, study shows

Feb 7, 2024
Seven in 10 U.S. workers say they’re “very” or “somewhat” concerned about employers using AI in HR decision-making, according to a Rutgers report.
Some workers are worried AI will make their jobs obsolete. Others have concerns about AI's role in hiring and firing decisions.
Michael M. Santiago/Getty Images

The "poison pill" that protects artists' work from AI scraping

Feb 5, 2024
"Everything is at stake," says Ben Zhao of the University of Chicago, who leads the development of two tools that support human creativity.
The goal of Nightshade "is to raise the price for unauthorized training on scraped data," says Ben Zhao at the University of Chicago.
Courtesy the Glaze Project

The economy and ethics of AI training data

Jan 31, 2024
Many artificial intelligence tools were trained on freely-available digital content. That might be legal, but is it ethical?
By publishing something on the internet without explicitly telling other computers to avoid it, you're consenting to its use by AI, says Common Crawl's Rich Skrenta.
Outflow Designs/Getty Images

For public good, not for profit.

AI has helped Microsoft beat Apple to become the most valuable company in the world

Jan 30, 2024
And investors will be hoping for more good news on that front when the company announces quarterly earnings.
Microsoft CEO Satya Nadella at an OpenAI event on Nov. 6, 2023.
Justin Sullivan/Getty Images

Google Search may be the most powerful arbiter of internet content

Jan 22, 2024
Websites are making content "to try to game Google results," says Mia Sato of The Verge. What has that done to human creativity?
"There is this tension between what we all want to do on the internet and what makes sense to," said Mia Sato at The Verge. "Because if Google cannot see our work, there's really no point in making it."
Photo illustration by Chesnot/Getty Images

AI might not take your job after all

Jan 22, 2024
MIT researchers estimate that artificial intelligence would be cost-effective in less than a quarter of the work it could technically do.
Nvidia, a chipmaker with sought-after AI products, has done well on Wall Street, but that doesn't mean AI will steal all our jobs. Above, Nvidia CEO Jensen Huang.
I-Hwa Cheng / AFP via Getty Images