Doug Atkinson

President of Solutions Review. Seen a thing or two. Never seen anything like this. Posting on what keeps me up at night about AI.

[Doug Atkinson @AI_DAtkinson]

https://t.co/ta51pDmHcL

[Doug Atkinson @AI_DAtkinson]

@Yale has taken a nice first step in addressing the crisis facing higher education with a Report of the Yale Committee on Trust in Higher Education. Interestingly they addressed everything but the "demographic cliff" - which top tier schools will most likely avoid. Gave short shrift to AI:

"Faculty across the university are scrambling to redesign syllabi and assessments. Whatever its promise, AI in its
current use on campus undermines the expectations of focused, disciplined thinking that have long been the standard features of a rigorous education."

[Doug Atkinson @AI_DAtkinson]

Clever take on AI benchmarks by Angela Aristidoua professor at University College London and a faculty fellow at the Stanford Digital Economy Lab.

In an article on MIT Technology Review @techreview she makes the case that current AI benchmarks are broken because they test models in isolation rather than in real-world workflows. Instead of raw scores, we need metrics that evaluate "human correction load," error detectability, and overall team productivity to reflect how AI actually performs as a collaborative tool.

Read another way, hiring the "smartest" person who is difficult to manage is like using a powerful but "black box" AI; the time spent correcting their social or procedural errors (the "downstream damage") often outweighs their individual output.

Ultimately, both AI evaluation and hiring go wrong when they prioritize isolated capability over collaborative reliability.
https://t.co/oOn1LdifJ1

[Doug Atkinson @AI_DAtkinson]

Anyone else having this fever dream?

[Doug Atkinson @AI_DAtkinson]

Great conversation with Asha J. Palmer, AI governance, ethics, and compliance leader at Skillsoft about what responsible AI actually looks like in practice. Asha brings both the legal compliance lens and the human one, and the result is a great discussion about what it means to stay relevant in an AI-powered world.

[Doug Atkinson @AI_DAtkinson]

https://t.co/r2U1hVLXA4

[Doug Atkinson @AI_DAtkinson]

Here are the top euphemisms AI companies will use to soften the reality of automation and job displacement:

Efficiency & Process Language
* Streamline
* Optimize
* Augment workflows
* Accelerate
* Transform processes
* Human-Centered Framing
* Augment (workers, not replace them)
* Empower employees
* Free up" humans for higher-value work
* Upskill / Reskill
* Co-pilot (implying humans are still flying the plane)

Abstract / Corporate-Speak
* Scale (operations without headcount)
* Drive efficiency
* Unlock capacity
* Reallocate resources (resources = people)
* Right-size the workforce

Innovation Framing
* Future-proof
* Modernize
* Digitally transform
* Enable next-generation workflows

The Subtle Ones
* Reduce friction (the friction is often a human step)
* Automate the mundane (until the mundane is your job)
* Handle repetitive tasks (entire roles are repetitive)
* 24/7 availability (no lunch breaks, no salary)

The marketing team will frame AI as a collaborator or enhancer rather than a replacement, and wrap displacement in language that sounds like a promotion.

"Your job isn't being eliminated — it's being evolved."

[Doug Atkinson @AI_DAtkinson]

The Human Conversation continues to roll along with new weekly releases. This latest episode features the always compelling @EvanKirstel - B2B thought leader and top technology influencer who helps clients grow their social media audience.

As you can see in this excerpt, I got in to the existential crisis we faced the first time we saw ChatGPT a little over three years ago. And how our team at Solutions Review and https://t.co/1pbsZXsqkR has been able to pivot our content and authority into online events, video production and community building. All the while connecting with a host of new experts and organizations that share our concern about the human impact of AI.

[Doug Atkinson @AI_DAtkinson]

Check out the full episode here:
https://t.co/EPkNC6aivG

[Doug Atkinson @AI_DAtkinson]

First episode of The Human Conversation just dropped with our inaugural guest @DavidLinthicum. This is part of our broader focus at Insight Jam and Solutions Review to explore the human impact of AI. We are inviting all of the experts who have been a part of our panels and keynotes to sit down for a deep discussion in each new episode. Got a half a dozen recorded already and it is fascinating (for me anyway). Hope you give it a glance when you have a chance.

[Doug Atkinson @AI_DAtkinson]

Read this quote from Matt Shumer the co-founder and CEO of OthersideAI, an applied AI company building some of the most advanced autocomplete tools in the world.

"I am no longer needed for the actual technical work of my job. I describe what I want built, in plain English, and it just… appears. Not a rough draft I need to fix. The finished thing. I tell the AI what I want, walk away from my computer for four hours, and come back to find the work done. Done well, done better than I would have done it myself, with no corrections needed. A couple of months ago, I was going back and forth with the AI, guiding it, making edits. Now I just describe the outcome and leave."

[Doug Atkinson @AI_DAtkinson]

Online news will experience the double-whammy with AI impacting its workforce. 1. AI can easily replace the content creation. And, 2. With AI now providing answers at the top of search returns, the "zero-click" result will crater organic traffic.

[Barry Schwartz @rustybrick]

Business Insider Lays Off 21% of Staff, Citing ‘Traffic Sensitivity’ https://t.co/0b39tJEwzB via @Adweek - I guess @sundarpichai is on target ???

[Doug Atkinson @AI_DAtkinson]

@sarafischer @BusinessInsider Online news will experience the double-whammy with AI impacting its workforce. 1. AI can easily replace the content creation. And, 2. With AI now providing answers at the top of search results, the "zero-click" result will crater organic traffic.

[Doug Atkinson @AI_DAtkinson]

There is a wildfire just over the hill. Right now you can only see the smoke. "Lawmakers don't get it or don't believe it. CEOs are afraid to talk about it. Many workers won't realize the risks posed by the possible job apocalypse — until after it hits."

[Axios @axios]

EXCLUSIVE: Anthropic CEO Dario Amodei has a blunt warning: AI could wipe out half of entry-level white-collar jobs, spiking unemployment to 10-20% in the next 1-5 years.

Few are paying attention: Politicians don't get it. CEOs are afraid to talk about it.
https://t.co/xznSYntxNZ

[Doug Atkinson @AI_DAtkinson]

AI will easily remove the bottom rungs of many traditional white collar career ladders; the junior coder, the sales development rep, the associate marketing manger and many more are all jobs where companies will employ AI agents in the next couple of years. Guidance counselors and universities will be slow to react.

[FORTUNE @FortuneMagazine]

“While the technology sector is feeling the first waves of change, reflecting A.I.’s mass adoption in this field, the erosion of traditional entry-level tasks is expected to play out in fields like finance, travel, food and professional services, too.” https://t.co/oPU4VlFKSf

[Doug Atkinson @AI_DAtkinson]

It is advancements like this that will disrupt all of traditional education. The advantage of vast institutional knowledge no longer exists for academia. Creating a way to deliver tutelage in a more dimensional way will begin to eliminate the in-person human delivery advantage. And it may well increase focus for the student and speed learning; so time for education is metered out and measured at the individual level and not throttled by the average of the cohort. In short - smart, motivated kids won't need to sit - bored to death - while the learning bureaucracy delivers its mediocre curriculum to the others.

[Google @Google]

What if you could take a 2D video call and make it feel like you’re really there?

Google Beam, our new AI-first video communication platform, does just that — using a state-of-the-art AI video model to transform 2D video streams into a realistic 3D experience. #GoogleIO

[Doug Atkinson @AI_DAtkinson]

I am genuinely excited for that kid that wants to tell a story in their head that only they can see. Movie making will go back to a simpler time, when the story mattered more than the return on investment.

[Google @Google]

Say goodbye to the silent era of video generation: Introducing Veo 3 — with native audio generation. 🗣️

Quality is up from Veo 2, and now you can add dialogue between characters, sound effects and background noise.

Veo 3 is available now in the @GeminiApp for Google AI Ultra subscribers in the U.S.

#GoogleIO

[Doug Atkinson @AI_DAtkinson]

It doesn't happen all at once, but it is already happening. And we will be slow to react.

[Storyboard18 @Storyboard18_]

The layoff trend is reminiscent of 2024, which saw a total of approximately 1,50,000 job losses spanning 549 companies.

Read More: https://t.co/ana9Zffcmf

Story by Sakina Kheriwala

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