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You’re Probably Underestimating AI Chatbots

You’re Probably Underestimating AI Chatbots

In the spring of 2007, I was one of four journalists anointed by Steve Jobs to review the iPhone. This was probably the most anticipated product in the history of tech. What would it be like? Was it a turning point for devices? Looking back at my review today, I am relieved to say it’s not an embarrassment: I recognized the device’s generational significance. But for all the praise I bestowed upon the iPhone, I failed to anticipate its mind-blowing secondary effects, such as the volcanic melding of hardware, operating system, and apps, or its hypnotic effect on our attention. (I did urge Apple to “encourage outside developers to create new uses” for the device.) Nor did I suggest we should expect the rise of services like Uber or TikTok or make any prediction that family dinners would turn into communal display-centric trances. Of course, my primary job was to help people decide whether to spend $500, which was super expensive for a phone back then, to buy the damn thing. But reading the review now, one might wonder why I spent time griping about AT&T’s network or the web browser’s inability to handle Flash content. That’s like quibbling over what sandals to wear just as a three-story tsunami is about to break.

I am reminded of my failure of foresight when reading about the experiences people are having with recent AI apps, like large language model chatbots and AI image generators. Quite rightfully, people are obsessing about the impact of a sudden cavalcade of shockingly capable AI systems, though scientists often note that these seemingly rapid breakthroughs have been decades in the making. But as when I first pawed the iPhone in 2007, we risk failing to anticipate the potential trajectories of our AI-infused future by focusing too much on the current versions of products like Microsoft’s Bing chat, OpenAI’s ChatGPT, Anthropic’s Claude, and Google’s Bard.

This fallacy can be clearly observed in what has become a new and popular media genre, best described as prompt-and-pronounce. The modus operandi is to attempt some task formerly limited to humans and then, often disregarding the caveats provided by the inventors, take it to an extreme. The great sports journalist Red Smith once said that writing a column is easy—you just open a vein and bleed. But would-be pundits now promote a bloodless version: You just open a browser and prompt. (Note: this newsletter was produced the old-fashioned way, by opening a vein.)

Typically, prompt-and-pronounce columns involve sitting down with one of these way-early systems and seeing how well it replaces something previously limited to the realm of the human. In a typical example, a New York Times reporter used ChatGPT to answer all her work communications for an entire week. The Wall Street Journal’s product reviewer decided to clone her voice (hey, we did that first!) and appearance using AI to see if her algorithmic doppelgängers could trick people into mistaking the fake for the real thing. There are dozens of similar examples.

Generally, those who stage such stunts come to two conclusions: These models are amazing, but they fall miserably short of what humans do best. The emails fail to pick up workplace nuances. The clones have one foot dragging in the uncanny valley. Most damningly, these text generators make things up when asked for factual information, a phenomenon known as “hallucinations”’ that is the current bane of AI. And it’s a plain fact that the output of today’s models often have a soulless quality. 

In one sense, it’s scary—will our future world be run by flawed “mind children,” as roboticist Hans Moravec calls our digital successors? But in another sense, the shortcomings are comforting. Sure, AIs can now perform a lot of low-level tasks and are unparalleled at suggesting plausible-looking Disneyland trips and gluten-free dinner party menus, but—the thinking goes—the bots will always need us to make corrections and jazz up the prose.

Slack CEO Lidiane Jones Wants You to Stop Slacking So Much

Slack CEO Lidiane Jones Wants You to Stop Slacking So Much

Gideon Lichfield: Exactly.

Lauren Goode: And you can actually pause.

Gideon Lichfield: Yes, and that’s what makes it simple, because there are 17 different apps but only one phone.

Lauren Goode: But then do you, like, wake up in the morning, and at 6 in the morning you’ve gone a blissful eight hours of sleep and there’s an email from Anna Wintour addressed to you and you’re like, “Wow, I really should not have put my phone down for this long.”

Gideon Lichfield: No, it’s more like, “I really should not have picked up my phone just now. I should have waited and gone, had breakfast and some coffee and done some exercise and then picked up the phone, and Anna Wintour can wait.” Sorry, Anna.

Lauren Goode: Wow, you heard it here first. Dare I say that is remarkably healthy, not specifically to your boss, but to any boss.

Gideon Lichfield: That would be the ideal. I’m not saying that that is what I actually achieve every morning, but that is what I aspire to do. But I do think what Lidiane said is very important about establishing culture. On Slack now, you can schedule messages to not be sent until the next morning, but I think you also just have to establish a workplace culture that says if you get a Slack from me outside your normal working hours, I don’t expect you to respond.

Lauren Goode: Isn’t that in some way the ultimate form of tech solutionism though? That, “Oh look, they’ve added this feature where you can schedule something. They’re fixing the problem that all of this software helped create.”

Gideon Lichfield: Right, but that’s why I’m saying that it also has to be a matter of culture. Like you can have the Schedule Message button, but I think you also should just establish the expectation that if somebody sends you a message outside working hours, then they shouldn’t expect a response unless they absolutely need one, and if they absolutely need one, that’s what phone calling is for.

Lauren Goode: I think it all goes back to the Away message. I think we have to return to the days of AOL instant messenger Away messages.

Gideon Lichfield: Which you can have on Slack though, can’t you? 

Lauren Goode: You can, but no one pays attention to them. I talked about this with Lidiane. It was like the customer complaint line. I was like, “And by the way, let me tell you this thing that happened in Slack,” and even when I silence notifications on one device, I could hear like the notifications sound from Slack coming through my iPad across the room.

Gideon Lichfield: But were you responding to these messages? 

Lauren Goode: I was. I was. And I even hopped on a Zoom with you and another editor that day.

Gideon Lichfield: So I feel like you’re blaming the software. I mean, yes, the sick emoji exists to signal that you are sick, but you’re also, I think, enabling other people’s behavior if you respond to it. In other words, if you put up the sick emoji and other people message you, maybe they’re interpreting the sick emoji to mean, “OK, I can message her, but I don’t expect a response from her.” And if you do respond, then you are the one actually who’s breaking the compact rather than them.

Amazon’s HQ2 Aimed to Show Tech Can Boost Cities. Now It’s on Pause

Amazon’s HQ2 Aimed to Show Tech Can Boost Cities. Now It’s on Pause

After a dramatic competition that pitted US cities against one another, years of contested planning, and claims of unwavering commitment despite the pandemic, Amazon now says its plan for a second headquarters, aka HQ2, is on pause. The company said today that it will delay construction of more than half of the millions of square feet of space in a campus planned for Arlington, Virginia, including a twisting tower meant to become a signature landmark for the city. 

Amazon, which is still in the process of laying off more than 18,000 corporate workers, did not set a new date for construction to resume in Arlington, across the Potomac River from Washington, DC. Arlington County board chair Christian Dorsey says the county learned “recently” of the planned pause and does not know when construction will resume.

Amazon also declined to provide any timeline for construction to resume. “Our second headquarters has always been a multiyear project, and we remain committed to Arlington, Virginia, and the greater Capital Region,” says John Schoettler, Amazon’s vice president of global real estate and facilities.

Amazon has pledged to use the project, the first phase of which already dominates the Crystal City neighborhood in which it is located, to eventually bring at least 25,000 high-paid workers to Virginia. Arlington and other cities, including Atlanta, Georgia, and Austin, Texas, competed to win the project in part to secure a tranche of elite workers and associated tax revenue. How many people or new tax dollars Amazon will bring to Arlington, and on what timeline, is now unclear.

Amazon originally planned to build its second HQ in two phases. The first featured two large structures housing about 2 million square feet of office space, and the second another three office buildings and a centerpiece tower called the Helix, a structure something like a cross between a custard swirl and the poop emoji.

HQ2’s first phase, known as Metropolitan Park, will open on schedule in June of this year, Amazon says. But the company no longer has a date for construction of the larger second phase and its signature swirl, all of which was originally planned to include about 2.8 million more square feet of office space and 115,000 square feet for retail. 

That ratio could theoretically change. While Amazon spokesperson Zach Goldsztejn says that Amazon’s long-term commitment remains the same, the construction pause will allow the company more time to study how its space is best used. In February the company announced that it will end its flexible, entirely remote work policy and require workers to be in the office three days a week beginning May 1. The regime change will likely shift how employees use the company’s office spaces.

“It’s not incredibly surprising that Amazon is taking a pause before beginning the second phase,” Dorsey said on a briefing call today about the company’s project. “If you look at the world, there is a lot of uncertainty about what is ahead. Everyone from every sector is thinking about its long-term plans in a new light, and sadly we don’t all have all of the answers.”

An Apple Store Worker Is the New Face of US Labor Law Reform

An Apple Store Worker Is the New Face of US Labor Law Reform

The percentage of US workers represented by a union has fallen for decades, down to 10 percent last year. But unions have recently scored wins in tech, drawing in the retail clerks at Apple, warehouse workers at Amazon, video game testers at Microsoft, and coders in corporate offices at places like Google. Pockets of workers disenchanted with tech companies’ handling of sensitive issues that include sexual harassment and military contracts have fueled organizing in recent years.

Tech companies have turned to playbooks typical of more traditionally unionized industries to fight back. A National Labor Relations Board regional office said in December that it is pursuing a case over allegations that Apple unfairly interfered with unionizing at an Atlanta store through captive audience meetings, interrogations of employees, and other coercive tactics. A hearing is scheduled for April. Employees ultimately withdrew plans for a vote in Atlanta last year.

The NLRB had said in the past that employer-led discussions about the drawbacks of unions do not violate workers’ rights to choose what to listen to. But the board has recently changed its view following a wave of appointments by the Biden administration, including General Counsel Jennifer Abruzzo, the agency’s top bureaucrat, who wrote a memo last April calling captive sessions illegal.

The PRO Act is an attempt to lock more union-friendly policies into law to prevent a future administration or NLRB reversing Biden-era rulings. Beyond addressing captive audience meetings, the legislation would set a new standard for defining independent contractors, which could affect many tech companies; require all union members to pay dues; and allow new forms of strike. It would also hold executives accountable for violations of workers’ rights and let workers sue employers if the NLRB fails to prosecute their case. Other provisions broadly aim to limit the power of employers in influencing the outcome of organizing.

Civick says that before considering unionizing, she and her colleagues repeatedly raised concerns to managers but won little change. Their requests included greater wage increases for long-tenured employees and pay boosts for workers whose multilingual skills prove valuable with customers.

Most urgently, they asked Apple to rid their store’s backroom—where repairs happen, lunch breaks are had, and inventory is stored—of its awful stench. The area has flooded with sewage multiple times over the years, Civick says, and she has personally helped clean the mess a couple of times. Mall operator Simon Property Group did not respond to a request for comment.

The Oklahoma City store was the second Apple location to unionize, following one in Towson, Maryland, represented by the International Association of Machinists and Aerospace Workers union. Several other stores—including in Des Moines, Iowa, and New York City—have discussed unionizing, according to the Communications Workers of America labor group aiding the workers in those areas. The momentum, “it’s just beginning, honestly,” Civick says. (Disclosure: The WIRED Union, of which I am a member, is a unit of the NewsGuild of New York, whose parent organization is the CWA.)

The PRO Act requires mediation and arbitration to help settle contract disputes, but it may not solve every problem for Civick and other workers. The Oklahoma City union is still waiting for Apple to schedule bargaining sessions to thrash out their first contract. Companies sometimes hope that stalling will weaken support for a newly formed union or cause it to dissolve altogether. Civick says that will not happen at her store. “We’re still completely overworked and understaffed, and there’s not been much movement on Apple’s side to improve either of those conditions.”

Twitter Is No Longer a Creative Haven

Twitter Is No Longer a Creative Haven

WIRED has written frequently of late about Elon Musk’s Twitter, so forgive me for coming back to it—but for those of us as terminally online as I am, let me just ask: What the hell happened last weekend?

I woke up on Sunday morning to learn that Twitter was going to block all mentions of, or links to, “competing” services, from Instagram to Facebook, to Linktree of all places. It was claimed to be about “preventing free advertising” of the platform’s competitors and to “cut down on spam.” Of course, anyone with two neurons to rub together could tell that this was a cover story—you don’t need a journalist to tell you that—and the great link ban was mainly about stemming the flow of active and popular users to other platforms while controlling speech in the name of Musk’s mission to [checks notes] … protect free speech.

What was essentially a small online riot ensued, with Twitter users from all corners decrying the new policy. Within hours, not only had the company backtracked, but all mentions of the less-than-day-old policy had been scrubbed from Twitter feeds and the company website. It was a whirlwind for anyone who was online to see it. (Although if you missed it, I wouldn’t say you missed it, if you know what I mean.)

But I’m not here to speculate on the true motives behind Sunday’s whiplash; I don’t think that’s helpful. After all, intention and impact are separate things. Regardless of someone’s intention when they hit you in the face, they’ve still hit you in the face. Now you have to deal with the situation that they’ve created. So my thoughts instead turn—and I hope yours will also—to the people impacted by the weekend’s policy change. Those Twitter users who spent Sunday wondering whether the platform they used and trusted to find and promote their work, make connections with others in their field, and in many cases, rely on for income, would allow them to continue.

When we at WIRED talk about “platforms and power,” this is what we’re talking about. Of course, any steward of any platform, whether it’s a CEO, founder, or middle manager, has the unenviable job of setting and enforcing the policies and guidelines for that platform’s safe and legal use. That’s not in question. Without such rules, online spaces can go bad fast. What is an issue is when those platforms choose to actively harm their users through policy decisions, and when those changes are large enough to force users to either adapt or abandon ship. 

Let me explain: I’m lucky enough to know a lot of creatives as well as a lot of journalists and tech workers. When I woke up on Sunday to the news, it was delivered to me by tweets from artists terrified they’d be banned from Twitter for linking to their own portfolios and to platforms where they accept commissions for their artwork. I read horror stories from authors who were terrified that the Linktrees their publishers asked them to create to promote their books, reviews, and Goodreads profiles were suddenly bannable offenses on Twitter.

My friends on Twitch interrupted their streams to discuss the news, worried that they wouldn’t be able to tweet to announce they were starting a new stream, or add a link to their Twitter bio to help viewers find them. All of these things created the potential for lost income for people who, I would argue, need it more than the folks who made these policy decisions. After all, these same creators have the kind of disruptive, entrepreneurial spirit that everyone in Silicon Valley claims to want to foster and empower.