Why AI hasn't replaced writing jobs

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Welcome back, Superhuman

One of the most frequent questions I get from readers of this newsletter: Why hasn’t AI replaced me as a professional writer? After months of scratching my head (and doing a fair bit of digging) I finally have an answer.

TODAY’S MENU

• Why AI hasn’t replaced writing jobs (and what it tells us about how AI works)

• How to create beautiful presentations with AI

• Chart: It takes 11 weeks to build AI habits

• The biggest funding deals in AI this week

• 5 new AI tools to boost your productivity

• AI Generated Images: New Horror Movies

NEWS

Today in AI & Tech

• First Impressions: OpenAI’s Sora has been around for a month now, and the reviews are pouring in – as are the incredible videos.

• Bing Bang: Microsoft’s Mikhail Parakhin, head of Bing, is reportedly leaving his role – just two days after Microsoft hired Mustafa Suleyman to lead their consumer AI efforts.

• Tech Takeover: Intel, Qualcomm, Google, and other tech giants are reportedly joining hands to compete against Nvidia.

• AI Incoming: Apple is expected to unveil iOS 18 in June, in what could be the biggest update since the launch of the iPhone.

NEXT IN AI

I’m a writer. Why hasn’t AI replaced my job?

Why all data isn’t created the same and the secret battle for tokens

I left my job as a marketing executive last year to pursue my dream of writing this newsletter. I had high hopes of making it as a big shot writer one day. So you can imagine my discomfort when OpenAI released GPT-4, the AI model that powers ChatGPT today.

This thing could write a lot faster than me, write a lot more than me, and it didn’t need a 2 hour nap in the middle of the day to finish a newsletter. To make things worse, ChatGPT was willing to do all this writing for a lot less than I was getting paid at the time.

Resigned to my fate - and out of options - I plugged away and wrote this newsletter every day for the past year knowing full well that it was only a matter of time until someone was able to feed ChatGPT a prompt and pump out a better newsletter than I could ever hope of writing. But the day never came. And I kept wondering why?

Not all data is created the same. While AI models like GPT-4 have consumed more data and text than any human could consume in a thousand lifetimes, these models didn’t have much data on the thought that went into the writing. So while ChatGPT in its current state can read all of my writing, it doesn’t have an understanding of how I reason and organize my ideas on paper.

The shadow war for tokens: As the race to build smarter AI models gains momentum, data of the sort that helps AI models “understand“ the world better is in huge demand. A token (which is the smallest unit of data) of an expert in a field doing a task, for example, is considerably more valuable than a token from a news article that gives a superficial overview of the task.

And companies are willing to spend lavishly to acquire high quality tokens. While anyone can buy GPU chips to train an AI model (assuming they have the money), not everyone has access to high-quality data they can plug into those GPUs to train a smarter model. Some tech giants are reportedly pouring billions into collecting this data, and a whole ecosystem of companies has popped up to help them do so.

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AI AT WORK

How to create beautiful presentations with AI

• Go to the Gamma website and sign up.

• Once you’re signed up, you’ll get an option to create slides by pasting text, uploading a file, or giving it a prompt.

• You can pick any option you like. For this example, I’ll pick the prompting option.

• On the next screen, pick how many slides you want, the language, describe the content of the slides and click generate.

• Next you’ll be able to pick what kind of design and colors you’d like for the presentation.

• The app will create the presentation in a few seconds.

• Edit the contents of the slides to suit your needs.

CHART

How long does it take for users to get acquainted with Microsoft’s Copilot?

A new Microsoft study shows that it takes around 11 weeks for people to adjust to using Copilot in their work. After three to six weeks with Copilot, 18% of professional users said the AI platform helped them attend fewer meetings. But after 10 weeks, that number rose to 37%. The same help true for productivity, work enjoyment, and work-life balance.

FUNDING & ACQUISITIONS

The biggest funding deals in AI this week

• HeyGen, a company that builds AI-generated avatars for videos, has raised $60M to take its valuation to $440M.

• Cherish Health raises $26M — and appears set to raise $30M more in Series B — in a bid to bring its AI-powered fall detection software to market.

• AI accounting firm FundGuard raises $100M in a Series C round led by Israeli company Key1 Capital.

• CoreWeave, an AI-powered cloud computing provider, is raising an undisclosed amount that would put its valuation at $16B, more than doubling its value since last year.

• Toronto-based Cohere, which builds foundational AI models similar to ChatGPT, is in talks to raise $500M that would put its valuation at about $5B.

PRODUCTIVITY

5 AI Tools to Supercharge Your Productivity

Briefy: Turn lengthy texts, audios, and videos into structured, easy-to-digest summaries with 1 click.

Capsule: An AI-powered video editor for content and marketing teams.

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AE Studio: Generate customized AI-powered solutions that can solve your business challenges instantly.

SlideSpeak: Ask any question about your PowerPoint slides. Get summaries, generate action items, and more.

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AI GENERATED IMAGES

Horror Movies for kids

Prompt: Poster for the cute Pixar version of the horror movie Midsommar with the Disney logo over the words "MIDSOMMAR", a blond Nordic young woman wearing a crown of flowers and a white dress dances in a field of flowers on a beautiful spring day in the cute style of Pixar --ar 4:5

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Reviews of the day

Thanks for reading.

Until next time!

Zain

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