MIT research finds it doesn't make sense to replace most jobs with AI

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Just because you can, doesn’t mean you should. A new study by MIT measures the impact of artificial intelligence on jobs and finds that it doesn’t make sense to replace most jobs with AI — even when AI can do a better job than humans.

TODAY’S MENU

• MIT study finds it doesn’t make sense for AI to replace most jobs

• How to create better image generation prompts

• Chart: AI agents market map

• Talking Unicorn — ElevenLabs is the latest upcoming AI giant

• 5 new AI tools to boost your productivity

• AI Generated Images: Movie nights in their natural habitat

NEWS

Today in AI & Tech

• Virtual World: Disney shows off HoloTile, a walkable floor tile where users can walk infinitely when using AR and VR products (pictured above).

• Art Attack: Nightshade, an AI tool that ‘poisons’ AI models, is now available for artists to protect their work from AI models.

• Roaring Tiger: India overtakes Hong Kong to become the fourth-largest stock market in the world.

• Think Small: Stability AI unveils smaller 1.6B language model, adding to the growing trend of smaller, more efficient models.

• Growing Appetite: Online education company Coursera says they had 7.4 million enrolments for courses about AI in 2023, approximately 1 new enrolment every minute of the year.

AI & THE ECONOMY

MIT study finds it doesn’t make sense for AI to replace most jobs

If it ain’t broke, don’t fix it. A new study from MIT’s Computer Science and Artificial Intelligence Laboratory (CSAIL) has some welcome news for workers and professionals: it’s simply too darn expensive to implement AI systems that replace jobs.

The study analyzed computer vision - a branch of AI that can take information from images and videos to perform tasks - and found that when you take the high upfront costs into account, only 23% of human tasks can be replaced by AI in a way that makes any financial sense. Most organizations simply don’t have any incentive to throw money at fancy AI systems when their employees can get the job done for less.

Unlike most studies about AI and automation which only look at technical aspects, this specific piece of research from MIT also looked at the economic feasibility of implementing the technology. The study’s findings stand in sharp contrast to another study released by the IMF last week which claims that almost 40% of jobs are at risk of being automated by AI.

A major caveat to the MIT study’s findings is that a potential future reduction in the costs of training and operating AI models could tip the cost-benefit scale in favor of automation. But the study is fairly confident that won’t happen anytime soon. According to the researchers: “…even with rapid decreases in cost of 20% per year, it would still take decades for computer vision tasks to become economically efficient for firms.”

AI AT WORK

How to create better image generation prompts

You can upgrade your Midjourney images by adding simple parameters to any prompt you want. For the images above, we used the following prompts:

prompt before: two people sitting at a dinner table --ar 1:1 --v 6

prompt after: 35mm film still of a man and a woman sitting next to each other at a circular dinner table --style raw --ar 16:9 --v 6

CHART

NEXT IN AI

Talking Unicorn — ElevenLabs is the latest upcoming AI giant

While others worry about AI-powered voice cloning and deepfakes, VCs are pouring tens of millions into startups in the space. ElevenLabs is now emerging as the biggest company in the space with an $80 million funding announcement this week that values the company at $1.1 Billion. That’s a lot of dollar bills for a startup founded only a year ago.

ElevenLabs provides browser-based speech generation which lets users create lifelike voices with adjustable controls for emotion, intonation, and other key vocal characteristics. You can go to their website, enter any text, and have it converted to speech that sounds remarkably close to what a human sounds like.

The tech can generate voices in 29 different languages and can power a number of use cases like generating audio for videos, audiobooks, video games, AI chatbots, and more.

While the applications and market for the technology are obvious, the consequences for professionals in careers like voice acting remain an open question. As with any AI-powered tech, deepfakes add another controversial dimension. Bad actors have reportedly used ElevenLab’s tech to create deepfake voices of celebrities to mislead people on the web.

PRODUCTIVITY

5 AI Tools to Supercharge Your Productivity

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Spinach*: AI Project Manager that takes meeting notes, responds to voice commands, and keeps your project board updated. Try it now

GetWebsite.Report: Get a comprehensive webpage audit with tailored insights.

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AI GENERATED IMAGES

Movie nights in their natural habitat

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Until next time!

Zain

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