Liz Wilke, PhD

My new piece on why banning non-competes is an excellent move to improve us AI and tech competitiveness. If the FTC's move doesn't hold up, congress should get the job done. These restrictions needlessly bind talent and suppress possibilities. In a fast-changing industry that requires highly mobile talent to provide just-in-time hiring needs, non-competes don't make sense. What's more: our AI workforce is 63% foreign born, a population already made immobile by existing rules and one that cannot wait to time out a contract. For visa holders, non-competes make it that much more likely they return home - to their, and the U.S. economy's loss. https://lnkd.in/eT2cPxfN

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"Norman, now 88, explained to me that the term “user” proliferated in part because early computer technologists mistakenly assumed that people were kind of like machines." Really enjoyed reading this piece on the history of the word "user" in tech and why we need a new word - to both more accurately reflect the experience and holistically embrace our humanity. By Taylor Majewski in MIT Technology Review. (And to those who share my obsession with the design of everyday things - yes, that is Norman as in Don Norman.) https://lnkd.in/gQgMJ-vw

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I appreciate the concerns Dean Ball raises to Colorado legislature's well-intentioned #AI regulation, recently passed, and the impacts/barriers to downstream #ethicalAI organizations and researchers... Dean writes, "In short, SB205 is a well-intentioned attempt at mitigating AI risks, but it's a far broader bill than its authors likely intended. It would impose barriers on independent scientific inquiry into AI systems - including AI safety and bias research - as well as create serious uncertainty for startups and established businesses alike." #AIforgood https://lnkd.in/er2PuGak

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Yesterday I wrote about how the impact of AI on total employment has thus far been microscopic. When you look at *tasks* done by employees, the impact is larger, but still very small. According to the U.S. Census Bureau, among the small minority of US firms that have used AI in the past 6 months, about 1 out of every 4 firms has used it to perform tasks previously done by human employees. (The denominator matters a lot here - we're probably talking about something like 2-3% of all US firms, since few of them have used AI.) Of that group of firms, a supermajority has used AI for a small number of tasks. The share of firms who have used AI to perform a lot of previously-human tasks is tinier than tiny, you can barely see it. Link to yesterday's post: https://lnkd.in/g9zrS7ii

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Excited share more new research today. Through a collaboration with Hopelab, the Center for Digital Thriving and Common Sense Media, we're sharing data on how young people 14-22 use and think about generative AI. The short answer is that most know about it, about half use, but few have integrated it into their daily lives. Most use it for brainstorming and getting information. Black and Latinx young people use it for a greater variety of purposes than White youth. And in some fascinating open-ended questions, teens 13-17 tell us about how they are excited for the creative and labor-saving possibilities of generative ai, but are also worried about job loss, theft of ideas and information, and more existentially - AI "taking over." You can read the report here: https://lnkd.in/eSqJUTcF

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The flawed McKinsey research on DEI has been cited by 51 federal agencies. Companies might think that they can play fast and loose with the data to give a result that people want to hear, thus boosting their reputation and helping the senior author get a Damehood. But it may have real consequences in changing laws. Don't the ends justify the means? Isn't diversity a good thing so it's fine to mess around with the data so that laws get passed? No, because they may lead the law to focus on the wrong things, such as demographic diversity when it's other forms of diversity that really drive performance - and more generally regulatory overreach where regulators tell companies who they can and can't hire when companies are best placed to make these decisions, and can take into account many factors including but not limited to demographic diversity. https://lnkd.in/emCt-wgv

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This article by Zeke Emanuel and Harun Küçük gets at the heart of one of the causes of democratic backsliding in America and, by extension, the West: Our failure to educate students for democratic citizenship. And, as the authors point out, this failure is, at least in part, due to our abandonment of the “Great Books” curriculum. In the name of “decolonization” and a host of other related cultural and political trends, we have consigned Plato, Aristotle, Hobbes, Locke, Kant and even Rawls, to the dishonourable category of “Western”, “patriarchal”, “white” - and therefore, fundamentally racist and morally unsound - propaganda. And yet these are some of the thinkers who thought most deeply and fruitfully about the nature and requirements of justice, equality, morality, the search for truth, and a political order worthy of the allegiance of its citizens. (www.section1.ca “Education for Heroic Citizenship”)

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All association board and staff decision-makers should read Professor Tyler Austin Harper's excellent article about undiscussed AI risks in The Atlantic. Here is one of many observations in the piece that resonates deeply with me: "Over the long term, human beings in a world suffused with AI-enablers will likely prove less capable of engaging in fundamental human activities: analyzing ideas and communicating them, forging spontaneous connections with others, and the like. While this may not be the terrifying, robot-warring future imagined by the Terminator movies, it would represent another kind of existential catastrophe for humanity." Our community is under no obligation to accept and advance the agenda of AI companies. Instead, association boards must act to safeguard the humanity of stakeholders and successors, including from technological harm. Fulfilling this responsibility demands precisely the kind of deep reflection, critical thinking, and empathic understanding that the ill-considered application of AI technologies places under direct threat. https://lnkd.in/edqPc9qs FYI, this gifted article will be accessible until Saturday 6/8. #AI #AIEthics #AssociationBoards #TechnologicalHarm #TheTurbulentTwenties

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This is a very interesting read. Responsible promulgation of AI should be top of mind for all of us. https://lnkd.in/gkDWkvbc

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Artificial Intelligence--can it take over the human race? We build machines to get jobs done better, often by delegating human roles to machines. Once a physical or software product (agent) acquires human-like cognitive capabilities like sensing, perceiving, reasoning, and making decisions, we call them artificially intelligent (AI). In some cases, AI machines have already surpassed humans in certain cognitive abilities such as number crunching, data analytics, and seeing through fog, flesh, or bone. Despite this, human beings are still in charge of evolving them. However, is it feasible to build machines to imagine and evolve themselves to take over the human race? #AI #furtureofwork #robots #AIsingularity https://lnkd.in/gPQUVNE7

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Think you want a fellowship? Here's how to find the right one for you.

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If you're in the neighborhood, please join me and Indivar Dutta-Gupta at Solid State Books next Tuesday, June 11, to discuss the future of US poverty policy and my new book, Poverty for Profit. #books #socialpolicy #poverty Details here:

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latest edition explores implications around: (1) making sense of the rapid displacement of startups and “the best model” rat race, (2) how “artifacts of humanity” and Content Credentials will become a human flex of sorts… https://lnkd.in/ecGZKMvr

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Imagine if large groups could speak as a unified collective intelligence in real-time. And imagine if those groups could get so large, they could be used to reveal complex public sentiments for civic engagement? Attached is a new piece I wrote for Predict that expands on my earlier piece for VentureBeat, getting into more of the future-looking details. It also gives an example of what I call a "pluribus avatar" that speaks on behalf of 100+ networked people. We asked it about nuclear power. The amazing thing about the technology (Swarm AI) is that it's based on the biological principle of Swarm Intelligence. Unlike polling, which polarizes groups by highlighting the differences, Swarm AI enables groups to deliberate and converge on common ground that maximize collective support. In this way, Swarm AI does not only make groups smarter by harnessing collective intelligence, it makes groups wiser by enabling them to find solutions that maximize collective support across conflicting interests. And as I describe in the article below, it's massively scalable. Unanimous AI Joshua Sitzer David Baltaxe AI for Good Lifeboat Foundation GatherVerse XRSI Virtual World Society Future of Marketing Institute #collectiveintelligence #collectivesuperintelligence #swarmAI #ethicalAI #swarmintelligence #deliberativecivicengagement https://lnkd.in/gK-bKTxg

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Providing equitable opportunities for all students is at the heart of #CommunitySchool and #WholeChildPolicy work, which is why it is no surprise that #DigitalEquity is part of many Full-Service Community Schools (FSCS) and Promise Neighborhood (PN) grants. The U.S. Department of Education's National Educational Technology Plan (NETP) outlines a bold vision for leveraging technology to ensure every student has access to transformative learning experiences. A new blog shows how FSCS and PN play a vital role in realizing this vision by providing essential support to underserved communities. The 2024 NETP offers practical recommendations for FSCS, PN, and their partner organizations to enhance digital use, design, and access. These include collaborating with local districts to define learner profiles, integrating Universal Design for Learning principles, and prioritizing digital literacy and citizenship. Several initiatives showcase the impact of these recommendations in action. From bridging the digital divide in Kentucky to ensuring digital equity in California, many place-based organizations, including Partners for Rural Impact, United Way California Capital Region, and Wilderness Education Project, are empowering students and families through innovative programs. Moreover, the NETP offers guiding questions for organizations to address digital divides effectively, ensuring equitable educational opportunities for all. By embracing these strategies, FSCS, PN, and youth-serving community organizations can maximize the potential of technology to drive positive outcomes for learners. For more insights and resources on effective technology integration, explore the 2024 National Education Technology Plan and related toolkits available through the Department of Education.

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Harvard’s Kennedy School Shorenstein’s Center released a document that can help make AI systems more transparent. The report introduces the CLeAR (Comparable, Legible, Actionable, and Robust) Documentation Framework that outlines important guiding principles for AI documentation. This is could be an important strategy for helping to address the problem of AI systems’ perceptions as “black boxes,” where people don’t fully understand how their algorithms work or the origins of their data sources. Note that the document is only a discussion paper, but it still highlights some interesting concepts.

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Over the last year, Laís Martins, Zuha Siddiqui, kimberly mutandiro, and Lam Le dove into issues at the intersection of labor and technology for a Rest of World fellowship. During this time they produced an incredible body of work and some of my favorite pieces at Rest of World. Today we published their capstone project, a series of five stories looking at how older workers are turning to gig work as a form of employment around the world. The global population of people 65+ is expected to double by 2050. Meanwhile, decades of wage stagnation, inflation, and high costs of living, have hindered people’s ability to save for retirement. As a result, the number of older gig workers could grow significantly. Read their full package of stories here: https://lnkd.in/gBRw8MyQ

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Great article by Isabelle Bousquette on AI assistant adoption at big companies. Reminds me of Benedict Evans's characterization of AI as "infinite interns". There's a reason why companies don't have infinite interns! Beyond that - this is a great example of why overheated predictions of AI turning the economy upside down in the near term will probably prove to be wrong. It takes a long time to learn how to use new technologies productively "at scale". https://lnkd.in/gnFR_w2J

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Building the right data infrastructure that can meet the demands of AI is a team sport. Two recent blog posts highlight how thoughtful collaboration is crucial for bridging the gap between advanced AI technologies and robust data practices, leading to more effective solutions to complex problems across multiple sectors. https://lnkd.in/gXuUMFJb https://lnkd.in/gDD7ZwcG (h/t Avery Freeman)

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