A school district in Iowa is leveraging AI to find and ban books that aren't 'age-appropriate'

Welcome to The Dispatch! We are the newsletter that keeps you informed about AI. Each weekday, we scour the web to aggregate the many stories related to artificial intelligence; we pass along the news, useful resources, tools or services, guides, technical analysis and exciting developments in open source.

In today’s Dispatch:

• China's new AI regulations have just gone into effect, after being announced in April. Jointly developed by six governmental agencies, the 24 guidelines demand that AI service platforms register and undergo a security check before public release. They also mandate labels for AI-generated content and stipulate that AI data and foundational models must come from lawful sources, respect intellectual property rights, ensure user privacy, and obtain necessary consent. Meanwhile, the U.S. has only begun to mull over regulating AI, with no concrete guidelines set to come into effect in the near future.

• The Mason City School District in Iowa is employing AI to ban books that may not comply with current conservative state law. Legislation signed by Governor Kim Reynolds mandates that available books in school settings be "age-appropriate" and devoid of explicit sexual content. Given the vastness of the district's book collection, manual review is unfeasible, prompting the district to use AI for assistance. To date, the AI system has recommended the removal of 19 titles, including renowned and canonical works such as "The Handmaid's Tale" and "Beloved."

• Julie Lloyd, a 65-year-old stroke survivor from the UK, is relearning to walk using AI-powered "NeuroSkin" trousers. The trousers use electrodes to stimulate paralyzed muscles, mimicking natural walking patterns. The technology then gathers and interprets data from the wearer's brain impulses. Around three-quarters of stroke survivors have some form of paralysis.

Plus: Ballooning AI salaries, a breakdown of what Big Tech firms are currently up to in AI, ChatGPT removes password protection like a pro, trending tools and more!

Robotaxis celebrate major victory in California by blocking traffic - again

From The Verge: Just one day after receiving state approval to expand autonomous vehicles without limits in San Francisco, robotaxis brought traffic to a standstill in North Beach. According to local reports, 10 driverless cars from GM’s Cruise found themselves stranded in a traffic jam during the Outside Lands Music Festival - the festival’s heavy wireless traffic rendered the vehicles unable to communicate.

More details:

• Festival goers were ‘overwhelming cellular networks’, making it difficult for Cruise’s vehicles to send and receive information. The vehicles sat paralyzed for about 15 minutes.

• The California Public Utilities Commission just approved the expansion of robotaxi services in San Francisco despite concerns from local officials and residents. This episode highlighted the city’s ongoing grievances with the autonomous vehicles - including blocked traffic, obstructions to emergency response vehicles, a dog fatality, and the “Week of Cone”.

• Google’s Waymo has plans to expand their AV’s into cities like Los Angeles and New York City, while Cruise is also testing its fleet in Miami and Austin.

• While the companies claim to be in dialogue with essential services and use every incident as training data for the fleet, San Francisco city officials claim a lack of transparency and communication from these companies.

• The president of San Francisco’s Board of Supervisors mentioned 55 documented incidents of driverless cars interfering with first responders within the year.

Takeaways: This could turn into a PR nightmare for Google and GM. While the potential for improved transportation and reduced human error is there, the integration of this technology into densely populated areas is not without a host of potential hiccups. If San Francisco is any indication, there’s just about zero public tolerance for the types of issues autonomous vehicles are bound to create in a congested area. There's also a need for greater transparency and collaboration between tech companies and city officials. This is to say nothing of job displacement concerns: it is estimated that over 50,000 people work in the taxi service in San Francisco (including Uber and Lyft drivers).

The race to a 7-figure AI salary

From the Wall Street Journal (non-paywalled archive available here): American firms are in a massive rush to recruit AI specialists, with compensation packages for some positions reaching nearly one million dollars. Amid the growing demand for AI capabilities in various industries, companies are using elevated compensation, bonuses, and stock grants to attract experienced AI talent.

More details:

• Supply and demand imbalances are a driving factor. Currently, nearly every industry from entertainment to manufacturing is actively seeking data scientists and machine-learning experts. There's a notable shortage in the availability of AI specialists, especially for mid and senior-level roles.

• Companies are employing different strategies to onboard AI talent: some, like Accenture, focus on individual hires and internal training, while others, like ServiceNow, are considering acquisitions of AI startups to gain talent.

• Salaries for AI roles vary, and total compensation often includes bonuses and stock-based grants. For instance: Hinge is offering a base salary ranging between $332,000 to $398,000 for a VP of AI. Upwork's VP of AI and machine-learning position advertises a salary between $260,000 to $437,000. Amazon's senior manager of applied science and generative AI role lists a maximum salary of $340,300.

• Netflix made headlines with a job posting for a machine-learning platform product manager with a total compensation of up to $900,000.

Takeaways: Despite explosive growth in the AI job market, we are only at 400 jobs listed per million. This surge will likely only gain traction - it reiterates the importance for current and aspiring tech professionals to invest in AI and machine learning skill sets so long as compensation is a factor.

From our sponsors, Incogni:

Leave behind the overwhelming task of removing your personal information from the vast expanse of the internet & reverse lookup sites. By embracing Incogni, you gain the power to combat ID theft, spam, robocalls, and mitigate a range of other risks that pose a threat to your privacy.

Data Brokers' Money Game: Buying Your Personal Info, Selling Your Privacy to the Highest Bidder! Incogni - The best solution to remove yourself from the internet in 2023.

Defend Your Data Now & Save 50%

Social media/Video/Podcast:

• Yoshua Bengio: Democracy is not safe in an AI world [Al Jazeera]

• This New AI Supercomputer Outperforms NVIDIA (with Cerebras CEO Andrew Feldman) [YouTube]

• I asked ChatGPT to remove password protection from an Excel document, and it worked flawlessly [Reddit]

• AI drone control might be getting out of control [X]

• Use your own face in Midjourney - sort of [YouTube]

Did you know? 

Google continues to subtly integrate AI into its services - this time it’s in Google Photos. The updated ‘Memories’ view (Google claims more than half a billion people are using this) in Google Photos allows users to customize their favorite moments like a scrapbook. Users can now add or remove photos, create their own Memories views, and rename them, rather than using the app's default titles like "Best of August 20xx."

An experimental feature from Google Labs suggests titles using generative AI, accessible via the "Help me title" button. While users can edit these suggestions or give hints for improvement, this AI feature is currently limited to certain U.S. accounts.

Trending AI Tools & Services:

• Dumme: Turn videos into shorts in minutes

• B12: see how far all-in-one AI website builders have come

• Tweetify It: Turn articles and blogs into personal social media posts

• Fable Wizard: Create personalized children's tales in seconds

• ChartPixel: Turn your raw data into charts and written insights in 30 seconds