Rohit Bhargava's Blog, page 6

Is AI really better than nothing? That is the question we are immediately going to be asking as two stories emerge this week about some potentially concerning uses for AI. In one, the FDA announced it would be using AI to speed up the process for approving various products as being safe for human consumption.On the same day, Meta announced they would be using AI to assess the potential risk of its upcoming products to humans.

Meta plans to shift the task of assessing its products’ potential h...

Being outraged used to be easier. You could look at a policy or an announcement or something happening in the world and if you disagreed with it, you could voice your opinion or join a march or write a blog post. The thing you were unhappy about, though, was pretty unlikely to change within 24 hours. We don’t really live in that world anymore.

A recent piece from The Atlantic talks about the rapid undoing of policy that has become a hallmark of the current administration:

“The administrati...

What if the greatest problem in the world was a lack of moral ambition among the best and brightest people? As a ​recent interview​ with author Rutger Bregman notes, “the world is full of highly intelligent, impressively accomplished and status-aware people whose greatest ambitions seem to start and stop with themselves.” This is the audience Bregman writes for in his new book Moral Ambition which is paired with an organization he started called ​The School for Moral Ambition​. The idea is simpl...

Radio, and its future, are front and center right now in a lot of conversations. There’s the recent news that NPR is ​suing the Trump administration​ over its choice to withhold funding. Then there is the debate about FCC rules and ​double standards​ around how various radio stations must compensate artists. Alongside the compensation questions are the inroads that AI is making into how shows are being automated.

Radio Krakow in Poland faced an ​extreme backlash​ when they replaced on-air tal...

The title of this book pretty much tells you exactly what it’s about but what makes this a truly great read is exactly how practical it is. The one thing I have always liked about Dorie Clark’s work is how good she is at offering useful tips and lessons that anyone can implement. It’s why her online courses are so popular and it’s also why you’ll find this book to be a worthwhile read. From her highly effective master of “strategically overindexing” to how she manages to consistently say no (eve...

A “book nook” is the term typically reserved for a cozy corner of a home or office where you can enjoy reading a book in comfort. There’s an alternate version of this, though, that has been growing in popularity as a tiny diorama version of a book nook designed to be placed on a bookshelf between your books. There are plenty of Lord of the Rings and Harry Potter themed book nooks on the market. This week, ​LEGO jumped into the trend​ with an interactive Sherlock Holmes themed book nook.

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The best strategy to fight back against the rise of fake media is prioritizing media literacy training for adults and kids. This past week to support this effort, the team at Columbia Journalism Review launched their PSAi website and program aimed at “training your eye to spot AI.” The platform features a catchy video and song to promote the key tactics and tips they share for how to get better at spotting AI-manipulated images:

A few years ago, lip-syncing one minute of animation used to take about four hours. Now it can be done in 15 minutes. That’s just one of the dramatic time-saving features of AI when it comes to animation, but what’s most interesting about these tools in the world of Hollywood is just how quickly they are being implemented specifically for animation. Unlike much of the rest of the film industry that can occasionally be tech-averse–animation has been computer assisted for decades.

This fact...

Good News Coffee might be my new favorite coffee shop. Unfortunately for me, they only have locations in Barcelona, Paris, Madrid and Amsterdam so far. They are quickly building a reputation for unusual promotions designed to get their customers off their phones, away from social media and actually interacting with real humans. Their latest effort to give people free drinks in exchange for oversharing is just one in a long string of inventive promotions:

“Gossip-for-beverages joins other init...

Back in 2013, I wrote a career and life advice book. It was my third book and before I really understood what it took to get a book into the market. Five years later, I released a redesigned and updated version, and it quickly eclipsed the first release. Over the past few years, right around graduation season it has been my most popular book filled with plenty of irreverent advice for young people and a unique perspective on what it really takes to build a career (and life).

Several unive...