Accelerating scientific discovery, prompt building exercises, amplifying journalists, the case for techno-optimism for AI, and more

📖In this issue

• Prompt building exercises from Ethan Mollick

• GenAI can assist and amplify journalists

• AI is better at helping people reframe negative emotions

• A range of new small AI models designed to run on phones

• Tom Hope on AI to augment scientific discovery, useful inspirations, analogical reasoning, and structural problem similarity

• The case for techno-optimism around AI

💡 Insights

Prompt building exercises from Ethan Mollick

A new paper from Ethan Mollick, the author of Co-Intelligence, provides “a range of AI-based exercises that enable novel forms of practice and application including simulations, mentoring, coaching, and co-creation. For each type of exercise, we provide prompts that instructors can customize, along with guidance on classroom implementation, assessment, and risks to consider. We also provide blueprints, prompts that help instructors create their own original prompts.”

👩🤖Humans + AI update

GenAI can assist and amplify journalists

While there are definitely potential negative impacts from AI on journalism, not least on disinformation and business models, AI can also assist journalists in their work, with interest in a wide variety of use cases for doing more and better.

AP Generative AI in Journalism report

AI is better at helping people reframe negative emotions

AI does better than humans at helping people to reframe negative emotions, even with increased effort from human therapists. They do this by taking a different approach, using similar language to that used by the patients.

GPT Overperformance over Humans in Cognitive Reframing of Negative Scenarios

TCS CEO predicts significant impact on call centers within a year

The CEO of major tech consulting firm TCS says that there will be a significant impact on call center staff within a year due to AI, but that there will be overall growth in employment, given sufficient training.

'AI could replace the need for call centres'

🔥Hot news in AI

• Mark Zuckerberg says that Llama-4 - the forthcoming model from Meta - will have advanced agentic capabilities - Dwarkesh Patel

• Microsoft’s new Phi-3 model is comparable to GPT-3.5 but far smaller and able to fit on a phone, trained by other LLMs inspired by bedtime stories - The Verge

• Saudi Arabia is investing tens of billions to fuel its AI ambitions - New York Times 

• Apple has released a series of high-performance small AI models designed to run on phones - Ars Technica

🎙️Latest podcast episode

What you will learn

• Exploring the intersection of AI and scientific discovery

• The role of large language models in navigating and utilizing vast scientific corpora

• Current capabilities and limitations of LLMs like GPT-4 in generating scientific hypotheses

• Innovative strategies for enhancing LLM effectiveness in scientific research

• Designing multi-agent systems for more insightful scientific paper reviews

• Future projections on AI’s evolving role in scientific processes

• Complementarity of human and AI cognition in scientific discovery

💡Resources and insights

The case for techno-optimism around AI

The recent Meeting of the Minds conference hosted by Peter Leyden in San Francisco focused on the topic of The Case for Techno-Optimism Around AI. It brought together leading thinkers to share their insights and perspectives. An article brings together the array of ideas proposed on the positive case for the potential of AI.