The Week in Generative AI: August 18, 2023 edition

Welcome to The Week in Generative AI, a weekly column for marketers from Quad Insights that quickly sums up need-to-know developments surrounding this rapidly evolving technology.

AI jobs salaries climb as industry grows

The AI job market is exploding. As The Wall Street Journal’s Chip Cutter notes, industries of all kinds are “wooing data scientists, machine-learning specialists and other practitioners skilled at deploying the technology.” Recruiters he interviewed say that “many companies are dangling salaries in the mid-six figures along with bonuses and stock grants to attract experienced workers.”

With demand higher than supply, Cutter sources job listings that range, on the high end, from a “product manager position for a machine-learning platform at Netflix [that] lists a total compensation of up to $900,000 annually” to the lower end, like “a prompt engineer, an increasingly common role, [with] an average total compensation of about $130,000.”

Cutter also reports that companies are realizing they must train existing employees on AI processes, while other businesses plan to acquire AI startups to access talent.

Elsewhere in The Wall Street Journal, Patrick Coffee reports on how AI can “help brands and ad agencies more efficiently target their job searches” while at the same time making it harder to sort “through CVs … because many more of those resumes will themselves be the products of AI.”

Related coverage:

• “New rise in artificial intelligence ‘expert’ jobs” (CBS)

• “Will AI steal my job? Maybe — but here are some possible new opportunities” (The Guardian)

• Earlier: “How Will the Rise of AI Impact White-Collar Jobs?” (Nasdaq)

The New York Times and OpenAI might be heading to court

Bobby Allyn from NPR reports that The New York Times is considering legal action against ChatGPT maker OpenAI over intellectual property rights related to the Times’ reporting and how OpenAI uses its content.

According to anonymous sources with “direct knowledge” of the situation, Allyn notes that “a top concern for the Times is that ChatGPT is, in a sense, becoming a direct competitor with the paper by creating text that answers questions based on the original reporting and writing of the paper’s staff.” Apparently, these sources also told Allyn that “the Times and the maker of ChatGPT have been locked in tense negotiations over … a licensing deal in which OpenAI would pay the Times for incorporating its stories in the tech company’s AI tools.”

Related OpenAI coverage:

• “Report: Potential NYT lawsuit could force OpenAI to wipe ChatGPT and start over” (Ars Technica)

• “OpenAI proposes a new way to use GPT-4 for content moderation” (TechCrunch)

• “OpenAI bought the makers of a Minecraft clone” (The Verge)

Google reportedly developing an AI life coach

Google is working on a new project to develop a personal life coach using generative AI. The project is still in the early stages of development, according to Nico Grant, reporting in The New York Times.

“In April, Google merged DeepMind, a research lab it had acquired in London, with Brain, an artificial intelligence team it started in Silicon Valley,” writes Grant. “Four months later, the combined groups are testing ambitious new tools that could turn generative A.I. … into a personal life coach.”

More Google AI news:

• “Google Photos update improves Memories view with generative AI” (Engadget)

• “Google Chrome will summarize entire articles for you with built-in generative AI” (The Verge)

• “Google’s generative AI tool might give wildly inaccurate summaries” (Fast Company)

• “Even AI Hasn’t Helped Microsoft’s Bing Chip Away at Google’s Search Dominance” (The Wall Street Journal)