Good morning.
If you are still trying to get your head around generative A.I.—and who isnt?—it’s worth listening to the interview Michal Lev-Ram and I did with Reid Hoffman, LinkedIn co-founder and Greylock partner, for this week’s episode of Leadership Next. Hoffman was one of the original funders of OpenAI, he sat on its board, and he has written the first book about generative A.I. using generative A.I.: Impromptu. He has his own personal Turing test for determining successful A.I.: can it make up a good lightbulb joke? ChatGPT passed the test.
We asked Hoffman whether generative A.I. would destroy jobs. His answer:
“There will be some jobs that will disappear and navigating all that's really important, both as CEOs and as societies…But A.I. can be part of the solution. How do you reskill people? How do you help match them to other jobs? How do you give him superpowers to do other jobs? Well, A.I. is an answer on all three of those things. And so when you say what should we be doing as leaders? What should we be doing as government? Well, let's help people. Let's use the technology to help make the transition.”
We also asked whether this technology, which can copy the style of a writer or an artist and even mimic a person’s voice, might be found by the courts to violate intellectual property laws. His response:
“Well, I think we're going to have to work out new law for it. I think the old law won't apply exactly right.”
Which is another reason why it’s helpful to have a functioning political system. But the current debt limit debate raises questions about whether we do. In a piece for Fortune, Katherine Gehl offers one way through the morass; you can read about it here.
You can listen to the full Hoffman interview on Apple or Spotify.
Other news below.
Alan Murray
@alansmurray
alan.murray@fortune.com
