AI Giveth and AI Taketh Away
Wednesday December 13
Making Sense of The Spotify Layoffs
Spotify slashes staff to move faster into AI – and Wall Street loves it.
First it’s important to understand that the tech industry is not the US economy as a whole, and before I dive into the bad news, the US economic outlook is good and many sectors are still hiring. However, the tech industry is closer to the source and understands the benefits that could be reaped by the Generative AI revolution. While Spotify does face certain challenges in their path to profitability, they are clearly cutting back on labor in their push to increase returns to shareholders. Spotify has been using various types of AI technology to “improve personalization” since 2014 and in 2023 the stock price has increased by 135% as profits have increased and staff has been cut by 23%. Going forward, the plan on investing heavily in AI tools in an effort to increase efficiency. CNN has a very articulate breakdown, check it out. I know that many people have a positive opinion of Spotify as a brand, but I think this article explains who they are really working for and how they will use AI to get there.
If you are a Medium member, you can read a more detailed account here
How EA is Using Generative AI to Support Artists
On the flip side, I was really encouraged by this report of how Electronic Arts is using AI to improve the working lives of their artists. If you work in the video game industry, or are dreaming about it, you might find this article interesting. While much of the gaming industry was initially opposed to the use of AI tools, Electronic Arts is now all in, with a very humane approach designed to accelerate the creative process. Check it out
Anything we can do to reduce all that time and allow the artists to do what they want to be doing, which is doing inspired work that can only come out of their heads — it’s not coming out of generative AI. We see all of our tooling as human-centered and human-directed tooling. It’s being controlled by the creators that want the output from it. They have very fine control over what parameters go into it, what they want and they can iterate on that.
Meta Unveils Audiobox
Are you tired of looking for or paid sound effects for your video projects? It takes hours to find the perfect ‘beep’ or ‘whoosh’, and you have to navigate difficult interfaces and tons of weird ads. Or you join an expensive subscription service and barely use it. Wouldn’t it be great if there was a simple interface, that employed ‘text to audio’ and you could just describe the sound you wanted? Or, even better, you could type out a phrase and describe the voice you wanted? It’s not perfect yet, but Meta’s new Audiobox produced some great samples on my initial tests. My prompt was: New York city street scene, people talking, cars honking, sirens blaring.
What is Runway Doing Next?
While this video left me with more questions than answers, It’s beautifully done and leads me to believe that RunwayML has some pretty big plans for 2024, probably building virtual 3D worlds as a backdrop for generated video. It also means they are hiring.
How to Build the Next Wave of AI Design Tools
In the space of less than a year, almost all of the design tools I work with have been infiltrated by AI and I’ve begun using a giant roster of AI powered newcomers. However, most of these tools and/or features have been rushed to market and are not very good (yet). I think there is a huge opportunity in the coming year for Product Designers to shape the outcome and improve the usability of these tools. If you’d like to read an article about the ‘state of the art’ and recommendations for improvement, check it out
Pioneering Woman in AI: Rectified
The New York Times recently ran a prestigious list of “who’s who’ in AI, but they somehow forgot to include any women. fortunately, Sephora Bemba has rectified the situation and compiled her own list of 12 Women Trailblazers in AI. If you’re a regular reader of this newsletter, you’ll recognize some of them.
That’s a wrap! I hope you’re having a great holiday season and you’re feeling inspired and excited about 2024. If you’re curious about something, drop me a message, I could talk about this stuff for hours.