Imagine an AI, not one that just predicts what
you'll type next, but what you'll do. Yeah. We're
talking about a model that actually beat human
cognitive models at predicting behavior. Just
by reading psychology experiments. It's kind
of wild. Yeah. It's not science fiction. It's
this new AI called Centaur. Well, its accuracy
is quite startling. Welcome to the Deep Dive.
Today, we're going to unpack a whole bunch of
insights trying to chart this really complex,
fast -moving AI landscape. Right. It's all pulled
from a recent newsletter that was pretty packed
with info. Our mission really is to give you
those crucial nuggets of knowledge, the stuff
you need to kind of navigate this accelerating
AI world. We'll kick off looking at Meta's...
latest big quest this ai super intelligence for
everyone idea okay then we'll zoom out a bit
look at industry highlights maybe some practical
tools you can actually use and then yeah dive
deep into centaur that mind reading ai and what
that means for understanding us you know human
cognition all right let's get into meta's big
claims then the company that you know gave us
the metaverse dream Now pitching AI superintelligence
for everyone. It sounds so familiar, doesn't
it? It really does. Like that metaverse push
in 2021. Yeah. We all remember how that went.
Horizon Worlds ended up being kind of this virtual
ghost town. Right. Even Meta's own employees
weren't really using it much. Yeah. A quiet digital
place is a good way to put it. And now Zuckerberg's
latest memo talks about AI reels you can chat
with, these always -on AI video chats that mimic
human expressions. And even AI friends, like
designed to fill social gaps, give you the feeling
of 15 friends. It's quite a vision. It is. But
what's interesting, what's different this time
maybe, is that while the pitch sounds familiar,
Meta actually has some real traction. Okay. How
so? Over a billion people are using Meta AI tools
every month. A billion. That's just worlds away
from the few hundred thousand metaverse users.
Wow. Okay. That's a huge difference. Huge. And
they're using AI coding tools inside the company,
too, which helps them build faster. Plus, people
are genuinely kind of forming attachments to
these AI personas. Really attachments? Yeah,
it's like this whole new type of social connection
emerging. It's interesting. The fundamental problems
are still there, right? These models, they still
hallucinate, make stuff up. Oh, absolutely. They
invent information. Their reasoning is often,
you know. hit or miss. You give them a simple
logic puzzle, even a basic game, and they often
just break. So that super intelligence part still
feels pretty far off, like science fiction territory.
Very much so. And if you connect it to the bigger
picture, you see meta is, well, it's rebranding.
Again. Right. And this strategy keeps investors
happy, keeps them excited. That's key. And it
helps them pull in top AI talent, which is super
competitive right now. Helps justify those kind
of crazy salaries. So it's partly a business
move, attracting talent and investment. Definitely.
Less about some sudden breakthrough, more about
smart positioning in the market. OK, so is Meta's
AI. push fundamentally different this time around?
Or is it just, you know, a new label on an old
approach? Well, it definitely has user traction
this time, unlike the metaverse. But those core
AI challenges. They absolutely remain. All right.
Let's move beyond meta then. Look at the broader
AI industry because there's just so much happening.
Seems like it speeds up every week. Totally.
Take Baidu, for instance. They just dropped Mute
Steamer. Mute Steamer. Yeah. It's a new model.
Basically, it goes head -to -head with Google's
VO. It makes these 10 -second video clips. Okay.
But get this. Fully synchronized visuals, sound
effects, and spoken dialogue. All generated together.
That's a pretty big step for multimodal AI, you
know, AI that handles different types of data.
That sounds impressive. And it brings us to some
of the, let's say, weirder sides of AI's impact.
Like, did you hear about that job hopper? The
one landing multiple AI jobs at once? Yeah. Keeps
getting caught, fired, then just does it again.
Soft chuckle. Yeah. Yeah, I saw that. It's funny,
but it kind of highlights how AI is really shaking
up the job market, creating these weird news
scenarios. Definitely. And speaking of shaking
things up, look at news consumption. Oh, yeah.
That's a big one. SimilarWeb found news -related
searches on ChatGPT just exploded up, what, 212
%? Yeah, massive jump. But at the same time,
traffic to actual news websites down 26 % since
Google rolled out its AI overviews. That's significant.
A big shift in how people get their information.
Maybe a bit concerning. Could be, yeah. Changes
the whole information ecosystem. But on the flip
side... There are new opportunities. Like if
you're good at spotting AI mistakes and fixing
them. Like Sarah Skid, the product marketing
manager. Exactly. She's making like two grand
just fixing bad AI website copy. So there's value
in that human touch, that refinement. For sure.
But then you've got MIT economist David Autor
warning about a potential Mad Max scenario. Mad
Max. What does he mean? Basically that AI could
automate so much that a lot of current skills
just become worthless. A pretty stark warning
about economic disruption. Wow. So opportunity
and disruption side by side. Exactly. And look
at the money pouring in. Recognize this investment
firm. They just raised $1 .7 billion. Billion
with a B. Yep. Specifically to invest in mid
-sized AI digital services companies. Shows huge
confidence in the sector's growth. It's such
a mix, isn't it? AI creating wealth, new jobs,
but also disrupting industries, raising these
big questions about, well, about us. Yeah. Huge
opportunities and pretty profound existential
questions all tangled up together. So thinking
about this broader AI landscape, what's the takeaway
for our careers and how we get information? Well,
it's creating new jobs, definitely changing how
we access news, and yeah, challenging the value
of our existing skills. Okay, let's pivot then.
Let's talk practical stuff. Tools, strategies,
things you listening can actually use. I know
a lot of people worry, especially if they run
automation businesses, about these DIY tools
maybe replacing them. It's a fair worry. But
here's the thing. Most AI projects, they don't
fail because the tech isn't good enough. They
fail because of bad strategy, poor alignment
with business goals. Ah, okay. So it's not just
about the tool itself. Right. The key is to shift.
Don't just be the person who implements the tool.
Become that high -value strategic partner, the
one who understands why you're using AI and how
it fits the bigger picture. Makes sense. And
for people who do want to build things. Maybe
without being coding experts. Yeah, totally possible
now. You can build your own custom AI apps without
writing code. There are guides out there using
tools like Firebase Studio for the backend stuff,
database hosting. Right. And N8n for workflow
automation. You can basically stitch together
a real working app. Anyone can try it. It's kind
of like playing with digital Lego blocks. That's
pretty cool. Democratizing AI development a bit.
Definitely. And even with existing tools like
ChatGPT, becoming a real pro means learning specific
techniques, how to refine your prompts, how to
automate tasks. You know, I still wrestle with
prompt drift myself sometimes. What's prompt
drift again? It's when the AI's responses kind
of change or get worse over time, even the same
prompt. Makes it hard to get consistent results.
So mastering prompting is really key if you want
top -notch output. It's an art. Gotcha. And there
are new tools popping up all the time, right?
Oh, yeah. Loads. Like open memory. It syncs memory
across different AIs. So you can pick up a conversation
with one AI where you left off with another.
Whoa, that sounds useful. Yeah. Or afo .dev.
Phase one. Builds mobile apps in minutes. Even
integrates Stripe for payments. In minutes. Seriously.
Apparently. And browse. Anything that is an AI
agent for your browser that can automate pretty
much any task you do on the web sounds super
powerful for getting stuff done. Okay, those
sound seriously useful. Any others? Well, there
are some quirkier ones too, like Mori. It's this
timer that shows your age or even like a countdown
to your estimated death in real time. Ah, okay.
That's morbidly interesting. Chuckles. Yeah,
definitely a conversation starter. And beep that
out, an AI profanity filter for content creators.
Could be handy for keeping things clean. Right.
And just some quick hits from the industry that
show how fast things are moving. Go for it. MidJourney
has 17 new art styles. Google finally rolled
out VO3, their video model, globally. About time.
Daniel Gross, co -founder of SSI, he joined Meta's
big AI lab. Meta's trying a new tactic, having
chatbots message you first to keep you engaged.
Oh, interesting. Proactive chatbots. And maybe
the most amazing one. AI apparently gave fresh
hope for treating male infertility, like, in
hours. Yeah. A huge potential medical breakthrough.
Wow. See? The pace is just incredible. These
tools are really changing what's possible for
everyone. So for the everyday user, how can they
best leverage all these new AI capabilities that
are coming out so fast? Really, by using these
smart tools wisely and, crucially, getting better
at understanding those prompt techniques. Okay,
now for the part that feels, well, feels like
a pretty big deal, maybe even a little unsettling.
Let's talk about Centaur. Right, Centaur. So
researchers at Helmholtz Munich in Germany, they
trained this AI, and you called it mind reading
earlier. It's shockingly good at predicting what
humans will choose to do next. How did they train
it? Get this. 10 million real choices from over
50 ,000 actual people across 160 different psychology
experiments. 10 million data points on human
choice. Yeah. Whoa. Imagine scaling that kind
of insight, understanding human decision -making
on a massive, massive scale. The implications
are just huge. And they built it using Meta's
Alama 3 .1 model. Yep, a standard large language
model. They basically turned these psychology
tasks into plain English descriptions. Then they
fine -tuned the model, but only tweaked like
0 .15 % of its parameters. Tiny adjustment. And
the whole training took... Five days. Just five
days to get these incredible results. It's ridiculously
fast. Incredible results meaning how good was
it? Okay, so it went up against 14 classic cognitive
models from psychology. You know, established
theories of how we make decisions. Centaur beat
them in 31 out of 32 different tasks. Wow. It
just outperformed decades of psychological modeling.
Pretty much. And even when the researchers tried
to trick it, like changing the details in stories
or throwing in new logic problems it hadn't seen,
Centaur just adapted. Like a human would. So
it's not just memorizing patterns, it's generalizing.
Exactly. It seems to be showing this deeper level
of adaptation. And the wildest part you mentioned
earlier, its internal structure started looking
like a human brain. Yeah, that's the kicker.
Without being trained on any actual brain scan
data, nothing neurological, it just converged.
It organized itself in a way that mirrors how
our brains process things. That feels profound,
like it found the optimal structure independently.
It does, and it gets better. Centaur actually
discovered a completely new decision -making
strategy, one that performed better than existing
psychological theories. The AI found a new way
we make decisions. Yep, which just flips things
around, right? It raises this huge question.
What can AI teach us about ourselves, about our
own minds? It's like getting insights from, well...
From a non -human intelligence. So Centaur is
like having a virtual human test subject. You
can run countless simulations. Exactly. Scientists
can simulate behavior, test out theories, explore
cognition without needing labs, without years
of recruiting people for trials. Think about
what that could do for mental health research.
behavioral design, education. Marketing. Oh yeah,
definitely marketing too. The efficiency gains
could be absolutely massive. What? There's always
a but, isn't there? What's the downside? The
flip side is pretty significant. If AI can simulate
your decisions this accurately. It can manipulate
them? Precisely. It can be used to nudge you,
maybe exploit your biases, influence your behavior
at a huge scale. This could be maybe the first
real step towards what people call cognitive
AGI. Artificial general intelligence, but focused
on thought processes. Right. It's not conscious,
let's be clear. Not sentient like us. But it
might be getting close enough to mimicking our
cognitive processes that it fundamentally changes
the game. And that makes it an incredibly powerful
tool. Powerful and with a really serious potential.
So this predictive power, does it ultimately
open more doors for understanding ourselves or
does it close off more avenues for genuine human
choice and autonomy? That's the question, isn't
it? It definitely opens huge doors for research.
Yeah. But yeah, it raises very serious concerns
about manipulation and autonomy. OK, so wrapping
this all up. What does this mean for you listening
right now? We've covered a lot. From Meta's big
AI dreams, maybe learning a bit from their metaverse
bumps, to these incredible leaps like Baidu's
video generation. We looked at new tools you
can use and how the job market is shifting under
our feet. Yeah, the big idea, I think, is just
the sheer speed, the accelerating pace of AI
development. It's almost dizzying. Right. from
the practical tools you can unload today to something
as profound as Centaur. AI's reach is expanding
so fast it's touching everything, how we get
news, how we work, even how we understand what
it means to be human. That line between the hype
and the actual reality seems blurrier than ever.
Especially with tools that can predict our own
behavior with this kind of accuracy, it's constantly
shifting. This deep dive really paints a picture
of a future that's, well, it's full of incredible
promise, but also really complex challenges.
Definitely both. And as AI gets woven deeper
into our lives, predicting our choices, maybe
even sensing our emotions, it leaves us with
a pretty crucial question for you to think about.
Yeah. If an AI can predict what you're going
to do. How much of your decision -making is still
truly, authentically your own? That's a heavy
one. Maybe think about how knowing these capabilities
exist might change how you make choices. What
does it all mean for our future autonomy in a
world that's increasingly driven by AI? Now,
T .O. Rowe music.