Peter Cowan · · 5 min readAI promised less work. Think again
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In focus
- Peter Cowan on why there’s more human work to do than ever, and why that’s actually inspiring
- Video killed the radio star, now can it build a world model?
- Ranking Asia’s 50 most-funded AI startups
Hello reader,
Over the last couple of years, predictions from some corners of the AI world projected that agents would be doing many of our jobs by now. That hasn’t quite happened yet.
The idea that AI would do all our work always unsettled me, even when it was couched as a positive that would free us to pursue other things. You don’t have to agree with every word of David Graeber’s book Bullshit Jobs to see that work gives so many of us purpose, and we’d be lost without it.
So I was relieved to read this issue’s weekend deep dive, which argues that there’s more work to be done by humans than ever. Turns out every agent still needs a human to actually produce quality work, which is both comforting and inspiring.
Image credit: Ulla
This week’s stories also paint a pretty good picture of how much room there still is for humans to create genuinely exciting things.
There’s Video Rebirth, a Singapore startup betting that video generation can do more than pump out slop – it can build an AI that actually understands how the world works. The company has a long way to go, but it’s taking a big swing.
You can alsolook at our story on cleantech in Thailand, where rising fuel prices have thrown into sharp relief just how lacking the country’s clean energy infrastructure is. There’s plenty of room for humans to do the hard work and build something that is sorely needed.
Fortunately, that’s still a very human job.
Peter Cowan, engagement editor
Editor’s picks
1️⃣ The world model ambition growing inside a SG AI video startup
Short cuts
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Weekend deep dive
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