For your weekend reading pleasure, I offer a synopsis of interesting articles about AI you may have missed this week. As always, your thoughts and comments are both welcome and encouraged. -s
This Week's Most Interesting Stories
Sam Altman recently posted on X that OpenAI is working toward a “magic unified intelligence”—a single reasoning engine rather than multiple AI models. No more choosing between GPT-4, GPT-4o, o3-mini, or any other variant. One model to rule them all. If OpenAI gets this right, it could be an incredible leap forward in usability, efficiency, and AI intelligence. If they get it wrong, it could homogenize human thought in ways most of us haven’t fully considered.
Read More · Shelly Palmer
xAI just released Grok 3, its latest AI model. Access begins today for premium X platform subscribers in the U.S. and via a separate subscription for Grok’s web and app versions. The model runs on xAI’s Colossus supercomputer in Memphis, now upgraded to 200,000 Nvidia GPUs (from its prior 100,000), used to process training data.
Read More · Shelly Palmer
Artificial Intelligence is designed to help us with tasks and answer questions—but could overreliance on AI be eroding our critical thinking skills? A new study from Microsoft and Carnegie Mellon University suggests that outsourcing too much to AI may make us less intelligent. Tech expert Shelly Palmer, Professor of Advanced Media in Residence at the Newhouse School of Public Communications at Syracuse University, joins Fox 5 New York to break down the study's findings and explain how we should be using AI to amplify our skills rather than replace them.
Read More · Shelly Palmer
“Slop” is the term for the rising tide of low-quality, AI-generated content flooding digital platforms—think hastily assembled eBooks, generic cookbooks, or recycled summaries churned out by tools like ChatGPT. It’s not just noise; it’s a calculated exploit of scale, prioritizing volume over value. According to an investigation by 404 Media earlier this month, the problem has hit public libraries, prompting action from Hoopla, a major eBook provider.
Read More · Shelly Palmer
Microsoft took a significant step on Wednesday unveiling Majorana 1: a quantum chip that the company claims required inventing a new topological state of matter.
Read More · Shelly Palmer
Mira Murati, former OpenAI chief technology officer, launched Thinking Machines Lab on Tuesday: a new AI startup aimed at tackling the alignment problem by encoding human values into artificial intelligence systems.
Read More · Shelly Palmer
About Shelly Palmer
Shelly Palmer is the Professor of Advanced Media in Residence at Syracuse University’s S.I. Newhouse School of Public Communications and CEO of The Palmer Group, a consulting practice that helps Fortune 500 companies with technology, media and marketing. Named LinkedIn’s “Top Voice in Technology,” he covers tech and business for Good Day New York, is a regular commentator on CNN and writes a popular daily business blog. He's a bestselling author, and the creator of the popular, free online course, Generative AI for Execs. Follow @shellypalmer or visit shellypalmer.com.
