Working

The future of non-alcoholic beverage retail is explored following the bankruptcy of Boisson, highlighting emerging trends. via Modern Retail.

Authors Maria Farrell and Robin Berjon draw parallels between ecosystem monoculture and the internet's consolidation under a few tech giants, advocating for antitrust laws and interoperability mandates to "rewild" it. via Noema Magazine

Ken Kantzer shares practical lessons learned from using OpenAI's models, including a simple token estimation method and challenges with structured data extraction.

via Simon Willison's Weblog

Molly White's newsletter post explores the potential benefits and significant drawbacks of AI tools, questioning if AI's benefits outweigh its ethical and societal costs. via @citneedednews

Figs will give shoppers $50 off a new set of scrubs when they trade in their old ones. The program is running through Earth Month and the company will recycle all the traded-in scrubs. via Modern Retail.

A new study found that law students using GPT-4 didn't improve work quality but did work faster, with the AI being most helpful to lower-performing students. via Marginal REVOLUTION.

A new NBER working paper analyzes how output and wages may be impacted by different scenarios of technological progress leading to Artificial General Intelligence (AGI). via Marginal Revolution

Tyler Cowen's podcast episode features Thomas Burnett from the Templeton Foundation, exploring the impact of childhood books and navigating strong beliefs with humility.

Zach Seward discusses how AI can be a useful journalism tool for handling large amounts of data, but also how it's being used to replace human writers. via kottke.org

MIT, Harvard, and MIT researchers introduce a new method for conducting economics research and modeling human behavior using a system devoid of human input. via Marginal REVOLUTION