Avoiding AI News Overwhelm & Updates
Some changes for The Language of AI after looking for what matters
I’ve been following rather closely the advancements of AI for a year and a half now. As a techy non-tech person,1 I think I know quite a bit about it.
I know what tools I prefer (notably the ones I mentioned here), the ones I think have some potential for later, and the ones I’m curious about but won’t serve me in any shape or form anytime soon if ever.
Still, I’d be lying if I didn’t admit there’s too much going on.
Don’t get me wrong. I love that AI is evolving quickly. There’s always another discovery to make and new wonders to discover. Oh, and new worries to have as well but I believe the positives outweigh the negatives.
But it’s just so much, it’s impossible to know all about it and keep track of every little detail happening.
That’s why it’s important to choose what to keep an eye on.
What matters to you?
Unless you work in tech, there’s no need for you to keep track of every little AI advancement. If you love it, go ahead and spend some time following every detail for a while but you’ll get overwhelmed one day and wonder why you did so.
Hell, that’s what prompted me to think of writing this in the first place!
You see, I love AI but I also have a life to live. I used to watch 5 or 6 different YouTube channels about it—most posting at least 3 times a week and some even daily 20-ish minute videos—, check 3 different news websites, lurk on Twitter to find some hidden gems, and even read some research papers. Then I went on holiday for about 10 days and didn’t know where to start from again.
I realized I had come to try to understand every single detail, not because I wanted it but because I didn’t want to miss out on a potentially mindboggling discovery, even though AI news is just like any other news:
What everyone needs to know will be loud enough for everyone to know.
Just like it was impossible not to hear about Russia invading Ukraine, or the war in Gaza, or the Burmese Coup d’Etat in 2021. Even if you didn’t follow the news at all, you heard about them.
When ChatGPT came out, you heard about it.
Important news is loud.
Now, I don’t want to wait for big stuff only so I’m still checking AI news. I only use one news website (the-decoder) and skip 75% of the articles. I also only watch Matt Wolfe’s weekly roundup whenever I see something big happened that week in AI. I also sometimes watch Yannic Kilcher when a paper I’m curious about pops up. And then I fall into some rabbit holes on AI topics I want to know more about.
All this allows me to know more than most people without spending hours daily to stay on top of it all.
If you’re reading me for AI…
I’ve got some good and less good news.
I’ve decided to do my part in helping to avoid AI overwhelm. I know 2 pieces about AI a month is not that much but it may still be a bit much. I also don’t want to write too much about “news” but rather about what matters:
How to use AI.
I want to give deep-dive examples of how I use it to learn (languages in particular but other topics too), how some others are doing it too, and why it all matters so much.
There will be one more piece (about why AI won’t ever ruin language learning) in two weeks as usual and then The Language of AI (TLoAI) will become a monthly section.
As you know, I’m currently alternating between pieces for The Average Polyglot and ones for TLoAI. Making TLoAI a monthly section gives me one “free” week during which I may write about AI but I may also write about something completely different.
For example, I’m planning in June a piece about a Lesser-Known Language in Japan (that isn’t Ainu nor a Ryukyuan language). I’m also going back to the short-lived Dazzled by Korean series I started over a year ago. These will come on random days but they may take that “free week”’s spot.
Of course, you’ll only receive the AI pieces if you subscribe to this section alone!
So, here’s a summary:
Good news: higher quality and less “surface” stuff related to AI 🤓
Less good news: rarer pieces about AI from me 😁
Gooder2 news for those who follow me for my thoughts in general: more variety each month! 😸
Cheers for reading as always!
Mathias
In short, someone who likes tech but doesn’t work in it, so only understands surface stuff.
For some reason, I felt like putting “gooder” rather than “better” here. It just made me smile so why not, right? 🙃