😸 Why AI won't steal your job

PLUS: How to judge the best AI video.

Welcome, humans.

Have you heard of the “Will Smith eating spaghetti” test? In certain circles, it’s started to become a real AI video benchmark for assessing how much progress we’re making. Here’s the latest:

This example is from a new Chinese video model called MiniMax, and early users have already shared some wild demos (ex 1, ex 2, ex 3—robot hamsters!)

Official MiniMax launch video.

If you’re interested in how other models perform on the Will Smith Spaghetti test, here’s Stable Diffusion’s original attempt, Kling’s attempt, Runway’s attempt (lol), and actual Will Smith’s attempt.

Here’s what you need to know about AI today:

Report: AI likely to boost worker efficiency, not cause unemployment.
xAI activated it's massive GPU cluster, with expansions on the way.
Governor Newsom will soon make or break California’s AI regulations.
A NYT writer revealed how AI can be manipulated via hidden text.

Advertise in The Neuron here.

It’s looking increasingly more likely that AI won't lead to mass-unemployment, but mass “worker efficiency.”

Y’know the old AI adage, “AI won’t take your job, but someone who knows how to use it will”? That’s looking more true by the day.

In a new report, the economics writer Paul Wiseman found multiple examples of companies adding or re-skilling workers thanks to AI productivity gains:

IKEA implemented a customer-service chatbot and retrained 8,500 employees for tasks like interior design advice.
A Stanford study of 5,200 customer-support reps found AI increased productivity by 14% overall, and by 34% for the least skilled workers.
Alorica introduced a new AI translation tool to help its reps communicate in 200 languages, and is now “hiring aggressively.”

That last point is key: if productivity = growth, then growth = more jobs.

Even the U.S. government found “little evidence” that AI will negatively impact overall employment.

Think of it like this: Previous historical breakthroughs (the steam engine, electricity, internet) all eliminated some jobs, but then created new ones.

One study from MIT showed that 60% of the jobs in 2018 didn’t exist in 1940—because they were enabled by technologies that didn’t exist yet.

TL;DR: We work different jobs, and now our food costs less. What do we do instead? Plenty of stuff—just not farming.

So even if the job you have right now disappears, there will undoubtedly be new jobs in the future, and they’ll all require you to know how to use new tech.

In that same spirit, below is a short list of AI tools to add to your workflow to speed up your efficiency today:

Perplexity for search—in many cases, Perplexity might be faster for what you need than Google or ChatGPT.
Claude for project management + writing (here’s a prompt library to help).
Whisper for talk to text (dictation, transcription, etc) or try some alts.
Midjourney or Ideogram for high-quality imagery (check our guide on how to use) and Topaz Gigapixel to upscale low-quality imagery.
Dashworks or Guru to build an AI knowledge-base of all your apps + docs.

For more, check out our top 51 AI Tools for Business here.

Which of these tools have you used the most, if any?

Perplexity

Claude

Whisper

Midjourney / Ideogram

Dashworks / Guru

Write in your fave alternate AI productivity hack.

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Around the Horn.

xAI’s Colossus 100K H100 training customer came online last weekend in only 122 days, and will add another 50K H200s by year’s end.
The California AI Bill SB1047 passed the state’s Senate, and now Governor Gavin Newsom has until September 30th to sign or veto it.
A NYT writer revealed how to trick AI models into liking him through hidden text—revealing a vulnerability in AI (and a new way to do SEO).

Treats To Try.

Join this free webinar on September 12th, and learn all about Dell and NVIDIA’s new Precision workstations—the best machine for customizing your own AI models. Save your seat here.
Waxwing is a marketing copilot that generates personalized growth strategies for various roles and tasks.
Coze is a no-code platform that lets you easily build and deploy bots to various messaging apps (Discord, Slack, etc).
Goblin.tools is a collection of simple, single-task tools designed to assist neurodivergent individuals with challenging tasks.
Visily simplifies UI design by allowing you to create wireframes and prototypes without complicated software or design skills.
Remove.bg automatically removes image backgrounds in seconds.

*This is sponsored content. Advertise in The Neuron here.

Tuesday Ticker

Here are the results from last week’s poll:

W.P. chose Improve productivity: “I've been playing around with Claude to generate calculators, some for the building industry and also some for helping with coming up with recipe ideas based on what ingredients you have at home.”
L.F. chose Online store for a main / side biz: “I have 4 domain names that I would like to build small but quickly scalable businesses for meaningful contributions and high profitability. The problem is time and resources. I'm very intrigued with the implications that AI has to offer someone like me - streamline everything!”
I.A. chose Simple mobile app: “More specifically, I use it to build a combination of simple scripts that serve a larger goal. Like building an AI tree for a game NPC, having it perform checks and functions, and bringing otherwise static digital stuff to life by using my mix of assets.”