Art Gallery: Getting to Know Our Robot Friends
A collection from illustrator Sean David Williams, who has helped Yale Insights explain the rise of AI with a troupe of cheery robots.
Since 2019, Sean David Williams has created dozens of witty, beautiful drawings to accompany Yale Insights articles. In the fall of 2022, with excitement and dread about artificial intelligence in the air (ChatGPT would make its public debut weeks later), we asked him to illustrate research by Professor Bryan Kelly and PhD student Leland Bybee showing that an AI model could make predictions about the trajectory of the economy by distilling information from Wall Street Journal articles.
Williams’ artwork showed a bespectacled robot reading the WSJ on a park bench, as a curious pigeon looked on. It was the first member of what would turn out to be an entire cast of robot characters, personifying the inevitably cheerful, often useful, sometimes frightening technology that has inserted itself into our lives.
Can AI Make Economic Predictions by Reading the Newspaper?
Media coverage is full of snippets of information about the current state of the economy. Can those fragments be assembled into a usable forecast? In a new study, a team led by Yale SOM researchers devised a way to distill the text of the Wall Street Journal into numerical indicators, which could help policymakers predict how the business cycle will unfold over the coming months and years.
Insights Collection: Are You Ready for AI?
Of the many technologies that have changed our lives since the invention of the microchip, generative AI may have had the most dramatic debut. ChatGPT is likely the fastest-growing internet service ever, and every major tech company is scrambling to incorporate large language models into their products. We’ve been talking with Yale faculty and alumni about the potential of the technology to both advance and disrupt our society.
Who Is Responsible When AI Breaks the Law?
If an AI is a black box, who is liable for its actions? The owner of the platform? The end user? Its original creator? Former Secretary of Homeland Security Michael Chertoff and Miriam Vogel, president and CEO of EqualAI, survey how AI both fits in and breaks existing legal frameworks. They argue that leaders need to be ready for the opportunities created by the novel technology and for potential legal pitfalls.
AI Can Write a More Believable Restaurant Review Than a Human Can
Yale SOM’s Balázs Kovács used ChatGPT to write a series of Yelp-style reviews, as well as collecting real reviews from the site, and then asked human subjects to decide which was the real thing. They were more convinced of the authenticity of the AI-written reviews.
Can ChatGPT Accelerate Social Science Research?
Yale SOM’s Balázs Kovács, with his co-authors Gaël Le Mens, Michael Hannan, and Guillem Pros, spent years designing a computer-based method to measure “typicality.” Then ChatGPT came along. In a new study, they found that, at least when it came to this topic, the AI tool could duplicate their results at a fraction of the cost.
Can AI Replace Human Debt Collectors?
New research co-authored by Yale SOM Professor James Choi finds that people are less likely to follow through on a commitment to repay a debt if it’s made to an AI agent. The finding hints at one area where humans may always retain an advantage over bots.
When AI Is the Editor, Consumer Complaints Are More Likely to Succeed
An analysis of complaints submitted to the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau reveals that consumers are using tools like ChatGPT to help them articulate their concerns. Those AI-edited grievances have a higher likelihood of receiving relief, according to new research co-authored by Yale SOM’s Jiwoong Shin.