AI note takers standing in for online meeting attendees

Showing all posts about artificial intelligence

AI note takers standing in for online meeting attendees

5 July 2025

Lisa Bonos and Danielle Abril, writing for The Washington Post:

Clifton Sellers attended a Zoom meeting last month where robots outnumbered humans. He counted six people on the call including himself, Sellers recounted in an interview. The 10 others attending were note-taking apps powered by artificial intelligence that had joined to record, transcribe and summarize the meeting.

AI note takers attend online meetings so you don’t have to. They will record the entire meeting, and prepare a summary afterwards. Sounds convenient. Some people though have raised concerns about meeting participants not really participating in meetings, and there they might have a point.

Others are worried that note taking apps are recording the entire conversation. But if it’s a work meeting, and not a private conversation about, say, a highly sensitive matter, is that a major concern? Surely online meeting apps also record, and store, the entire contents of a meeting, even if all participants are fully present? There’s also the point such apps might spill the tea elsewhere.

It’s been a while since I was in a workplace-based situation, but I would’ve relished the opportunity to have an AI note taker stand in for me at meetings. That way I could — you know — do some actual work instead. This sounds like one to AI, I say.

Social media platforms, AI summaries, how we consume news in 2025

2 July 2025

Running since 2015, the Digital News Report, published annually by the University of Canberra, surveyed nearly one-hundred-thousand people globally, including about two-thousand Australians.

The key findings of the 2025 report are probably of no surprise to many of us. About twenty-five percent of people now source their news from social media platforms. Instagram and TikTok are the go-to platforms for news seekers aged eighteen to twenty-four.

AI is also making in-roads into the way people consume news, with nearly thirty-percent saying they like the idea of AI prepared news summaries.

When it comes to misinformation, seventy-five percent of Australians — the highest number in the world — expressed concerned about misinformation. Many are sceptical of influencers as a result.

Facebook and TikTok were identified as the biggest purveyors of misinformation. Encouragingly though, about forty-percent of people will turn to a “trusted news brand” should they be suspicious as to the veracity of a news story.

Here’s something else that’s interesting. Only about a quarter of Australians say they have received news literacy education. That is, being informed in how to use and understand news.

I have to say, it’s the first time I’ve heard the term. Is news literacy taught at school? Maybe I was absent the day that class was held.

Meta wants to copy the photos on your phone and soup them up

1 July 2025

Sarah Perez, writing for Techcrunch:

As the pop-up message explains, by clicking “Allow,” you’ll let Facebook generate new ideas from your camera roll, like collages, recaps, AI restylings, or photo themes. To work, Facebook says it will upload media from your camera roll to its cloud (meaning its servers) on an “ongoing basis,” based on information like time, location, or themes.

In short, if you allow it, Meta will upload the contents of the photo library on your phone to their servers. In return, Facebook (FB) will create all sorts of nice stuff for you, using some of their AI tools.

I’m not a fan of this idea. People have all sorts of private images on their camera rolls, that they have no intention of sharing with anyone. Meta say these images won’t be made public, but I still don’t like the idea of FB keeping private photos on their servers, quite possibly in perpetuity.

Concerned I might accidentally — somehow possibly in pocket-dial fashion — agree to let FB take what’s in my photo library, I’ve since deleted the app from my phone. Unfortunately, a number of friends and family pretty much use FB for doing everything, including keeping in contact (many long since stopped email) with all their friends, so getting rid of FB completely isn’t an option at present.

From now on I’ll login to FB through the website, on my laptop, now and then to check for messages.

Authors take to TikTok to prove they are not using Generative AI

20 June 2025

Alana Yzola, writing for Wired:

Criticism and warnings of Gen-AI authors snagging coveted deals are flooding both Threads and TikTok, with writers and readers sometimes flinging around accusations when they suspect someone is using AI as part of their creative process. Now, Aveyard and other prolific authors are not only calling out people who use AI to write, they’re also posting livestreams and time-lapses of their writing processes to defend themselves against such complaints.

The camera never lies. But will that be enough to convince book readers who otherwise suspect some authors are using AI tools to assist them write?

Joanna Stern, Nilay Patel, light up the Talk Show WWDC 2025 edition

16 June 2025

Joanna Stern, technology writer at The Wall Street Journal, and Nilay Patel, editor-in-chief of The Verge, were this year’s guests on the live edition of John Gruber’s Talk Show podcast at WWDC last week. It’s the first time in ten years senior Apple executives have not appeared on the WWDC edition of the show, having “declined” to participate this year.

Some speculated their absence was on account of an article Gruber wrote in March, critical of Apple’s delays in rolling out enhancements to Siri, the iPhone’s digital assistant, and Apple Intelligence, an array of AI features the company suggested — at WWDC 2024 — were close to release.

Gruber addressed the nonattendance of Apple executives, typically Craig Federighi (SVP of software engineering), and Greg Joswiak (SVP of worldwide marketing), saying there had been some degree of discussion between him and the company on the matter, but didn’t go into detail.

Some people, including Stern, believe their non-participation is temporary. Others, however, see things differently, with one pointing to a preview screening, at WWDC, of Brad Pitt’s high profile new movie, F1, co-produced by Apple Studios, which was scheduled to coincide with the Talk Show.

I’m not sure Apple’s no show was entirely a bad thing though, and the presence of new faces, and perspectives, was refreshing. While it’s WWDC, and attendees want to hear senior Apple executives speak informally, the format can be a little predictable. All the way down to Joswiak sitting vigilantly on stage throughout, making sure no one speaks out of turn, though this is also somewhat amusing.

Gruber is sometimes chastised for being soft on the Apple people, and shying away from asking hard questions. But I doubt a “tough” approach would be productive. Apple will only ever the answer the questions they want to. Gleaning insights by way the fireside chat format is probably going to be more informative. That said, Stern put Federighi and Joswiak through the wringer, in an interview she recorded with the pair, prior to her appearance on the Talk Show.

Canva catches the AI coding assistant vibe

13 June 2025

Simon Newton writing on the Canva Engineering Blog:

Yet until recently, our interview process asked candidates to solve coding problems without the very tools they’d use on the job. Our interview approach included a Computer Science Fundamentals interview which focused on algorithms and data structures. This interview format pre-dated the rise of AI tools, and candidates were asked to write the code themselves. This dismissal of AI tools during the interview process meant we weren’t truly evaluating how candidates would perform in their actual role.

The Australian founded online graphic design platform is now mandating candidates for coding roles be proficient with AI tools, and will be expected to demonstrate as much during coding interviews. Given many Canva employees (to say nothing of the industry as a whole) are using AI assistants in their coding work, the move is hardly surprising.

Canva is an app I’ve to tried to pickup, but to date with little success. Several years ago I went along to the Canva offices in Sydney — I’m pretty sure they were located in the suburb of Surry Hills at that point — to give the then iteration of the app a try.

With again, er, limited success. I was kindly told long-term users of Photoshop tend to struggle more than others with Canva, so that was some consolation.

Proficiency with Canva is still on my to-do list, but at the moment getting my head around GIMP is the priority. I’ve not been able to sandbox Photoshop on Linux Mint, so when it comes to image creation and manipulation, GIMP it is.

Still talking of Canva, I learned in quickly looking up the company, that Cameron Adams is a co-founder. Yes: have I been living under a rock or what?

Adams might be better known to some earlier (I’m talking prior to 2010) web creative people as the Man in Blue, being his website/blog, which is still online. In 2011, Adams created a data visualisation of the music of Daft Punk, which is likewise still online, and something I linked to back in the day.

There’s some oldies, but goodies, in the mix, including Da Funk, Television Rules the Nation, Alive, Face to Face, and One More Time. And how good is the pre-loading popup, this using Firefox 139:

If you are going to view this site in Firefox, it is recommended that you use the latest version (Firefox 4).

That’s quite the trip back in time. Firefox 4 came out in March 2011. A good year before Canva was founded, and what seems like a lifetime before AI as we know it emerged in spectacular fashion.

Claude fails to explain the abrupt disappearance of their blog

10 June 2025

AI assistant Claude must have had one of the shortest blogging stints ever seen in the blogosphere. Just days after announcing Claude’s debut as a blogger — albeit with “human oversight” — Anthropic, Claude’s creator, almost immediately shuttered the publication. The URL for the blog presently redirects to Anthropic’s main website.

We can only speculate as to why the plug was pulled on the venture, but I was looking forward to reading some of Claude’s output. This preferably with a minimum of human oversight, as I was curious to see how well an AI assistant could write by themselves. Anthropic’s move could possibly be seen to suggest they weren’t too confident in Claude’s blogging abilities though.

It’s good news for human self-publishers: we live to blog for another day. Or two.

On not using AI assistants or LLM tools to draft or write your blog posts

7 June 2025

Dave Phillips, an Australian blogging contemporary, writing at Cafe Dave:

Is there still value in writing blog posts from scratch, rather than using a LLM tool to help with a first draft? I hope so. Even if it’s slower, there is some change being wrought in the mind of the person doing the writing that remains undone when using a LLM.

There is some change being wrought in the mind of the person doing the writing.

I’m trying to make use of AI assistants to help me in my day-to-day work — I have three jobs if I include writing at disassociated — but struggle a bit. I speak only for myself, but as someone who writes, using AI to any degree, no matter how insignificant, feels wrong.

It’d be really good if AI could, say, run the house, freeing up time to write here and elsewhere. Because Dave is on point here: having something else do your writing, from first draft through to completion, takes something away from the writer. This is the reason we’re writing in the first place.

Devious AI assistants becoming more human all the time

7 June 2025

Mark Sullivan, writing for Fast Company:

Separately, the independent research firm Apollo Research observed an instance of Claude Opus 4 “writing self-propagating worms, fabricating legal documentation, and leaving hidden notes to future instances of itself” with the goal of sullying its developers’ intentions. Anthropic says that it corrected these early safety issues in later versions of the model.

An AI assistant capable of this degree of adroitness, before being “corrected” that is, could probably solve some tricky problems, and no doubt does anyway.

Riddle me this: do you think AI assistants can be trained to make use of negative attributes, such as being devious, to achieve only positive outcomes?

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Australian productivity falls, despite record long hours being worked

30 May 2025

Bronwyn Herbert, writing for the Australian Broadcasting Corporation (ABC):

Australians have been working record-long hours, which contributed to the productivity slump, the Productivity Commission report found. Those additional hours performed by workers have not been matched by business investment in systems and technologies that would allow them to work efficiently, according to the report.

In some sectors the apparent decline in workplace productivity can be attributed to a lack of investment in new technologies, including AI. But that’s only part of the problem, and workers also need to be upskilled, if productivity rates are to rise.

I imagine it will be of comfort to some people that upskilling workers is being suggested, by employer advocates no less. This as opposed to the idea that much greater use of AI be made to somehow pickup the shortfall in productivity.

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