Happy Friday, everyone, and welcome back to SemperViernes. I hope your week was great. Because some companies have banned or limited employees from using ChatGPT at work in order to protect their intellectual property, I thought the prospect of companies using their own secure, hosted AI (which wouldn't share sensitive company data with the world as the AI's LLM continues to train on every new chat submission) would be an interesting facet of the AI world to highlight in the intro this week. Separately, I'm headed to Washington, D.C. soon for next week's annual HECA Conference, and I'll be at the Bloomberg Technology Summit in SF the following week. If you'll be at either, or you'd like to hear about either, let me know! Wishing everyone a restful weekend—or whatever kind of weekend you'd like.
First
For perhaps the most helpful and efficient explainer and update I've found on the current state of autonomous vehicle development, I highly recommend this interview with Waymo Co-CEO Tekedra Mawakana. It actually starts at the 14:25 mark and goes until 50:55 (though I did enjoy the post-interview analysis that follows). I liked listening to Mawakana speak not only because I learned a lot, but also because I appreciate her deft skill with public-facing words in the same way that I adore watching CJ Cregg's press briefings on The West Wing from an intellectual perspective. It's like language sports. Nothing like a good spin to keep you on your toes. Mawakana's (Waymo's; Google's; Alphabet's) PR angle is clearly to focus on safety: autonomous vehicles save lives, is Mawakana's [rather palatable] offering for our consideration. It was interesting to hear about early test drives of autonomous vehicles by Google employees on the 101 several years ago (they apparently kicked back and let the autopilot do its thing rather quickly). Mawakana distinguishes that although Waymo cars sometimes brake unnecessarily for debris like little plastic bags in the road, driving habits that are "annoying and unsafe are different," and her views on city, state, and federal regulation are quite interesting, too. As it happens, I'd already planned a visit to Trinity Washington University in D.C. this coming weekend, and I was thrilled in doing research for this section to learn that Mawakana is an alumna there. Cool! I do think Waymo will need to further workshop their answer to the seriously central question around widespread job loss that autonomous driving brings; as co-host Nayeema mentions in the recap, Mawakana "obfuscated" a good deal (great word). I was overall rather sold on the idea that fully autonomous vehicles like Waymo's—which it sounds like have caused a total of zero accidents so far—would, in fact, make roads safer. Mawakana brings a wise patience to championing this still-new cause, and gives insight into the markets Waymo is targeting: "we're building the Waymo driver" (anthropomorphism alert!) "to be fully generalizable...trucking, delivery, ride-hailing—those are the business applications that we're focused on, and eventually, personal car ownership as well." Maybe high schoolers getting their driver's licenses less—and later—won't matter so much after all.
Second
This one will be short: I prefer primary sources whenever possible, so I think it's fascinating to consider the way Apple chose to market its Vision Pro headset in its nine-minute film. With all of the new technology we're continually learning about as a society, I think it's helpful when people remind me that products we see are often the first iteration of many yet to come. So, with that in mind, recognizing that the Vision Pro isn't the end result, but merely the first step, it's probably safe to assume that FaceTime avatars will improve, use cases for the device will broaden (proliferate?) as developers realize the potential of "spatial computing," and product designers will eventually slim down and do away altogether with that sleek-ish charging pack that attaches to the headset's power cord (which they expertly semi-hide in the film until the narrator addresses it directly). I'm curious to see if the pass-through eye visibility (video projection) will have an impact on the ubiquity of these goggles in everyday life. I know the world wasn't ready for Google Glass in 2013, but that was, of course, ten years ago, so maybe see-through will be a breakthrough for AR/VR headset popularity now. Finally, as a language person, I've often noticed how Apple never puts a "the" before mentioning their products. Do we think that's to make them feel more human?
Third
I think a lot about various industries' futures, and this week, the future of the legal profession fascinated me. In my advising work, it's essential to know as much as possible about any industry students might be thinking of entering, and to understand which new, related fields might emerge that could have jobs on offer calling graduates' names in 4-7 years. Students (here in the Bay Area, at least, though likely everywhere) already understand that AI is going to have a huge impact on what many professions look like, especially in areas like the law where most roles require advanced degrees. Whether we're talking about the Supreme Court's ruling about Alabama's electoral map or the pair of cases they're considering that challenge the use of race-conscious admissions processes (affirmative action), though, it seems that for at least a generation, we'll still need lawyers, judges, and policymakers. We'll need folks who research, argue about, interpret, and issue decisions on the law—so for students who find these questions interesting, keeping law school on the table might not be a bad idea. As a human society, we'll also need political representatives at local, state, and federal levels to get together to write laws that (ideally) serve, protect, and represent the various regions we live in. We'll also need some folks to staff those representatives' offices, even if only to greet constituent guests (AI and AI-infused humanoid robots may do much of the unglamorous legwork currently completed by members' legislative teams, for instance). Students can study and work in any discipline to prepare to serve in public office; when considering careers, my expectation would be that some of Gen Z's perceivable distaste both for polarized partisanship and also for Washington's general political gridlock might translate not only to continued grassroots political activism, but also to more Gen Z candidates running for office early in their professional careers. As I think about jobs that are [at least momentarily] safe from automation, for now there seem to be enough policy questions in admissions and other fields to occupy at least a decade's worth of college, law school, and public policy program cohorts.
