Synthetic Work – A (mostly serious) newsletter to understand how AI is changing the world

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Issue #5 - You are not going to use 19 years of Gmail conversations to create an AI clone of my personality, are you?

March 24, 2023

What's In It?
- Somebody has a copy of everything you said in the last few years and could eventually create an AI clone of you
- Non-tech people start to realize that AI can do a better job than their worst employees
- OpenAI researchers take a look at the job market and say "uh-oh"
- In 1980, the US employed 750,000 typists
- Middle managers and executives: your days are numbered
- When you feel like you are fall in love with AI you should really have a cold shower
- Anthropic's Claude AI is in charge of the jokes this week
Issue #4 - A lot of decapitations would have been avoided if Louis XVI had AI

March 17, 2023

What's In It?
- People have started automating the production and publishing of YouTube shorts. I call it "The Perpetual Garbage Generator".
- GPT-4 can now memorize all the infamous details of your life and use them against you in future conversations
- If you are a telemarketer, a teacher, or a psychologist, I have a scary, scary chart to show you
- In less than 50 years, we moved from clunky digital cameras to sleek smartphones that use AI to make up photos
- The Romanian government has started using AI to work way less than any other politician on Earth
- People using AI for software development are caught smiling like teenagers in love in front of the screen
- South Park has dedicated an entire episode to ChatGPT and it's glorious
Issue #3 - For Dummies: How to steal your coworkers' promotion with AI

March 10, 2023

What's In It?
- A dishonest photographer shows us how a coworker might steal your promotion
- Office workers buying AI services might finally render obsolete the IT department in big corps
- A science fiction magazine overwhelmed by AI-generated spam submissions shows us that content curation might become an impossible job
- We used to have to convince people to buy typewriters
- There's a new job called synthetic celebrity and, yes, no human does it
- Musicians initially tried to boycott recorded music (they are all dead now, don't worry)
- ChatGPT makes the joke of the week in Woody Allen style
Issue #2 - 61% of the office workers admit to having an affair with the AI inside Excel 🔓

March 3, 2023

What's In It?
- GPT-4 might have enough memory to remember all your shameful secrets and use them against you in future conversations
- Religious leaders are freaking out
- OpenAI is planting the seeds to guarantee the ubiquity of its AI
- Wealthy businessmen used to record their notes with a machine bigger than a horse head
- When your mother was saying that the audiobook narrator is not a real job, she was onto something
- People fall in love with AI easier and faster than in Argentinean telenovelas
Issue #1 - When I grow up, I want to be a Prompt Engineer and Librarian

February 24, 2023

What's In It?
- Cathie Wood calls AI the assembly line for knowledge workers
- Synthetic text is a much bigger business opportunity than synthetic images
- The AI landscape is already completely different compared to three months ago
- AutoCAD has saved us a lot of real estate space for lovely cubicles
- You can now make more money than a VP in a medium-sized company with just two years of experience
- Microsoft is showing the world what happens if we let a psychopathic AI interact with humans
- I had an incredible idea for an AI-powered dating app
Issue #0 🔓

February 15, 2023

What's In It?

Nothing. There's nothing in this issue. It's just to show you the various sections of the newsletter. You are not impressed, I know.

The Splendid Edition of Synthetic Work is not free (shocking, I know). Receiving it via email (on Fridays, too) or reading it online here requires one of these paid memberships: Sage, Innovator, or Amplifier.

See what readers are saying about the newsletter.

Publishing Industry

Issue #5 - The Perpetual Garbage Generator

March 24, 2023

Health Care Industry

Issue #4 - Medical AI to open new hospital in the metaverse to assist (human) ex doctors affected by severe depression

March 17, 2023

Job Market

Issue #3 - I will edit and humanize your AI content

March 10, 2023

Legal Industry

Issue #2 - Law firms' morale at an all-time high now that they can use AI to generate evil plans to charge customers more money

March 3, 2023

Education Industry

Issue #1 - Burn the books, ban AI. Screwed teachers: Middle Ages are so sexy.

February 24, 2023

Issue #0 🔓

February 15, 2023

Synthetic Work is dedicated to researching and evangelizing the impact of artificial intelligence on human labor, economy, and society. Hopefully, in a way that is not boring and/or intimidating.

Given this glorious mission, it's paramaount that Synthetic Work showcases and promotes AI-assisted and AI-generated labor. These sections of the website are free to visit:

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