Is It Too Early for the AI Age?
Plus the 2024 New York Game Awards and a surprise TikTok hit.
I've just returned from my 21st CES (my first was in 2004), and the big buzzword of the tech trade show was AI. Of course, that's no surprise to anyone who's been paying even the slightest attention to the tech and media biz over the preceding months. In fact, it's so obvious that it's a lousy opening. I wonder if AI could do better.
ChatGPT, write a clever opening sentence for a newsletter about how AI was the big theme of CES 2024.
"At CES 2024, amidst a symphony of whirring gadgets and neon lights, one phrase echoed through the halls with the persistence of a catchy tune: AI, the unmistakable headliner of this year's tech extravaganza."
That's a little lurid for my tastes. Make it dryer.
"As CES 2024 unfolded, a singular theme emerged with unambiguous clarity among the array of tech showcases: AI, firmly establishing itself as the prevailing buzzword of the event."
Better, I guess, but still groan-inducing. At least I don't have to worry about being replaced by AI just yet. Some of the hype about AI is definitely too early, as anyone who has tried to get AI to write plug-and-play public-facing prose will tell you. Fortunately, Dall-E did a better job producing some Mad Magazine inspired art in the image above.
However, smarter-than-ever bots are here to stay. At CES, the push was less on generative AI designed to replace humans and instead on AI helpers to augment and improve our work. That includes AI-powered computers that can balance power between CPUs and GPUs, and NPU chips that make video editing and effects run smoother. Plus Microsoft's ambitious Copilot, integrating AI with its OS, promising smooth interaction between your data, tasks and apps.
We'll see the first real steps into faster, more secure, hardware-based AI (as opposed to slower, less secure, cloud-based AI) in 2024, but that's just the first step in what will be a years-long process that will change how we create and consume just as much the adoption of widespread wireless internet did 15-plus years ago.
Speaking of CES, I wrote about 18 articles during the show and turned up in about the same number of videos, all on behalf of the small-but-mighty Micro Center News team. You can see all our CES coverage here, and a few of my favorite big-picture articles are below, including my annual Best Laptops of CES list, which I've published in one form or another going back more than a decade.
NY Game Awards: 2024
The 13th annual New York Game Awards show is coming up on January 23. This annual award show is put on by the nonprofit New York Videogame Critics Circle, and as a long-standing member, you'll find me in the live audience at the SVA Theater in New York and presenting the award for Best Game World -- nominees include Bladur's Gate 3, Alan Wake II and Starfield, among others.
Buy tickets here for this great NYC show, or watch it livestreamed on YouTube.
The TikTik Algorithm Smiles Upon Me (Once)
In my brief TikTok career to date, I've had a total of two genuine hits, by which I mean videos that topped a quarter-million views. One was from last year, about gaming on Macs, and ended up with about 350K views. The other one was from a couple of weeks ago, about reusing scrap from a 3D printer, and it currently has just over 400K views.
Naturally, I tried to do another 3D printing project video right away, but my giant 3D-printed 1/6 scale Dalek model only hit about 1,600 views. So if there's a hack or trick to riding TikTok's algorithmic wave, I'm open to suggestions...
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