AI chatbots have already completely upended schools. Your world will be next

Good morning. Here’s what you need to know to start your weekend:

• You’d better start getting used to AI chatbots
• L.A. County high lead levels on properties the Army Corp of Engineers had already cleaned.
• Get our free daily crossword puzzle, sudoku, word search and arcade games.
• And here’s today’s e-newspaper

AI chatbots have transformed life. Are we ready?

If you are part of the shrinking population that still hasn’t tried ChatGPT, it’s time. My first experiments with an AI chatbot shook me. I asked it questions related my job and the memo it offered was, at least at first glance, convincing. My mind raced, fear overtook me, I slammed my computer shut and went on a long walk.

Since then I’ve tried to avoid AI and chatbots. But this week I was shaken out of complacency.

Two stories offered a strange and colorful view into skyrocketing AI use

Students from high schools and colleges around America made it clear in James D. Walsh’s New York magazine story: AI chatbots are as ubiquitous in schools as iPhones. In interview after interview, students explain how they use AI to outline, write and edit essays, develop computer code, conduct research and, in one egregious case, build tools to help one another blatantly cheat.

[Read more: Everyone Is Cheating Their Way Through College, via New York Magazine]

And then Harvard economist David Deming shared stunning facts about AI adoption on the excellent Podcast Plain English with Derek Thompson. According to Deming’s research, “39 percent of the U.S. population age 18-64 used generative AI. More than 24 percent of workers used it at least once in the week prior to being surveyed, and nearly one in nine used it every workday.” This technology is becoming common-place faster than the personal computer or internet did, his research shows.

[Listen here: The Job Market for Young Grads Is Flashing Red via The Ringer]

A lesson from the Luddites: New technology will offer a new deal

In the early 1800s when industrialized machinery first developed, a group known as the Luddites broke into the world’s first factories and smashed the machines. Former L.A. Times tech reporter Brian Merchant tells their story (and its lessons for the AI age) in his incredible book Blood in the Machine.

The Luddites were maligned as resisting progress. But put yourself in their shoes. For generations their bargain was to weave fabrics at home 3-5 days a week and sell their wares on the market. Suddenly, somebody invented a machine and offered them a new deal: Work in this stinky dark factory or starve.

Like the industrial revolution, there’s no stopping AI — only making the best of it

You’ll find AI-driven work everywhere now. In your text messages, your email, across dating apps, supercharging medical research, revolutionizing a doctor’s ability to diagnose disease, speaking for the dead and giving you a pretty good answer to any question you pose in Google search.

And with a large part of its development coming from right here in Silicon Valley, Californians will have to lead the charge developing the regulations, norms and usage that prevent AI from ushering in a dystopia of inequality. It’s going to require standing up to the tech giants and their money while also accepting that AI is the future whether we like it or not.

Figuring out how we can use (and not be used by) this tool is still something only humans can do, together.

More on AI from the L.A. Times

• After AI bar exam fiasco, State Bar of California faces deeper financial crisis.
• Voice clones pose an ‘existential crisis’ for actors: ‘It’s a violation of our humanity.’
• AI-powered cameras gave out nearly 10,000 tickets along L.A. bus routes. Are you next?
• Late announcer Jim Fagan’s voice will return with the NBA to NBC, courtesy of AI.
• I worked out with an AI trainer at L.A.’s ‘first full-scale AI-powered gym.’ Here’s how it went.
• Did AI really defend the KKK at the end of a recent column by Gustavo Arellano? Let’s discuss.

The week’s biggest stories

Army Corps of Engineers Col. Brian Sawser is overseeing the debris removal program in the Palisades fire burn zone in Pacific Palisades on April 15.

(Genaro Molina / Los Angeles Times)

Toxins in the soil where the fires burned

• L.A. County found high lead levels in soil on properties already cleaned by the Army Corps of Engineers.
• When FEMA failed to test soil for toxic substances after the L.A. fires, The Times had it done. The results were alarming.
• The L.A. wildfires left lead and other toxic material in the soil of burn zones. Here are their health risks.

The LAFD union president who was suspended speaks out

• Freddy Escobar stood outside the LAFD union office Friday morning and declared he had been “unjustly accused.”
• He and two other top union officials were suspended this week after an audit flagged $800,000 in credit card spending

A threat to the new Chuckwalla monument

• A lawsuit brought by a conservative think tank challenges the constitutionality of a national monument adjacent to Joshua Tree National Park, and calls for its dissolution.
• Biden created the national monument during his final week in office.
• A Native American-led coalition pressed for the national monument designation to protect these areas from mining, drilling and logging.

The Menendez brothers

• The Menendez brothers’ bid for freedom is set to reach a courtroom next week.
• The court appearance had stalled last month due to a fight over access to a parole document.
• Their attorneys say politics is getting in the way of their release.
• The brothers were first convicted in 1996. Read our story from then.

More big stories

• Trump’s pick for surgeon general quit her medical residency due to stress, her former department chair says.
• More Californians now get therapy via a video screen or phone than through in-person sessions.
• COVID-19 tests and other health supplies are now provided free at 51 kiosks across L.A. County.
• Pope Leo XIV celebrated his first Mass as pope.

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This week’s must reads

(Alex Eben Meyer / For The Times)

ADUs made of shipping containers and robot-built bungalows are a growing trend as L.A. rebuilds post-fire. Prefab housing is poised to push forward as residents in fire-ravaged neighborhoods seek to rebuild — fast. Is L.A. ready for a robot-built bungalow?

More great reads

• Evangelism and Erewhon: They came to L.A. for the Hollywood dream, then shot to Bible stardom
  

How can we make this newsletter more useful? Send comments to essentialcalifornia@latimes.com.

For your weekend

Ana Maria Martinez as Margarita Xirgu and Daniela Mack as Frederico Garcia Lorca in the Los Angeles Opera production of Osvaldo Golijov’s “Ainadamar” at the Dorothy Chandler Pavilion.

(Cory Weaver / L.A. Opera)

Going out

• Tim Robinson, the star of “I Think You Should Leave,” gets fixated on Paul Rudd as his too-cool potential BFF in a film that could be called “I Loathe You, Man.”
• He turned a Mongolian BBQ joint into a Baja-style seafood spot — while battling cancer.
• Jane Fonda lends her dazzling narration to Rufus Wainwright’s enveloping “Dream Requiem,” which provides some spiritual enhancement to L.A. Opera’s flashy “Ainadamar,” centered on the execution of Federico Garcia Lorca.

Staying in

• “Andor” and “Tracker” close chapters, plus the week’s streaming picks.
• “Top Chef’s” Kristen Kish has a lot to say about kitchen sexism in her new memoir
• 🧑‍🍳 Here’s a recipe for breakfast berry summer pudding
• ✏️ Get our free daily crossword puzzle, sudoku, word search and arcade games.

Have a great weekend, from the Essential California team

Karim Doumar, head of newsletters

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