The United Kingdom and Canada have pledged to strengthen collaboration on AI safety, building upon their shared commitment to responsible AI development.

South Korea announced a 26trn won ($19bn) support package for the country’s semiconductor industry.

Bloomberg: Macron says he’d prefer that Mistral AI grow ‘on their own’

CNBC: Macron: French AI boom could help EU close tech innovation gap with US and China

Macron wants to make France a 'champion' in AI: Le Monde reports on Tuesday, France's president announced a number of measures aimed at spreading the use of artificial intelligence. Paris plans to host an international summit in February 2025.

Seven hours in Geneva hotel highlight US-China struggle on AI Bloomberg

+ First talks see each side push different vision for governance

+ AI becomes new arena of rivalry as Washington, Beijing engage

DARPA-backed startup seeks $70 million to join AI chip goldrush: Bloomberg reports EnCharge AI Inc., joins the growing technological race to build better chips to power the current wave of AI technology. Computing power has become a scarce and precious resource in the AI world, helping send chipmaker Nvidia Corp.’s market cap soaring past $2 trillion and spurring OpenAI boss Sam Altman to seek billions for chipmaking endeavors.

US intelligence agencies’ embrace of generative AI is at once wary and urgent AP

Generative AI: Friend or foe for US intelligence agencies? Current AI models are not sophisticated enough to handle the complex life-and-death decisions common to the national security realm. FC

The US is forming a global AI safety network with key allies: US Secretary of Commerce Gina Raimondo says the US is collaborating with other countries, including the UK, Japan, and Canada, to manage the risks posed by artificial intelligence. Wired

White House pushes tech industry to shut down market for sexually abusive AI deepfakes: AP reports the White House is putting out a call Thursday looking for voluntary cooperation from companies in the absence of federal legislation. By committing to a set of specific measures, officials hope the private sector can curb the creation, spread, and monetization of such nonconsensual AI images, including explicit images of children.

AI on the campaign trail: The FCC fines political consultant $6 million for AI robocalls that impersonated Biden before the New Hampshire primary.

AI promised to upend the 2024 campaign. It hasn’t yet. With less than six months until the 2024 election, the political uses of AI are more theoretical than transformational. “This is the dog that didn’t bark,” said one adviser to a Democratic donor. NYT

FCC is considering AI rules for political ads CNN

Some of Silicon Valley’s most prominent investors are turning against Biden: Marc Andreessen, Chamath Palihapitiya, and several other tech venture capitalists are increasingly criticizing President Biden and making their disaffection known in an election year. NYT

Colorado passes first in the nation attempt to assess AI discrimination: While antidiscrimination laws exist, those who study AI discrimination say it’s a different beast, which the US is already behind in regulating. FC

Arizona lawmaker says ChatGPT helped draft new deepfakes law: The Hill reports An Arizona state lawmaker said artificial intelligence (AI) system ChatGPT helped draft a new deepfake legislation that was signed into law this week. Republican state Rep. Alex Kolodin said he used ChatGPT to write a subsection of House Bill 2394, which tackles AI-related impersonations of people by allowing Arizona residents to legally assert they are not featured in deepfake videos. 

+ “I used it to write the part of the bill that had to do with defining what a deepfake was,” Kolodin told NBC News. “I was really struggling with the technical aspects of how to define what a deepfake was. So I thought to myself, ‘Well, why not ask the subject matter expert, ChatGPT?’”

OpenAI didn’t copy Scarlett Johansson’s voice for ChatGPT, records show: A different actress was hired to provide the voice for ChatGPT’s “Sky,” according to documents and recordings shared with the Washington Post. WP

OpenAI’s Altman on defense six months after surviving ouster: The CEO has issued a series of apologies and mea culpas after criticism from employees and one of the most famous actresses in the world. Bloomberg

OpenAI just gave away the entire game: The Scarlett Johansson debacle is a microcosm of AI’s raw deal: It’s happening, and you can’t stop it. Charlie Warzel

Scarlett Johansson is right: AI companies must be more transparent: A new index shows that they have a long way to go, including on data access and model trustworthiness. John Thornhill

OpenAI’s Scarlett Johansson voice fiasco highlights old tech bias Bloomberg

Google’s AI search wants you to glue cheese to your pizza. It’s just the tip of its bad-idea iceberg Fortune

AI relies on mass surveillance, warns signal boss: The AI tools that crunch numbers, generate text and videos and find patterns in data rely on mass surveillance and exercise concerning control over our lives, the boss of encrypted messaging app Signal told AFP on Thursday. Pushing back against the unquestioning enthusiasm at VivaTech in Paris, Europe's top startup conference where industry players vaunt the merits of their products, Meredith Whittaker said concerns about surveillance and those about AI were "two framings of the same thing."

+ "The AI technologies we're talking about today are reliant on mass surveillance."

Futurism: The Washington Post tells staff it’s pivoting to AI

+ "AI everywhere in our newsroom."

OpenAI is making journalism an offer it can’t refuse: There is no opting out of artificial intelligence, so getting paid makes sense, but the deals with publishers don’t bode well for the future of newsgathering. David Lee

Bloomberg: Meta’s Zuckerberg creates council to advise on AI products

WP: Meta’s new AI hides sources and copies sentences from news outlets

CNBC: Amazon plans to give Alexa an AI overhaul — and a monthly subscription price

Bloomberg: Alphabet, Meta offer millions to partner with Hollywood on AI

+ Studios seek to harness AI’s promise without losing control

+ Warner weighs licensing content; Disney, Netflix say no

Elon Musk’s xAI secures new backing from Andreessen, Lightspeed, Sequoia, and Tribe: FT reports the billionaire’s artificial intelligence start-up closes in on $6bn funding round as it seeks more financial firepower.

Bloomberg: Nvidia’s Huang is now richer Tthan every member of Walmart’s founding family

+ Jensen Huang’s fortune catapulted past Jim, Rob, and Alice

+ Nvidia shares jumped after another bullish sales forecast

Business school teaching case study: Risks of the AI arms race: Competitive haste raises questions about safe development of the technology. Explore the issues with this dean’s case study. FT

Can the AI boom stop the tech exodus from San Francisco? Vast swaths of office space have been left empty after a big shift to remote working. Tabby Kinder

Fallout from cyberattack at Ascension Hospitals persists, causing delays in patient care: For two weeks at the 140-hospital system, doctors and nurses have had little access to digital records for patient histories, resorting to paper and faxes to treat people. NYT

Enjoy the ride + plan accordingly.

-Marc