How the world plans to stop American AI domination: Countries and startups around the globe are scrambling for a foothold in artificial intelligence, determined to avoid becoming dependent on US tech innovations—again. The Information
UK takes top spot in Europe for GenAI startups, Accel says: Reuters reports the United Kingdom is home to the biggest number of generative AI (GenAI) startups across Europe and Israel, followed by Germany and Israel, according to a study by venture capital firm Accel.
+ Accel analysed 221 GenAI startups and found that 30% were founded in the UK, 14% in Germany, and 13% in Israel, with France home to 11% and the Netherlands 6%.
India’s farmers are now getting their news from AI anchors: Bloomberg reports India's public service broadcaster Doordarshan — hardly the epitome of tech innovation — is delivering news to farmers via two realistic, soon-to-be multilingual AI avatars.
Silicon Valley steps up staff screening over Chinese espionage threat: Google, OpenAI, and Sequoia Capital push to improve security practices following high-profile spying cases. FT
Japan goes light on AI regulation to court investment: How business-friendly can Tokyo be as public concerns rise? Nikkei
The Biden admin has no firm plan to call out domestic disinformation in the 2024 election: NBC News reports experts expect a flood of disinformation and deepfakes, but federal officials feel limited in what they can do. “The FBI is not in the truth detection business,” one official said.
Gavin Newsom wants to take smartphones out of schools: The Democratic California governor told Politico of his plans hours after Surgeon General Dr. Vivek Murthy argued Congress should compel tech companies to include warning labels similar to cigarettes and alcohol.
An AI bot for mayor? Wyoming election official says not so fast: A Wyoming resident says if he’s elected mayor of Cheyenne, he’d leave all the decisions to a customized ChatGPT bot. But there are legal hurdles. NBC News
+ @spectatorindex: TECH: ChatGPT 'produces incorrect answers more than 50% of the time' when it was asked 517 programming questions, according to a study by researchers at Purdue University.
Artificial intelligence is likely to displace more jobs across the banking industry than in any other sector, according to Citigroup. About 54% of banking jobs have a high potential to be automated, while an additional 12% of roles across the industry could be augmented with the technology, the bank said on Wednesday in a report.
Ilya Sutskever has a new plan for safe superintelligence: Bloomberg reports OpenAI’s co-founder discloses his plans to continue his work at a new research lab focused on artificial general intelligence.
+ Sutskever is introducing a venture called Safe Superintelligence Inc. aiming to create a safe, powerful artificial intelligence system within a pure research organization that has no near-term intention of selling AI products or services. In other words, he’s attempting to continue his work without many of the distractions that rivals such as OpenAI, Google, and Anthropic face.
+ As the company’s name emphasizes, Sutskever has made AI safety the top priority. The trick, of course, is identifying what exactly makes one AI system safer than another or, really, safe at all.
+ “By safe, we mean safe like nuclear safety as opposed to safe as in ‘trust and safety,’” he says.
OpenAI expands healthcare push with color health’s cancer copilot: WSJ reports Color Health has developed an AI assistant using OpenAI’s GPT-4o model to help doctors screen and treat cancer patients.
Google DeepMind shifts from research lab to AI product factory: Bloomberg reports the company combined its two AI labs to develop commercial services, a move that could undermine its long-running strength in foundational research.
Sequoia backs AI startup that automates engineering tasks: Bloomberg reports Factory is using AI to help businesses generate software features, review code, and solve bugs.
For Apple’s AI push, China is a missing piece: WSJ reports ChatGPT and other Western AI models aren’t available in China, and that is likely to prompt Apple to turn to a Chinese partner to help offer its Apple Intelligence services there.
Most stocks hyped as winners from AI boom have fallen this year: FT reports artificial intelligence frenzy has powered Nvidia to peak of US equity market but elsewhere investors become more selective.
What a Japanese AI unicorn can teach Silicon Valley: The world doesn’t need more useless chatbots that generate bad poetry or perpetuate racist biases. Catherine Thorbecke
Reuters: Dell, Super Micro providing server racks for xAI's supercomputer
Amazon to invest an extra €10 billion in Germany: DW reports Amazon said it would also expand its local workforce. German Chancellor Olaf Scholz welcomed the news and said it was proof that Europe's largest economy is still an attractive place to do business.
+ @JonErlichman: “By the year 2000, machines will be producing so much that everyone in the US will, in effect, be independently wealthy. How to use leisure meaningfully will be a major problem.” -- Time Magazine, 1966
How can AI help football coaches? Analyzing football matches using videos is time-consuming. Artificial intelligence can speed things up considerably, allowing trainers to analyze more matches, recognize the opponents' tactics, and focus on scoring goals. DW
Enjoy the ride + plan accordingly.
-Marc
