Artificial intelligence has come a long way in the past decade, but companies are still scratching the surface of its potential to reshape their business.
While AI is already deeply immersed in parts of our lives (social media accounts, healthcare, and e-commerce, to name a few), companies big and small have yet to fully incorporated its best qualities into their daily operations. .
This idea is at the heart of next month’s Fortune Brainstorm AI conference, December 5-6 in San Francisco. (Applications to participate are still open and datasheet readers can get a 20% discount off the regular entry fee by using the code “DSAI” in the additional comments section of the entry form.)
At the event, you will have the opportunity to hear from leading experts in the field talking about the opportunities for scaling AI and integrating it into the fabric of business life. At the same time, senior researchers and executives will warn of the many ethical issues that continue to plague AI development and threaten to undermine trust in companies that disregard these warnings.
Among the speakers scheduled at Brainstorm AI:
— Fei-Fei Li, co-director of the Institute for Human-Centered AI at Stanford University, who will delve into the power and responsibility of business to shape our world.
– Kevin Scott, Microsoft Chief Technology Officer and Executive Vice President of Technology and Research, who will discuss the burgeoning field of AI language models.
— Joelle Pineau, Co-General Manager of AI Research at Meta, who will explain how Meta is developing technology for its future ventures, including the Metaverse.
— Yael Garten, Director of AI/Machine Learning Data Science and Engineering at Apple, who will explain how a $2 trillion company thinks about AI
This year’s Brainstorm AI conference comes at a particularly exciting time for the industry.
The global commercial AI market continues to grow at a breakneck pace, with the IDC estimating compound annual growth of nearly 20% over the next few years. Even amid the current economic downturn, companies continue to increase their investments in AI given its potential to identify efficiencies and drive innovation.
At the same time, advanced AI technology continues to sink deeper into the consumer mainstream: AI-powered self-driving vehicles are on the rise; content-generating AI tools like DALL-E and Stable Diffusion are buzzing; and TikTok’s AI-centric recommendation algorithms have changed the social media game.
Meanwhile, policymakers at home and abroad are increasingly concerned about the negative consequences of AI biases and abuses.
The White House made waves last month when it released an AI Bill of Rights, its plan to address five technology concerns: safety; discrimination; data confidentiality; disclosure of information; and withdrawal rights. (The Bill of Rights is non-binding and has no legal weight, although some departments in the federal bureaucracy are implementing AI regulations.)
Across the pond, members of the European Union have spent six months drafting regulatory proposals for high-risk AI applications — legislation that, if passed, could have an impact on businesses and consumers around the world.
This means there will be plenty to discuss next month at Brainstorm AI. We hope to see you in San Francisco.
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Jacob Charpentier
NEW
It is don’t wait. New Twitter owner Elon Musk plans to lay off about half of the company’s workforce in the coming days, Bloomberg reported Wednesday, citing sources familiar with the matter. The job cuts, which are expected to total around 3,700 employees, would significantly reduce Musk’s expenses and allow him to focus more on core departments, such as engineering and design. Musk is also expected to end the company’s work-from-anywhere policy and order employees back to offices, with some exceptions.
Should have seen it coming. Department of Justice officials should conduct a thorough antitrust investigation in Adobethe planned $20 billion purchase of a digital collaborative design company figma, Politico reported Wednesday, citing four sources with knowledge of the matter. Department officials have begun contacting customers and rivals of both companies and have issued requests for information, although it is not yet clear when they might launch a formal investigation. Federal antitrust regulators are currently prosecuting or investigating several tech giants, including Apple, Amazon, Googleand Meta.
More bad news about fleas. Qualcomm shares fell 7% by midday on Thursday after the chipmaker issued a weaker than expected outlook over the current quarter, CNBC reported. Company officials said a sharp decline in smartphone demand and excess inventory weighed on first-quarter fiscal projections. Qualcomm posted fiscal fourth-quarter earnings and revenue in line with Wall Street projections, and the chipmaker said it would continue to supply most iPhone modem chips in 2023 after Apple delayed plans to use of internal semiconductors.
A precocious grinch. Roku executives warned on Wednesday that the company holiday sales would likely drop this year against a backdrop of declining advertiser and consumer spending, the the wall street journal reported. Comments from CEO Anthony Wood during an earnings call sent Roku shares down 1% by midday Thursday. Roku beat analysts’ forecasts in the third quarter for profit and revenue, although the hardware and streaming platform still posted a net loss of $122 million.
FOOD FOR THOUGHT
The human element. The emerging technological cold war between the United States and China puts Chinese artificial intelligence researchers in a difficult situation. Protocol reported on Thursday that a growing number of Chinese employees and tech students working in the United States are feeling pressured by the geopolitical battle, which has reached new heights in recent months following a series of export control measures implemented by the President. Joe Bidenadministration. Proponents of export restrictions, which seek to limit China’s access to advanced semiconductors for AI applications, argue that the United States must establish its dominance in technology before China does. But some academic and tech executives warn the skirmish will limit their ability to recruit and retain Chinese IT professionals in a tight job market.
From article:
Those entrenched in AI research warn that turning a mission to attract Chinese STEM scholars into a battle for talent against China could backfire by alienating those researchers. And they worry that profit motives and anti-China rhetoric have clouded an otherwise rich collaborative environment that has helped advance AI research in the United States and around the world, and fostered the good willingness among Chinese students who historically were eager to study in the United States.
“You can’t have all the smart people in the world – the United States can’t,” said Nathan Myhrvold, who helped start Microsoft’s influential research lab in Beijing in 1998. kind of the reason why I set up the lab in China,” he said.
IN CASE YOU MISSED IT
Brands are ‘quietly shutting down’ Twitter for fear of what Musk will bringby Sophie Mellor
Despite complaints, Elon Musk plans to start charging Twitter users $8 a month for verification checkmarks on Mondayby Kurt Wagner, Edward Ludlow and Bloomberg
Musk says Twitter will keep current bans in place until midtermby Haleluya Hadero and The Associated Press
“I want to know where the investors were.” Uber whistleblower says company supporters remained silent as company ‘shattered democracy itself’by Chloe Taylor
Microsoft executive says solving climate change goes far beyond reducing pollution: ‘The ultimate bottleneck is the supply of skilled people’by Alena Botros
The world’s largest iPhone factory has just been closed, but some workers managed to escape a few days agoby Prarthana Prakash
ReNew Power’s Sumant Sinha: ‘It’s time for the US and India to lead the climate action’by Sumant Sinha
BEFORE YOU LEAVE
Another new way to shop. Amazon has found another place to burrow into your life: the eyeball. TechCrunch reported on Thursday that the tech conglomerate has created the first consumer third-party application for smart contact lenses developed by Mojo Vision, integrating their Alexa shopping list into the lens. The feature allows people who wear Mojo contact lenses to view their virtual grocery list and add or subtract items by voice command. Admittedly, this is all very experimental at this point. Neither Amazon nor Mojo are committing to the commercial viability of the idea, let alone rolling out a consumer product. But it’s an interesting window into the potential of such technology, as well as partnerships between augmented reality teams and established tech giants.