The AI Breakdown First Five - Monday July 3, 2023

5. Driverless cabs coming to San Francisco?

Ask Cathie Wood about where artificial intelligence is going to transform things and she'll point you to driverless cars. In California, the California Public Utilities Commission is voting next week on whether to approve Waymo and Cruise to expand operations to allow 24/7 driverless cabs. Uber and Lyft...without the drivers.

4. Humane's AI wearable

At TED in April, a startup named Humane demoed a wearable AI powered device that captured people's attention by reimagining how we interact with computers. Specifically, it does away with the screen entirely in favor of voice and projection. The company has started to release information, and if nothing else, their ambition is clear.

3. Is AI warping the stock market?

2023 is a very strange year in markets. The Fed has continued to tighten right on through a banking crisis, recession continues to loom, and yet overall the market has soared. The primary driver of this is, of course, interest in AI. Some are worried, however, that the concentration of the markets gains in this sector don't bode well.

2. Soros says AI a boon to authoritarians

In a recent essay, George Soros came out strongly against AI due to concerns around surveillance and the creation of unrealities. He wrote:

"we can be sure of one thing: AI helps closed societies and poses a mortal threat to open societies. That’s because AI is particularly good at producing instruments of control that help closed societies to surveil their subjects." 

1. But...AI is also being used to address modern slavery

However, almost as a waiting counterpoint, a company called Altana has recently shared how it uses AI to map supply chains and help companies avoid products and components that are produced with forced labor. Shockingly, they found that 10% of all companies in the world were buying and selling goods that had touched forced Uyghur labor in Xinjiang, China.

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Signing off from the future’s past - NLW