The year of AI

Friday, August 9, 2024

LEADING THE DAY

Why 2025 will be the year of AI

Image © Getty Images

The National Conference of State Legislatures’ annual Legislative Summit is the largest policy conference in America. Every August, a thousand or more lawmakers spend a few days packed in ballrooms and breakout sessions to hear what’s working, and what’s not, in an eclectic array of policy areas.

So it was remarkable that this year’s summit, held this week in Louisville, had such a clear, distinct theme: Artificial intelligence, its promise in making our lives better, and the danger it poses if left unchecked. Legislators held at least eight sessions on various facets of AI policy in just the conference’s first day.

Why are states taking the lead on AI policy? Lawmakers gave us two reasons: First, they don’t think Congress can get to together to take action. Second, they remember lessons from the failure to regulate consumer data privacy, the last big tech policy battle in state capitols. They’re determined to do something where D.C. won’t, and to act before big tech bottles up the process. 

And that means when legislative sessions return to state capitals in January, lawmakers are going to kick off an unprecedented year of AI. 

Welcome to Tech Friday, a joint project of The Hill and Pluribus News covering tech policy across government.

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IN WASHINGTON THIS WEEK

Image © AP Photo

Google decision boosts DOJ, FTC

Anti-trust experts say a judge’s ruling that Google is a monopolist could be a major boon to government cases against Amazon, Meta and Apple. The Justice Department and the Federal Trade Commission have active cases challenging elements of all three companies’ businesses. Read more at The Hill.

White House officials meet with crypto leaders

White House deputy chief of staff Bruce Reed and National Economic Council director Lael Brainard met with about a dozen cryptocurrency leaders Thursday as the Biden administration reaches out to the nascent industry. It’s the second big call between White House and industry leaders, organized by U.S. Rep. Ro Khanna (D-Calif.). Read more at The Hill.

Democrats urge probe of sports streaming deal

Top Democrats including Sens. Elizabeth Warren (D-Mass.) and Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.) are asking the Justice Department and the Federal Communication Commission to probe Venu, the new joint sports subscription product from Warner Bros. Discovery, Fox Corp. and The Walt Disney Co. The lawmakers pointed to rising streaming costs. Read more at The Hill.

IN BUSINESS THIS WEEK

FTX ordered to pay new fines

The Commodity Futures Trading Commission has ordered defunct cryptocurrency exchange FTX and its sister company Alameda Research $12.7 million in fines to consumers and fraud victims. The new fines come on top of the billions the company has recovered and returned to customers after massive trading losses under now-convicted CEO Sam Bankman-Fried. Read more at The Hill.

Disney streaming turns a profit

Disney’s streaming business turned a profit for the first time in the second quarter of the year as operating income in the company’s entertainment division nearly tripled to $1.2 billion. The company’s direct-to-consumer business, which includes Disney+ and Hulu, reported a quarterly loss of $19 million, down from $505 million a year ago. Read more at The Hill.

Perplexity sees revenue jumps

Perplexity AI reported its search engine answering about 250 million questions in July, compared with 500 million in all of last year. The company has increased annualized revenue seven-fold since the beginning of the year as it pivots from a subscription business model to an advertising model to more directly challenge Google’s dominance of search. Read more at the Financial Times.

Magnificent Seven performance this week

AMZN +8.6%, META +13.8%, TSLA +6.6%, MSFT +4%, NVDA +13.1%, GOOG +3.1%, AAPL +8.4%. NASDAQ-100 Tech Sector index: +7.7%.

IN THE STATES THIS WEEK

Image © AP

States compete over quantum technology

Colorado and Illinois have become the first states to invest public resources in quantum technology, which legislators believe can create tens of thousands of jobs and drive billions in public investment. But they’re not alone: At least 14 other states have set up earmarks, grants or partnerships to drive their own quantum industries. Read more at Pluribus News.

Dems feud over California AI bill

California legislators returned to session this week with a long to-do list that includes Sen. Scott Wiener’s (D) Safe and Secure Innovation for Frontier Artificial Intelligence Models. The bill is meant to prevent AI tools from causing catastrophic harm. But U.S. Rep. Zoe Lofgren (D-Calif.), who represents part of Silicon Valley, said Wiener’s measure would create unnecessary risks for the industry and the public. Read more at The Washington Post.

ON OUR RADAR

Aug.13: Google will hold its annual Made by Google event at the company’s headquarters in Mountain View, Calif. Industry experts expect the company to roll out several versions of the Pixel 9 and new versions of its watch and earbuds. Read more at 9to5Google.

Aug.14: Tencent and Cisco report quarterly earnings.

Aug.15: Alibaba reports second quarter earnings.

Do this …

Now you, too, can make daily images of cats on unicycles shooting lasers in the desert: Users of ChatGPT’s free products can make up to two images per day using the DALL-E 3 model, OpenAI said Thursday. Read more at The Verge.

Don’t do this …

A new OpenAI report released Thursday warns that some users may grow emotionally attached to the company’s new GPT-4o model, which comes with a human-sounding voice mode. The new model can respond to audio inputs in 232 milliseconds, similar to a human’s response time in conversation, adding to the risk that users might anthropomorphize their interactions. Read more at The Hill.

You’re all caught up! See you next week.