Insights

Catch up on the latest AI trends + topics

By Global Gateway Advisors

July 7, 2023

This edition features the latest developments around AI regulation and news from Amazon, Google, and SoftBank. Plus, we’ve compiled a brief roundup of podcasts and thought leaders to follow for timely AI insight.

1. Latest AI trends + hot topics

 

  • NYC hiring law takes effect. Starting July 5, New York City businesses that use AI in hiring must audit their processes for evidence of bias, and report out the results. This new law, believed to be the first of its kind, requires employers using machine learning in their hiring practices to engage third party auditors on an annual basis.

 

  • Novelty wearing off? ChatGPT saw traffic fall for the first time in June, down 9.7% from May, according to preliminary estimates from Similarweb. The decline was even greater just in the U.S., with a 10.3% month-on-month decline. Nevertheless, ChatGPT remains by far the most visited chatbot.

 

  • Amazon CEO: Don’t count us out of the AI race just yet. In a recent interview, Amazon CEO Andy Jassy said that the company’s proprietary AI chips have an edge in price performance, as it goes up against category leader Nvidia. Jassy likened the buzz around generative AI chatbots as the “hype cycle” before the “substance cycle,” specifically pointing to AWS as one business that can capitalize on the AI buzz over the long term.

 

  • Google updated its privacy policy, explicitly saying the company reserves the right to scrape everything posted online to build its AI tools. This is an unusual clause for a privacy policy, as a business typically describes ways that it uses the information users post on the company’s own services. Here, the language implies that the entire public internet is fair game for Google’s AI projects.

 

  • SoftBank Group shifts to “offense mode” on AI,” CEO Masayoshi Son said at a shareholder meeting. His focus on AI preceded the launch of ChatGPT – the CEO has mentioned “AI” more than 500 times in quarterly and annual results presentations between 2017 and mid-2022.

    Now, SoftBank is set to develop its own generative AI platform, with a $37 million cash infusion from the Japanese government. Several companies backed by SoftBank’s Vision Fund are expected to become big winners as the AI wave expands, with one chip designer slated for a blockbuster IPO later this year.

 

  • European companies sound the alarm over AI law. Dozens of Europe’s largest companies, including Germany’s Siemens and France’s Airbus, have spoken out against the EU’s proposed AI regulation, saying the rules risk harming competitiveness, yet fail to deal with potential challenges.

    Meanwhile, Japan is reportedly leaning toward softer AI rules closer to the U.S. than to the EU, as it looks to the technology to boost economic growth and propel it to leadership status in advanced chips.

1. Where to turn for insightful AI perspective

For a range of input on the ever-evolving AI landscape, below are four podcast recommendations and four great Twitter follows.

Podcasts:

  • Lex Fridman Podcast
     With a massive following, this podcast features the preeminent AI researcher who has the technical heft to book the best minds in AI as guests. Each episode spans at least an hour, but includes well-labeled timestamps so you can jump to the topics that interest you.

 

  • Hard Fork
    A lighthearted weekly show put out by the New York Times, featuring two journalists exploring the latest in tech with abundant humor. Topics are not confined to AI, and the content isn’t as technical as many other AI podcasts. Each episode clocks in at about an hour.

 

  • Your Undivided Attention
    In this biweekly podcast from the Center for Humane Technology, co-founders Tristan Harris and Aza Raskin explore the power that technology has over our lives and discuss challenges and solutions with a wide-range of thought leaders. Episode durations vary.

 

  • Me, Myself and AI
    Why do only 10% of companies succeed with AI? This biweekly podcast by MIT Sloan Management Review and Boston Consulting Group attempts to answer that question, featuring leaders who’ve achieved big AI wins at their companies. Each episode runs under 30 minutes.

 

Thought leaders on Twitter:

  • Yann LeCun – Chief AI scientist at Facebook and professor at NYU. 
  • Kai-Fu Lee – CEO of Chinese tech VC firm Sinovation Ventures, former CEO of Google China and writer. 
  • Andrew Ng – Co-founder of Coursera, Stanford adjunct faculty and former head of Baidu AI Group and Google Brain. 
  • Fei-Fei Li – Leading AI scientist, Stanford professor and co-director of the Stanford Institute for Human-Centered AI.

Share your feedback with us at insights@gga.nyc.