Week 22: What’s Happening in AI
What to watch in 2024 on policy, responsible AI, where AI is going. Takes by Reid Hoffman, Sam Altman. Plus genAI and the future of robotics.
Welcome to this week’s edition of What's Happening in AI for the Responsible Innovation Labs community.
Below: What to watch in 2024 across policy, responsible AI, and where AI is going. Reid Hoffman on the case for AI optimism. Sam Altman on ‘what I wish someone had told me.’ Plus, what role will generative AI play in the future of robotics?
First, one reflection on responsible AI as we close the year:
"There's this false idea that you have to choose between scale and responsibility," says Gaurab Bansal, Executive Director of RIL. "Increased responsibility will give you more durability as you scale. Being transparent when communicating with your customers about what you've improved is key for fostering relationships. You're bringing them into the process." (more here) You can see more about RIL’s work this year here and here.
Policy
Americas
US government moves to regulate development and use of AI models
Europe’s AI act draws attention to Congress’ timeline for action
ICYMI: NIST’s draft guidance on evaluating a privacy protection technique for the AI era
Europe:
EU to expand support for AI startups to tap its supercomputers for model training
EU's Digital Europe Programme eyes funding boost for AI, cyber security innovation
Asia:
Watch in 2024:
A skeptical Sacramento prepares 12+ AI bills for California’s next legislative session and the final text of the EU AI Act is expected in 2024.
Responsible AI
Product and alignment:
OpenAI’s preparedness framework
ICYMI: Anthropic on evaluating and mitigating discrimination in language model decisions
Climate:
Google’s Kate Brandt on how AI could accelerate progress toward the world’s climate goals around COP28 (more here, here)
Security and safety:
Cyberattacks against US water supply inspire policymakers, system operators to step up security practices
FBI seizes BlackCat ransomware website, offers decryption key and suffers a setback
Watch in 2024:
Splunk on AI governance in 2024
Where AI is going
Humanity:
Reid Hoffman on the case for AI optimism
Opinion: A thought experiment against pseudanthropy (TechCrunch)
Capabilities:
Google DeepMind used a LLM to solve an unsolved math problem
UC Berkeley’s Ken Goldberg on what role will generative AI play in the future of robotics?
Ecosystem:
Society and technology:
SEC Chair Gensler: AI is the most transformative technology of our time (more here)
Advocates push to bring the Civil Rights Act into the AI age (more here)
LinkedIn’s Chief Economist on how AI will change the global labor market (but not how you think)
Releases, raises, more:
Releases: Suno (AI music), Midjourney v6, ‘Llama recipes’ repo, Google’s VideoPoet, Intel's Xeon processor
Raises: TuMeke ($10M, computer vision), Atavistik Bio ($40M), Meltwater ($65M, media monitoring), Harvey ($80M, legal AI), True Anomaly ($100M, space security), Lightmatter ($155M, computing), Tome Biosciences ($213M); DCVC ($300M climate fund)
More: Anthropic reportedly in talks to raise $750M at $18B+ valuation
Watch in 2024:
Advances in quantum computing (ex. IBM, DARPA), computer-brain interfaces (ex. Synchron, Neuralink, Precision Neuroscience, Motif Neurotech), healthcare and more
Developer influence, maritime upgrades, and new video intelligence
Extra bits:
Sam Altman on ‘what I wish someone had told me’
Former Carta and Pave sales director on how to sell B2B (part 1)
ICYMI: AI to Z: terms to know on AI (The Conversation)
Thanks for reading. Feel free to get in touch with your questions, thoughts, or recommendations for next time. We will be back in the new year.