AI @ Noon | April 10

AI @ Noon is artificial intelligence geopolitical business news + insights for communications pros.

AI @ Noon will be on hiatus starting Thursday, April 11, and will return Monday, April 15.

Bloomberg: Kishida urges US executives to boost tech investments in Japan

+ Japan’s prime minister makes appeal during visit to Washington

+ Tokyo has sought to bolser domestic chip-making capacity

SK AI:?Yoon Suk-yeol, South Korea’s president, said his country would invest 9.4trn won ($6.94bn) in artificial intelligence by 2027.

Reuters: South Korea to invest $7 billion in AI in bid to retain edge in chips

Italy considers tougher penalties for AI-related crimes:?Italy's government is mulling tougher penalties for crimes using Artificial Intelligence (AI) tools including market rigging and money laundering, according to a draft law bill seen by Reuters?on Tuesday.

Inside the House GOP’s surveillance law nightmare:?Politico reports Republicans are plunging into a divisive debate that has pitted two warring factions against each other for months. There’s plenty of backbiting and mistrust to go around.

'Uncomfortable' AI-generated voicemails from gun violence victims swarm Congress:?The voice memos feature six victims of gun violence, including those killed in mass shootings, suicide, and accidents.?Politico

Bloomberg: Meta downplays AI disinformation threat in big election year

Safety first:?The Center for AI Policy, a new group lobbying for tight rules on artificial intelligence, released a draft bill this morning that would launch a new AI safety agency. It would also grant the White House sweeping emergency powers, establish a strict licensing regime, clamp down on open-source models, and impose civil and criminal liability on developers.

In an interview with Politico's Brendan Bordelon, CAIP Executive Director Jason Green-Lowe warned of “genius level” AIs that proliferate rapidly and cause chaos and destruction, either accidentally or on purpose. He said Washington needs “a safer set of guardrails, a better digital safety net than we have today, in order to cope with the AI that's going to be coming out in just a couple of years.”

“If there’s a genuine emergency — if AI is in the process of going rogue, it's holding servers ransom and shutting down hospitals, whatever it is — the administration is going to do something,” said Green-Lowe. “They’re not going to sit back and let the rogue AI destroy the country. So better they should do so within the rule of law, within established and specified procedures, rather than have to improvise something totally extralegal.”

Full newsletter post -?click here .

Generative AI Copyright Disclosure Act:?Rep. Adam Schiff (D-CA) introduced a bill requiring AI companies to disclose the copyrighted works used to train their models or face fines. The Generative AI Copyright Disclosure Act would require the disclosure of both new and existing AI models.

Where Bitcoin and artificial intelligence meet:?The quadrennial event known as “the halving” is arriving just as some miners look to branch out into that other popular technology.?Bloomberg

Welcome to an artificial-intelligence Utopia:?What will humans do if technology solves everything??Economist

AI’s advances will echo the internet, not the steam engine:?The comparison oversimplifies the impact the technology could have on our lives. Point to the internet instead.?Parmy Olson

OpenAI and Meta ready new AI models capable of ‘reasoning’:?Upgrades are part of a wave of new large language models being released this year.?FT

OpenAI prepares to fight for its life as legal troubles mount:?The company has hired more than two dozen in-house lawyers and adopted a new Washington playbook.?WP

How Google lost ground in the AI race:?The Silicon Valley group has stumbled in the rollout of generative AI. Insiders say cultural and organizational issues are to blame.?FT

Microsoft?will invest $2.9 billion in Japan over the next two years to expand its hyperscale cloud computing and AI infrastructure.

Microsoft to invest $2.9bn in Japan data centers amid AI boom:?Nikkei reports the move comes in response to push for 'data sovereignty' among governments.

Microsoft?has put more than $13 billion into OpenAI.

Meta’s smart glasses are becoming artificially intelligent. We took them for a spin.?What happens when a columnist and a reporter use AI glasses to scan groceries, monuments, and zoo animals? Hilarity, wonder, and lots of mistakes ensued.?NYT

Bloomberg: Intel unveils new AI accelerator in bid to challenge Nvidia

Google expands in-house chip efforts in costly AI battle:?WSJ reports the tech giant is developing new chips to cut reliance on outside vendors as the AI arms race for computing resources intensifies.

Bloomberg: NYSE executive says ‘handful’ of AI startups are exploring IPOs

+ “I’d say that the majority of the companies that are truly pure-play, AI-focused are still mostly financing themselves in the private markets,” Michael Harris, global head of capital markets at NYSE, said at the Information’s Private Capital Conference on Tuesday. “But we have seen a handful of companies that are at least exploring going through the process.”

AI’s ‘insatiable’ energy needs not sustainable, Arm CEO says:?WSJ reports AI models such as OpenAI’s ChatGPT ‘are just insatiable in terms of their thirst’ for electricity, Haas said.

GM says Cruise robotaxis back on the road with human drivers:?AFP reports GM subsidiary Cruise on Tuesday said it plans to get its self-driving cars back on the road without human drivers after suspending robotaxi service late last year due to safety concerns.

Reuters: BlackBerry gains on partnership with AMD for robotics systems

Bloomberg: Apple targets new Miami office space following Amazon, Microsoft

Enjoy the ride + plan accordingly.

-Marc