Seeds of Bravery/ Zapping Seawater to Tackle Climate Change/ Artificial Data for AI/ The AI Revolution Will Change Work. Nobody Agrees How

Seeds of Bravery. This is the name of an?EIC/EU sponsored program?to support Ukrainian deep tech startups during the war. The program is a very worthwhile one, and one that I fully support. And it is really a great name. In fact, it applies at least as well to a conference where, yesterday, I had the honor to participate as a speaker and panelist (and this was, for once, a?real?honor, thanks @Sviatoslav for making it happen).?

The name of the conference is “INSCIENCE CONFERENCE 2023“?and is being held?on June 17-18 offline in Kyiv and online, featuring global and Ukrainian speakers.?

While interacting with the organizing team, what impressed me the most was their spirit, determination, and aspiration to continue to drive and shape the present and future of their country through science and deep tech, during a war. The briefing for the event was one of these moments where I realized that the organizing team and the attendees really earned my respect and support… as the first point in the briefing was about air strikes and how we would have dealt with the different types of sirens, each leading to a different behavior… these are the moments when you really realize what it means to organize such an event during a war.

But the message that derives from such an event is a super important one, and I’ll use their words to describe it:?“This event is a reminder that even during a full-scale war, science is important. Science contributes to victory, rebuilding the country, and is a powerful stimulus for the economy. Donations from the conference will go to a popular science lecture course for children who study even in the midst of active hostilities and relocation abroad due to the Russian invasion.

The popular science conference organized by INSCIENCE is the only event of this scale during the war. The focus of the 2023 conference is Science to Rebuild Ukraine. The program includes lectures and workshops, as well as an exhibition of deep tech startups and inventions that have been hailed globally as innovations made in Ukraine. The event will bring together more than a thousand people who are passionate about science and technology, as well as scientists, representatives of innovative businesses, government, media, teachers, students, and school students…

But what really stroke me the most is this quote by?Olena Skyrta, co-founder and partner of INSCIENCE?“It is during the great war that it is important to support and develop science and technology because it is beneficial for us as a society. Most investments are made in deep-tech startups. When we say that Ukraine can become the top country in Europe in terms of innovation, we have to invest in high-quality research and development. At INSCIENCE, we are organizing a popular science conference, an exhibition of deep-tech startups and science-based inventions to create a platform for communication and tell Ukrainian and international media about science as a means of rebuilding,”

From my side, and this is also something I tried to convey during my contribution at the event, once the war is over, I see a potentially bright future for Ukraine as one of the bio-manufacturing hubs of the world, given the abundance of feedstock, energy, and water. And once the war is over, I’ll certainly work to advance this point as part of the reconstruction agenda.

But first Ukraine needs our continued support, to be able to win the war. Slava Ukraini!

This Startup Is Zapping Seawater to Tackle Climate Change

Launched only this month, California-based startup?Equatic?has already?signed an agreement?for Boeing to purchase 2,100 metric tons of hydrogen for use as “sustainable aviation fuel?(SAF).” Hydrogen is a byproduct of Equatic’s CO2 removal tech and Boeing has also committed to purchase “62,000 metric tons’ worth of carbon removal to offset some of its own climate pollution.”

Equatic’s “cleantech” is not without skeptics. Its plants take in ocean water and “zap” it with electricity, “splitting water molecules [and] freeing up the hydrogen for Equatic to sell for fuel.” It also requires splitting the water into two streams — “one that’s very acidic and another that’s very alkaline” — before recombining the two and releasing the processed water back into the sea.

According to?John Fleming, Senior Scientist at the?Center for Biological Diversity: “Equatic is attempting to exert control over very complex ocean chemistry. [It]says it will monitor to make sure what it releases back to the ocean meets necessary thresholds, but with such new technology, there could be effects on ocean chemistry and ocean life that are currently unaccounted for.”

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More Investment In Solar Than Oil In 2023

For the first time, investments in solar are expected “edge spending above upstream oil” in 2023. The?IEA predicts about $1B a day will be invested in solar projects for a total of $380B by year's end.?IEA?ED?Fatih Birol?said, “Clean energy is moving fast — faster than many people realize. This is clear in the investment trends, where clean technologies are pulling away from fossil fuels,” said Birol. “For every dollar invested in fossil fuels, about 1.7 dollars are now going into clean energy. Five years ago, this ratio was one-to-one.”

Artificial Data for Artificial Intelligence: Could This Be a Game Changer?

Can “synthetic data?[potentially]… fill the maw of eternally hungry data-processing algorithms, no matter how large or complex?” Once the stuff of “the stuff of sci-fi,”?recent?breakthroughs?enable researchers to “push reality to its limit” by running “millions of simulations. Could using synthetic data to train some large AI models instead of real-world info address “privacy concerns” and upend the?$1B+ market?for “(AI) training data?”

Synthetic data is “created by a computer.” But “most people, even AI engineers, would be pretty hard-pressed to distinguish it from ‘real’ data.” If it proves as useful as expensive real-world training data, it could help level the playing field for innovators and startups who often lack the resources to buy datasets from?brokers. However, it’s currently more likely to amplify bias in AI models than to ameliorate it. Only through?regulation?can AI trained with simulated data “synthesize a fairer future.”

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As Deep Tech and AI Explodes, European Deep Tech VC IQ Capital Closes New $200M Fund

UK-based “deep tech VC”?IQ Capital?announced a new “$200M venture fund,” taking its “assets under management to more than $1B.” Since 2007, IQ Capital has “invested in more than 100 deep tech startups,” resulting in “exits to Google, Apple, and Facebook” and numerous IPOs. IQ co-founder and managing partner?Kerry Baldwin?said: “Deep tech investment was at the forefront of investor’s minds, topping $17B in 2022.’”

Canada’s Big Flex in Space

Canada is so proud of its robotic space arm — the?Canadarm?— that it features on its $5 bill. This deep dive into Canadarm’s history since its inception in 1975 explores how “the future of space travel” now depends on the latest iteration of what “started as a boring robotic appendage.”

Canadarm 3?is “likely to arrive in 2027 or 2028” and will be integral to NASA’s?Artemis?mission to return humans to the moon. Canadarm3 is essential to building and maintaining the?Lunar Gateway?— “a multi-billion-dollar, multi-nation space station.” The first Canadarm was “gifted” to NASA. But Canadarm3 will be owned by the?Canadian Space Agency. Original Canadarm manufacturer MacDonald, Dettwiler, and Associates?(MDA)?will develop and operate Canadarm3.

According to?Holly Johnson, VP at?MDA: “[The dream] is to “to build something for the government and sell it to other customers,” like?SpaceX?and?Axiom.

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Brazil’s JBS Starts Building Lab-Grown Beef Factory in Spain

Brazian “meatpacker”?JBS Foods?is building the “world’s largest lab-grown meat plant” in Spain and expects to complete it by mid-2024. JBS says the factory will “produce more than 1,000 metric tons of cultivated beef per year” and could ramp up to 4,000 metric tons “in the medium term.” JBS?acquired a controlling stake?in Spain’s?BioTech Foods?for $100M in 2021, and $41M was “directed to building the plant.”

Adobe Is So Confident Its Firefly Generative AI Won’t Breach Copyright That It’ll Cover Your Legal Bills

Adobe?recently announced?that its “AI art-generator” Firefly” is open for enterprise and that it “allows businesses to custom-train [its] GenAI with their own branded assets.” Adobe is so confident in Firefly’s “ability to respect creators’ copyrighted images” that it’s offering “full indemnification for the content created through these features” to enterprise customers.

With copyright infringement?lawsuits?pending against?Stable Diffusion?and?Midjourney, Adobe’s indemnification against litigation could prove a powerful incentive for corporations on the fence about using GenAI models for content creation.

Adobe claims Firefly was “trained on entirely legal inputs.”?Andres Guadamuz, Editor-in-Chief at?The Journal of World Intellectual Property, says, “I can’t imagine that [Adobe] would do this if there was some doubt that they would get sued out of existence.”

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AI Art Wars: Japan Says AI Model Training Doesn’t Violate Copyright

In one of the first significant international legal rulings on GenAI’s use of copyrighted materials to train models like Midjourney and Staple Diffusion, Japan has declared that such use “doesn't violate copyright law.” Rep. Takashi Kii acknowledges that “the fact that [IP] can be used even when it is against the will of the copyright holder is problematic from the viewpoint of rights protection” and suggests “new regulations to protect copyright holders” are needed.

The A.I. Revolution Will Change Work. Nobody Agrees How.

How many people will lose their jobs to AI and automation? It “depends on whom you ask.” in 2013, an?Oxford research paper?predicted that 47% of US jobs were “at risk” of automation “over some unspecified number of years, perhaps a decade or two.” A decade has passed, and US unemployment is “at record low levels.” Goldman Sachs recently predicted GenAI “could automate the equivalent of 300 million full-time jobs.” While OpenAI and UPenn expect 80% of US workers “could see an effect on at least 10 percent of their tasks.”

But what does affected even mean? MIT Professor?David Autor?says, “Affected could mean made better, made worse, disappeared, doubled. “There’s tremendous uncertainty,” Autor says, “And people want to provide those answers.”

Customer service and telemarketing are jobs often considered ripe for automation. But a?recent Zew Center paper“found that just 9% of occupations” where people perform tasks like “explaining products or services… could be automated.” Lead author?Melanie Arntz?said, “People like numbers. People always think that the number must be somehow solid, you know, because it’s a number. But numbers can really be very misleading.”

So what is the?future of work? Not even AI knows.

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Mercedes-Benz Is First to Get Approval to Sell Partially Autonomous Vehicles in California

If you live in California, hands-free driving is coming soon to a highway near you. The CA DMV recently issued Mercedes-Benz an?autonomous vehicle permit?for its Level 3 Drive Pilot system. Unlike Tesla and Ford’s previously approved Level 2 autonomous systems, drivers are no longer “required to keep their eyes on the road” at all times and are free to “play a game on the vehicle’s infotainment screen.” Drive Pilot will roll out to selected Mercedes models during the 2024 model year.