WSJ Tech Live 2023

Two weeks ago, I had the pleasure of representing?TD,?TD Securities?and TD?Cowen Inc.?at the 10th annual WSJ Tech Live event, which was one of the best events I've attended in years. It was an impactful and powerful event with an intimate feeling that promoted engagement and some excellent networking with some of the best and brightest in the industry.?Here were a few highlights for me from the fantastic line-up of Journalists, Leaders, Founders and Innovators.

A lot of time not surprisingly was spent discussing Generative AI and overwhelmingly a lot of positivity from the tech leaders about the transformative nature of this invention, including the impact on healthcare, education, innovation, etc. but I can't help but be concerned about the pace of change, the impact on our communities and the risks that lie ahead (including approach to regulation in our industry, social impact and energy amongst others).?There was some very interesting discussion on private innovation and being competitive but also the place for Open Source – to quote Vinod Khosla's (Founder, Khosla Ventures) very powerful comment "you don't open source the Manhattan Project". Interesting for us as tech leaders to think about the small part we can play in this space as we balance innovation with social impact.

When talking of pace of change for AI, it was likened to other revolutions, the Industrial Revolution for example, but the key difference is the timespan. In those revolutions change happened over two generations (30-40 years) but here they are talking about the next 10 years.?Can humanity deal with that pace??If you've seen the movie Wall-E, is that where we are headed – I hope not!?

?Dr. Fei-Fei Li (Standford Institute for Human-Centered Artificial Intelligence) talked to us about efforts to regulate AI and how to encourage innovation in the US with public/private partnership akin to what we are seeing now with space exploration (SpaceX/NASA).

?"Is Crypto Dead" with Anthony Scaramucci (Founder, SkyBridge and Former White House Communications Director) and Charlie Shrem (General Partner, Druid Ventures) was another session that stood out – interesting seeing hedge fund and Bitcoin activists all arguing for increased regulation in the space as the industry reckons with the fallout from FTX and the SBF legal case.

In a discussion with Sam Altman (Co-Founder, OpenAI) we heard that a lot of companies in the AI venture capital space are expected to struggle in a very competitive market. I was quite impressed with some of the new voice features in ChatGPT 4 and some teases around 5 and 6!? The environmental, supply chain, geo-political impacts of GenAI were topics that kept coming up in many sessions with LLMs being rapidly followed by talk of Fusion Energy in the next breath.

Chris Cox (Chief Product Officer, Meta) shared what they are doing with Messenger/WhatsApp on personalizing AI chatbox with celebrities. During the two days we also learned that Meta and companies like Adobe and OpenAI are working on cross industry solutions for digital fingerprinting of video and photographic content to help people understand how content is produced and combat deepfakes and misinformation.

Digital Wellness came up – very relevant with all the discussions about ChatBots and them substituting key human relationships (single parents with a virtual parent, your doctor, your best friend). We heard from Larissa May (Founder, Half the Story) about some of the efforts being done to help children and schools equip kids to manage – she shared "Kids on average are spending 8 hours a day on their devices": I wonder if the bankers and tech leaders have them beat?! ?

Other interesting sessions included Palmer Luckey (Oculus VR inventor, ex Meta and now CEO of Anduril Industries) who talked about companies working on AI enabled weapons systems; John Legend (Musician, Entrepreneur & Investor) discussing his newest company with his partners at Lightspeed; and Arnold Schwarzenegger (Actor, Author & Former Governor of California) shared his view on the importance of setting goals for motivation.

I left with lots of learnings and insights from these and other leaders to consider as we continue to evolve our tech strategies at TD.

I'm very proud of our TD Securities & TBSM Technology team and our achievements this year, and super excited about all the opportunities ahead in 2024 and beyond!

#wsjtechlive?#genAI?#innovation