Five Things Tech: AI Safety, Uber, Threads, Openness, Supercapacitor
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This week was again mostly about AI, including a debate on Apple’s attitude towards AI. It’s interesting how AI takes all the attention right now, with some quantum computing sprinkled in. This acceleration we witness right now we spill over into other areas of tech and lead to many new developments. I’m pretty certain that the pressure to fight climate change will lead to rapid advances in lots of aspects of Greentech. And it makes so much more sense to pour billions into saving earth instead of using all the available tech to increase the clickrates on banner ads.
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Building Superintelligence Is Riskier Than Russian Roulette
We need to discuss AI Safety much more. This is something which should concern the AI platforms, but if they fail to act fast, lawmakers have to provide the right guardrails for the further development of AI. Time is running, but I don’t think many lawmakers have grasped the full potential of AI yet.
Uber’s CEO Says He’ll Always Find a Reason to Say His Company Sucks
I have a love/hate relationship with Uber. I always liked the user experiene, but I hated the way Uber trailblazed into markets and tried to grab its share regardless of the costs. It’s interesting to see how Uber has changed in the last few years, but I’m still not sure that mobility and delivery can be the foundation of a so called super app.
Move fast and beat Musk: The inside story of how Meta built Threads
Interesting how quickly this was developed and I do think that Threads does a lot of things just right. If they want to grow again and create more stickyness for the users, they need to figure out a way to get EU users on board, they need to figure out how to integrate news for a mutual benefit of publishers and Threads alike, they need to figure out how to turn Threads into a federated service connected to other platforms like Mastodon - and adding a real web app also won’t be a bad idea. Threads can’t afford to slow down now, they have to increase speed and deliver more features faster to create a better product while Twitter is losing more and more users.
Tech Companies’ Friendly New Strategy to Destroy One Another
The release of Llama2 by Meta was a bit different - Meta wants people to tinker with it and use the magic of open source not only to improve the product, but to build a large user-base around it, assuring future relevance. We will see this more often.
How to Store and Supply Electricity? Just Mix Water and Cement with Carbon, Researchers Say
“This supercapacitor that the MIT researchers uncovered in their studies can store a lot of electric charges and release them quickly when needed. It is like having a very powerful and efficient battery that can be charged and discharged rapidly. Supercapacitors made from this easy-to-create mixture may have the potential to play a significant role in the world’s transition to renewable energy sources like wind, solar, and tidal power since these clean energy sources produce electricity at different times, which may not always match the times when we need the most power.” - wow, this sounds really cool, can’t wait to see it in production.
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