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Elon Musk's AI Prediction 🔮

Elon Musk's AI Prediction 🔮

The Future AI
December 18, 2023

Read time: 4 mins

Welcome Futurist,

Elon Musk served up some always-fascinating thoughts about AI, predicting that it could help usher in the “Age of Abundance.” Sounds awesome, right? Also, shares of Chinese AI firm SenseTime took a massive hit following the death of its co-founder, Tang Xiao. How low did it go? We’ve got you covered with all the most important AI stories.

Let’s dive in!

⚡ TODAY’S BREAKDOWN

Elon Musk in Italy says AI could usher in “Age of Abundance”
SenseTime plummets to all-time low after death of Chinese AI company's co-founder
The RAND Corporation played a key role in Biden's AI order
AI job opportunities
Mesmerizing AI art

🤖 AI x TECH

Elon Musk in Italy: AI Could Usher in “Age of Abundance”

(credit: Firstpost)

Elon Musk attended a political conference in Rome over the weekend organized by Italian Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni, where he laid out AI’s potential benefits and risks. “I think we need to be careful with the advent of AI,” Musk warned attendees. “But it’s very much a double-edged sword. You can think of AI as a magic genie. Digital superintelligence will be capable of doing anything.”

The billionaire tech leader then reaffirmed his support for regulatory oversight on AI.

Musk, striking a more positive tone, also predicted that AI could usher in an Age of Abundance, where there is “no shortage of goods or services, and any scarcity that exists is because we define it to be scarce."

“AI and robotics will mean there are no shortage of goods and services. If you can think of it, you can have it, basically,” Musk said.

“It does seem to be somewhat of an inevitable thing,” the Tesla CEO concluded on AI. “I think we live in the most interesting times.”

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The Korea Advanced Institute of Science and Technology claims its AI robot has broken the 100-meter world record for a quadruped robot with a time of 19.87 seconds.

📈 AI X BUSINESS

SenseTime Plummets to All-Time Low After Death of Chinese AI Company's Co-Founder

(credit: anthony_tv7/X pic)

Shares of Chinese AI firm SenseTime plummeted as much as 18.25% on Monday—an all-time low— following the death of its co-founder, Tang Xiao. SenseTime, which is listed on the Hong Kong Stock Exchange, tanked to 1.03 Hong Kong dollars ($0.13), and is down roughly 50% year-to-date, according to CNBC.

Tang Xiao, a pioneer in China's AI industry, died at the age of 55 on Friday, SenseTime announced in a statement Saturday. His cause of death is unknown. “It is with a very heavy heart that we announce the sad news that our beloved founder, Tang Xiao’ou ... succumbed to an illness and left us forever at 11:45pm on December 15, 2023,” the company wrote in a statement shared to its WeChat account.

“Our deepest sympathies to Professor Tang’s family at this sad time! Professor Tang’s wisdom, enthusiasm and endless exploration of science will always inspire us to stay true to our original aspirations and forge ahead,” the statement added.

SenseTime offers AI software for AI-enabled content generation and facial recognition. The U.S. blacklisted SenseTime in 2019, alleging the company is linked to human rights abuses in China’s Xinjiang region.

More top stories

IBM will acquire two units of a German software firm—Software AG’s StreamSets and webMethods—for $2.1 billion to increase its AI cloud offerings.
ByteDance, TikTok’s parent company, denies breaking OpenAI’s terms of services and said a small group of its engineers only used the company’s API service in an experimental model. Last week, OpenAI cut off ByteDance’s access to its service pending an investigation.
Deloitte is using AI to figure out how it can move employees into position that are more in demand internally to avoid mass layoffs in the future.
The chief investment officer at Global X, an ETF manager with nearly $50 billion in assets under management, believes AI stocks will continue to perform well in 2024.

🛠️ TOOLS

Delphi: Create an AI clone of yourself

Pineapple Builder: Create a website with one click using AI

Murf AI: Create voiceovers for videos in minutes

Luna AI: Writes personalized cold emails

LongShot: AI assistant that helps write SEO-friendly content

🌎 AI x POLICY

Meet the Think Tank Behind Biden's AI Order

(credit: Official White House Photo by Adam Schultz)

The RAND Corporation — a nonpartisan think tank and the leading policy adviser to the Department of Defense — played an integral role in crafting President Joe Biden’s executive order on AI, according to POLITICO.

The outlet reports: “The provisions advanced by RAND in the October executive order included a sweeping set of reporting requirements placed on the most powerful AI systems, ostensibly designed to lessen the technology’s catastrophic risks. Those requirements hew closely to the policy priorities pursued by Open Philanthropy, a group that pumped over $15 million into RAND this year.”

Open Philanthropy is financed by billionaire Facebook co-founder and Asana CEO Dustin Moskovitz and his wife Cari Tuna, and funds causes that are often championed by the “effective altruism” movement.

RAND’s CEO, Jason Matheny, and senior information scientist, Jeff Alstott, worked together at the Biden’s White House Office of Science and Technology Policy and the National Security Council before joining the think tank last year.

Some RAND staff members have expressed concerns with the organization’s links to Open Philanthropy. During a recent all-hands meeting, one employee suggested that the ties “seems at odds” with the think tank’s reputation for “rigorous and objective analysis.”

Matheny dismissed the comments, arguing it would be “irresponsible for [RAND] not to address” the potential risks of AI.

More top stories

Harvard scholar Calder Walton argues AI, not humans, will be the key catalyst driving the emerging Cold War between the U.S. and China.
Some tech organizations are warning that the EU's AI Act could be "potentially disastrous" for innovation.
Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi, in a first, used AI to translate his Hindi speech into Tamil in real time.
Former Pakistan Prime Minister Imran Khan’s PTI party used an AI voice clone of the jailed politician to deliver a campaign speech during a virtual rally.