Had they not learned of Hinton’s work through the research grapevine, they still would have read about it in published papers and heard about it through international conferences.

Deng said he also sent a note to his friends at iFlyTek, which quickly adopted the strategy and became an AI powerhouse—famously demonstrated in 2017 with a convincing video of then-president Donald Trump speaking Chinese.

This type of research and testing has prompted calls for preemptive bans on lethal autonomous weapons, but neither country is willing to declare an outright prohibition.

China is actively pursuing AI-based target recognition and automatic-weapon-firing research

System-destruction warfare is part and parcel of what the People’s Liberation Army thinks of as “intelligentized” warfare, in which war is waged not only in the traditional physical domains of land, sea, and air but also in outer space, nonphysical cyberspace, and electromagnetic and even psychological domains—all enabled and coordinated with AI.

dominance in the technology means probable victory in any future war.

“We just wanted to prove that we have the ability to do that,” Tang said.

competition between the world’s two technology superpowers.

A year later, with much less fanfare, Tsinghua University’s Beijing Academy of Artificial Intelligence released an even larger model, Wu Dao 2.0, with 10 times as many parameters—the neural network values that encode information.

Health care is tech. Entertainment is tech. Schools are tech. Money is tech. Transportation is tech. We live through tech.

Technology alone does not change the world. We do.

skeptical but not cynical about the forces of technology.

Technology can assist us in finding the community that we need, but it can’t do the difficult work of sustaining those connections.

“what’s next” moment

No more. Technology is normal, not magic

stage of technology is colliding with the “what’s next?!” phase.

Health care is tech. Entertainment is tech. Schools are tech. Money is tech. Transportation is tech. We live through tech.

If a decision affects a patient’s life, “do no harm” must apply—even to computer algorithms.

introduced the Algorithmic Accountability Act of 2019.

Under current law, medical algorithms are classified as medical devices and can be approved with the 510(k)-approval process.

A spokesperson from EURid, the EU’s domain registry manager, said that the 48,000 domain names would “become available for general registration on a first come, first serve[d] basis” in batches throughout Monday.

To register a .eu domain, individuals must be either citizens or residents of the bloc, and organizations should be established within the EU.

“We can build amazing things,” Dr. Bautista said. “The hardware is not the hard part. The business models are not the hard part. Finding ways these devices can be used is not the hard part. The hard part is: What happens if the data leaks out?”

Some augmented reality glasses are as small and light as ordinary eyewear, but they do not yet offer the computing power needed to generate the convincing but unobtrusive images that everyday use would require.

One research firm estimates that the market for metaverse technologies — including games, virtual reality headsets, and other emerging gadgets and online services — topped $49 billion in 2020 and will grow by more than 40 percent each year.

After 15 years of riding a boom in mobile computing that has turned tech’s biggest companies into giants worth trillions of dollars, the power brokers of the industry believe that controlling the doors into the metaverse and virtual reality could be the centerpiece of a new business, like smartphones and apps or personal computers and web browsers in the 1990s.

to wait for a new tech trend to come along. Ideas that many hoped would take central stage by now, like advanced artificial intelligence and quantum computing, are taking longer than

to wait for a new tech trend to come alo

it’s clear that Meta, Microsoft, Roblox, Epic Games and many others have an incentive to invest heavily in marketing their products as part of the metaverse. Defining the term down to the point that it already exists plays into the hands of those that already hold the most power. But calling today’s walled-off apps “the metaverse” lets them off the hook for the hardest part: building a metaverse in which anyone can participate.

The idea is to build a metaverse that exists independently of today’s tech giants, breaking the grip they’ve established on today’s mobile Internet with protocols that theoretically allow anyone to build apps and experiences that are accessible to all.

The virtual world that has sparked the most real estate speculation — called Decentraland — runs on the Ethereum blockchain.

He outlined his vision for it in the Epic Games v. Apple antitrust trial, presenting it as a tech future beyond the control of the smartphone giants. Microsoft CEO Satya Nadella is also staking a chunk of his firm’s future on what he calls the “enterprise metaverse,” a system of virtual worlds built for work.

A real metaverse would link Roblox, Horizon Worlds, Virbela and all the other virtual worlds, with protocols for transferring one’s information and currency between them.

Indeed, interoperability — the working-together of many virtual worlds — is key to the concept. It’s also what’s missing from almost everything that’s suddenly being called “the metaverse.”

A widely cited definition by the venture capitalist Matthew Ball starts with the premise that it is a “massively scaled and interoperable network of real-time rendered 3-D virtual worlds” that persists through time and across platforms and devices.

A search of the Factiva database finds that it has appeared in more than 12,000 English-language news articles in the past two months, after appearing in fewer than 4,000 in the first nine months of 2021 — and fewer than 400 in any prior year. (Not surprisingly, Facebook was by far the most commonly mentioned company in those articles, with nearly 10 times as many appearances as the next most-mentioned firm, Microsoft.) Google Trends, meanwhile, shows that searches for the word have spiked roughly twentyfold since mid-October.

"It's important to understand that the cryptocurrency industry wants to be regulated, but wants to ensure that proposed regulatory frameworks are feasible," said Grigg. "Governments globally are working with industry players to create legislation that protects consumers and fosters innovation."

Lawmakers in the US have expressed interest in a range of topics -- whether stablecoin issuers should be considered banks, when to tax cryptocurrency and how to craft functional rules in a highly technical and complex industry.

Enter stablecoins. This subcategory of cryptocurrency, which is tied to an underlying asset, mitigates much of that volatility. Stablecoins could play a vital role in turning cryptocurrency into something we can easily use to conduct the ordinary transactions of everyday life.

Decentralized finance

"We should expect to see more criminals turning to cryptocurrency and services that promise to obfuscate illicit funds due to the misconception of total anonymity,"

The $85 billion video game industry may be one of the most fertile areas of potential for NFTs. Some of the larger studios are already experimenting with them. And with all the talk surrounding the metaverse, an immersive 3D digital environment that's been proposed by Meta (Facebook) CEO Mark Zuckerberg and other movers and shakers in the tech industry, NFTs could serve as building blocks for a next-generation digital world.

"The possibilities of NFTs are endless, since they can be used to log ownership of any unique asset,"

financial inclusion

Boosters touted digital currencies as a world-changing technology with the potential to create new economies and empower unbanked populations everywhere. Critics pointed to crypto's massive environmental footprint, as well as its popularity in online crime. The chasm between these views will be hard to bridge.

There is an interesting group forming here in San Francisco of both the tech ambassadors and the consuls general, all of whom, naturally being in this place, have got some element of that tech remit. So as they get more formalized in this tech role, and therefore the group of consuls general that [meets] here in San Francisco is always having good conversations about tech and tech policy.

Citizens elect their governments to represent them. And the tech companies, they are representing their shareholders. And of course, they have interests in society, continuing to function, because that would be a problem for all of us, but it is the elected governments [that] have that legitimacy and authority. And so I think that we shouldn’t probably have a ton of new institutions that get created.

[There have] been lots of discussions on should the big tech companies… should they have, you know, a seat on the UN Security Council? Should they somehow be represented in those multilateral [fora]? I think from our perspective, one, it’s important to say they do not hold the same legitimacy as states. We are elected. We are representing a government. There are checks and balances. And it is our role and our responsibility to set the rules of the road fundamentally.

And technology is no longer a niche or fringe issue; it’s really at the core of so many of the debates we’re having, on geopolitical rivalry, on the question of future of markets, and on the questions also on development and, not least, as Joe mentioned, also questions of democracy.

the tech companies have a little bit been surprised by their global geopolitical importance in this piece, and many of the challenges that we deal with with them are externalities on their platforms.

the translation layer between what’s happening on the tech company side and what’s happening on the government policy side

What should be the fundamental framework for how we develop technologies? How should we incentivize a type of technology development that is supporting our values? And to do that, we believe that diplomatic relationships, engaging in dialogue, insisting that there is a relationship to be had with tech companies, finding ways of presenting and representing Danish values and interests, and, at the same time, understanding more what’s going on in the tech sector is incredibly important.

Isherwell’s character hits it on the nose with his know-it-all certainty and data-driven lunacy, calling to mind tech’s ruling class, with its proclivity to be frequently wrong but never in doubt. And within the movie is a caution, that we ought not let Big Tech alone govern the world we share. “We really did have everything, didn’t we?” says the feckless astronomer played by Leonardo DiCaprio in the movie’s last scene.

The reason I liked the “The Matrix Resurrections” and “Don’t Look Up” is because these are both stories about the limits of big tech, big media and big politics and the importance of heartfelt, real family connections. These are critically important ideas as we move into the next iteration of tech, which will have a lot more to do with virtualizing everything. How we evolve and connect as humans as the world moves to VR is a critical issue.

GAS — Gyms as Software.

Apple will vault ahead of Facebook in virtual reality. There’s a new Oculus headset due,

where the metaverse, blockchain and Web3 l

formidable new search (Neeva)

Apple’s revenue, $366 billion in the most recent fiscal year, is in the same ballpark as the GDP of Israel or Hong Kong.

79 telephone calls with leaders of foreign countries and international organizations, and attended 40 major diplomatic events via video link.

that “economic diplomacy is a blueprint to leverage our diplomatic assets in the service of our development agenda”,

The stratosphere

critical mass is sorely needed: in technology talent, risk-appetite and entrepreneurial ambition. 

The COVID-19 pandemic has accelerated the push toward decentralisation.

that technology and talent will be less concentrated in one location. 

egardless of location — wherever talent can be found.

a sense of respect for individual contributors — treating them not according to their position in a company hierarchy or their previous educational qualifications but as individuals holding tremendous drive and potential.

Overly focusing on examinations gives students a false sense of linearity about life.

what if a small proportion of visas each year are assigned by lottery

It is not just about direct incentives for innovation, which Singapore does very well, but reviewing practices which were based on the efficiency operating system. 

Singapore must move towards the discovery operating system.

Silicon Valley is a sliver of America, while Singapore is a country which must cater to a diversity of skills and aspirations, life stages and needs. 

ageism. 

High Rate of Idea Exchange through Networks 

Roommate barbecues lead to informal gatherings that help newcomers plug directly into the ecosystem; ideas, opportunities, strategies and challenges are traded freely. 

Another hallmark of the discovery operating system is its high rate of idea exchange through dense, intersecting networks. 

much of Silicon Valley’s ethos is fuelled by intrinsic motivation: the point of winning the game (for example, taking a company to an Initial Public Offering or an acquisition) is not to retire but to play the game again. 

We use the word, “play”, deliberately because the idea of work as play is still relatively uncommon in much of the world.

Investors also support experimentation by making early bets with limited information rather than waiting for greater certainty of success:

Trying and failing are seen as valuable learning experiences rather than a judgement on someone’s competency.

Similarly, lofty goals to organise all of the world’s information, connect everyone regardless of geography, and have anything you want delivered in a day fuelled Google, Facebook and Amazon. 

The high rate of failure is a feature rather than a bug of the system. Silicon Valley’s discovery operating system can best be understood through four paradigms. 

is designed for discovery.

Efficiency works well when you are playing catch-up, but is less helpful when you are trying to chart new frontiers. 

for efficiency.

what makes it work.

Stamp M (2011) Information Security: Principles and Practice. Hoboken,

at helping companies comply with other regulations, like new protections for whistle-blowers in Europe.

In 2018, lawmakers in California passed their own privacy rules, which gave users in the state the right to request their personal data from websites. Demand from companies racing to meet the California law was strong, said Mr. Barday.

Under the European rules, websites largely must get users’ permission to use cookies, the tiny bits of code that can be used to track people as they move around the internet. In practice, that has meant that visitors to a website are often presented with a pop-up menu or a banner asking them if they will agree to be tracked.

It’s a booming market. OneTrust, a leader in the field, has been valued by investors at $5.3 billion. BigID, a competitor, raised $30 million in April at a $1.25 billion valuation. Another company that targets privacy regulations, TrustArc, raised $70 million in 2019. Yoti, a start-up that provides the kind of age-verification services that regulators are increasingly turning to to shield children from harmful content, has raised millions of dollars since it was founded in 2014.

The emergence of these companies shows how complex regulations governing the web have become — and how much more complicated it is expected to get. Several privacy laws will take effect around the world in the coming years, with more countries and states expected to consider their own proposals.

For example, a group of 18 US congresspeople sent a letter to the Treasury and State Departments on Tuesday calling on the agencies to sanction NSO Group and three other international surveillance companies, as first reported by Reuters.

The attack exploited a vulnerability in a legacy compression tool used to process text in images from a physical scanner, enabling NSO Group customers to take over an iPhone completely. Essentially, 1990's algorithms used in photocopying and scanning compression are still lurking in modern communication software, with all of the flaws and baggage that come with them.

But the Project Zero researchers write in their analysis that ForcedEntry is still “one of the most technically sophisticated exploits we've ever seen.” NSO Group has achieved a level of innovation and refinement, they say, that is generally assumed to be reserved for a small cadre of nation-state hackers.

was Window Swap, a website developed last year by a couple in Singapore that gives people video camera views out of strangers’ windows.

we need and deserve more microdoses of human empathy and community.

Different countries could decide it's easier to go it alone and develop their own 6G technologies without global cooperation.

effectively anonymizing information that malicious actors in a network might otherwise put to nefarious purposes.

one future version of 6G could include differential privacy, in which data-set patterns are shared without sharing individual data points.

"There are some unique, or at least stronger, views on things like personal liberty, data security, and privacy in Europe, and if we wish our new technologies to support those views, it needs to be baked into the technology,"

what the next generation's version of polar codes will be, if any.

That Huawei managed to take polar codes from a relatively unknown mathematical theory and almost single-handedly develop it into a key component of 5G led to some proclamations that the company (and by extension, China) was winning the battle for 5G development.

In 2016, as the standards were being sorted out for 5G, a clash emerged in trying to decide what error-correcting technique would be used for wireless signals. Qualcomm, based in San Diego, and other companies pushed for low-density parity checks (LDPC), which had been first described decades earlier but had yet to materialize commercially. Huawei, backed by other Chinese companies, pushed for a new technique in which it had invested a significant amount of time and energy that it called polar codes. A deadlock at the 3GPP meeting that November resulted in a split standard: LDPC would be used for radio channels that send user data and polar codes for channels that coordinated those user-data channels.

The reason each generation of wireless—2G, 3G, 4G, and now 5G—has been so successful is because each has been defined by standards that have been universally implemented.

As one example, equipment manufacturers (such as China's Huawei and ZTE) will probably push for standards that prioritize the distance a signal can travel, while minimizing the interference it experiences along the way. Meanwhile, device makers (like U.S. heavyweights Apple and Alphabet) will have more stake in standardizing signal modulations that drain their gadgets' batteries the least.

there are no major U.S. manufacturers of cellular infrastructure equipment,

There are as yet no widely agreed upon technical standards outlining 6G's frequencies, signal modulations, and waveforms.

OneWeb is one such company, and it sees the remote island as an ideal place to build ground stations for its satellite network.

Using a blockchain ledger to track device security is a simple way to remove the burden from device owners to monitor potentially dozens of devices themselves.

what, exactly, any of this is good for.

into a movement called Open RAN (for ‘Radio Access Network,’ the portion of a cell network, like a cell tower, that connects a phone to everything else), the operators have begun forcing vendors to work with them to create open interfaces between components, split software and hardware functions, and develop more AI technologies to manage networks.

to lock operators into their ecosystems with proprietary technologies and from the high prices that result from creating such captive markets.

PORTL’s tech instead records a three-dimensional video of a person and transmits it to the person they’re conversing with. The speaker then appears inside PORTL’s booth at the other end thanks to a combination of an open-cell LCD panel, bright LEDs, and shadows to trick the brain into seeing a two-dimensional image in 3D. PORTL hopes to introduce a smaller mini-PORTL for a fraction of the larger’s price.

the U.S. government passed a sweeping cybersecurity bill called the Internet of Things Cybersecurity Improvement Act of 2020 at the very tail end of that year.

LoRa (short for “Long-Range, Low-Power”) seems to be winning out.

After three years of sanctions by the U.S. government, portions of Huawei’s hold on 5G infrastructure and mobile devices have slipped.

5G has cemented its place in the cellular world, even as the industry looks towards 6G.

The Reformers still “want to have economists run everything. They just want different economists,” said Stoller. But economics is “an elitist language to exclude normal people from politics.”

want to reinstate merger rules from 1968 that explicitly called for blocking deals if they would lead to market shares above a certain size.

concerns about “too big to fail” banks. In their view, concentrated corporate power is always bad and the government should seek to break it up.

Unlike both the Traditionalists and Reformers, this crowd argues that antitrust laws were enacted not solely to ensure fair markets but to prevent the consolidation of corporate power and protect democracy.

aggressive Anti-Monopolist

But they say the courts should broaden it to look at how mergers or business conduct affect values like choice, product quality or privacy — arguing that the Traditionalists' approach helped lead to the growth of the mammoth tech companies.

Policymakers and lawmakers in the Reform school believe the system has become too tilted in favor of big companies.

“Big isn’t bad. Big behaving badly is bad.”

Under this standard, the government should block corporate mergers that would lead to higher prices. But it should bless business deals that aim to increase efficiency, promote innovation or take other steps that would drive prices lower.

the consumer welfare standard,

Despite more than 130 years of history, however, the U.S. has no clear definition of what a monopoly is, or when a monopolist crosses the line from vigorously competing for business to breaking the law.

For consumers, the price is often $0 — except for the hidden costs, like a loss of choice or privacy.

Mr. Rogozin said Roscosmos could not agree to an extension of Russia’s presence on the space station unless the U.S. removes sanctions on two Russian companies added to a U.S. blacklist last year because of their suspected military ties. The sanctions, he says, prevent Russia from building parts needed to allow the space station to survive through 2030.

For two decades, the space station has been a symbol of diplomatic triumph between the U.S. and Russia, typically insulated from tensions on Earth. Russian astronauts traveled to orbit on the space shuttle, and when it stopped flying, the Russian Soyuz spacecraft became NASA’s only ride to orbit for nearly a decade. The station also requires the two space powers’ cooperation to function: The Russian segment depends on electricity generated by American solar panels, while the station as a whole depends on Russian equipment to control its orbit.

China is participating in the African Vaccine Manufacturing Partnership (AVMP) launched by the African Union in April 2021. This Continental Vaccine Manufacturing Vision is “to ensure that Africa has timely access to vaccines to protect public health security, by establishing a sustainable vaccine development and manufacturing ecosystem in Africa.” 

By November 2021, China had provided over 1.7 billon doses of Covid-19 vaccine to more than 110 countries and organizations, including 50 African countries and the AU Commission, and is striving to provide an aggregate total – two billion doses by the end of 2021. In addition, it donated US$100 million to COVAX, which aims at ensuring all countries have access to a safe, effective vaccine. 

the prestigious Association of Professional Schools of International Affairs

It was the first time in many years, Tene said, that “all agencies are convening together in order to discuss our concept of public diplomacy, to coordinate and to plan.

“The image attributed to the State of Israel and the awareness of us in the world are a main component of our national security and our national strength. This is true during routine but how much more so in times of crisis.

the Outer Space Treaty and bring to their attention that, in accordance with article VI of the Treaty, “States Parties tothe Treaty shall bear international responsibility for national activities in outer space, including the moon and other celestial bodies, whether such activities are carried on by governmental agencies or by non-governmental entities, and for assuring that national activities are carried out in conformity with the provisions set forth in the present Treaty.

China hereby informs the Secretary-General of the following phenomena which constituted dangers to the life or health of astronauts aboard the China Space Station.

two of approximately 1,700 Starlink satellites put into orbit by Musk’s aerospace firm had nearly struck the CSS in 2021 on two occasions, forcing the station’s crew to perform an “evasive maneuver” both times

Zhao insisted Washington was directly responsible for SpaceX’s behavior, pointing out that state actors “bear international responsibility for national activities in outer space conducted by their private companies.”

Asked about the near-collisions with the China Space Station (CSS) between July and October, Foreign Ministry spokesman Zhao Lijian confirmed that his country had lodged a formal complaint with the United Nations

The patient is certainly alive and, fortunately, is not in the “red zone”. Pathology remains within the normal limits, not all is lost. It is necessary to continue the course of treatment, possibly making certain adjustments. At the same time, we are forced to reiterate that the Gorchakovs have not yet been found in vaccine diplomacy. Nor the Talleyrands, apparently.

the cross-border movement of goods and services (1), capital (2) and labour resources (3)

The first is dependence on the political environment.

a third failure — this time consular and legal.

the issue of international mutual recognition of vaccine certificates and QR codes arises.

Protectionism breeds patriotism among consumers.

the second failure of vaccine diplomacy — already at the trade and economic level.

Vaccine supermarkets did not open.

Maybe a kind of vaccine supermarket could be formed at the global level, albeit one which is much more important and “close at hand” at the local level.

the first failure of vaccine diplomacy — with regards to science and technology.

all the participants in the world arena must unite in the face of a global catastrophe; collaboration rather than competition is chosen among politicians and professional diplomats, and most importantly, of course, among scientists.

Preventing the Next Pandemic — Vaccine Diplomacy

not-yet-fully-established political science constructs

“Their target are the tenuously middle class. People who feel the system squeezing them and feel their grip on solvency slipping away. Who feel the gig economy strangling them. And they’re pitching them with, ‘This is your chance,’” Olson said. “‘You just need to bet on the right coin. You just need to bet on the right meme at the right time. You just need to bet on the right ape, and you can cash out. You can escape.’”

the audience for those stories are people with a lot more to lose.

Those narratives are usually told via press releases, company announcements, or news coverage where the only voices present are the ones who stand to gain the most.

the ones holding that bag could end up being average people who were simply taken in by a good story.

This has already happened with mana on a couple of occasions. In the two days following Facebook’s rebrand to Meta, the price of mana which, at the time, had rarely scraped above $1, skyrocketed to $3.71. At the time, news outlets— starting with niche crypto-enthusiast sites like CoinDesk, then later CNBC—reported the rising price of mana and interpreted it as positive interest in “the metaverse.”

Decentraland

“People need to kind of have a narrative behind it. Because at the end of the day, you're just buying numbers in a computer,”

Decentraland’s pitch is that using NFTs makes land in its gameworld scarce and, thus, valuable.

in a world where anyone could feasibly create an infinite amount of alternative Manhattans that are just as easy to get to.

“They're selling their tokens that give you permission to build within their space. So you’re effectively buying into their service.”

Decentraland or the Sandbox

In these articles, executives from Metaverse Group, a self-described “virtual real estate” company, described buying plots of land in “the metaverse” as akin to buying property in Manhattan long before the city developed.

this nebulous future is going to happen.

Services like Meta’s Horizon Worlds and Microsoft’s Mesh don’t interact with each other, they’re just separate VR apps.

in writing a rulebook for algorithms

its Dynabench platform.

Much of the value in the collaboration comes from the feedback that humans give the algorithms.

add to operational costs

Companies that can develop AI algorithms with stronger explanatory capabilities will be in a better position to win the trust of consumers and regulators.

applying multiple explainability standards will most likely be more complex and costly—because a company would, in essence, be creating different algorithms for different markets and would probably have to add more AI to ensure interoperability.

To deploy such AI, firms will need to be able to explain how an algorithm defines similarities between customers, why certain differences between two prospects may justify different treatments, and why similar customers may get different explanations about the AI.

to predict default risks and maintain real-time credit ratings.

it may turn out that the applicant’s zip code is what makes the difference, with otherwise solid applicants from Black neighborhoods being penalized.

if the only difference between two applicants is that one is 24 and the other is 25, then the explanation would be that the first applicant would have been granted a loan if he’d been older than 24.

Local explanations offer the rationale behind a specific output—say, why one applicant (or class of applicants) was denied a loan while another was granted one.

But all an end product’s components and how they combine and interconnect will need to be explainable.

lack the advanced skills in mathematics or computer science needed to understand such a formula, let alone determine whether the relationships specified in it are appropriate.

All you have to do is share its formula.

The GDPR already describes “the right…to obtain an explanation of the decision reached” by algorithms, and the EU has identified explainability as a key factor in increasing trust in AI in its white paper and AI regulation proposal.

When people make a mistake, there’s usually an inquiry and an assignment of responsibility, which may impose legal penalties on the decision-maker.

system audits, documentation and data protocols (for traceability), AI monitoring, and diversity awareness training.

Average statistics can mask discrimination among regions or subpopulations, and avoiding it may require customizing algorithms for each subset.

which brings us to the next factor.

the way they differ across populations

It’s difficult for people to accept that machines can process highly contextual situations.

human judgment is trusted more, in part because of people’s capacity for empathy

mechanical and bounded—think optimizing a timetable or analyzing images—software is regarded as at least as trustworthy as humans.

Amazon ultimately decided not to leverage AI as a recruiting tool but rather to use it to detect flaws in its current recruiting approach.