10/5/24 (Bloomberg)
Highs and lows
Artificial intelligence was a big topic throughout the day. Dario Amodei, one of the co-founders of AI startup Anthropic, tried to avoid starting the conference off on too negative a note when he was asked to make the case we should be excited about the future of AI rather than fearful.
“My honest answer is you should be both at the same time,” Amodei said. “I’m 10 out of 10 excited and I’m 10 out of 10 worried as well.”
Open Source Debate
Legendary Silicon Valley investor Vinod Khosla said that Meta Platforms Inc.’s new large language model, Llama 3, shouldn’t be open source as it could be a “national security hazard” and used by adversaries like China. Chris Cox, Meta’s chief product officer, took the stage shortly after and defended the decision, saying open source helped make technology more universally accessible.
Game News
Microsoft’s Xbox president Sarah Bond said the company will launch its own online store for mobile games, creating an alternative to Apple Inc. and Alphabet Inc.’s Google. Bond said the store is starting on the web, rather than an app, to make it “accessible across all devices, all countries, no matter what, independent of the policies of closed ecosystem stores.”
‘Ban Everything But Snapchat’
Speaking of kids’ safety on social media, Snap Inc. Chief Executive Officer Evan Spiegel said that his service is focused on connecting users to people they actually know in real life. He was among a group of executives hauled before Congress earlier this year about online safety from predators and mental health issues. When it comes to his own kids’ use of social media, he joked he had a simple rule – “ban everything but Snapchat.”
Relations with China
Arm Holdings Plc CEO Rene Haas, whose company provides chip designs that dominate the smartphone industry, was asked about the actions the US and China are taking against each other to protect their respective domestic tech industries.
“I don’t think anyone could write a risk factor segment and not include China,” he said. “It’s difficult to predict what’s coming around the corner. I’m an optimist.”
Spiegel, too, weighed in on China when asked about US legislation that would ban TikTok or force its Chinese-based parent, ByteDance Ltd., to sell the popular video app.
The US needs a framework for dealing with national security issues versus addressing them in “an ad-hoc or one-off type of way” as with the TikTok legislation, he said. Many US businesses have relationships with China, such as manufacturing.
“It’s going to be important for those businesses to get a lot of clarity on what’s OK,” Spiegel said.
Cracking Down on Cyberattacks
A recent target of hackers has been the health care industry — a cyberattack against Change Healthcare earlier this year prevented billions of dollars of payments to doctors and delayed patient care. Anne Neuberger, one of the Biden administration’s top cybersecurity officials, said the White House is looking to push new cybersecurity rules for hospitals.
California Forever
Jan Sramek, the leader behind an effort to develop a new city northeast of San Francisco, said criticism of the project’s initial secrecy amounted to an effort by no-growthers who are looking to block development of much-needed housing. The project, dubbed California Forever, is backed by some of tech’s biggest names, including Sequoia Capital partner Michael Moritz and LinkedIn founder Reid Hoffman.
“That whole thing has been used as an excuse by people who have hated any kind of economic development or growth for the last 30 years,” Sramek said. “It’s the same people who take their kids to Disney World every year and they love Disney World. How did Disney World get built?”
Comentários