Good morning! This is your daily ☕️ Techpresso.
On this day in 2018, the Apple HomePod went on sale.
In today's Techpresso:
💰 Sam Altman seeks $7 trillion for new AI chip project
🚫 FCC declares AI-voiced robocalls illegal
🥷 Ex-Apple engineer sentenced to prison for stealing Apple Car trade secrets
🤝 Leading AI companies join new US safety consortium
🤷♀️ Midjourney might ban Biden and Trump images this election season
🌟 Scientists in UK set fusion record
🎁 + 10 other news you might like
🔮 + 2 handpicked research papers and tools
💰 Sam Altman seeks $7 trillion for new AI chip projectLINK
Sam Altman, CEO of OpenAI, aims to raise trillions of dollars to revolutionize the semiconductor industry to overcome the scarcity of specialized chips needed for advanced AI development.
The initiative seeks to expand global chip manufacturing and enhance AI capabilities, with investments possibly reaching up to $7 trillion.
Despite potential challenges, including high energy consumption and geopolitical tensions, Altman's plan represents a significant effort to advance AI technology and the global tech landscape.
🚫 FCC declares AI-voiced robocalls illegalLINK
The Federal Communications Commission (FCC) has made it illegal for robocalls to use AI-generated voices, allowing state attorneys general to take legal action against such practices.
AI-generated voices are now classified as "an artificial or prerecorded voice" under the Telephone Consumer Protection Act (TCPA), restricting their use for non-emergency purposes without prior consent.
The FCC's ruling aims to combat scams and misinformation spread through AI-generated voice robocalls, providing state attorneys general with enhanced tools for enforcement.
🥷 Ex-Apple engineer sentenced to prison for stealing Apple Car trade secretsLINK
Xiaolang Zhang, a former Apple engineer, was sentenced to 120 days in prison and three years supervised release for stealing self-driving car technology.
Zhang transferred sensitive documents and hardware related to Apple's self-driving vehicle project to his wife's laptop before planning to leave for a job in China.
In addition to his prison sentence, Zhang must pay restitution of $146,984, having originally faced up to 10 years in prison and a $250,000 fine.
🤝 Leading AI companies join new US safety consortiumLINK
The U.S. AI Safety Institute Consortium (AISIC) was announced by the Biden Administration as a response to an executive order, including significant AI entities like Amazon, Google, Apple, Microsoft, OpenAI, and NVIDIA among over 200 representatives.
The consortium aims to set safety standards and protect the U.S. innovation ecosystem, focusing on the development of safe and trustworthy AI through collaboration with various sectors, including healthcare and academia.
Notably absent from the consortium are major tech companies Tesla, Oracle, and Broadcom, highlighting the extent of participation among top tech and AI organizations.
🤷♀️ Midjourney might ban Biden and Trump images this election seasonLINK
Midjourney, led by CEO David Holz, is reportedly considering banning images of political figures like Biden and Trump during the upcoming election season to prevent the spread of misinformation.
The company previously ended free trials for its AI image generator after AI-generated deepfakes, including ones of Trump getting arrested and the pope in a fashionable coat, went viral.
Despite implementing rules against misleading creations, Bloomberg was still able to generate altered images of Trump, highlighting challenges in fully preventing AI-driven political disinformation.
🌟 Scientists in UK set fusion recordLINK
A 40-year-old UK fusion reactor set a new world record for energy output, generating 69 megajoules of fusion energy for five seconds before its closure, advancing the pursuit of clean, limitless energy.
The achievement by the Joint European Torus (JET) enhances confidence in future fusion projects like ITER, which is under construction in France, despite JET's operation concluding in December 2023.
The decision to shut down JET reflects complex dynamics, including Brexit-driven shifts in the UK's fusion energy strategy, despite the experiment's substantial contributions to fusion research.
Other news you might like
OpenAI reportedly surpasses two billion dollars in annualized revenue.LINK
Bluesky CEO Jay Graber says she won’t ‘enshittify the network with ads’.LINK
AI cannot be used to deny health care coverage, feds clarify to insurers.LINK
Microsoft is bringing Linux’s sudo command to Windows 11.LINK
AI PCs will make up nearly 60% of total PC shipments by 2027.LINK
Disney harnesses 'AI' to drive streaming ad-technology.LINK
Pinterest announces a new ad deal with Google as it approaches 500M MAUs.LINK
$1.72 trillion AI chip giant Nvidia has rocketed in value so fast it's about to pass Amazon as the 4th-most valuable U.S. company.LINK
Data of half the population of France stolen in its largest ever cyberattack. This is what we know.LINK
Scientists develop artificial 'worm gut' to break down plastics.LINK
Latest research and tools
Hono v4.0.0: introduces full-stack capabilities, including a Static Site Generator (SSG) Helper for creating static pages, a Vite plugin for streamlined development and deployment, Client-Side Components that run similarly to React, and File-based Routing for application structure.LINK
TransTroj: Transferable Backdoor Attacks to Pre-Trained Models: this paper shows how attackers can sneak harmful backdoors into AI models that are already trained, making it easier to exploit these models without getting caught.LINK
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