ARK says it’s a unique time to invest

ARK Invest’s chief futurist lists five groups that should give tech investors an edge. According to Brett Winton, robotics, artificial intelligence, multi-omics sequencing, public blockchain and energy storage are key areas because they’re all entering the marketplace at the same time. “We believe that this is a unique time in technological economic history,” he told … Read more

Google Thinks It Can Cash In on Generative AI. Microsoft Already Has

Alphabet CEO Sundar Pichai is confident that Google will find a way to make money selling access to generative AI tools. Microsoft CEO Satya Nadella says his company is already doing it. Both companies reported better-than-expected quarterly sales and profit on Thursday. And the stock prices of both soared on the results, with Alphabet further … Read more

Ads for Explicit ‘AI Girlfriends’ Are Swarming Facebook and Instagram

However, 3,000 ads for “AI girlfriends” and 1,100 containing “NSFW” were live on April 23, according to Meta’s ad library. WIRED’s initial review found that Hush, an AI girlfriend app downloaded more than 100,000 times from Google’s Play store, had published 1,700 ads across Meta platforms, several of which promise “NSFW” chats and “secret photos” … Read more

Cisco Systems joins Microsoft, IBM in Vatican pledge to ensure ethical use and development of AI

ROME — Tech giant Cisco Systems on Wednesday joined Microsoft and IBM in signing onto a Vatican-sponsored pledge to ensure artificial intelligence is developed and used ethically and to benefit the common good. Cisco Systems chief executive Chuck Robbins signed the document, known as the Rome Call, and met privately with Pope Francis, the Vatican … Read more

Rabbit’s AI Assistant Is Here. And Soon a Camera Wearable Will Be Too

Lyu demoed the R1’s Teach Mode as well, which lets you point the R1’s camera at a computer screen as you instruct it how to complete a task. After it learns, you can ask it to perform said task to save yourself the time and hassle. However, this feature is not yet available, and when … Read more

A National Security Insider Does the Math on the Dangers of AI

One type of risk you’ve been very interested in for a long time is “biorisk.” What’s the worst thing that could possibly happen? Take us through that. I started out in public health before I worked in national security, working on infectious disease control—malaria and tuberculosis. In 2002, the first virus was synthesized from scratch … Read more

Big Tech keeps prioritizing AI as earnings approach

Sundar Pichai, chief executive officer of Alphabet Inc., during Stanford’s 2024 Business, Government, and Society forum in Stanford, California, US, on Wednesday, April 3, 2024. Justin Sullivan | Getty Images As tech’s behemoths get set to report earnings this week, they do so facing a mountain of drama. At Google, there have been protests and … Read more

A Wave of AI Tools Is Set to Transform Work Meetings

I ask Liang whether the prominence of AI in meetings might make humans less likely to attend. Knowing that there will be a summary available seems a disincentive to actually showing up. Liang himself says that he attends only a fraction of the meetings he’s invited to. “As CEO of a startup, I get tons … Read more

Zurich, Oslo top list of world’s smartest cities

These are the ten smartest cities in the world, according to IMD. Anton Aleksenko | Istock | Getty Images Smart cities in Europe and Asia are gaining ground globally while North American cities have fallen down the ranks, according to the 2024 Smart City Index released April. Of the top 10 smart cities on the … Read more

The Taylor Swift Album Leak’s Big AI Problem

On Thursday, Taylor Swift did a very Taylor Swift thing: She posted an Instagram story with a link to buy “Fortnight,” the first single off of her new album, The Tortured Poets Department. It was cute, maybe even unnecessary. Taylor Swift is one of the biggest recording artists in the world. She announced TTPD in … Read more