Emerging Technologies Highlights: Week of July 12, 2023
July 12, 2023
Emerging Technologies Highlights: Week of July 12, 2023
This week, we focus on important AI and NFT trends capturing headlines.
Leading off, after a wave of anti-AI commentary and calls to halt the development of the technology altogether, new voices are stepping in to defend AI and call for even faster development – some say that more open-source models would suffice to address ethical concerns, others point to the much-needed economic benefits of AI.
Next up, new think tank reports show that China is all in on AI. Beijing is leading the way in AI regulation, releasing groundbreaking new strategies to govern algorithms, chatbots, and more. In addition, Chinese researchers published 850 papers about artificial general intelligence (AGI) between 2018 and 2022, indicating Beijing's efforts to create a thinking machine are real and active – possibly including research on brain/computer interfaces. These developments show the need for the US to clarify its approach to AI as fast as possible.
Meanwhile, the NFT ecosystem is collapsing. The crypto token associated with Yuga Labs’ namesake collection of 10,000 Bored Ape NFTs has fallen 15% over the past 14 days, scraping past an all-time low of $1.85 on Friday. Last week, the weekly sales count was on track to record its worst performance since June 2021. This is particularly concerning because NFT enthusiasts promoted the narrative that, with the negativities of the bear market put behind, the NFT landscape would usher in a new era of exponential growth and adoption in 2023. So far, this hope has not materialized.
The bottom line: While acknowledging the need for substantive guardrails, let us leave those valid concerns to others. When it comes to the economy, including jobs, the reassuring lessons of history (albeit with a few warning signals) are inescapable. A recent report from Goldman Sachs, among the most bullish of the techno-bulls, concluded that AI. could help return our productivity growth rate to the halcyon days of the mid-20th century. At the moment, the problem is not that we have too much technology; it’s that we have too little.
The bottom line: Underlying much of the excitement — and trepidation — about advances in generative artificial intelligence lurks a couple of fundamental questions: who will control these technologies? The big tech companies with the vast computing power and data to build new AI models or society? This goes to the heart of a policy debate about whether companies should keep their AI models in-house or make them available more openly. As the debate rumbles on, the case for openness has grown.
The bottom line: Beijing is leading the way in AI regulation, releasing groundbreaking new strategies to govern algorithms, chatbots, and more. Global partners need a better understanding of what, exactly, this regulation entails, what it says about China’s AI priorities, and what lessons other AI regulators can learn.
The bottom line: Chinese researchers published 850 papers about artificial general intelligence (AGI) between 2018 and 2022, indicating Beijing's efforts to create a thinking machine are real and active – possibly including research on brain/computer interfaces. So says think tank the Center for Security and Emerging Technology (CSET) in a recently released report that claims Beijing's effort "challenges emerging global norms, underscoring the need for a serious open source monitoring program to serve as a foundation for outreach and mitigation."
The bottom line: The Commission intends to promote “open and highly distributed technologies and standards that enable interoperability between platforms and networks and freedom of choice for users, and where sustainability is at the core of technological developments.” The EU executive points to the relevance of existing legislation in privacy, consumer protection, data governance, and platform regulation at the regulatory level, which will also apply to the metaverse.
The bottom line: In recent weeks, pressure in the NFT space has weighed on prominent collections of profile pictures like the Bored Ape Yacht Club. And that stress may have spilled over to ApeCoin (APE) too. The crypto token associated with Yuga Labs’ namesake collection of 10,000 Bored Ape NFTs has fallen 15% over the past 14 days, scraping past an all-time low of $1.85 on Friday, according to CoinGecko.
The bottom line: Non-fungible tokens (NFT) entered mainstream consciousness in a big way in 2021. Sales of popular collections skyrocketed, and the frenzy caught on with who’s who of the glamor and entertainment world. The excitement continued in 2022, and despite a weaker second half, the NFT sales count recorded a 67.57% increase from 2021, according to a report by DappRadar.It was expected that with the negativities of the bear market put behind, the NFT landscape would usher in a new era of exponential growth and adoption in 2023. Well, not to be!
The bottom line: Researchers at Pennsylvania State University recently analyzed whether attitudes and emotionality surrounding cryptocurrency could help predict returns. What they found may stand in stark contrast to related financial markets. According to the team’s research paper, social media plays an outsized role in adoption and activity rates, while cryptocurrency journalism isn’t a great predictor of market movement.
The bottom line: The value of top cryptocurrency bitcoin could reach $50,000 this year and $120,000 by the end of 2024, Standard Chartered said on Monday, predicting the recent jump in its price could encourage bitcoin "miners" to hoard more of the supply. Standard Chartered published a $100,000 end-2024 forecast for bitcoin back in April on the view the so-called "crypto winter" was over, but one of the bank's top FX analysts, Geoff Kendrick, said there was now 20% "upside" to that call.
The bottom line: During the boom times, Paris Hilton, Snoop Dogg, Reese Witherspoon, and Matt Damon all gushed about or invested in crypto projects, bringing a mainstream audience to the wonky world of digital currencies. It was fun — and lucrative — while prices soared. But last year’s crash ended the celebrity crypto bonanza.