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Category: economics – Page 33

Ken, a 36-year-old Uber and Lyft driver in Houston, drives about four to five hours per day — in addition to his full-time analyst job — to supplement his income. Last year, he earned a combined $25,000 driving for Uber and Lyft from about 2,000 trips, according to screenshots of earnings documents viewed by Business Insider.

While he accepts most rides, he said he prioritizes trips that pay at least $0.80 to $1.00 per mile, excluding vehicle expenses — a ride’s base pay and distance are displayed on the app. He also tries to avoid trips that take him too far out of Houston because he worries he won’t be able to find trips for the ride back. He calls these “empty miles.”

“I have seen a 50-mile trip that only $20 was offered,” Ken previously told Business Insider. “I wouldn’t be doing that.” He asked that his last name not be included for fear of professional repercussions.

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More than a century ago, a wild-eyed, vegetarian, free love-promoting German entrepreneur and self-taught economist named Silvio Gesell proposed a radical reformation of the monetary system as we know it.

A long-forgotten German economist argued that society and the economy would be better off if money was a perishable good. Was he an anarchist crank or the prophet of a better world?

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Two major powers are coming together to reach an agreement to limit technology for the greater good of humanity.

Presidents Joe Biden and Xi Jinping are poised to pledge a ban on the use of artificial intelligence (AI) in autonomous weaponry.

WhiteHouse/ European Commission.

The meeting, taking place on the sidelines of the Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation (APEC) summit in San Francisco, marks the first face-to-face conversation between the leaders in a year.

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Kynikos Associates founder and legendary short seller Jim Chanos has highlighted the disparity between the public perception and actual performance of Tesla Inc. TSLA.

What Happened: In an interview with the Institute for New Economic Thinking, Chanos pointed out a common misbelief held by many Tesla admirers. He said the electric vehicle giant is seen as a multi-faceted entity — an AI firm, an alternative energy business, and a robotics organization.

This image, Chanos argues, is a result of Elon Musk’s compelling portrayal of Tesla as a future-focused company.

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Meta has joined forces with Hugging Face, an open source community-driven platform that hosts machine learning models and tools, and Scaleway, European cloud leader for AI infrastructures, to launch the “AI Startup Program”, an initiative aimed to accelerate the adoption of open-source artificial intelligence solutions within the French entrepreneurial ecosystem. With the proliferation of foundation models and generative artificial intelligence models, the aim is to bring the economic and technological benefits of open, state-of-the-art models to the French ecosystem.

Located at STATION F in Paris, the world’s largest startup campus, and with the support of the HEC incubator, the programme will support 5 startups in the acceleration phase, from January to June 2024. A panel of experts from Meta, Hugging Face and Scaleway will select projects based on open foundation models and/or demonstrating their willingness to integrate these models into their products and services.

The startups selected will benefit from technical mentoring by researchers, engineers and PhD students from FAIR, Meta’s artificial intelligence research laboratory, access to Hugging Face’s platform and tools, and Scaleway’s computing power in order to develop their services based on open source AI technology bricks. In addition to LLMs – large language models – startups will also be able to draw on foundation and research models in the field of image and sound processing. Applications are open until 1 December 2023.

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The nuclear fusion industry witnessed tremendous developments in 2023. The year 2022 drew its curtains with the National Ignition Facility (NIF) at Lawrence Livermore National Lab producing a fusion reaction in the laboratory that yielded more energy than was absorbed by the fuel to initiate it. The reaction yielded 1.3 megajoules of energy, about five times the 250 kilojoules that were absorbed by the capsule. This scientific breakthrough sparked an increase in investments in 2023 with new companies joining the race.

The Fusion Industry Association, or FIA, compiled the “Global Fusion Industry Report” of 2023. Pressing for fusion energy to take over as a cleaner source of energy, FIA presented a comprehensive overview of the advancements made in the second quarter of the year in this report. It highlights the effect of a successful ignition or net energy gain in nuclear fusion and its economic consequences.

FIA observed a net increase in investments in the fusion power industry. With $1.4 billion more than the previous year, 27 companies in fusion were able to draw $46 billion in investment. The ignition inspired the emergence of newer and smaller companies which contributed the majority share of the surge in investments. There are two reported big chequeholders securing funding over $100 million in the 2nd quarter—TAE Technologies in California and ENN in China.

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A golden opportunity has been unveiled by AI maker OpenAI for those of you who want to turn your use of ChatGPT and GPT-4 into a money-making activity.

Yes, that’s right, serious dough could be had. In short, a new feature known as GPTs gives you a solid chance to go from simply being a hobbyist or fun-filled user of generative AI into someone who garners nice warm cash for your online labors. Plus, whether you want to do so on a heady full-time basis or just as a part-time side hustle is entirely up to you.

In today’s column, I will lay out what this new announcement by OpenAI foretells and indicate how you can leverage the big break that has arisen. It is then up to you to decide what to do next.

OpenAI has unveiled the advent of GPTs, which are custom ChatGPT applets that you can devise and then make money from their usage. Here’s what you need to know.

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The Nobel Awards Season just ended, with the “Oscars of Science” awarded to some of the world’s brightest minds. The entire science world was watching, and just like with the Oscars, there was an element of suspense, drama, envy, celebration, and happiness. Most of the Nobel Laureates are also phenomenal speakers and communicators with decades of teaching experience, and thousands of people across the world are glued to their monitors to hear their inspiring stories. The Nobel Prizes are awarded in Physics, Chemistry, Physiology or Medicine, Literature, Peace, and Economic Sciences. Unfortunately, there is no Nobel Prize for Computer Science, Mathematics, or Engineering. So, it seems like it… More.

While there is no Nobel Prize for AI, Jumper and Hassabis may be the frontrunners for a Nobel Prize in Chemistry for their discovery of AlphaFold.

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BRUSSELS, Oct 29 (Reuters) — The Group of Seven industrial countries will on Monday agree a code of conduct for companies developing advanced artificial intelligence systems, a G7 document showed, as governments seek to mitigate the risks and potential misuse of the technology.

The voluntary code of conduct will set a landmark for how major countries govern AI, amid privacy concerns and security risks, the document seen by Reuters showed.

Leaders of the Group of Seven (G7) economies made up of Canada, France, Germany, Italy, Japan, Britain and the United States, as well as the European Union, kicked off the process in May at a ministerial forum dubbed the “Hiroshima AI process”.

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The Chicago region has been named an official US Regional and Innovation Technology Hub for quantum technologies by the Biden-Harris administration, a designation that opens the door to new federal funding and recognizes the growing strength of an ecosystem poised to become the heart of the nation’s quantum economy. The Bloch Tech Hub (pronounced “block”), a coalition of industry, academic, government, and nonprofit stakeholders led by the Chicago Quantum Exchange, was one of 31 designees from nearly 400 applications across the country.

The selection, announced Monday morning by the White House and the US Department of Commerce’s Economic Development Administration (EDA), is the first phase of a federal initiative designed to “supercharge” innovation economies that have the potential to become global leaders in a critical technology within a decade. As a recipient of the US Tech Hubs designation, The Bloch is now eligible to apply for the program’s second phase, which could include millions of dollars in funding to implement the hub’s activities. It was one of two US Tech Hubs designated in Illinois, the other focused on biomanufacturing.

“Home to world-class institutions and first-rate research centers, Illinois is transforming technology, biomanufacturing, and innovation at every turn,” said Illinois Governor JB Pritzker. “I couldn’t be prouder that the Biden Administration has selected the Chicago Quantum Exchange’s The Bloch and the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign’s iFAB Hub as two of just 31 inaugural tech hubs — opening the door for even more investment, advancement, and discovery. There’s no doubt that the rest of the nation have caught on to our great state’s status as an innovation powerhouse — and our future couldn’t be brighter.”

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