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Category: economics – Page 36

Believe it or not, one of the most important technology announcements of the past few months had nothing to do with artificial intelligence. While critics and boosters continue to stir and fret over the latest capabilities of ChatGPT, a largely unknown 60-person start-up, based out of Tel Aviv, quietly began demoing a product that might foretell an equally impactful economic disruption.

The company is named Sightful and their new offering is Spacetop: “the world’s first augmented reality laptop.” Spacetop consists of a standard computer keyboard tethered to pair of goggles, styled like an unusually chunky pair of sport sunglasses. When you put on the goggles, the Spacetop technology inserts multiple large virtual computer screens into your visual field, floating above the keyboard as if you were using a computer connected to large external monitors.

As oppose to virtual reality technology, which places you into an entirely artificial setting, Spacetop is an example of augmented reality (AR), which places virtual elements into the real world. The goggles are transparent: when you put them on at your table in Starbucks you still see the coffee shop all around you. The difference is now there are also virtual computer screens floating above your macchiato.

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Summary.

As businesses and governments race to make sense of the impacts of new, powerful AI systems, governments around the world are jostling to take the lead on regulation. Business leaders should be focused on who is likely to win this race, moreso than the questions of how or even when AI will be regulated. Whether Congress, the European Commission, China, or even U.S. states or courts take the lead will determine both the speed and trajectory of AI’s transformation of the global economy, potentially protecting some industries or limiting the ability of all companies to use the technology to interact directly with consumers.

Page-utils class= article-utils—vertical hide-for-print data-js-target= page-utils data-id= tag: blogs.harvardbusiness.org, 2007/03/31:999.357112 data-title= Who Is Going to Regulate AI? data-url=/2023/05/who-is-going-to-regulate-ai data-topic= Government policy and regulation data-authors= Blair Levin; Larry Downes data-content-type= Digital Article data-content-image=/resources/images/article_assets/2023/05/May23_28_5389503-383x215.jpg data-summary=

As the world reckons with the impact of powerful new AI systems, governments are jostling to lead the regulatory charge — and shape how this technology will grow.

Continue reading “Who Is Going to Regulate AI?” | >

TOKYO, May 20 (Reuters) — Leaders of the Group of Seven (G7) nations on Saturday called for the development and adoption of international technical standards for trustworthy artificial intelligence (AI) as lawmakers of the rich countries focus on the new technology.

While the G7 leaders, meeting in Hiroshima, Japan, recognised that the approaches to achieving “the common vision and goal of trustworthy AI may vary”, they said in a statement that “the governance of the digital economy should continue to be updated in line with our shared democratic values”.

The agreement came after European Union, which is represented at the G7, inched closer this month to passing legislation to regulate AI technology, potentially the world’s first comprehensive AI law.

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Our technological age is witnessing a breakthrough that has existential implications and risks. The innovative behemoth, ChatGPT, created by OpenAI, is ushering us inexorably into an AI economy where machines can spin human-like text, spark deep conversations and unleash unparalleled potential. However, this bold new frontier has its challenges. Security, privacy, data ownership and ethical considerations are complex issues that we must address, as they are no longer just hypothetical but a reality knocking at our door.

The G7, composed of the world’s seven most advanced economies, has recognized the urgency of addressing the impact of AI.

To understand how countries may approach AI, we need to examine a few critical aspects.

Clear regulations and guidelines for generative AI: To ensure the responsible and safe use of generative AI, it’s crucial to have a comprehensive regulatory framework that covers privacy, security and ethics. This framework will provide clear guidance for both developers and users of AI technology.

Continue reading “Generative AI Shakes Global Diplomacy At G7 Summit In Japan” | >

NEW YORK, May 12 (Reuters Breakingviews) — Trying to predict how a nascent and promising technology will affect society is hubris, but history suggests people are going to have some serious leisure time if the development of artificial intelligence continues apace. Whether that makes them happy, and how the spoils will be divided, are harder to predict.

Over the past 50 years, technology has tended to grow faster than the wider economy. From 2006 to 2016, the digital economy grew at an average annual rate of 5.6% according to the U.S. Bureau of Economic Analysis, or almost four times faster than the overall output. That sort of expansion appears to be oddly consistent. Revenue earned by technology companies in Fortune’s list of the 100 biggest U.S. firms has, adjusted for inflation, increased at a similar rate for five decades.

American employee productivity has increased about 2% annually for seven decades. While higher capital intensity and more skilled labor steadily contribute, what varies more is the ability to deploy technology successfully. Sectors able to automate tasks and reduce workers, such as manufacturing, will generally see higher productivity, while others, such as education, may have a harder time. This process also takes time. In 1987, the economist Robert Solow famously said computers were visible everywhere expect in the productivity statistics. A decade later, productivity shot up.

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A transition to a carbon-free economy is the reality of the modern energy industry. Reduction in CO2 emission is one of the main challenge in energy engineering in the last decades. Renewable energy sources are playing an important role on the way to a zero-carbon economy [1,2]. Solar energy is one of the main and almost unlimited energy sources in the World. The different technologies of solar energy use have been developed in the last years [[3], [4], [5], [6], [7], [8]]. However, even though the progress in the development of solar energy technologies is notable, there are a lot of challenges for energy science. One of them is the fact that more than 60% of electricity is produced by conventional technologies via hydrocarbon fuel combustion: steam turbines, gas turbines, etc. While the share of electricity produced by using solar energy is no more than a few percent [9].

Among various ways of utilization of solar energy for electricity generation, a combination of solar energy with the traditional steam and gas turbine cycles can be highlighted. The power plants where solar energy is combined with conventional power cycles are named integrated solar combined cycle systems (ISCCS). In these systems, solar energy is used to produce heat and after that heat is used to generate mechanical work or electricity.

Combined cycle power plants (CCPP) show one of the highest energy efficiency among conventional power plants [10]. The modern cycles with high-temperature gas turbines have an efficiency up to 70% and even higher. In such cycles, the high-temperature gas turbines with the turbine inlet temperature (TIT) up to 1,600 °C are applied [11,12]. In the last years, a lot of various integrated solar combined cycle systems (ISCCS) were developed by various scientists and engineers. The main way to use solar energy in such cycles is a steam generation in CCPP [[13], [14], [15], [16]]. In other words, solar energy in such ISCCS is utilized as an energy source in a steam turbine cycle.

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