AI Now Institute

New from Jeremy Kahn on the Web Summit: AI Now Institute’s Sarah Myers West argued it isn’t so much that the AI bubble is about to burst - but rather that it may be better for all of us if it did. "West argued that the world could not afford a technology with the energy footprint, appetite for data, and problems around unknown biases that today’s generative AI systems have." https://lnkd.in/exRUVH-s

NEW: We’re launching a newsletter on industrial policy and AI in Europe. A few times a month, we’ll analyze developments in Europe's AI market, track European Commission initiatives, and monitor how Draghi is being implemented. Our first edition reviews the burgeoning China AI arms race narrative in the US, the ramping up of competitiveness and sovereignty narratives in Europe, as well as the risk that boosting defense spending will further securitize AI discourse: Read more: https://lnkd.in/eBhskWiZ

Today, we’re proud to announce the launch of TechTonic Justice (TTJ). TechTonic Justice is a multidimensional, community-based effort to strengthen local justice movements and build long-term power among the people and communities that AI is leaving behind. TechTonic Justice is founded and led by Kevin De Liban, a legal aid lawyer. Prior to launching TechTonic Justice, Kevin De Liban worked as an attorney and the director of advocacy at Legal Aid of Arkansas, where he defeated automated decision-making tools that strip people – particularly low-income people, communities of color and people with disabilities – of their right to access critical resources and support. To mark our launch, we published a report called Inescapable AI: The ways AI decides how low-income people work, learn, live, and survive. The report presents groundbreaking research quantifying the forced use of AI-based decision making onto low-income people in the U.S. In light of another impending Trump administration, AI technologies will only proliferate – across the private sector, and in government use. It is all the more important that we take care of our communities, and protect ourselves from the negative impacts of surveillance and AI use. We hope you’ll join us on this journey. – Read our report: https://lnkd.in/ebnKxcaX – Learn more: https://lnkd.in/eni_UaqY

At Web Summit, Sarah Myers West cautioned that when the AI bubble bursts, we will be left with hollowed out public services like healthcare and education. Watch: https://lnkd.in/e5stnARi

At The GW Competition & Innovation Lab's TEC Institute Summit, in a panel including OpenAI and law firms representing industry interest, AI Now's Amba Kak draws attention to the structural concentration of power in the gen AI market where access to inputs – and any viable path to profit – are dependent on the computing infrastructure and distribution networks of a few big tech firms. She argues that innovation is threatened in such a market, where inputs are defined by choke points and large barriers to entry. Watch more: https://lnkd.in/dKdhD8px

Does generative AI mean Google’s search dominance on its way out? Pressure from AI companies would have us think so - but Kate Brennan argues in Tech Policy Press that in the DOJ case Google’s advantages in search & AI remain the elephant in the room: https://lnkd.in/d6kmY37p

#DOJ’s proposed remedies in the #Google search #antitrust case must solve for the interdependence between the company's search market monopoly and its emerging dominance in generative AI, writes AI Now Institute's Kate Brennan:

𝗡𝗘𝗪 𝗣𝗔𝗣𝗘𝗥: The latest paper in AI Now’s series on AI and National Security tackles AI uses for military intelligence, surveillance, and targeting (ISTAR): Heidy Khlaaf, PhD, MBCS, Meredith Whittaker, and Sarah Myers West argue that far from theoretical, these are the harms that need to be the focus of policy attention. Systems like Gospel and Lavender are already escalating the crisis in Gaza. Proposals to tack on foundation models, trained on personal data and vulnerable to attack, to them may significantly expand these harms. Rather than tailor policy solutions around hypothetical nuclear or biological risks, our paper argues that we should be urgently addressing the life or death stakes posed by AI uses in military contexts. Read more: https://lnkd.in/e76X8imw

EU startups have sought to reduce their dependency on Big Tech firms by contracting with new cloud intermediaries. This just pushes the dependency down the stack, to Nvidia, raising questions about the independence of the EU startup ecosystem. Read expert perspectives on Europe’s public investments in AI in our new report: https://lnkd.in/eh5cFdHW

Our research found a surprising source of funding that dominates the EU AI startup ecosystem: American venture capital. Is this the digital future Europe wants? Read expert perspectives on Europe’s public investments in AI in our new report: https://lnkd.in/eh5cFdHW