Weekend Warp

So, the biggest tech news this week had nothing to do with AI, but could be a harbinger of things to come for it. The Australian government took the unprecedented and courageous step of banning all social media access to children below the age of 16! No Instagram , no Facebook , no X , no nothing! The mal-effects of social media are well documented, including in the latest blockbuster The Anxious Generation by Jonathan Haidt. The ban, which will not take effect for at least 12 months, could see tech companies fined up to A$50m if they don't comply. It will be tough to enforce, as the methods to do that are not fool proof. There has been criticism of the ban, not least from the big social media companies, on it being too draconian and violating individual privacy. However, it has also attracted praise and plaudits from across the world. I, for one, am a big supporter of this, and hope that it extends to every country in the world. Decades later, we will look back and see the ills of unfettered social media to be as bad as tobacco or alcohol, and wonder why we did not do this sooner. Perhaps the same might happen for AI chatbots, if we let them descend into the same cesspool that we let social media go into; AI companies will be well advised to take heed and bake the righ guardrails, especially for children, into the design stage itself.

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In other big, big news, OpenAI is considering building a browser to take on Google . This is right out of the Sundar Pichai playbook, when he pushed Google to build its own browser Chrome, to take on Microsoft. He recognised that the browser will be chief entry into search, rather than the Google search bar, and the rest is history with Chrome dominating the browser wars. Now, the ChatGPT owner recently considered developing a web browser that it would combine with its chatbot. OpenAI could decide not to launch the browser, though earlier this year it hired two people who were instrumental in the development of Google's Chrome browser. Google’s core properties are under attack by AI: search by Perplexity and SearchGPT, now the browser, and apps overall by AI agents. Not that Google is taking this lying down, with the most powerful Internet and AI company rolling out stunning new AI products like NotebookLM. It promises to be an interesting time.

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Meanwhile, The Stanford Institute for Human-Centered Artificial Intelligence (HAI) released the much awaited its findings about the AI-led technology ecosystem at a global level, using the Global Vibrancy Tool 2024 developed by the institute. The tracking tool, which measures a country’s AI ecosystem on key indicators including research papers, private investment, patents, etc. ranks countries on a AI Global Leadership scale. Predictably, US leads the index, followed by China. UK keeps its number 3 position, and India and UAE bring up the No.4 and 5 positions. (Interestingly, I divide my time between the third, fourth and fifth ranked countries😊) Interestingly, the US has solidified its lead over China, with the latter falling behind – the chip embargo seems to be working? The US has released more notable machine learning models, invested more private capital in AI, and published more responsible AI research than any other country. As per a report in Mint , ‘India scores highly in AI research & development, indicated by a good performance in parameters such as AI Journal Publications, AI Conference Publications, AI Journal Citations and AI Conference Citations, alongside having notable AI GitHub projects and scoring well in relative AI skill penetration, AI hiring and AI talent concentration, but lags behind the top 3 countries in areas such as policy and governance and infrastructure’.

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The space is certainly heating up....... at warp speed.