This week, Intel co-founder Gordon Moore passed away; Twitter is a disaster, and there’s lots of gaming news. Also, Apple announces the date of WWDC, the Interesting Things of the Week, and more in the other news section.
Gordon Moore
On Sunday, the world learned that Gordon Moore, one of the founders of intel and the originator of Moore’s law, died. He was a pioneer in the semiconductor industry, and his prediction about the rapid advances in computer chip technology charted a course for the high-tech age. He will be remembered for his contributions to the field of computing and his philanthropy through the Gordon and Betty Moore Foundation. He was 94.
AI Open Letter
In a recent open letter, hundreds of AI experts, including Yoshua Bengio, Yuval Noah Harari, Jaan Tallinn, and Elon Musk, called for a halt on the development and testing of AI technologies more powerful than OpenAI’s language model GPT-4, citing concerns about their potential misuse to automate jobs and spread misinformation. The letter also raised concerns about the distant prospect of AI systems that could replace humans and reshape civilization. The Future of Life Institute, an organization focused on technological risks to humanity, authored the letter and proposed a “public and verifiable” pause involving all those working on advanced AI models. The complaint from the Center for AI and Digital Policy (CAIDP) to the Federal Trade Commission (FTC) argues that OpenAI has violated consumer protection rules by releasing GPT-4 to the public for commercial use with knowledge of potential risks, including the production of malicious code and highly tailored propaganda. The complaint calls for a halt on further commercial deployment of GPT models and requires independent assessments of the models before any future rollouts. In a counterpoint to the open letter, AI ethicists criticized it for focusing on hypothetical future threats. At the same time, real harms are attributable to the misuse of tech today.
Twitter News
Twitter has been in the news lately for a few exciting updates:
- On Monday, Twitter announced that it would limit the visibility of tweets from unverified users.
- On Thursday, Elon Musk took over the top spot from former US President Barack Obama as the most followed person on Twitter.
- On Friday, Twitter released an algorithm that Musk had developed as open source.
WWDC Announcement
On Wednesday, Apple announced they would hold their developer conference, WWDC, on June 5th. The event will be entirely virtual, with only select media and the winners of the Swift Student Challenge attending the keynote in person. During WWDC, Apple typically reveals information about upcoming software updates to be released later in the year. Recent leaks suggest that Apple may finally unveil its much-rumored augmented reality headset at this year’s WWDC.
Gaming News
In gaming news, the Entertainment Software Association (ESA) announced the cancellation of E3 this year, citing the lack of time for publishers to produce game demos. On the other hand, it has been reported that the Dolphin Emulator will be available on Steam.
Interesting Things of The Week
- Can Mastodon seize the Moment from Twitter – The Verge
- Pichai on AI – 9to5Google
- Why the AI industry could stand to slow down a little by Casey Newton – The Verge / Platformer
Other News
In other news, General Motors announced plans to phase out Apple CarPlay and Android Auto in its future all-electric models. Google’s Nearby Share is now available on Windows as a beta app. Microsoft introduced Security Copilot, a new AI assistant for cybersecurity professionals. CBS Studios’ upcoming Star Trek: Starfleet Academy was granted a series order at Paramount+. Apple launched Pay Later, allowing users to split their purchases into four payments over six weeks with no interest or fees.
If you want more from The Tech News Source, follow the site on Twitter at @technewssoure and Me on Twitter at @SamGreenwoodTNS. If you’d like to support The Tech News Source, you can find out how to here. You can also go to my website to see more that I do, including my photography and the occasional movie review at samgreenwood.ca.