Artificial Intelligence
Meta’s Large Language Model AI “Galactica”, trained on good quality training data is shut down immediately following harmful and false outputs
…the training data used included 48million or so academic papers, text books, lecture notes etc. It was not scraping off the internet full of uploads of uncertain origin. Galactica was touted to be able to summarise academic papers, solve mathematical problems, generate Wiki articles, write scientific code, annotate molecules and proteins, and more. Output sounded authoritative, but harmful and biased despite the quality of training data.
Note
What is a Large Language Model?: These are machine learning algorithms that can recognize, predict, and generate human languages on the basis of very large text-based data sets. They work out statistical connections between different words.
What is the difference between Natural Language Processing and Speech Recognition?: NLP is a system that can understand language, understand sentiment, understand meaning and respond to inputs or come up with further questions. Speech Recognition is the ability to interpret spoken words and convert them into text.
One generative AI music hits 100million streams
…Generative AI is a category of machine learning where computers can generate original new content in response to prompts from the user [I’ve taken VC firm a16z’s definition here]. In short, it’s more than working out patterns and creating something from patterns – the AI can come up with new patterns. In terms of music, I guess you can input Taylor Swift type pop music in baroque/drum and base fusion form sung by the Beatles – to come up with a random example. Using generative AI, out pops new music.
Chinese BigTech Tencent said they’ve created over 1000 tracks with vocals created by “patented voice synthesis technology”, one of which going viral, amassing 100million streams. TikTok parent ByteDance is at it too. Following acquisition of UK AI music start up Jukedeck, it has launched Mawf – machine learning based music making app. BTS must now serve the Korean army so they are [or rather the label is] looking into the use of the technology whilst they are in service.
BigTech/ Data / Platforms
Privacy
Following Germany, France bans free Office 365 and Google Workspace offering for schools
…this is all about compliance with EU citizens’ data and safeguarding them from being turned over to the US government (per the CLOUD Act) in violation with the GDPR. Office 365 and Google Workspace are cloud based tools, which may transfer data about users to US data centres. To address the problem, EU and the US are trying to put in place a Transatlantic Data Privacy Network. An agreement in principle has been reached, and last month President Biden signed the Executive Order limiting US intelligence authorities access to what is necessary and proportionate to protect national security, with oversight by a non-governmental court (Data Protection Review Court). It is now down to the EU to process the next steps.
App developers say Apple collects data (such as browsing history) from first party apps (App Store, Apple Music, Apple TV, Books and Stocks) despite users explicit withdrawal of consent for Apple to collect data – class action now filed
…however, according to information received by appleinsider, the data complained of is likely to be taken on the server side – which is a different issue from settings on the device, and Apple tracking your activity on the device (despite there being no consent). Even where the user specifies that the device should not track user activity, the server-side (the app-side) can continue to collect data, it is explained, just like Netflix might need to record your view history on the app to provide the service (eg. so it can stream you content from where you left it last).
Human rights advocate sue Meta in the UK for failing to honor requests not to gather information and carry out profiling in contravention of GDPR
…and the equivalent UK data protection law. Article 21 of GDPR gives persons the right to object to processing of personal data. The Claimant, who is reportedly a senior fellow at the advocacy group Foxglove claims that Meta disregards her wishes and continues to send “surveillance ads”. Incidentally Foxglove is lobbying the UK’s Competition Markets Authority to block Amazon’s purchase of home vacuum robot Roomba. Foxglove says Roomba can hoover up data on users’ home layouts and use that, in conjunction with other devices such as Ring and Alexa to carry out surveillance.
Content Moderation
He’s back on Twitter!
…I am of course referring to Trump. His last post? On 6 January 2021. As if he wanted a reminder. New Twitter owner and CEO Elon Musk held a Twitter poll on whether Trump’s account should be reinstated and the people have spoken, it has been reported. This presents a reversal from the life time ban imposed before the Musk takeover. Trump himself now has his own platform Truth Social although take up on that platform has been reported to be less than patchy. Trump has legal and financial reasons why he needs to exclusively stick to Truth Social, so the BBC explains. Many anticipated Musk who has branded himself a free speech absolutist (albeit one that respects the bounds of the law) will bring Trump back. But he did so after a Twitter poll, not out of principle, which is interesting. Musk said that he will ensure “freedom of speech but not freedom of reach”, meaning those statements that are imbued with hate will be deboosted. Misinformation will be struck off following five violations. In effect, you could be harmful, but either they will end up speaking to a void, or in the case of misinformation be taken off the platform.
UK to criminalise encouragement of self-harm
…there has been much debate surrounding UK’s Online Safety laws. Initially, it included responsibility of platforms to remove “legal but harmful” content. But this was criticised as being vague – does it mean you can’t post content concerning different types of diet methods, which may be arguably harmful, but may not be? Spotlight on the law intensified as the inquest found that a UK teenager’s suicide was influenced by consumption of suicide and self-harm content on social media. The government has solved this issue by making it an actual offence to encourage self-harm.
ESG
Vodafone to sell second hand phones – as part of a drive to reach net zero operations by 2027
…some concerns about data security and battery life but survey response reportedly positive on such offering.
Finnish fuel provider Neste completes delivery of 500,000 gallons of Sustainable Aviation Fuel to Los Angeles International Airport (LAX)
…says Neste, its SAF blend is made from “100% sustainably sourced renewable waste and residue raw materials, including used cooking oil and animal fat waste,” and reduces carbon emissions by up to 80%.
EVs/AVs
Sony-Honda venture plans to attract buyers using attractive in-car entertainment offering
…says the FT article. To my mind that was obvious from the outset, given that future customers have been touted to make decisions based on car UX [user experience]. Chip analyst at Gartner is reported to have opined that some car manufacturers are designing own chips to gain control of product development process and supply chains (as well as of course controlling cost). Sony-Honda plans to offer music, movies and PlayStations in car. What I am not sure is whether the content would also be made available through other car makers, or whether it will be exclusively offered by the venture – or somewhere in between (in which some offerings will be available by other car makers but some will be exclusive content or features for Sony-Honda cars).
Livent – Lithium supplier to Tesla, GM and BMW says no way is there enough Lithium to meet the total demand
…such was also the opinion of Carlos Tavares, head of Stellantis. Cheaper EVs will suffer as car makers prioritise higher value cars, middle class will be squeezed out of vehicle ownership and there will likely be a delay in phasing out ICE (internal combustion engine) cars. This piece segues nicely to the next piece…
Car makers resist cutting China out of the EV supply chain
…and this includes Ford, which are supplied batteries made by the largest battery maker CATL of China. The Inflation Reduction Act gives maximum tax credit of $7,500 for EVs which must not have battery components made or assembled by “a foreign entity of concern” [ie: China, Russia, Iran and North Korea]. This means cars which fall foul of the Inflation Reduction Act will be at a significant competitive disadvantage. European car makers are though the biggest opponents of an outright ban of Chinese content – Volkswagen is reportedly suggesting 10%. The article linked notes that China controls the processing of 35% of the world’s nickel, half the lithium, 60% of cobalt and 90% of rare-earth elements. Note also that significant proportion of class 1 nickel comes from Russia.
Lyft, US’s biggest e-bike-sharing operator to partner with Redwood Materials to recycle its e-bike and e-scooter batteries
…Redwood Materials founder is Tesla co-founder J.B. Straubel. Redwood also recycles EV batteries from Ford, Toyota, Nissan, Volve, Specialized, Amazon, and others. Every step of the recycling process will be carried out in the US. The article notes that e-waste recycling can be carried out in countries which lack the infrastructure causing harm and damage.
Tesla to build a gigafactory in South Korea – home of LG Energy Solution
…the second largest EV batter maker. Makes sense. But how does Elon Musk have the time to set this up when he appears to be tied up in constructive (? – some will disagree) destruction.
Gaming/Metaverse/NFTs
Instagram enables creators to trade NFTs including those with exclusive benefits
…this will mean followers can support their creators and have closer access. Creators can build a community more easily. NFTs can be normalised [with a potential to feeding into Meta’s Horizon World Metaverse – somehow?]. Collectors of NFT can display what they own. And it can present an extra revenue stream from the NFT transactions, although in order to facilitate adoption Instagram will not be taking a cut until 2024.
The real opportunity for the Metaverse is not in the consumer metaverse says Chief Executive of Nokia
…but in enterprise and industrial metaverse. Enterprise metaverse is where you co-design with customers , and industrial metaverse is where you manufacture, he explains. You may be more familiar with the concept as digital twins. The article provides links to leading builders of digital twins, GE and Siemens – which are both excellent to read with videos to accelerate your understanding on how it all works.
The Gaming world embraces Diversity and Inclusion in Character Creations – by removing gender restrictions
…for example, if you were playing World of Warcraft Dragonflight, you won’t be asked if you would like your avatar to be male or female, but you can choose between Body Type 1 or Body Type 2. You can be a typically male body type, but have more female costumes, or non-gender. This does not apply just to World of Warcraft, but other games too, such as Nintendo’s Animal Crossing, EA’s The Sims 4, SquareEnix’s Harvestella and even Harry Potter game Hogwarts Legacy (given author JK Rowling’s stance on transgender persons). Given that one fifth of Gen Z Americans identify as LGBT, the gaming world is fast catering to that significant proportion of potential gamers who were perhaps not as included as before [and note, it isn’t just Gen Z, the rise of older people dabbling in gaming is noted]. Gamers can relate to their avatars better, the community will normalise non-binary in the gaming community, and more games will be sold. Everyone is a winner.
Telecoms
Vodafone phone carrier (including in O-RAN) to develop next generation 5G platforms based on chips from EdgeQ – leading maker of a base station on a chip
…you probably know Vodafone (but did you know that they were pioneers in O-RAN?) but you may not have heard of EdgeQ. EdgeQ is a start-up led by executives from Qualcomm, Intel, and Broadcom, and is described as pioneering converged connectivity and AI that is fully software-customizable and programmable. The chip will not be based on the ARM architecture, but based on RISC-V, which is an open standard. What Vodafone is doing by adopting EdgeQ’s software defined chips is to spread the cost of building up and adding new features to the network. As I understand it, traditional business models require the network operator to pay upfront for equipment including all features whether wanted or not.
“Our partnership with Vodafone elevates the aspirations of OpenRAN. We are able to assemble best-of-breed hardware and software solutions to set new industry benchmarks. This in turn enables operators to embrace a holistic 4G-5G platform that is frictionlessly scalable, massively integrated, but yet openly customizable,” said Vinay Ravuri, CEO and Founder of EdgeQ.
Note
What is Open RAN: The current wireless connections are provided by a hardware/software integrated platform (there are three main ones in the world – Nokia, Ericsson and Huawei – and maybe ZTE and Samsung too) that provide a service end to end. In an Open RAN configuration, technologies are not integrated – software has open interfaces and can be sourced by variety of suppliers, and are hardware neutral – so hardware too can be sourced by a variety of suppliers, and in fact commercial off the shelf parts for PCs can be used. So if you need to upgrade a piece of hardware or software, you have a number of vendors you can source from. And for sure, there is scope for cost cutting because it is much more competitive in the Open RAN system in some respects (but maybe not others – integration costs/ energy costs may be higher).
Nokia launches Core Software-as-a-Service for 5G
…Nokia explains that this eliminates large up front capital expenditure and avoids the need to perform on-site software maintenance and updates. This follows Nokia’s launch of a Software-as-a-Service (SaaS), AVA Charging, to help communication service providers (CSPs) and enterprises quickly commercialize new offerings for 5G and IoT use cases (examples given are cloud gaming, utilities, logistics and healthcare).
BT’s networking division Openreach to limit its reach of fibre broadband network due to cost cutting needs
…this is an issue not just for BT (formerly British Telecom), but all over the world. The issue has become acute due to:
- Inflation
- …and hence rise in the Interest rate
- Factory closures in Russia (which produce Helium, which is a critical ingredient for fibre optic cables)
Network companies are calling on the EU to compel BigTech companies (GAFAM & Netflix) to pay their fair share, given that they account for 55% of the traffic, from which they profit amply (SK Telecom of South Korea successfully sued Netflix to pay up because they were compelled to upgrade the network owing to the very popular Squid Games viewing traffic), and major cable businesses in the US are reported to have decided to upgrade their copper networks instead due to the cost of fibre upgrade.
The lack of cashpile comes at a critical point for BT as private investor (think KKR, Goldman Sachs, Macqarie…) backed alternative networks (or altnets – examples include CityFibre, Hyperoptic, Gigaclear and Community Fibre) have joined the digging race – in the belief that if they get there first, BT won’t go over the conquered ground. BT’s Openreach division makes money by selling its broadband to internet service providers such as Vodafone, TalkTalk, and Sky. The reduction in scope of fibre roll out is aimed at reducing broadband prices, to keep these large customers as well as attract new ones. Competitors are claiming that it is an attempt to undercut rivals.
Delving Deeper
…when you think that the GDPR was proposed just over 10 years ago, one can’t help but be impressed about how right the EU was back then, regardless of how the proposal came about. Very roughly – my own take on it is that the EU realised that it had been a little sleepy at the wheel, realised that the digital economy has been taken over by the US (ie: GAFAM), and thought about how it can compete with it in the future. One measure was the GDPR. Its objective was to prioritise EU citizens’ rights – the right to control their own data, and to strengthen consumers’ trust in the European digital economy. Alongside this, they proposed other measures to fully unlock the value in the data economy, such as strengthening cybersecurity within the EU, creating EU wide sector-specific data spaces, opening up use of public data for others’ use where possible, and now passing the Digital Markets Act and Digital Services Act to encourage competition and further limit harmful content respectively.
Back to the letter. The Attorney Generals are concerned about the scale of the taking of sensitive consumer data which has led to commercial surveillance economy and the exposure of consumers’ privacy and security to those who seek to steal digital identities or otherwise misuse data (including scamming, defrauding, doxing (disclosing identifiable information), blackmailing).
The letter provides a good summary of what main types of sensitive data are subject to collection and how they are traded:
Location Data
- What’s the sensitivity: reveals intimate details of daily life—such as where they live and work, their shopping habits, their daily schedule, or whether they visited the doctor or pharmacy.
- How use can cause harm: advertisers can predict who is likely to visit a nearby store if nudged by an advertisement, identification of vulnerable consumers, to discriminate between consumers (this is called “digital redlining” – prime example is where loans are withheld based on data which indicates the users’ race or location of residence).
Biometric Data
- What’s the sensitivity: it cannot be anonymized. It uniquely identifies the person.
- How use can cause harm: Companies collect employee biometric data for security purposes of entry, clocking in or out, and verification of identity, meaning abuse can lead to major breaches in security. Biometric information can also be used to discriminate.
Medical Data
This includes data collected by wearables (such as smartwatches or heart monitors), health “Internet of Things” (“IoT”) devices (like smart scales, thermometers, pill dispensers, or sleep monitors), and health or wellness mobile applications.
- What’s the sensitivity: It can reveal sensitive information about the person (eg. HIV status)
- How use can cause harm: Google and other search engines store consumer internet queries, including health-related internet searches. That can then be sold to advertisers. A person whose data indicates that she is pregnant can be targeted with pregnancy or baby related advertisements. It can also reveal termination of pregnancies (which can be illegal in some states).
Issues with data brokers
- Data brokers typically collect data using “surveillance technologies” , which includes tracker software development kits (“SDKs”), advertising IDs, and tracking cookies to monitor consumers
- Even anonymised data can, when such data are pieced together, enable identification of a person.
- The letter explains that data brokers can:
- profile consumers by scouring social media profiles, internet browsing history, online and offline purchase history, credit card information, and government records, including driver’s license/motor vehicle records, census data, birth certificates, marriage licenses, and voter registration information.
- use profiled information to categorize consumers into audiences based on susceptibility to certain advertising or likelihood to buy certain products, such as “Thrifty Elders,” “Truckin’ & Stylin’,” or “Underbanked. [part of me is intrigued to know what bucket I’m in]
- Data brokers have no relationship with the data subjects and do not obtain knowing and meaningful consent from consumers before tracking them and selling access to their profiles
- No easy way for consumers to prevent data brokers from exploiting their data.
General issues which need to be addressed
- Free-apps which take data in return for providing a free service
- Consumers are unaware that data are being collected / or they are aware but feel powerless to prevent it
- Businesses also unaware that it is storing personally identifiable information
- Unclear privacy policies
- Lack of choice on how to prevent collection of data (eg. turning off GPS location (to prevent the taking of location data) on a phone may not be enough, as Bluetooth, nearby wi-fi networks, IP addresses, or other identifiers are still used to determine location)
- Dark patterns (“manipulative design practices” that trick or manipulate users into making choices they would not otherwise have made and that may cause harm)
- Privacy policies which are not complied with by developers
- Developers not understanding how third party tools on their own apps can utilise collected data
The solution they say lies in passing GDPR-like laws which compel data minimization to mitigate concerns surrounding data aggregation, and more. They urge the FTC to provide illustrative examples of compatible and incompatible data practices.