Montana becomes the first state to ban TikTok, Is that Windows update slowing you down? And the first official policy to eliminate jobs in favour of AI is leaked to Bloomberg.
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These stories and more on Hashtag Trending, for Monday, April 17th. I’m your host Jim Love, CIO of ITWC – IT World Canada and TechNewsDay in the US.
Montana became the first state to ban TikTok on Friday of last week. The Montana legislature voted 54 to 43 to approve the ban which prohibits mobile app stores from offering TikTok for download to users in Montana.
The bill has now gone to Montana’s Governor, Greg Gianforte for signing. A spokesperson for the governor says he “will carefully consider any bill the legislature sends to his desk.
If the bill is signed into law TikTok and the Apple and Google stores could be subject to penalties for allowing downloads, although it’s not certain exactly how they would enforce the ban for both the people in Montana who have not yet downloaded TikTok.
Despite that, and especially after the grilling that they took in front of a US congressional committee recently, TikTok is seriously pushing back.
They put out a statement, “We will continue to fight for TikTok users and creators in Montana whose livelihoods and First Amendment rights are threatened by this egregious government overreach.
And on its US website, TikTok has, what else, but a video that emphasizes that all US data is securely stored in the US using facilities from Oracle, a US company. In addition it claims that is has spent 1.5 billion dollars on ensuring that US data is securely stored as well as outlining how it plans to build an independent governance body to ensure security of data.
Sources include: Reuters TikTok
Have you noticed a big slow down in computer speed on your Windows computer recently? It could be the result of a new update. According to a story in TechRadar, the latest Windows 11 update is causing some severe problems for some users.
The blog WindowsLatest reported that they had received emails as well as finding forum posts claiming that “the problems range from File Explorer (explorer.exe) crashes to icons disappearing from the desktop to performance issues and even SSD slowdown.”
This places users in a bit of a dilemma in that the update that is supposedly causing these issues is a mandatory security update and the only real way to address the problems it might be causing is to uninstall the update.
Sources include: TechRadar
Well, if you’ve ever wondered when the job losses from Generative AI would start, wonder no more. One of China’s largest PR and media companies, Bluefocus Intelligent Communications Group has reportedly started the process of replacing its external copywriters and graphic designers with generative AI.
Bloomberg news has reported that their staff have seen an internal staff memo which states “To embrace the new wave of AI-generated content, starting today we’ve decided to halt all spending on third-party copywriters and designers.”
Bluefocus has reportedly reached out to Alibaba and Baidu to license their AI technology.
Market reaction has been extremely favourable and the company’s stock jumped 19 per cent on Thursday.
A recent paper published by Goldman Sachs has stated that “two thirds of occupations could be partially automated by AI” and that equivalent of 300 million jobs that could be automated.
In fairness, the same report also states that AI could drive as much as 7 trillion dollars growth in global gross domestic product over the next 10 years.
AI will eliminate some work but may also create new jobs.
But in the short run, when you see a company, even one in China, that announces that it will replace workers with AI and then you see a big upward move in share prices, you have to think there is disruption on the horizon.
Sources include: TechRadar
The US could soon be home to the world’s first 3D printed hotel. According to an article in the blog Interesting Engineering, Liz Lambert, who has been dubbed the Queen of Cool for her boutique hotel designs, the Danish design firm BIG and a 3D construction company startup will be partnering to build, or rather print, the first 3D printed hotel in 2023 in Marfa, Texas.
The 3D printing startup has developed what they have termed a Vulcan printer which produces a material called Lavacrete. This hotel is not the first time this system has been used, but given the reputations of Lambert and the Danish design firm BIG, it’s bound to attract significant attention.
While there has been a ton of focus on AI as an automation tool, the developments in 3D printing also have a huge potential to have an impact on all aspects of manufacturing and construction. Recently HP announced that it had new 3D printers coming to market what could print metal instead of the plastic that has dominated 3D printing.
Sources include: Interesting Engineering
OpenAI is investing 23.5 million dollars into a project to create a humanoid robot that will directly compete with Tesla’s Optimus.
A Norwegian robotics and engineering company called 1X, formerly known as Halodi Robotics received the money from OpenAI’s startup fund to develop a bipedal humanoid robot named NEO and to scale the manufacturing of its existing high mobility robot EVE, which the company unveiled in 2019
The company plans to deploy these robots in North America and later globally to replace laborers in various industries to help solve the current labour shortage.
A Reddit post in the r/prompt_learning forum featured this story with a closing line, “Amid these developments, there are concerns about the potential ethical risks of Artificial Intelligence, leading experts to demand an International Panel on Technological Change.”
Oh come on, AI, humanoid robots – what could possibly go wrong?
Sources include: Reddit
That’s the top tech news for today. Hashtag Trending goes to air five days a week with the daily top tech news stories and we have a special weekend edition where we do an in depth interview with an expert on some tech development that is making the news.
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I’m your host, Jim Love, have a Marvelous Monday.