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Believe the Hype: John Doerr, the Venture Capitalist Who Bet on Google, Says AI Is 'Underhyped' (Wall Street Journal)
People in Silicon Valley talk about waves of innovation. Venture capitalist John Doerr calls them tsunamis -- and they come about every 13 years.
Doerr's timeline starts in 1980 with the personal computer and microchip revolution, followed by the browser and the internet, the iPhone and cloud computing. Now comes what he believes is the biggest tsunami of them all: generative artificial intelligence.
"Just three years after ChatGPT was launched, 50% of Americans say they use generative AI, and the value creation is off the charts," Doerr says. He says AI "has been underhyped."
David Solomon: I’m the C.E.O. of Goldman Sachs. The A.I. Job Apocalypse Is Overblown. (New York Times Opinion)
"In conversations with hundreds of business leaders over the past few months, I’ve seen a sharp divide in their views of artificial intelligence. One camp sees a “job apocalypse” and mass unemployment ahead; the other sees a great leap forward for society, writes Goldman Sachs CEO David Solomon in an guest opinion piece for the Times.
"Put me in the second camp — with a few caveats. Will A.I. disrupt the labor market? Absolutely. This transition, like other significant moments in our history, will entail new challenges, especially as A.I. separates labor from productivity in magnitudes we haven’t seen before. But the United States has a long track record of creating new jobs in response to disruption, from the electrification of the 1900s to the digital revolution of the 1990s; I don’t see any reason to think this dynamic will stop now," he writes.
Pope Says AI Should Be Disarmed to Avoid Dominating Humanity (Bloomberg)
In a landmark address to the Catholic Church, which included a video presentation with images of the Industrial Revolution, World War II and the Berlin Wall falling, the pope called for making AI more “human-friendly.” He said the technology needs to be freed from monopolistic control, shifting away from using it to achieve geopolitical or commercial gains.
In raising the alarm on the risks of unregulated AI, it’s telling that the Vatican extended an invitation to Anthropic’s co-founder Christopher Olah, an expert in machine learning, to participate. The maker of the popular Claude chatbot has clashed with the Trump administration over the use of its technology for war and surveillance.
In a speech following the pope’s presentation, Olah said: “We need informed critics who will tell the labs when we are failing. We need moral voices that the incentives cannot bend.”
Boom: Micron Shares Rally, UBS Projects $1.8 Trillion Market Value (Bloomberg)
Micron Technology's market capitalization, which has soared about 700% over the past year, will more than double over the next 12 months, according to at least one analyst.
UBS Group AG on Tuesday boosted its price target for the Boise, Idaho-based chipmaker to a street high of $1,625, roughly 116% higher than its close on Friday of $751.
The new guidance is more than 200% higher than UBS’s previous target of $535 and implies a market value of more than $1.8 trillion that is larger than the current market capitalization of companies like Meta Platforms, Tesla and Berkshire Hathaway.
Markets Today: AI is Changing the Way Brazilian Financial Markets Make Decisions (TI Inside)
"In the financial sector, progress depends not only on the capabilities of the models, but also on the quality of the data, specialized knowledge, governance, and human judgment," writes Bloomberg's Gary Kazantsev, Global Head of Quantitative Technology, Office of the CTO. "Many institutions are still grappling with the most complex challenges of accessing talent, data, validation, and control. In the financial sector, trust must be built into the product."
TX Shakeup: Paxton Trounces Cornyn in Texas Runoff After Winning Trump Nod
(Bloomberg)
Texas
Attorney General Ken Paxton stormed to a blowout victory in the state’s Republican Senate runoff, handily defeating four-term incumbent John Cornyn and setting the stage for a November showdown with a well-funded Democrat, James Talarico.
Paxton clinched the nomination a week after securing an endorsement from President Trump in one of the most expensive primaries in Senate history. Cornyn conceded shortly after polls closed.
Paxton’s victory, the first time since 1970
that an insurgent has won a primary against a sitting Texas senator, underscores Trump’s sway with Republican voters — but it also opens the door to a more serious challenge in November as the Democrats fight to flip both houses of Congress. Paxton, a conservative firebrand with a history of scandal, will face Talarico as national polls show voters souring on Trump’s handling of the economy and the war with Iran.
'Heat Dome' Bakes Europe: Hottest May Day Record Broken Again as Temperature Hits 35.1C in London (BBC News)
Scientists have little doubt that human-caused climate change - largely the result of the burning of coal, oil and gas - has supercharged the heat, the BBC reports.
Over the last 30 years, Europe has been warming by 0.56C per decade – more than twice the global average, according to the Copernicus climate service. That might not sound like much, but it is a seismic change in climate terms and enough to make heat extremes significantly more intense.
Wearable Wave: Google’s Fitbit Air Tracker Gives Whoop Some Serious Competition (Bloomberg)
The Fitbit Air, a new $100 screenless wearable
from Alphabet’s Google, represents a major evolution in what consumers can expect from fitness trackers as tech companies race into an era of personalized health and artificial intelligence-powered wellness insights.
It’s also undeniably an answer to the rise of Whoop, a maker of fitness trackers that has found an eager fanbase in recent years among athletes and health-minded consumers. Whoop now has more than 2.5 million subscribers and a valuation exceeding $10 billion. Like smart ring pioneer Oura Health, Whoop has taken a broad approach to fitness by proactively monitoring users’ health and formulating detailed plans to help achieve their desired outcome.
For this audience, spitting out workout statistics and daily step counts — the bread and butter of conventional fitness trackers — is no longer enough: They want a much fuller understanding of their progress. Google is trying to appease that crowd while also appealing to a much wider swath of mainstream consumers.
NYC Dining Guide: Five Hot New York Restaurants Now, From Viral Pizza to an Up-All-Night Hangout (Bloomberg Pursuits - Kate Krader)
Five top dining rooms to hit in the Big Apple right now include:
Or'esh in SoHo, Bar Primi with handy proximity to Madison Square Garden, as well as a beloved Ukrainian spot Veselka that has recently — in true New York City spirit — extended to 24-hour service. And then there’s a Japanese pizza place, Pizza Studio Tamaki, that’s taken the city by storm as well as Yingtao with its Chinese tasting menu in Hell's Kitchen.
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