Civil war in the AI community ➡ Open vs. closed AI platforms ... Top AI stories TL;DR 3Nov23

Last update: 11/3/23 

This week's top stories covered two related developments. The first played out onstage in three of the grandest global venues; whereas the second unfolded backstage ... Note: The current edition of "Useful AI News" can be found ➡ HERE

The onstage global developments featured ultra polite, high sounding speeches and broad non-binding agreements among policy leaders who strove mightily to convince their audiences in the media that they really understood the meaning of their speeches and agreements about why and how Ai should be regulated. 

The backstage developments featured world class experts in AI who were not polite to one another. Indeed, their no-holds-barred exchanges resounded like cannon volleys in a civil war. The pessimistic advocates of closed AI platforms urged immediate government regulation of AI, such as was being proposed by the onstage policy actors, because of their certainty that the dangers of the newest AI technologies are potentially catastrophic.

By contrast, the optimistic advocates of open platforms opposed regulation at this time because they think that the newest AI tech is so new that we cannot make credible predictions about its future development. Some open advocates accused closed advocates from Big Tech companies of "fearmongering" designed to consolidate Big Tech's current positions as the world's AI leaderss.

The editor of this blog recommends that his readers merely skim the headlines for the first story, but somehow find the time to read the second story's articles that cover the arguments among the experts. Given that the doomsayers have received and probably will continue to receive far more coverage in the media, the editor also recommends that his readers attempt to correct this imbalance by reading the following long piece by another ardent advocate for open AI platforms:  "Attenuating Innovation (AI)",  Ben Thompson, STRATCHERY, 11/1/23

Top 2 stories this week ...

1. Policy
   "The ‘World Cup’ of AI policy: will USA win?", Sharon Goldman, VentureBeat, 10/31/23 ... This article applies a soccer championship metaphor to three overlapping AI "Big Policy" events  *** 
   
   a. "Joe Biden’s Big AI Plan Sounds Scary—but Lacks Bite", Matt Laslo, Wired, 10/31/23  ...  This event also coveed by NY Times, VentureBeat, Forbes, 
   
   b. "World leaders are gathering at the U.K.’s AI Summit. Doom is on the agenda.", Cat Zakrzewski, Anthony Faiola and Gerrit De Vynck, Washington Post, 10/31/23 ... The "Bletchley Declaration" that emerged from this meeting was discussed by ZDNet, Wired
   
   c. "G7 to agree AI code of conduct for companies", Foo Yun Chee, Reuters, 10/29/23   ...  This event also covered by Forbes, VentureBeat
   
   
2. OpEds
   Civil war breaks out among AI experts ... open vs. closed AI platforms
   
   a. Yann LeCun's manifesto, megapost on X/Twitter, 10/29/23
   
   b. "Google DeepMind boss hits back at Meta AI chief [Yann LeCun] over ‘fearmongering’ claim", Ryan Browne, CNBC, 10/31/23

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