A decade ago, Jay-Z launched into a record with a plea to “let me be great.” Based on the conversation I had last night with a rockstar group of CIOs and CTOs, you might think Hova was talking about artificial intelligence.
I know, I know, it’s a stretch. You can’t fault me for trying to work Jigga into the newsletter. But at last night’s Fortune dinner, held in collaboration with AMD, the group clearly felt that the biggest bottleneck to AI advancement was…drumroll…humans.
Though the concept has been around for more than three decades, AI is a force to be reckoned with, the tech leaders agreed. It’s a “transformational opportunity,” said one. It’s a “defining moment,” said another. “It will really change the way we work, live, and play,” said one exec, even though we’re only “in the first inning,” as another put it.
However, AI is today “developing faster than an individual or company’s ability to adapt to it,” one tech leader warned, suggesting process growth pains and cycles of job displacement and creation that would require the most human of features: grace and dignity.
A second said that rapid development will force corporations to confront the idea that their “data won’t be as bright and shiny as the tech.” Oof.
A third put an even finer point on it: There is an extraordinary burden on humans to verify AI-provided answers, they said—a human validation limiter. So how do we maintain supervision at scale?
In the end, the lively conversation—which carried on long after plates were cleared—boiled down to bottlenecks: regulatory bottlenecks as policymakers react, organizational bottlenecks as corporations cope, strategic bottlenecks as leaders plan, and yes, some technical bottlenecks, too.
But the biggest one of all? The meatbags operating the magic machines.
To quote an entirely different lyricist: “Same as it ever was.”
P.S. We’ll be talking about this topic and many more at Fortune’s annual, invite-only Brainstorm Tech summit in July. Interested in attending? Register here.
Andrew Nusca
Brainstorm Tech, Editorial Director
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Today’s Data Sheet was curated by Rachyl Jones and Alexei Oreskovic.
NEWSWORTHY
A huge AI valuation. New Jersey-based cloud computing startup CoreWeave, which rents out chips to help create artificial intelligence, raised $1.1 billion from investors, valuing the company at $19 billion, the Wall Street Journal reported Wednesday. Just five months ago, CoreWeave raised $642 million at a $7 billion valuation. The Nvidia-backed company’s latest funding round included investors from Coatue, Magnetar Capital, and Fidelity.
Binance billionaire behind bars. Changpeng Zhao, the founder and former CEO of cryptocurrency exchange Binance was sentenced to four months in prison after pleading guilty to a money-laundering violation, Fortune reported. The company failed to create a sufficient anti-money-laundering system, and internal messages revealed that executives were aware of widespread compliance violations. He faces a significantly lighter sentence than other crypto executives who have faced the courts in recent months, including Sam Bankman-Fried, who received a 25-year sentence on fraud charges.
Anthropic goes enterprise. Amazon-backed generative AI startup Anthropic announced its first iPhone app and a new tier for business use, CNBC reported. The enterprise plan, called Team, includes access to all three versions of the company’s Claude chatbot, with the ability to have longer conversations and upload large documents for the AI to process. Team is available for $30 per user per month.
Cash App and Square parent is under investigation. Federal prosecutors are looking into financial technology firm Block, launched by Twitter cofounder Jack Dorsey, NBC News reported. The company allegedly processed multiple cryptocurrency payments for terrorist organizations, and its payment platform Square processed transactions involving countries with economic sanctions, according to documents from former employees shared with New York prosecutors. Many transactions were kept quiet from the U.S. government, NBC reported.
ON OUR FEED
"And as I dug in to try to understand where all of the capability gaps were between Google and us for model training, I got very, very worried."
Microsoft chief technology officer Kevin Scott in an internal email to senior leadership about the company's lagging AI capabilities versus arch-rival Google. Titled "Thoughts on OpenAI," the email was penned in 2019, shortly before Microsoft announced a $1 billion investment in OpenAI that helped vault Microsoft ahead of Google in the generative AI sector. It was revealed Tuesday as part of the DOJ's antitrust case against Google
IN CASE YOU MISSED IT
For AI startups, a billion-dollar dilemma: Why lofty valuations could be a hurdle in the race for talent, by Sharon Goldman and Allie Garfinkle
Apple’s promised AI plan is ‘all that matters’, analysts say, as it tries to play catch up with Big Tech rivals, by Rachyl Jones
Amazon’s generative AI business has hit a multibillion dollar run rate that’s reaccelerated cloud growth, by Jason Del Rey
The SEC has Ethereum in its crosshairs. But does the agency think Ether is a security? by Leo Schwartz
BEFORE YOU GO
Google's guaranteed basic income. Google's nonprofit arm, Google.org, is funding a program that will give cash stipends to hundreds of San Francisco families who have recently experienced homelessness, as part of an experiment to address the country's homelessness crisis according to the San Francisco Standard. The program, which is being spearheaded by two local charities, will give certain families $1,000 per month with no strings attached while a control group of other families will receive $50 a month. It's one of several recent programs involving the concept of guaranteed basic income, which has been championed by everyone from OpenAI CEO Sam Altman to former presidential candidate Andrew Yang.
