Italian Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni and Pope Francis are teaming up to warn global leaders that diving into AI without ethical considerations could lead to catastrophic consequences. The collaboration, long in the making, will climax with Pope Francis attending the G7 summit in southern Italy at Meloni’s invitation, where he aims to educate leaders on the potential dangers posed by AI.
Concerned about AI’s societal and economic impacts, Meloni has been vocal about her fears regarding job losses and widening inequalities. She recently highlighted these concerns at the UN, coining the term ‘Algorethics’ to emphasise the need for ethical boundaries in technological advancements. Paolo Benanti, a Franciscan friar and advisor to both Meloni and the Pope, stressed the growing power of multinational corporations in AI development, raising alarms about the concentration of wealth and power.
Pope Francis, known for advocating social justice issues, has previously called for an AI ethics conference at the Vatican, drawing global tech giants and international organisations into the discussion. His upcoming address at the G7 summit is expected to focus on AI’s impact on vulnerable populations and could touch on concerns about autonomous weaponry. Meloni, in turn, is poised to advocate for stronger regulations to ensure AI technologies adhere to ethical standards and serve societal interests.
Despite AI hype, recent studies suggest the promised financial benefits for businesses implementing AI projects have been underwhelming. That challenges the optimistic narratives often associated with AI, indicating a need for more cautious and balanced approaches to its development and deployment.
Meta has announced a range of product updates for WhatsApp businesses in India and other countries, introducing AI tools and a Meta Verified program. That announcement was made during the Conversations event in Sao Paulo, Brazil, where Meta detailed that these new features would provide businesses with additional options on WhatsApp. Initially available in India, Brazil, Indonesia, and Colombia, these services will be offered through subscription plans starting at approximately $14 per month.
The Meta Verified program, previously launched for Facebook and Instagram, is now extended to WhatsApp businesses. The verification provides a badge for companies that have registered their information with Meta, offering them protection against impersonation and additional account support. Verified businesses can use WhatsApp across multiple devices, and customers will see the badge on their channels and custom pages, ensuring authenticity and trust.
In addition to verification, Meta is introducing AI tools designed to help businesses enhance customer interactions. These tools can assist with answering common questions, discovering new products, and creating ads for Instagram and Facebook. Moreover, Meta is rolling out a feature that allows users to call businesses directly via WhatsApp, facilitating quick assistance for complex inquiries like travel arrangements or banking needs. The calling feature is currently being tested and will be expanded to more businesses in the coming months.
Samsung Electronics chairman Jay Y. Lee recently held high-level meetings with Meta, Qualcomm, and Amazon leaders to discuss AI, cloud services, and chip technology cooperation. Lee’s discussions with Meta’s Mark Zuckerberg, held at Zuckerberg’s home, included AI and virtual and augmented reality topics. In separate meetings, Lee explored semiconductor collaboration with Amazon CEO Andy Jassy and Qualcomm CEO Cristiano Amon, focusing on memory chips for Amazon’s data centres, cloud services, and chip manufacturing for Qualcomm’s mobile processors.
These discussions are part of Lee’s two-week visit to the United States and will inform Samsung’s upcoming company-wide strategic meeting at the end of June. The meetings aim to bolster Samsung’s position in the competitive semiconductor market, particularly in high-end memory for AI, where Samsung has faced challenges. The company’s newly appointed head of the semiconductor division has emphasised the need for a collective effort to navigate these challenges.
Samsung maintains strong relationships with these tech giants, supplying chips to Amazon for various applications and partnering on TV, mobile, and content projects. With Qualcomm, Samsung’s high-end smartphones feature Snapdragon mobile processors, and the partnership now extends to AI-enabled PCs. Meta, another key client, has collaborated with Samsung on projects like the Gear VR headset and foldable smartphones, showcasing the deep integration of their technologies.
Samsung Electronics is stepping up its game in the AI chip market by streamlining its contract manufacturing process to offer clients a comprehensive, one-stop shop. By integrating its top-tier memory chip, foundry, and chip packaging services, the tech giant aims to accelerate AI chip production by about 20%. The new approach allows clients to work with a single communication channel, significantly reducing the production time for AI chips. At a recent San Jose, California event, Siyoung Choi, President and General Manager of Samsung’s Foundry Business, highlighted the transformative impact of generative AI on the technology landscape.
Looking ahead, Samsung projects the global chip industry revenue to reach $778 billion by 2028, mainly driven by the demand for AI chips. Executive Vice President of Foundry Sales and Marketing, Marco Chisari, echoed this optimism, agreeing with OpenAI CEO Sam Altman’s predictions of a sharp increase in AI chip demand. Unlike other companies, Samsung’s unique combination of selling memory chips, offering foundry services, and designing chips under one roof has often been seen as a competitive disadvantage. However, the rising demand for highly integrated AI chips that process large datasets quickly and efficiently is turning this setup into a competitive advantage.
Samsung is also making strides in chip architecture with its cutting-edge gate-all-around (GAA) technology. The advanced transistor architecture improves chip performance while reducing power consumption, which is crucial for developing more powerful AI chips as they become smaller. While other competitors, including TSMC, are also advancing in GAA technology, Samsung has a head start and plans to mass-produce its second-generation 3-nanometre chips using GAA later this year. Furthermore, Samsung unveiled its 2-nanometre chipmaking process for high-performance computing chips, with mass production scheduled for 2027, positioning itself at the forefront of the AI chip revolution.
As the market for AI applications in specific domains keeps growing, startup LinqAI has found its niche within the financial sector. This platform seeks to make AI tools that are able to adapt to any business environment and take care of simpler tasks like facilitating research or synthesising data.
LinqAI presents the advantage of being trained on materials and large language models (LLMs) relevant to their sector, making this tool more adapted to client’s use cases. It will be entering a field which rapidly adapted to the use of AI. Bloomberg has an AI tool to summarise earning calls, while S&P uses AI to extract relevant information from documents. However, co-founder Jacob Chanyeol Choi says his AI tool goes beyond competitors, introducing a company-specific data-gathering system which will ‘seamlessly integrate with a company’s data ecosystem’.
The tool’s website commits to a ‘no-harvesting’ data policy and transparency with its community. ‘we do not collect or utilise user data for any purposes outside of the immediate functional requirements of our AI tools’, it says.
LinqAI was recently able to secure USD 6.6 million in funding from various organisations and investment firms.
Oracle’s stock soared nearly 9% on Wednesday, propelled by surging demand for its cost-effective cloud infrastructure services, particularly from AI applications. The surge could boost the company’s market valuation by over $28 billion, adding to its current $340 billion valuation. With an 18% increase in shares since the beginning of the year, Oracle is capitalising on the momentum of its cloud infrastructure unit, which offers computing and storage services to businesses at competitive prices, positioning itself against major rivals like Google, Microsoft, and Amazon.
Oracle’s cloud infrastructure has garnered attention from AI startups, including Elon Musk’s xAI, thanks to its affordability compared to competitors. In a strategic move, Oracle recently announced partnerships with ChatGPT-maker OpenAI and Google Cloud to expand its cloud infrastructure offerings. That collaboration strengthens Oracle’s position as an AI platform and extends its database services distribution, as Evercore analyst Kirk Materne highlighted.
While Oracle’s forward earnings estimates stand at 19.59 times, lower than those of its major competitors, its fourth-quarter results missed expectations. Due to increasing competition from more cost-effective alternatives, the company faces challenges in its legacy database and enterprise resource planning (ERP) software business. Morningstar analyst Julie Sharma suggests that Oracle may experience customer churn as businesses undergo significant digital transformations, opting for cheaper database and ERP solutions over Oracle’s offerings.
Particle, a news-reader startup developed by former Twitter engineers, is partnering with publishers to navigate the evolving landscape of news consumption in the AI era. By leveraging AI technology, Particle aims to provide news summaries from various publishers through its app, offering readers a comprehensive understanding of current events from multiple perspectives. That approach seeks to address concerns within the publishing industry about potential revenue loss due to AI-driven news summaries.
Now, Particle has teamed up with Reuters to explore new business models in a significant move. The startup has subscribed to Reuters newswire to enhance its news delivery capabilities. Additionally, Particle secured $10.9 million in Series A funding led by Lightspeed Venture Partners, with investments from media giant Axel Springer. These partnerships and investments underscore Particle’s commitment to collaborating with publishers to address their needs and goals in the rapidly evolving media landscape.
Particle’s co-founder, Sara Beykpour, emphasises the startup’s focus on delivering value to news consumers beyond AI summaries. With a mission to help readers cut through the noise and understand the news faster, Particle offers a personalised news experience while ensuring exposure to diverse viewpoints. By presenting news stories holistically and integrating perspectives from multiple outlets, Particle aims to combat information overload and mitigate media bias.
Why does it matter?
Despite its innovative approach, Particle has yet to finalise its business model. The startup actively engages with publishers to develop a sustainable model that benefits readers and publishers. Possibilities include revenue sharing, advertising, and more, with input from industry stakeholders shaping the future direction of Particle’s business strategy.
Brazil’s government has enlisted OpenAI’s services to streamline the assessment of thousands of lawsuits using AI, aiming to mitigate costly court losses that have burdened the federal budget. Through Microsoft’s Azure cloud-computing platform, OpenAI’s AI technology, including ChatGPT, will identify lawsuits requiring prompt government action and analyse trends and potential focus areas for the solicitor general’s office (AGU).
The AGU revealed that Microsoft would facilitate the AI services from OpenAI, though the exact cost of Brazil’s procurement remains undisclosed. The initiative responds to the escalating financial strain caused by court-ordered debt payments, which are anticipated to reach 70.7 billion reais ($13.2 billion) next year, excluding smaller claims. The surge from 37.3 billion reais in 2015, equivalent to about 1% of GDP, surpasses government expenditures on unemployment insurance and wage bonuses for low-income earners by 15%.
While the AGU has not clarified the reasons behind Brazil’s mounting court expenses, it assures that the AI project will not supplant human efforts but enhance efficiency and precision, all under human supervision. This move aligns with broader governmental efforts, including releasing 25 million reais in supplementary credits for AGU in March to implement strategic IT projects and bolster operational capacities.
Two partnerships were unveiled at Apple’s yearly Worldwide Developer Conference on Monday; one on stage and one in the fine-print. A partnership with OpenAI to use GPT 4.0 within Siri’s Apple Intelligence was openly publicised, but use of Google chips to build the AI tools was not.
Initially, it would seem as though the two companies are at odds. Apple would be set to compete with Google’s Gemini over their AI systems, while the OpenAI partnership could potentially mean reduced access to customer data through Siri.
However, a technical document published by Apple after the event reveals that in order to build their AI models, Apple used its own framework software. This software depended on various pieces of Apple’s own hardware, but also tensor processing chips (TPCs). These are exclusively available for purchase through Google’s cloud. Google is among various companies competing with Nvidia’s AI-capable chips, which have been dominating the market recently.
Apple did not immediately reply after Reuters requested comment. It has not detailed how much it depends on third-party chips for the development of its new AI system.
Pope Francis is set to make history at the upcoming G7 summit in Italy’s Puglia region by becoming the first pope to address the gathering’s discussions on AI. His participation underscores his commitment to ensuring that AI development aligns with human values and serves the common good. The 87-year-old pontiff recognises the potential of AI for positive change but also emphasises the need for careful regulation to prevent its misuse and safeguard against potential risks.
At the heart of the pope’s message is the call for an ethical framework to guide AI development and usage. Through initiatives like the ‘Rome Call for AI Ethics’, the Vatican seeks to promote transparency, inclusion, responsibility, and impartiality in AI endeavours. Notably, major tech companies like Microsoft, IBM, Cisco Systems, and international organisations have endorsed these principles.
During the G7 summit, Pope Francis is expected to advocate for international cooperation in AI regulation. He emphasises the importance of addressing global inequalities in access to technology and mitigating threats like AI-controlled weapons and the spread of misinformation. His presence at the summit signifies a proactive engagement with contemporary issues, reflecting his vision of a Church actively involved in shaping the world’s future.
The pope’s decision to address AI at the G7 summit follows concerns about the rise of ‘deepfake’ technology, exemplified by manipulated images of himself circulating online. He recognises the transformative potential of AI in the 21st century and seeks to ensure its development aligns with human dignity and social justice. Through his participation, Pope Francis aims to contribute to the creation of an ethical and regulatory framework that promotes the responsible use of AI for the benefit of all humanity.
