Protecting Competition in New and Emerging Technologies

Mashable | Sep 03, 2024

• In short: climate-conscious, AI-hungry companies like Google and Microsoft have become a little compartmentalized. They can tell you exactly how many kilograms of carbon your next plane flight is going to emit, but won't offer the same when it comes to your next AI-written term paper or AI-painted Pope in a puffy jacket.

CNBC | Aug 30, 2024

• Microsoft, Google and Amazon along with other tech companies have been getting creative in how they’re poaching talent from top artificial intelligence startups.

The Atlantic | Aug 30, 2024

• Reid Hoffman, the LinkedIn founder and Democratic megadonor, seems to love almost everything about the Biden administration. And, he says, he’s “thrilled” by the prospect of a Kamala Harris presidency. That’s why he’s donating $10 million to support her campaign. He has just one request: Fire Lina Khan.

Pro Market | Aug 29, 2024

• John B. Kirkwood explains six ways in which Big Tech’s alliances with AI startups could harm competition, making clear that the antitrust agencies have good reason to monitor and investigate them.

Time | Aug 29, 2024

• Google has officially been named a monopoly. On Aug. 5, a federal judge charged the tech giant with illegally using its market power to harm rival search engines, marking the first antitrust defeat for a major internet platform in more than 20 years—and thereby calling into question the business practices of Silicon Valley’s most powerful companies.

LA Times | Aug 29, 2024

• You may have heard in recent days about a proposed new public-private partnership between Google and the state that allegedly helps protect the collapsing news industry from total wreckage — labeled as a happy alternative to two pieces of legislation that were moving through the statehouse, but have now been killed.

The Economist | Aug 22, 2024

• Since early 2019 the combined worth of the tech giants has more than tripled, to $11.8trn. Add in Nvidia, the only other American firm valued in the trillions, thanks to its pivotal role in generative artificial intelligence (ai), and they fetch more than one and a half times the value of America’s next 25 firms put together. That includes big oil (ExxonMobil and Chevron), big pharma (Eli Lilly and Johnson & Johnson), big finance (Berkshire Hathaway and JPMorgan Chase) and big retail (Walmart). In other words, while the tech illuminati have grown bigger and more powerful, the rest lag ever further behind.

Tech Brew | Aug 22, 2024

• The Open Source Initiative (OSI), the organization widely seen as responsible for arbitrating openness standards, published the latest version of its definition of open-source AI on Thursday. The document comes after months of consulting with various developers, academics, and other concerned parties on a roadshow of workshops around the world.

Bloomberg | Aug 21, 2024

• Tech companies’ relentless push into artificial intelligence is coming at an undisclosed cost to the planet. Amazon, Microsoft and Meta are concealing their actual carbon footprints, buying credits tied to electricity use that inaccurately erase millions of tons of planet-warming emissions from their carbon accounts, a Bloomberg Green analysis finds.