It’s a big week for corporate events that will give us a look into the future of the tech industry: Intel Corp. will hold its Intel Vision event starting Monday, which will focus on the company’s view of the future of cloud computing and software; on Tuesday, International Business Machines Corp. will kick off IBM Think, which will have its eye on artificial intelligence; Qualcomm Inc. will hold its 5G Summit the same day, with conversations surrounding 5G connectivity; and finally, Alphabet Inc. will host Google I/O on Wednesday with expectations that the company will reveal its next line of mobile devices and AI tools.

On the government side, there are a number of hearings this week that the industry will want to keep an eye on, all set to take place Wednesday: The Senate Committee on Commerce, Science and Transportation will hold a hearing to consider the Securing Semiconductor Supply Chains Act of 2023, which would encourage foreign investment in U.S.-based semiconductor manufacturing; the House Oversight Subcommittee on Cybersecurity, Information Technology and Government Innovation will host a hearing titled “Risky Business: Costly Inaction on Federal Legacy IT”; and the House Energy and Commerce Subcommittee on Oversight and Investigations will hold a hearing titled “Closing the Digital Divide: Overseeing Federal Funds for Broadband Deployment.”

The Federal Trade Commission will host an online panel discussion Thursday titled “Cloud Computing: Taking Stock and Looking Ahead” that will feature FTC Chair Lina Khan and a series of industry experts discussing a variety of topics including the competitive dynamics of cloud computing, implications for artificial intelligence and potential security risks.

Nextgov will host its AI and Automation Workshop on Tuesday, which will feature appearances from Damian Kostiuk, deputy chief data officer at U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services; Scott Beliveau, branch chief of advanced data analytics at the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office; and Nicole Willis, chief technology officer at the Department of Health and Human Services.

ThoughtSpot Inc. will host Beyond 2023, a future-focused conference that will look at how data will help grow businesses, on Tuesday and Wednesday. It will feature data and analytics professional Dean Furness, futurist Amy Webb and Verizon Communications Inc. director of data management and analytics Keerti Purohit.

Artificial intelligence

• Digital ministers from the Group of Seven — Britain, Canada, the European Union, France, Germany, Italy, Japan and the United States — agreed that their nations should adopt “risk-based” regulations on artificial intelligence with the goal of preserving “an open and enabling environment” based on democratic values for the development of the emerging technologies. The ministers, who met in Takasaki, Japan, ahead of this year’s G-7 Summit, acknowledged that policy approaches may differ across countries but set a landmark for how AI will be governed.
• As the Writers Guild of America and other unions representing actors, directors and other Hollywood figures prepare to negotiate new contracts with TV and movie studios, they will aim to provide protections that seek to regulate the use of material produced by generative AI tools, including AI-generated scripts, sounds and images. There are concerns among Hollywood workers that tools like ChatGPT and AI capable of impersonating human speech could displace writers, voice actors and others, and some studio contracts already appear to claim the right to use a performer’s voice to generate new content. 
• IBM will pause hiring for roles that it believes could be replaced by artificial intelligence, a decision that is expected to reduce the company’s workforce by 7,800 jobs through the suspension or slowing of hiring to fill back-office roles like human resources and by not replacing vacated roles. Arvind Krishna, the company’s chief executive, said he could see as many as 30% of work performed by people in noncustomer-facing roles being replaced by AI and automation in the next five years. 
• Consulting firm SemiAnalysis published a document written by a senior software engineer at Google warning that the company and its chief rival in artificial intelligence research, OpenAI, are at risk of falling behind the open source community and its ability to make rapid and unexpected AI advances. The engineer, Luke Sernau, said in the report that open source engineers can build AI models that are cheaper, faster and more customizable than Google’s own. 

The White House and AI

• The White House is looking into how companies use technology including artificial intelligence to surveil and manage employees, citing concerns that the use of such technology poses risks to the safety and mental health of the workforce. The executive branch will seek input from workers and employers, as well as developers, researchers and advocacy groups regarding the “economic, safety, physical, mental and emotional impacts” of workplace surveillance and will ask for guidance on how to regulate the use of such technology.
• Ahead of a meeting last Thursday with the executives of several companies involved in the development of artificial intelligence systems, the White House announced new initiatives that will aim to address the risks presented by AI technology, including the planned release of draft guidelines for government agencies to ensure safeguards are in place to protect the rights and safety of American citizens. Additionally, the National Science Foundation will spend $140 million on new research centers devoted to AI.
• President Joe Biden met with the chief executives at top artificial intelligence firms including Microsoft Corp. and Alphabet and had a “frank and constructive discussion” on the need for more transparency around AI systems and the importance of evaluating the safety of the technology. Biden, who has used ChatGPT, told the industry chiefs they are responsible for mitigating current and potential risks that AI presents to individuals, society and national security. 

Earnings

• Uber Technologies Inc. reported its first-quarter earnings that saw increases in the number of customers, trips and the value of transactions on its platform. The company reported $8.82 billion in revenue to start 2023, an increase of 29% from a year earlier, and while it still posted a loss for the quarter, Uber’s adjusted earnings before interest, taxes, depreciation and amortization beat expectations by reaching $761 million.
• Apple Inc. saw its overall sales fall for the second quarter in a row but reported stronger-than-expected iPhone sales that led the company to $94.84 billion in total revenue for the second quarter of 2023. Apple did not provide formal guidance, though the company’s finance chief, Luca Maestri, said the company expects revenue to decline about 3% in the current quarter. 
• Lyft Inc. beat its revenue projections for the first quarter of 2023, reporting $1 billion in revenue and a net loss of $187.6 million for the first three months of the year. The company released a worse-than-expected second-quarter forecast that follows a round of layoffs and changes in leadership at the company. 

Antitrust

• The United Kingdom’s Competition and Markets Authority opened a probe into Adobe Inc.’s proposed $20 billion purchase of design software firm Figma Inc. over potential antitrust concerns. The initial inquiry is the first official challenge to the deal from a regulator, though similar actions are expected from the United States and European Union, and the CMA will decide if it will launch an in-depth investigation into the acquisition by June 30. 

Social media

• American Edge Project, a nonprofit advocacy group that was involved in lobbying efforts to prevent the passage of a number of antitrust reforms introduced in the Senate in the last three years, is funded almost exclusively by Facebook, which gave the group a $34 million donation, according to a person who works with the group. Since receiving the funding, American Edge Project has run a number of pro-tech advertisements, added former Rep. Greg Walden (R-Ore.) and former Sen. Heidi Heitkamp (D-N.D.) to its board — though Heitkamp is no longer listed as a board member — and made payments to Republican- and Democratic-aligned consulting groups. 
• Sens. Richard Blumenthal (D-Conn.) and Marsha Blackburn (R-Tenn.) introduced an updated version of the Kids Online Safety Act, which would require social media companies to take more action to mitigate potential harm to younger users, including undergoing annual independent audits to determine risks the platforms present to minors and enabling stronger default privacy settings for underage users. The proposal has more than 25 co-sponsors and has the support of groups like the American Psychological Association, but a number of civil society groups including the American Civil Liberties Union have criticized the bill over surveillance concerns. 
• The FTC proposed banning Facebook from monetizing the data collected from users under the age of 18 over accusations that the company misled parents about how much control they had over who could contact their children through the Messenger Kids app and how much data app developers collected. The agency claims Facebook’s actions are in breach of a 2019 privacy agreement, but Meta Platforms Inc. called the proposed penalty a “political stunt” and said it will “vigorously fight this action and expect to prevail.”

TikTok

• TikTok maintained a list of users who watched content associated with LGBT related topics, along with other topics that were not considered to be as sensitive, according to former TikTok employees. The company allegedly kept a dashboard that allowed employees to view users who watched videos associated with specific topics, which some employees worried might be shared or accessed by outside parties who could use it to blackmail or target members of the LGBT community, though the company claims that dashboard in the United States has since been deleted.
• Eric Han, the head of TikTok’s trust and safety team in the United States, will leave the company on May 12, according to two people familiar with the matter and an internal memo to employees. Han led TikTok U.S. Data Security, a separate entity that was leading efforts to address the security concerns of the U.S. government, and will be replaced for the time being by interim USDS general manager Andy Bonillo until a long-term replacement is named. 

Other news

• Transportation Secretary Pete Buttigieg said the Biden administration does not plan to extend the current July 1 deadline for airlines to upgrade plane altimeters — a measuring instrument that helps with landings in bad weather and low-visibility conditions — to address potential interference from 5G wireless technology. The International Air Transport Association, which represents more than 100 carriers that fly to the United States, said supply chain issues make it unlikely that all planes will be upgraded by the deadline. 

$990 million

The amount of money deposited into Apple’s high-yield savings account in just the first four days after its launch, according to two sources familiar with the matter.

1) IBM to Pause Hiring for Jobs That AI Could Do

Brody Ford, Bloomberg

2) White House Pushes Tech C.E.O.s to Limit Risks of A.I.

David McCabe, The New York Times

3) G7 should adopt ‘risk-based’ AI regulation, ministers say

Kantaro Komiya, Reuters

4) Companies Are Colluding to Cheat H-1B Visa Lottery, U.S. Says

Michelle Hackman, The Wall Street Journal

5) ‘The Godfather of A.I.’ Leaves Google and Warns of Danger Ahead

Cade Metz, The New York Times

6) The White House Is Probing How Companies Use AI to Surveil and Manage Workers

Josh Eidelson, Bloomberg

7) Biden meets Microsoft, Google CEOs on AI dangers

Nandita Bose and David Shepardson, Reuters

8) States Are Ground Zero for Tech Regulation. Voters Back the Measures, but Also Seek Federal Action

AJ Dellinger, Morning Consult

9) Will a Chatbot Write the Next ‘Succession’?

Noam Scheiber and John Koblin, The New York Times

10) Senators will look at legislation addressing TikTok in China proposal, Schumer says

David Shepardson, Reuters

• For Top VCs, ByteDance’s Historic Windfall Remains A $220 Billion Mirage (Forbes)
• AI Is About to Make Social Media Much More Toxic (The Atlantic)
• OpenAI changed its plans and won’t train on customer data, Sam Altman says (CNBC)
• Meta Platforms scoops up AI networking chip team from Graphcore (Reuters)
• Writers vs AI bots is more than a Hollywood drama (Financial Times)
• US Spies Should Tap Private AI Models, NSA’s Research Chief Says (Bloomberg)
• He wrote a book on a rare subject. Then a ChatGPT replica appeared on Amazon. (The Washington Post)
• AI ‘could be as transformative as Industrial Revolution’ (The Guardian)
• IBM chief says employees’ careers could suffer and promotions may be harder to achieve if they work from home (Insider)
• How We Can Regulate AI Even if Congress Won’t Act (The Information)
• The Future of Everything Festival: AI’s Path Forward, Michelle Obama and More (The Wall Street Journal)
• Katie Cotton, Who Helped Raise Apple’s Profile, Dies at 57 (The New York Times)
• Global Smartphone Market Declines 14% YoY in Q1 2023; Apple Records Highest-Ever Q1 Share (Counterpoint Research)
• Artificial intelligence is remixing journalism into a “soup” of language (The Economist)
• Verified Twitter Accounts Spread Misinfo About Imminent Nuclear Strike (Motherboard)
• EU Warns Apple About Limiting Speeds of Uncertified USB-C Cables for iPhones (MacRumors)
• Gary Marcus Used to Call AI Stupid—Now He Calls It Dangerous (Wired)
• Indigenous youths use tech as ‘weapon’ to protect Amazon (Phys.org)
• Generative A.I. Start-Up Cohere Valued at About $2 Billion in Funding Round (The New York Times)
• Bing Is a Trap (The Atlantic)