Gates Concerned About AI; Anthropic Predicts $30 Trillion in Revenues; Instagram Feature Auto Trims Clips; Tracker for Android or iPhone for Bikes & Golf Clubs

Bill Gates, legendary co-founder of Microsoft, has made a shift from being quite bullish on AI to now being deeply concerned about where the tech is headed and how fast it is going. Geekwire.com notes that in a new essay, Gates is calling for better guardrails by government and for AI firms to slow down a bit. He touches on three ideas that he thinks the world needs to flesh out with regards to AI. First, build new institutions at home and worldwide. Gates points out that no existing agency was designed for a technology that touches jobs, security, health, energy and elections all at once. Secondly, he evangelizes for jobs to be set aside for humans….including jobs that machines will be capable of doing, but that humans should be involved with anyway. Third, he suggests that AI tokens and robots should be taxed. For example, if a company replaces people with robots, it should have to pay taxes on AI to replace the lost payroll taxes that would have been deducted from human workers’ pay. In an interview with Geekwire, Gates said he realized that the AI industry is blowing past its own warning signs, one after another, and almost nobody is saying so out loud.

The figure dangled by SpaceX before its initial public offering about future revenue of $28.5 trillion has just been blown past by Anthropic. The maker of the Claude AI large language model is predicting that it will be throwing off over $30 trillion in revenue in the future. According to thenextweb.com, the 191 technology companies in the S&P 1500 booked $2.4 trillion in revenue last year. This figure Anthropic claims it will be able to make is 12 times all of the 191 tech firms put together. Can you say hype, boys and girls? 

Instagram is getting a new feature that will make it easier to edit short form videos. Engadget.com says it won’t do all the editing, but the First Draft feature will automatically trim silences and pauses from your clips, so you can spend time doing the more creative edits to make your videos look and sound good. To use First Draft, Instagram says you just need to select clips from your Reels Gallery and tap “First Draft.” Meta says you’ll also be able to use First Drafts immediately after you shoot new footage on Instagram.

You may use the handy trackers available for Android and iPhone to keep track of your stuff. Besides the ubiquitous little round Air Tags, a number of 3rd parties have rolled out trackers that are better suited to different situations. There are flat ones about the size of a double thick credit card for your wallet, and small ones to go on a cat or dog collar. Now, 9to5google.com reports that Pebblebee has bowed LOC8, which works with either Android Find Hub or Apple’s Find My. This new one is cylindrical, and is useful for stashing in a golf club or the handlebars of a bike. While Apple Air Tags and others can go a year on a battery, Pebblebee is claiming 3 years battery life on the LOC8. Pebblebee sells a single LOC8 for $39.99 to slide into a bike handlebar. They have a 4 pack for golf clubs, but advise those be installed by a professional. 

I’m Clark Reid and you’re ‘Technified’ for now.