Some AI CEO’s-We Don’t Need Regulation; Microsoft Holding Windows-Surface Event October 7th; EU- No Social Media for Kids Under 13; Senate Blocks Clarity Act in Blow to Crypto 

As we reported earlier, the CEO’s of OpenAI, Anthropic, and xAI (Musk) all have called for slowing AI development and putting in some guardrails. Not everyone in their industry agrees, though. Jensen Huang of Nvidia opposes any slowdown at all, and techcrunch.com reports that he doesn’t think any regulation is needed at all for AI. To me, this sounds like the monkeys guarding the banana boat. The temptation is too great to make massive profits somehow (which hasn’t happened so far…most of the firms are huge money pits.) It’s good to keep in mind that other industries with the potential of great danger to humanity are heavily regulated. The nuclear industry and pharmaceutical industry to name a couple. So far, Huang has the ear of Donald Trump and Speaker Johnson, so AI may continue to be the Wild West for a while. Let’s hope nothing catastrophic happens. 

Microsoft has announced a Windows and Surface event for October 7th. According to engadget.com, it will be held in San Francisco. Microsoft says in a press blurb that it will be on “how local AI will shape the next chapter of the PC.” We expect that they will give more info about the Surface Laptop Ultra. Besides Microsoft CEO Nadella, the aforementioned NVIDIA CEO Jensen Huang will be on hand as they discuss the “latest innovations across Windows, NVIDIA RTX Spark, Surface and the broader PC ecosystem.”

The European Union is planning to stop kids under age 13 from using social media, and also to prevent anyone under 15 from having a personal account. Thenextweb.com notes that the announcement of the restrictions was in Ursula von den Leyen’s State of the Union address. The EU Commission will share more details tomorrow about the EU Kids Act, but it will apparently require strict age checks on social media, video platforms, app stores, online games, AI companions, and chatbots. As with other tech regulations, companies that will not follow the rules could face fines up to 6% of their annual sales.

The Senate, led by Elizabeth Warren, blocked the Clarity Act. That’s the bill that would establish a framework for crypto, and divide oversight between the SEC and Commodity Futures Trading Commission. cnbc.com notes that the industry will probably try again next year, but with Democrats likely in charge in Congress, it may be a lost cause. A number of Democrats and Republicans want to see stronger controls on this industry than were written into the Clarity Act. 

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