Weekly AI Recap: China leads world in genAI use & Microsoft leaves OpenAI board

The US, however, is further ahead in terms of actually implementing generative AI – that is, embedding the technology into existing business structures in order to produce tangible benefits to workers, stakeholders and customers.

“While China may lead in genAI adoption rates, higher adoption doesn’t necessarily equate to effective implementation or better returns,” Stephen Saw, managing director at Coleman Parkes, said in a statement. “In fact, the US nudges ahead in the race with 24% of organizations having fully implemented genAI compared to 19% in China.”

Microsoft and Apple abandon OpenAI board

Microsoft has given up its observer position on the board of OpenAI as federal regulators in the US and EU investigate the partnership between the two companies for antitrust violations, according to a Wednesday report from The Financial Times.

The tech giant has long been OpenAI’s chief financial backer and acquired its board seat following the short-lived ousting of OpenAI CEO Sam Altman in late 2023. “Over the past eight months we have witnessed significant progress from the newly formed board and are confident in the company’s direction,“ Microsoft wrote in a letter to OpenAI, as published by Axios.

Apple, which recently announced a partnership with OpenAI, has reportedly abandoned its plan to assume an observer role on the company’s board.

OpenAI will continue to meet with Apple and Microsoft to discuss their strategic partnerships, The Financial Times noted.

Publishers flock to marketing platforms that allow them to reach readers via text

The rise of generative AI-powered tools like ChatGPT and Google’s AI Overviews has spread anxiety among news publishers, who fear a dramatic decrease in their web traffic. As The Drum reported earlier this week, a growing number of those companies – eager for new modes of audience engagement – are attempting to build direct relationships with readers via text.

Subtext, one of the leading platforms in this space, has partnered with major publishers like Vox, The New York Post, The Washington Post and The New Yorker.

“We are very focused on the need to reach readers directly in this era of Google [generating] its own answers instead of sending readers to news sites, and the texting service is one way we are trying to bypass Google – and other platforms that have constantly shifting algorithms,“ a spokesperson from The Conversation – a nonprofit news publisher that’s been working with Subtext since December – told The Drum. “We might have done it anyway, as a way to meet readers where they are, but declining search traffic has definitely raised the importance of texting for us.“

Senate hearing zooms in on AI and data privacy

On Thursday, the US Senate Committee on Science, Commerce and Transportation – chaired by Maria Cantwell (D-Wash) – convened a hearing to discuss the implications of AI on data privacy and protection. “AI has allowed online surveillance, detailed consumer profiling, personalized fraud and deepfakes to be done at scale, with little human involvement and minimal cost,” the Committee wrote on its website.

Many lawmakers see AI developers’ widespread collection and processing of consumer data as a key motivation for passing a federal data privacy law akin to Europe’s sweeping General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR). A current proposal, the American Privacy Rights Act, has already garnered decent bipartisan support in the Senate.

OpenAI reveals five-step plan for building AGI

OpenAI has reportedly shared a five-step roadmap with its employees for tracking its progress toward building artificial general intelligence (AGI), according to a Thursday report from Bloomberg.

The first level refers to systems capable of engaging in natural language with individual humans, while the fifth and highest level is reserved for a model that could perform the duties of an entire organization.

A spokesperson for OpenAI told Bloomberg that the company is close to reaching level two – AI systems capable of doctorate degree-level reasoning and problem-solving. The third level, ’Agents,’ entails systems capable of autonomously performing complex tasks over a multi-day period.

Lee Sedol looks back on historic AI defeat

In 2016, Lee Sedol, widely regarded as one of the greatest living players of the ancient Chinese board game Go, was defeated at his own game by AlphaGO, an AI model developed by DeepMind.

The event was widely regarded as a watershed moment for AI, not unlike the defeat of chess grandmaster Gary Kasparov by IBM’s DeepBlue nearly 20 years earlier. But Go is exponentially more complex than chess: by one oft-cited estimate, there are more possible piece combinations on a Go board than there are atoms in the universe.

Stunned by his defeat, Lee retired from professional Go three years later. He now spends much of his time keeping up with advancements in AI and speaking publicly about the technology’s potential to transform the job market, according to a Wednesday report from The New York Times.

“I faced the issues of AI early, but it will happen for others,” Lee recently told a crowd of students and parents at an event in Seoul – in his home country of South Korea – as quoted by the New York Times. “It may not be a happy ending.”

Note: Due to the holiday last week, the Weekly AI Recap was not published on Friday, July 5. Here’s one story you may have missed:

Google’s carbon emissions surge in 2023, thanks in part to AI

Google’s greenhouse gas emissions increased by nearly 50% between 2019 and December 2023, “primarily due to increases in data center energy consumption and supply chain emissions,” the company announced last week in a report.

The report – which also notes that Google’s emissions increased by 13% year-over-year in 2023 – underscored the huge energy demands of the accelerating AI boom.

Google announced a plan in 2020 to convert all aspects of its business entirely to carbon-free energy sources. It’s possible that in the near future, Google may have to choose between its lofty AI ambitions and its environmental goals.

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