New Week Same Humans #31
The EU wants to ban an AI-fuelled dystopia. Netflix eyes life after lockdown. Plus more news and analysis from this week.
Welcome to the mid-week update from New World Same Humans, a newsletter on trends, technology, and society by David Mattin.
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This week, why the EU wants to move against emerging AI-fuelled technologies.
Also, Coinbase shift crypto firmly into the mainstream. And Netflix figure out their post-pandemic future.
Let’s go!
🤖 Moral machines
The EU is considering far-reaching new laws on the use of artificial intelligence.
Under the proposed new regulation, surveillance systems that use AI to track the movement of people in public spaces would be banned. So too would be AI systems that rate people for trustworthiness or other aspects of social behaviour. The latter is widely being seen as an attempt to ensure that nothing resembling China’s emerging, and infamous, social credit rating system emerges in Europe.
The regulations would also demand that people are notified when interacting with an AI system, unless it is ‘obvious from the context’.
These proposals were leaked in draft form; an official announcement is expected next week.
Meanwhile, in the US the Immigrations and Customs Enforcement agency (ICE) is being sued for refusing to provide answers on how it uses Clearview AI’s notorious facial recognition technology. Clearview’s vast database contains 3 billion faces scraped from social media worldwide; an alliance of immigration advocacy groups say ICE failed to respond to a Freedom of Information Request.
This week a Detroit man filed a federal lawsuit over a wrongful arrest; he was misidentified by a facial recognition system. Privacy advocates say these sorts of errors disproportionately affect people of colour.
⚡ NWSH Take: Is this AI’s GDPR moment? The EU moved hard on data privacy; now many expect it will do the same on AI. // If this regulation comes into force, it would further entrench the divisions that are emerging when it comes to the major power blocks and their relationship with digital technology. We’re seeing the emergence of new civilisational zones, with the boundaries drawn in part by government’s response to the technology revolution. The EU: regulation. China: techno-authoritarianism. The US: laissez-faire (so far). // All this comes as Big Tech struggles mightily with questions around AI ethics, too. Google, once a leader in the space, has seen its AI ethics team turn to dust across recent months; critics say the company is putting profits first. Expect more, and more fierce, confrontation between EU regulators and Big Tech.
🚀 The NWSH Mastermind
Thanks to all of you who filled in the reader’s questionnaire this week! I’ll be back soon with a full rundown of the results. But this is a quick note on one surprising discovery.
At the end of the survey I asked: ‘Which of these content offerings would you consider paying for?’ One of the top scoring answers was: 'Mastermind groups on trends, foresight, and the professional challenges I face'.
I threw that option in as a wildcard; I didn’t expect it to score highly. I was wrong!
Masterminds are small groups – seven or eight people max – in which attendees come together to share business challenges, networks, and feedback. They're typically used by business owners looking to go to the next level. That makes sense: this week's data also revealed that 31% of NWSH readers are business owners.
I’ve always wanted to facilitate a Mastermind group, and I guess this is my chance.
After this week’s survey, I put the word out in the Slack group that I’m keen to open a NWSH Mastermind. I’ve already had some great expressions of interest, so I think this is a go!
These groups have to be put together carefully: the balance of people is crucial.
If you’re interested in joining the NWSH Mastermind, just hit reply to this email and let me know, or message me in the Slack. Given the way the group is shaping up this would particularly suit business owners or one-person operators in consultancy, creative industries, market research, insight and foresight, and digital industries.
🤑 Ace of base
Cryptocurrency marketplace Coinbase began trading on the Nasdaq this week. It’s the first public listing of a major crypto company.
Shares rocketed to a high of $429, meaning at one point the platform had a market capitalisation of over $100 billion. The price eventually settled lower, closing the day at $328.
For context:
Amid the excitement, Bitcoin moved over $63,000 for the first time. The currency has risen by over 1,000% in the last 12 months.
🏃 Life after lockdown
The pandemic plunged us deeper into our relationship with 21st-century tech-fuelled consumerism. But now, a new challenge is looming for the platforms that serve us.
Audio-only social network Clubhouse was one of the big winners of the pandemic, thanks in part to the way lockdowns sent people in search of new forms of social interaction.
But new data from analytics firm Sensor Tower suggests the popularity of the app is declining. It has slid to 297 in the US free app download charts, from 21 back in February. Analysts are asking: can Clubhouse keep growing in a world in which people are free to socialise IRL?
Meanwhile, Netflix is testing new features intended to help retain the users it gained via the pandemic. It’s ‘Play Something’ button, currently being trialled with some users, leverages user viewing data to auto-select and play a relevant show. Back in New Week #12 I wrote about how Netflix is determined to solve a problem that users often complain about: overwhelming choice. People sit down to watch a 30 minute show, but end up spending 15 minutes scrolling through options. It’s an issue, and Netflix believes it must find the answer.
⚡ NWSH Take: As a post-pandemic world emerges into view, some iconic businesses face a novel question: how do we retain customers now that people are free to live their lives? // No one has definite answers; we’ve never lived through anything quite like this before. The pandemic pushed us five years into the digital future, and now we’re emerging, blinking, into a new dawn. In some senses, 2020 is the year the internet really started. // At heart this is about a powerful, era-defining question: what does a world that’s a true blend of digital and physical really look like? Answering that question will be the focus of a new wave of innovation in the decade ahead.
🗓️ Also this week
🎤 Dutch musician Don Diablo minted an hour-long concert as an NFT and sold it for $1.2 million. Destination Hexagonia was the first ever concert to be sold as an NFT.
🤝 New research suggests people trust algorithms more than people when it comes to some kinds of tasks. A paper in Scientific Reports said that in a counting task, experimental subjects trusted an algorithm over the ‘wisdom of the crowd’ as the task became more difficult.
🇨🇳 The CCP fined Alibaba $2.8 billion for ‘abusing its market dominance’. President Xi has made it clear that Big Tech must not be allowed to become a rival power centre in China.
⚽ FIFA made more money from video games than from real football in 2020. Football’s governing body released 2020 financial statements showing it made $159 million from licensing rights, most of which comes from video games.
🧑⚕️ A new drug could unleash the immune system against some forms of brain cancer. In a trial of the experimental drug ipatasertib, one patient with advanced glioblastoma saw his cancer apparently disappear.
🦾 Japan’s Softbank paid $2.8 billion for 40% of the Norwegian robot company AutoStore. The company makes cuboid warehouse robots; there are currently 20,000 in use worldwide.
🚀 Jeff Bezos may make a nuclear-powered spacecraft for DARPA. The US science and technology agency has asked Bezos’s Blue Origin space company to pitch for the contract.
🤯 These physicists think the universe is a giant, self-learning machine. Researchers, working in partnership with Microsoft, say the universe may be governed by laws that evolve over time via machine learning processes.
🌍 Humans of Earth
Key metrics to help you keep track of Project Human.
🙋 Global population: 7,859,053,420
🌊 Earths currently needed: 1.7821352596
💉 Global population vaccinated: 2.3%
🗓️ 2021 progress bar: 29% complete
📖 On this day: On 15th April 1912, RMS Titanic sinks in the North Atlantic after hitting an iceberg.
All your base
Thanks for reading this week.
There’s so much more coming when it comes to the fight for ethical AI. New World Same Humans will be watching every step of the way.
There’s one thing you can do to support that mission: share!
Now that you’ve made it to the end of this week’s instalment, please consider forwarding the email to someone who’d also enjoy it. Or share it across one of your social networks, with a note on why you found it valuable. Remember: the larger and more diverse the NWSH community becomes, the better for all of us!
I’ll be back on Sunday. Until then, be well,
David.
P.S Thanks to Monique van Dusseldorp for additional research and analysis.