The Batch

Letters from Andrew Ng

Personal messages to the AI community

User entering ZIP code ‘94103’ in U.S. General Election ballot lookup to view contests and candidates.
Tech & Society

Voter’s Helper: Perplexity’s AI-powered U.S. election hub assists voters with verified, real-time news and insights

Some voters navigated last week’s United States elections with help from a large language model that generated output based on verified, nonpartisan information.
Llama wearing a camouflage helmet, looking determined with a light blue background.
Tech & Society

Big AI Pursues Military Contracts: Meta and Anthropic open doors for AI in U.S. defense and national security

Two top AI companies changed their stances on military and intelligence applications.
Autonomous heavy-duty vehicle moving in an industrial warehouse area.
Tech & Society

Robots On the Loading Dock: Tensions mount as automation transforms U.S. shipping ports

Shipping ports are the latest front in the rising tension between labor unions and AI-powered automation.
Robot using a megaphone to amplify its message, with smaller robots spreading out from the megaphone.
Tech & Society

Social Media Bots and the Amplification Effect: Software bots that engage with certain social media posts likely play a role in manipulating public opinion. We need better algorithms to distinguish fake from real engagement.

Trump and the Republican party chalked up huge wins this week. Did manipulation of social media by generative AI play any role in this election?
COMPL-AI workflow diagram showing compliance steps for AI models under the EU AI Act.
Tech & Society

Does Your Model Comply With the AI Act?: COMPL-AI study measures LLMs’ compliance with EU’s AI act

A new study suggests that leading AI models may meet the requirements of the European Union’s AI Act in some areas, but probably not in others.
Witch watching a bubbling cauldron connected to colorful tubes labeled ‘Brew Stewer’ under a night sky.
Tech & Society

No Work for Coders: Could coding assistants take over software development?

AI coding assistants are brewing codebases that once were the sole province of human programmers. Will AI systems take over software development?
Cartoon characters in costume contest: ghost wins 1st, mad scientist 2nd, hula girl 3rd.
Tech & Society

Innovation Can’t Win: Bureaucracy chokes AI growth as lawmakers tighten grip

Politicians and pundits have conjured visions of doom to convince lawmakers to clamp down on AI. What if terrified legislators choke off innovation in AI?
Person sitting by a campfire holding a stick, looking worried in a dark setting.
Tech & Society

AI Burns All the Energy: Will AI’s growing power demands drain the grid?

The globe’s growing AI infrastructure requires huge amounts of electricity, possibly more than power providers can generate responsibly. Could AI models suck energy resources dry?
Man pulls lever to electrify a robot maid holding cleaning tools, cartoon-style.
Tech & Society

The Psychology of AI Doom: Why do people who are well informed about AI worry about unrealistic dangers? There are incentives for doomsaying.

Welcome to our special Halloween issue of The Batch, in which we probe fears, anomalies, and shadows of AI.
Nuclear power plant cooling towers emitting steam into the sky.
Tech & Society

AI Giants Go Nuclear: Amazon, Google, and Microsoft bet on nuclear power to meet AI energy demands

Major AI companies plan to meet the growing demand with nuclear energy.
Graph showing global warming with and without aerosol injection.
Tech & Society

To Fight Climate Change, It's Time to Consider Geoengineering: Hurricanes Helene and Milton took hundreds of lives, not to mention other disasters driven by climate change. Stratospheric aerosol injection could save countless lives.

To Fight Climate Change, It's Time to Consider Geoengineering
LLM leaderboard with Chinese models rising in ranks.
Tech & Society

A Year of Contending Forces: State of AI report highlights 2024’s major trends and breakthroughs

A new report documents the interplay of powerful forces that drove AI over the past year: open versus proprietary technology, public versus private financing, innovation versus caution. 
Several legal documents from the Federal Trade Commission are spread out on a wooden surface.
Tech & Society

U.S. Cracks Down on AI Apps That Overpromise, Underdeliver: U.S. Federal Trade Commission launches Operation AI Comply to tackle deceptive business practices

The United States government launched Operation AI Comply, targeting businesses whose uses of AI allegedly misled customers.
Design layout of Sedenak Data Centre Park, Malaysia.
Tech & Society

Malaysia’s Data Center Boom: Malaysia emerges as an AI and cloud computing hub, drawing billions in investment

Malaysia’s location, natural resources, and investor-friendly government are perfect for data centers, turning part of the country into an AI-fueled boomtown.
Collage of various images featuring a baseball player, movie scenes, portraits, landscapes, and diverse wildlife.
Tech & Society

German Court Says LAION Didn’t Violate Copyrights: LAION wins copyright case in Germany

A German court dismissed a copyright lawsuit against LAION, the nonprofit responsible for large-scale image datasets used to train Midjourney, Stable Diffusion, and other image generators.
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