This week, technology leaders gathered at The Wall Street Journal's annual Tech Live conference to discuss the rapid changes brought by AI in business, technology, and policy development.
The conference was held in Laguna Beach, California, and the following are some interview highlights from the conference so far.
AI business AI is a core topic this year, and its impact on business and society has sparked intense discussions.
Mustafa Suleyman, CEO of Inflection AI, said that the competition to create AI chat robots cannot help but evoke the website construction boom at the beginning of the internet or the application development boom after the advent of smartphones.
This is actually just the beginning of a complete transformation in the way we interact with computers, "Suleyman said. The AI tool "Pi" created by Inflection AI is a competitor of ChatGPT, and "Pi" is the abbreviation for personal intelligence.
Michael Wolf, co founder and CEO of consulting firm Activate, said that consumers will tend to use TikTok, ChatGPT, and other AI driven applications instead of traditional search engines.
He predicts that the dominant position in the $100 billion search industry is "yet to be contested," and argues that the rise of open source AI models is paving the way for smaller industry players to compete effectively with large established companies.
Professionals from doctors to writers are already worried that AI will completely replace certain positions. But David Wadhwani, CEO of Adobe's digital media business, said that despite concerns, he believes that AI is a tool that can promote employment rather than unemployment. He stated that Adobe's tools such as Firefly can generate images and logos, making more people creative professionals.
Wadhwani said, "We will make creative professionals more productive than ever before, and bring more creative professionals to the world
Hidden dangers of AI
However, this popular new technology also has obvious limitations.
Venture capitalist Vinod Khosla said that most of the current venture capital investments in AI will lose money.
Khosla Ventures, who founded Khosla Ventures nearly 20 years ago, stated that AI investments have entered a speculative stage, and only highly disciplined investors can profit by betting on this revolutionary technology.
The design intention of Pi and other AI chat robots is not to create self doubt, so it is difficult to know when these robots will go wrong. Suleyman, CEO of Inflection AI, suggests that one user protection measure that can be implemented is to sort responses based on accuracy. He stated that this skill in evaluating uncertainty is an important component of intelligence and is actually the key to making AI chat robots reliable.
David Baszucky, CEO of game company Roblox, stated that the company is very cautious when training AI models and will not obtain anyone's code without permission.
He said, "This is an important issue currently being discussed in society
AI Applications in the Entertainment Industry
John Legend, the award-winning songwriter who is starting his first technology startup, agrees that AI has its limitations. He said that computers can generate music, but songwriters will not be replaced, partly because the audience appreciates the stories behind these artists' music creations.
He said, "There are very human things in music, songwriting, and our interaction with the audience
Arnold Schwarzenegger stated that he had noticed the application of AI in Hollywood and had also heard audio that imitated his voice. The 76-year-old actor stated that whether his image will be used by AI in the future is a matter that his children must negotiate.
He said, "Even if I want to live forever, I will leave one day
Even venture capitalist Khosla has already tried first. When his daughter got married earlier this year, he asked ChatGPT to turn a speech he wrote into rap lyrics, and then turned these lyrics into a song through an artificial intelligence startup called Splash. He played the song on the speaker. This expands my abilities, "he said. This means a lot to me
Technology and Geopolitics
In addition to the uncertainty of AI, technology leaders now have to deal with some key issues related to the geopolitical impact on the industry.
Venture capitalist Khosla said that if the United States can win the competition to develop advanced AI, it will have an economic and political advantage over China. He said, "I believe the world political system that affects Southeast Asia, Africa, and Latin America is facing threats." "In this technological war, Western values are at stake, so we should do our best to win this battle and defeat China in it
Khosla also warned against exposing the code behind advanced AI models to the public. Some technical experts advocate that open code can promote the development of this technology. He said, "You won't open source the Manhattan Project." The Manhattan Project was a secret operation by the United States during World War II to manufacture atomic bombs.
The war between Hamas and Israel was also a focus of this year's TechLive conference. Israel has been a technology center for many years.
Palmer Luckey, founder of defense technology company Anduril Industries, stated that US corporate leaders should be more explicit in their support for Israel.
Luckey said, "This reflects the very poor performance of the billionaire class in the United States. The United States is not currently working hard to participate and speak up on these issues across the country. They are circling around condemning Hamas because they are worried about saying the wrong thing in public opinion courts or because it harms their business interests
Charlie Shrem, general partner of Druid Ventures, was asked about Hamas using cryptocurrency to fund its attack on Israel. He said, "It's really sad to see what we were involved in creating early on being used in these negative ways
When it comes to domestic politics, Schwarzenegger said that the senior leadership of both the Republican and Democratic parties should give way and make room for the new generation.
The former California governor mentioned recent instances of Senate minority leader Mitch McConnell becoming deadened and silent when answering reporters' questions, and stated that those in this position should "start considering giving way and letting a new generation of candidates take over to fill the corresponding vacancies