⤴⤵ Up Wing/Down Wing #28

A curated selection of pro-progress and anti-progress news items from the week that was

In case you missed it .. .

⤴✊ The techno-optimism of a 1970s Black Power activist and poet (Tuesday)

🗽🧠 Pro-immigration policy and mutual brain gain: A Quick Q&A with … economist Gaurav Khanna (Wednesday)

🤖🚘 Even as GM retreats, self-driving cars continue to advance (Thursday)

🎨 My chat (+transcript) with innovation expert Duncan Wardle on practical tips for corporate creativity (Friday)

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Up Wing Things

⚡ Chips using fiber-optics communicate at the speed of light. IBM’s new technology allows chips to transmit data 80 times faster than with traditional electrical connections. This innovation could reduce AI training times from months to weeks and lower energy consumption in data centers. Current chips rely on copper wires, but fiber optics, already essential for global internet communication, is now being adapted for chip-level use. IBM's breakthrough involves an optical module enabling six times more fiber connections per chip edge using waveguides, achieving 51 optical fibers per millimeter. This boosts bandwidth and prevents signal interference, offering a fivefold energy efficiency improvement. (NS)

✨ Businesses maximize AI benefits by employing humans to use them. It turns out that a critical requirement for getting the most out of GenAI tools is human expertise. To unlock their potential, companies must organize and maintain vast amounts of unstructured data—documents, emails, and customer interactions—into well-structured “knowledge bases.” This ongoing effort ensures AI systems deliver accurate, meaningful results. The result isn’t job elimination, but a shift in roles:

What seems to be happening, at least among the half-dozen companies I spoke with, is something economists have observed in countless tech revolutions past. A new form of automation is simultaneously eradicating some jobs, and rapidly creating new ones.

Some of those new roles include writing, editing and organizing information. And not for other humans—but for AIs themselves.

AI handles routine tasks, freeing employees to tackle more complex challenges. This blend of human insight and AI efficiency is redefining knowledge work, reducing timelines and causing a surge in productivity, all while encouraging AI and humans to collaborate. (WSJ)

🚀 SpaceX could be key to avoiding (or winning) a US-China conflict. Elon Musk’s company has become a critical force in defense technology, its value recently soaring to $350 billion. Its advancements, like the Starlink satellite network and Starship rockets, are revolutionizing military capabilities, giving the US a significant strategic edge over rivals: “Todd Harrison, a space policy analyst with the American Enterprise Institute, said it would probably take China 10 years to develop a rocket with carrying capacity like Starship’s, giving the U.S. military a window of exclusivity.” Starlink’s encrypted communications and real-time surveillance are transforming battlefield tactics, while Starship’s massive payload capacity could enable rapid troop and equipment deployment: “Security experts say SpaceX has leapfrogged so far ahead in several critical technologies that it could deter major rivals like China from engaging in a war with the United States — or tip the balance if one breaks out.” (Wapo)