⤴⤵ Up Wing/Down Wing #1

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

⤴ Up Wing Things

🚀 Jeff Bezos and Elon Musk, through their respective companies Blue Origin and SpaceX, are engaged in a modern-day space race to return humans to the moon. SpaceX has taken a more aggressive approach, rapidly testing and launching their Starship rocket, while Blue Origin has focused on research and development. Both companies plan to use a refueling system that involves launching multiple rockets to refuel a spacecraft in Earth's orbit before it heads to the moon. Blue Origin's progress has been hindered, however, by delays in the development of its New Glenn rocket, which is now scheduled to launch next September. Bezos: “Blue Origin needs to be much faster, and it’s one of the reasons that I left my role as the CEO of Amazon a couple of years ago.” (Bloomberg Businessweek)

🤖 Stanford University’s 2024 Report on the State of AI reports that AI still has significant room for improvement, but is poised to continue trending upward. The US is leading in terms of models, with 61 notable machine learning models compared to 15 from China. Multiple studies suggest significant improvements in worker productivity. Scientific and medical breakthroughs continue to be driven by AI. The government regulation trend continues and will likely accelerate. (AEI)

🤖 An AI system has proven that it can use heart test results to save lives by alerting physicians to high-risk patients. In a clinical trial of nearly 16,000 patients at two separate hospitals, the system reduced overall deaths among high-risk patients by over 31 percent. (New Scientist)

🌈 The European Union is making progress in reducing emissions and moving towards a greener future. In 2023, emissions in the EU fell by 15.5 percent, largely due to reductions in carbon from electricity generation and industry. The EU also significantly increased its wind and solar power capacity. The European Commission's modeling suggests that current policies could lead to an 88 percent reduction in overall emissions by 2040 compared to 1990 levels. The EU is on track to meet its 2030 target of a 55 percent reduction and should be able to set a new target of a 90 percent reduction by 2040. A key factor driving this progress: The EU's carbon pricing system (Emissions Trading System, or ETS), which has led to a 47 percent reduction in emissions in covered sectors since 2005. (The Economist)

🌟 The DIII-D National Fusion Facility in San Diego has made a breakthrough by exceeding the preconceived limit for plasma density. Since then, several research teams at a variety of tokamak nuclear fusion facilities have had similar success. Commercially viable fusion may be closer to a reality than previously assumed. (Ars Technica)

🧬 Researchers are steadily coming up with new potential ways of slowing the aging process in the emerging field of geroscience, approaching aging as though it’s a treatable condition, driven by discoveries focusing on DNA repair, NAD enzyme, and epigenetic noise. Researchers are experimenting with drugs like rapamycin and metformin, which have shown potential in extending the lives of mice and delaying chronic diseases. “The turning point may come through dogs, not humans. The wonderfully named Dog Aging Project, which has sequenced the genomes of more than 7,000 pets provided by keen owners, is conducting a clinical trial to see whether rapamycin can extend the longevity and health of our furry friends.” (FT)

📈 Business entry soared during the COVID-19 pandemic and continues to do so. High tech industries made up a disproportionate segment of these businesses, contributing to job growth. (Federal Reserve Board)

🤖 AI can boost productivity and reduce inequality by enabling lower-wage workers to perform tasks that previously required higher-wage workers with specialized expertise, empowering less-trained people to do more and potentially command higher salaries. In the case of taxi drivers, for example, a new AI tool called AI Navi can predict high-traffic areas and times, enabling drivers to improve response times. A study showed that less experienced drivers benefited the most from this technology. In the healthcare sector, AI tools can assist with the diagnostic process. Diagnostic AI platforms could be made available to nurse practitioners or pharmacists for straightforward patient conditions, potentially raising their pay and improving the productivity of the healthcare system. “It is quite plausible that the use of AI to automate tasks will both increase productivity and decrease income inequality. If so, then we may want more automation, not less.” (University of Toronto)

💉 Modern and Merck have launched a large clinical trial in the UK of a personalized cancer vaccine that targets the mutations unique to the individual’s tumor. BioNTech and Genentech have also begun their own clinical trials for different forms of cancer. The vaccines are designed to train the immune system to more effectively recognize and destroy malignant cells, which often evade the body’s immune system. (MIT Tech Review)

⤵ Down Wing Things

⚛ There are currently no nuclear reactors poised for construction in the US now that new reactor at Plant Vogtle in Georgia, operated by the utility Southern Co., has reached commercial operation. The project, which cost over $30 billion (more than double initial estimates), was plagued by delays and design changes, causing the original contractor to declare bankruptcy in 2016. Despite these challenges, Plant Vogtle is now the nation's largest nuclear plant and carbon-free electricity generator. The high costs have raised concerns about the affordability of nuclear power for residential customers, and the experience has dampened enthusiasm for large nuclear projects, shifting the industry's focus to small modular reactors as potentially cheaper alternatives. “Federal tax credits now available to nuclear power producers could alter the outlook. The owners of existing plants can now receive a production tax credit, similar to what wind projects receive, for the first time. Investment tax credits are also available for new projects.” (WSJ)

🔎 Job search companies like Indeed and LinkedIn are attempting to incorporate more AI tools to assist recruiters and applicants, but many recruiters are saying that these tools are creating more problems than they’re solving. The tools tend to create more opportunities for fraud than they find quality applicants. (Wired)

🤖 The rise of Generative AI resembles the Internet's rapid growth in the 1990s, but with a crucial difference in public sentiment. While both technologies promised revolutionary changes, the Internet emerged during an era of techno-optimism, fostering a favorable regulatory environment. In contrast, Generative AI has arrived amidst techno-pessimism and fears about AI's dangers. This difference may lead to restrictive regulations that limit Generative AI's potential benefits, necessitating a swift adoption of a new regulatory approach to fully realize its possibilities. (“Generative AI is Doomed,” SSRN )

⛓ Ericsson's CEO, Börje Ekholm, warned that Europe's focus on regulation is undermining its competitiveness and driving the continent towards irrelevance. He cautioned that Europe is falling behind in digital infrastructure and risks becoming a mere tourist destination with no industry left if changes to antitrust policy are not made. The focus on regulation, according to Ekholm , “is driving Europe to last place [and] is driving Europe to irrelevance” which was why he believed it was “on the way to becoming a museum — great food, great architecture, great scenery [and] great wine but no industry left.” (FT)

⚠The “AI Safety” lobbying effort is creating a series of unnecessary regulatory rules, fearing an existential threat, that hinder the potential benefits offered by the technology. “Instead of harnessing AI’s positive potential, a new regime of rules and regulations developed in response to positions advocated for by a small, influential, and well-financed lobbying effort is actively preventing these benefits from manifesting. Leading outlets have investigated how “elite schools like Stanford became fixated on the AI apocalypse,” covered how a “billionaire-backed network of AI advisers took over Washington,” and discussed how the United Kingdom’s AI ambitions were being shaped by “Silicon Valley doomers.” Despite reporting that clearly outlines the outsized influence this group is having on AI policy, decision-makers are still embracing this ideology. (National Interest)