AI

Is AI Winter Coming?

Artificial intelligence may not be living up to the hype, according to a compelling set of recent articles from The Economist.

The hype

PWC predicts AI will add $16 trillion to the global economy by 2030; McKinsey projects $13 trillion. AI proponents have predicted that the technology would be fully capable of taking over driving or medical diagnostics jobs by now.

The hype cycle 

Gartner

Tech nerds get hyped thinking about the Gartner Hype Cycle, which charts a technology's "it factor" over time. Emerging Tech Brew's Twitter account, for example, is located at “the slope of enlightenment.”

Leading up to the hype cycle: Researchers coined the term "artificial intelligence" at Dartmouth in the summer of 1956. In the decades that followed, AI faced two "winters" when funding and interest in the tech waned. AI’s “Innovation Trigger” came in the 2010s, when AI researchers made technical breakthroughs with machine learning and neural nets. 

Now, AI may be sinking into the “Trough of Disillusionment.” Productivity is limited in 2020. For advanced research labs like OpenAI or DeepMind, training state-of-the-art models costs millions of dollars in computing power. As VC firm Andreessen Horowitz argued in February, AI companies face scaling challenges, shallower business “moats,” and smaller margins than traditional software businesses due to cloud computing usage and reliance on human handlers. 

My takeaway

While AI faces real technical challenges and the rate of advancement may be slowing, we're not experiencing an AI winter. Larger companies and investors are still making deals (see Volkswagen's $2.6 billion investment in Argo AI earlier this month). And AI remains a top national security priority for the two largest economies, U.S. and China, as well as their largest tech companies.

SURVEILLANCE

Tech at the Protests

Americans' relationships with smartphones can best be described as attached to the hip. As protests for racial justice continue across the U.S., demonstrators are using smartphone cameras and social media to rapidly share their experiences across the internet. They've also downloaded encrypted messaging and police scanner apps at record levels. 

But your phone is a non-private two-way street in which your location can be tracked at a block-by-block level. As CNBC writes, we don't know whether cities and police departments are tracking protestors' phones. 

We do know authorities have surveillance tools at their disposal. One example is stingrays, devices that mimic cell phone towers and trick phones in the area into transmitting locations and other de-anonymizing information. Another is geofence warrants, which allows the government to subpoena companies like Google for location data from all phones in the vicinity of a crime.  

Bottom line: Smartphones aren't just a tool for one-to-many sharing. They're also rich targets for state surveillance.

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Staying Authentic

In 2018, Cisco acquired Duo Security, a maker of unified access security and multi-factor authentication tools, for almost $2.4 billion. I recently caught up with Duo cofounder and GM Dug Song to discuss the part of remote work nobody is talking about: staying safe and secure online. 

First, some stats: Duo says it saw average daily user authentications for VPN products increase 180% in April over February. Total authentications per month jumped to 800 million from 600 million in the same period.

• VPN use continues at elevated levels, according to Song, which indicates a longer-term shift to remote work.

In our conversation, Song and I discussed best digital hygiene practices for companies and employees, the future of authentication, and more. Check it out here. 

BITS & BYTES

Stat: Chinese company CATL says its new EV battery tech lasts up to 1.2 million miles, the equivalent of roughly 50 trips around the world.

Quote: "Digital tools do not replace the human capacity needed to do contact tracing."—WHO Director-General Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus at a press conference last week. 

While we're on the topic: "Coronavirus contact tracing apps were tech's chance to step up. They haven't," according to NBC.

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WHAT ELSE IS BREWING

• Cameo launched Zoom Calls, which lets fans book virtual meetings with celebs. 
• GitHub is working to replace "master" and other slavery-related language from its software codebase, CEO Nat Friedman said Friday. 
• Quibi is on pace to sign up fewer than 2 million paying subscribers this year, the WSJ reports, well below the mobile streaming service's goal of 7.4 million. 

WHAT'S BREWING THIS WEEK

Monday: National Coronavirus Recovery Commission releases final report; Canton Import and Export Fair runs online for 10 days

Tuesday: Oracle earnings; IBM's 109th birthday

Wednesday: Cisco Live runs through Thursday; CB Insights virtual tech conference runs through Friday

Thursday: On this day in 1928, Amelia Earhart became the first woman to fly across the Atlantic Ocean

Friday: Juneteenth

MARKET RESEARCH

Sony has finally unveiled the PlayStation 5, and "internet detectives" are reporting that the console is very large, per The Verge. Internet detectives have also relentlessly memed the PS5, comparing the console's design to internet routers, the Burj Al Arab in Dubai, and a PlayStation 4 between two plates. 

What do you think of the design? Reply and let me know.

TECH THINGAMABOBS

For Boston Dynamics content: The robotics company's engineers are working remotely with the four-legged Spot.

For AI and boardgames: DeepMind researchers published a preprint article about deep reinforcement learning algorithms playing Diplomacy, a seven-player board game. We're doomed. 

For the state of spatial computing: At the beginning of June, mixed reality pioneer Ori Inbar analyzed a decade of growth for AR and VR. The big takeaway:

Super Ventures

ICYMI

• Snap Announces New Tools, Partnerships, and Engagement Data at Developer Conference
• Nikola Soars and Lilium Enters the Unicorn Club
• ByteDance Is Separating Domestic and Overseas Operations