JPMorgan may have restricted employee use of ChatGPT, but the broader financial services sector can’t escape the AI buzz.

A new survey from FICO and Corinium solicited responses from C-level AI and data leaders at 100 major banking and financial services institutions in the US and Canada, finding overall that demand for AI tools and processes seems to have accelerated faster than the implementation of responsible AI initiatives.

• Half of those surveyed said that demand for AI products is higher than last year, while 71% said AI ethics and responsible AI aren't core parts of the operational strategies at their organizations.
• Just 8% of leaders said their AI strategy was “fully mature, with model development standards consistently scaled across their organizations.”

“From a financial services perspective, that was surprising,” Scott Zoldi, FICO’s chief analytics officer, told us. He added, “Another interesting stat from the report was that 27% haven’t even established their strategy for responsible AI…Those sorts of stats were particularly surprising—I would’ve hoped it would be a little bit further ahead than the industry overall.”

Without a robust, responsible AI model development strategy, the race to adopt AI could be especially problematic in the financial services industry, as many companies build thousands of models, Zoldi said.

Keep reading here.—HF

To predict when an employee might quit their job, you don’t need to don the garb of an ancient soothsayer and stare intently into a crystal ball. You might, however, try consulting predictive attrition AI tools, which seemingly provide a window into the future.

Analyze a variety of data points (from public salary info and turnover rates, to external factors like economic trends and industry shifts), then behold: You suddenly know which of your employees has a higher likelihood of quitting and you can intervene before it’s too late.

But like all good algorithms, there could be a dark side: Compiling troves of data in the service of predicting quitters is nothing new. IBM’s Watson supercomputer, released in 2010, can forecast attrition rates with 95% accuracy, CEO Ginni Rometty claimed in 2019.

• A glut of companies, such as Retrain AI and Eightfold AI, also harness big data to better forecast attrition, which has become more enticing to HR departments in certain industries amid layoffs and budgetary shortcomings: In a recent Capterra survey of 300 HR leaders, 98% said they’d use algorithms to help reduce labor costs during the next recession.

Keep reading here.—SB

Usually, we write about the business of tech. Here, we highlight the *tech* of tech.

The future of AR/VR, mapped: Meta revealed its AR/VR roadmap for the next four years in an internal presentation this week. Notable milestones on the roadmap included three new Quest headsets, one of which is expected in 2024, a ‘neural interface’ smartwatch in 2025, and AR glasses in 2027.

It’s about how hard you fall: Google rolled out fall detection for its Pixel Watch this week, claiming that the feature was “extensively tested” to avoid false positives. The feature uses motion sensors and machine learning to determine whether a fall is serious, and Google said the feature can distinguish between normal exercise routines, minor stumbles, and serious falls.—JM

Stat: Apple furthered its investment in Globalstar, loaning the satellite communications company $252 million as part of its Emergency SOS via Satellite service.

Quote: “It means that we can quickly design a mission to deflect an asteroid if there is a threat, and we know that this has a very high chance of being effective.”—Franck Marchis, at the SETI Institute in Mountain View, California, on the success of NASA’s DART mission to deflect an asteroid’s orbit

Read: The mining industry is diving under the sea as a way to acquire metals essential for our EV future, but there are questions about the potential environmental impact.

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Two of the following news stories are true, and one...we made up. Can you spot the odd one out?

• Space agencies are debating whether the Moon should get its own time zone as missions to the lunar surface become more common.
• A US House panel passed a bill authorizing the White House to ban TikTok over national security fears.
• Bowery Farming announced this week that it developed a process to grow corn indoors, opening the CEA industry to an opportunity to grow staple crops inside.

Catch up on the top Tech Brew stories from the past few editions:

• Inside Delta’s big-dollar, multiyear push to bring free in-flight wi-fi to the masses
• The EV transition needs lithium. Can a decommissioned mine help provide it?
• Why the vertical farming industry wilted in late 2022