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September 2, 2024
The Potential Risks to the Tech Industry from Kamala Harris’s Economic Plan
Vice President Kamala Harris recently unveiled an economic plan centered on price controls, wage hikes, and subsidies. While the tech industry is not specifically targeted in her proposals, the broader economic ramifications could spell trouble for the sector. Harris’s price controls, covering essentials like food, medicine, and housing, echo the failed attempts of the past, such as Richard Nixon’s…
September 2, 2024
Your Autonomous Vehicle Ride Might Take a While
For a time, when I wanted to make a point that AI hype was overblown, I would just cite Elon Musk’s various predictions about autonomous vehicles (AV). In 2013, Musk predicted that by 2016 Tesla would be making self-driving cars. In 2016, the company unveiled a demonstration video in which a Tesla Model X seemed to be driving itself,…
August 30, 2024
Zuckerberg’s Letter to Jordan: Headline Grabbing, Legally Insignificant
The dust is settling from this week’s headline-grabbing release of Mark Zuckerberg’s letter to House Judiciary Committee Chairman Jim Jordan in which Meta’s CEO called “wrong” repeated pressure by Biden administration officials to have Facebook “censor certain COVID-19 content.” Zuckerberg also expressed “regret that we were not more outspoken about it” and lamented making “some choices” that “we wouldn’t make today.”…
August 30, 2024
Data Center Electricity Use V: Implications
Yesterday’s earnings announcement from Nvidia brings my data center electricity use series full circle: Its now-dominant data center segment increased revenue to $26.3 billion—more than 2½ times what that business generated a year earlier. Adjusted operating income for the quarter more than doubled year over year to $19.9 billion. Nvidia’s overall top and bottom lines beat Wall…
August 30, 2024
Lost in Space
More than 30 years ago I wrote a master’s thesis that evaluated NASA’s Space Shuttle program (you can read the publications that followed here and here). As I turned to my PhD dissertation, I decided to move on from human space flight. Over the years that followed I felt like there was something left unfinished from my work…
August 29, 2024
AI-Generated Inventions Suffer Two More Setbacks, Bolstering the “Automatoner” Viewpoint
Readers of this space are by now intimately familiar with the Device for the Autonomous Bootstrapping of Unified Sentience (DABUS), the machine created by computer scientist and prolific inventor Stephen Thaler that purports to have invented several items on its own. According to Thaler, DABUS independently developed an improved liquid container with enhanced surface area for insulation and…
August 28, 2024
Regulating AI, Hypothetically and in Reality
Let’s consider two hypothetical scenarios. First, an artist creates a new work. Copyright law protects the artist’s intellectual property, allowing the artist to release the work for public enjoyment. Copyright law also permits others to make derivative works based on the original piece. Society is enriched from the existence of both the original and the…
August 27, 2024
The “Gore Tax” May Finally Get Assessed
Tech policy analysts of a certain glamorous age may remember the “Gore Tax.” That’s the partisan moniker given to a program established by the Telecommunications Act of 1996 and implemented during the Clinton administration. It required telecom firms to pay into a small suite of “universal service” funds aimed at ensuring the availability of affordable…
August 26, 2024
The Promise and Limitations of AI in Education: A Nuanced Look at Emerging Research
As AI continues to advance, its potential applications in education have become a subject of considerable interest and debate. Recent studies illuminate AI’s promise and limitations in different facets of teaching and learning, providing an emerging and nuanced perspective on how these new large language models (LLMs) can transform educational practices. AI as a Grader:…
August 26, 2024
VIPER’s Failure and the Future of Space Exploration
Earlier this year, NASA’s most advanced lunar rover—the Volatiles Investigating Polar Exploration Rover or VIPER—seemed to be on track to the moon. Engineers integrated the VIPER’s final instrument of four in February. By April, the golf-cart-sized rover stood “taller and more capable than ever” after its mast was installed and it passed a crucial review. The fully assembled VIPER…