The SEC Newgate AI Weekly

This week’s developments in Artificial Intelligence were defined by significant movements from the leading tech giants, such as the announcement from OpenAI (the developer of ChatGPT) that it will open its first office outside of the USA in London, and further interest from the USA in its importance in geopolitics. The key highlights include:

Corporate updates

OpenAI London opening

OpenAI, the developer of ChatGPT, has chosen to open an office in London. This is its first international office outside of the USA. OpenAI has said that the UK office would reinforce efforts to create “safe AGI”, referring to general artificial intelligence, or a highly intelligent AI system that OpenAI’s chief executive has described as “generally smarter than humans”. Rishi Sunak will see this as a significant win for the Government, which has sought to position the UK as a key player in Global AI regulation and a geopolitical home of the technology.

Deepmind challenge to ChatGPT

Whilst ChatGPT may have had a head start, Deepmind, Google’s research lab, has claimed this week that its next chatbot will rival and likely supersede ChatGPT in capability. As covered in Wired magazine, DeepMind is using techniques from AlphaGo, DeepMind’s AI system that was used to defeat a human player at popular board game Go, to create its upcoming chatbot, Gemini. If Google successfully executes the project, the chatbot will be able to solve problems and analyse text. This is Deepmind’s most ambitious work in the space so far.

Geopolitics

USA vs China in chip wars

This week, we heard that the Biden administration in the USA was considering new export controls on chips for artificial intelligence, making it harder for companies in China to obtain the technology with military applications. These would significantly affect the exporting ability of Nvidia, the world’s largest chip-maker, to export to China. Naturally, Nvidia, which briefly joined the $1tn dollar valuation club in May, is rather agitated by these plans, saying that US curbs would cause ‘permanent loss of opportunity’.

Financial Services

BlackRock AI mania

The world’s largest asset manager, BlackRock, has declared that AI is a “mega force” that could create significant returns in today’s “unusual” market. In its mid-year outlook report, BlackRock detailed their thesis for increased investment in AI, pointing to truly remarkable gains amongst a handful of tech stocks. BlackRock said that the most obvious “benefit” of AI lies in automation, and that AI could allow companies to leverage their ‘gold mine’ of data.

Medicine

NHS evolution using AI technology

It was also reported that the NHS is further embracing the use of AI. Cancer radiotherapy waiting times are due to be sped up by the use of AI, helping to speed up the process for doctors by two and half times than if they were working alone. The government-backed artificial intelligence tool OSAIRIS is due to make significant strides in this respect. This was briefed as part of Rishi Sunak’s NHS Long Term Workforce Plan due to be announced this week, in which AI to support diagnosis and the use of robotics to ease pressures on staff will form a central part of the strategy.

Human trials of AI-designed drugs

This week, human trials began of a drug that was discovered and designed by AI. Insilico Medicine said this week that it has dosed a patient in China with a new therapy to treat chronic lung disease, idiopathic pulmonary fibrosis. This drug was entirely “AI-discovered and AI-designed”. AI can analyse vast troves of data to identify drug targets, proteins in the body associated with particular diseases, and molecules that can be made into medicines, and whilst there is no guarantee of success, this represents a significant test for AI in medicine.

And finally…

Virtual takeaways powered by AI

You read that right. A report from Deliveroo called ‘Snack to the Future’ was published, delivering its predicted trends on how our dinner tables are set to revolutionise. The report predicted that diets that fit with someone’s personal physiology will, in future, be powered by Artificial Intelligence.  In what sounds like something straight out of Wall-E, “Hyper-personalied diets, fully bespoke to one’s nutritional needs”, may also be here within the next 20 years.