AI GOVERNANCE

UN aims to shape global AI rules

Every region wants to do AI differently. 

On Thursday, the United Nations announced the Global Dialogue on AI Governance, an initiative aimed at building “safe, secure and trustworthy AI systems” grounded in human rights, oversight and international law. 

The initiative is part of the Global Digital Compact, an agreement introduced by the UN last year focusing on AI governance. Some of its goals include enabling interoperability between governance regimes, encouraging “open innovation” and allowing every nation “a seat at the table of AI.” 

Additionally, the UN announced the creation of the International Independent Scientific Panel on AI,” a group of 40 experts to provide an “early warning system” on AI’s risks.

“The question is whether we will govern this transformation together – or let it govern us,” said António Guterres, secretary-general of the UN, in his remarks. 

The problem, however, is that three of the biggest contributors to the AI transformation – the U.S., EU and China – have very, very different approaches to regulating it. 

• The U.S. has taken a hands-off, free-market approach to AI regulation, largely leaving AI lawmaking in the hands of states. 

• The EU has sought to regulate the tech to protect its citizens, implementing the EU AI Act to regulate risks and ban certain practices. 

• China, meanwhile, has invested in AI’s growth as a means of using it for ideological control and surveillance. 

These different approaches are representative of the “fundamental differences” to governing that already exist within these regions, said Brenda Leong, director of the AI division at law firm ZwillGen.

“AI is going to show up in each of those contexts, in alignment with that context,” said Leong. “Every country is going to use AI as a tool and as political leverage.” 

Given that the UN can’t enact or enforce laws itself, the closer it gets to prodding actual regulation of AI systems, “the less and less influence they’re going to have,” said Leong. 

However, the UN can still influence areas where there’s “convergence” between regions, said Leong. For example, creating technological standards, setting definitions and promoting interoperability are things that can make “everybody’s lives better.” 

Additionally, the UN can represent the interests of the regions that aren’t at the forefront of the AI race, she said, to “keep that gap from growing too big.”

While these three major markets have very different ideas on how to govern their models, the impacts of this on the market are still playing out. It’s possible that the EU’s large marketplace could influence enterprises and model developers to adhere to its particularly stringent rules for matters like privacy and ethics. As Leong noted, “it’s easier to comply with one standard than many, and they're the tightest.” 

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INVESTMENTS

OpenAI’s $400B week; massive investments, expansion

OpenAI is keeping busy. 

Last week, the AI industry darling announced billions of dollars worth of deals and partnerships, signaling a massive push toward building out its infrastructure, strengthening its cloud capabilities and shoring up its push into the enterprise market. 

In case you missed it, here’s the recap.

• On Monday, Nvidia invested $100 billion in OpenAI to build out at least 10 gigawatts of AI data centers;

• On Tuesday, OpenAI, Oracle and Softbank announced a further buildout of the Stargate project, bringing the initiative to nearly 7 gigawatts and $400 billion in investment deployed over the next three years; 

• On Thursday, CoreWeave signed a $6.5 billion deal with OpenAI to deploy AI data centers and technology, bringing its total contracts with the firm to $22.4 billion. That same day, Databricks debuted a partnership with the AI giant to deploy its models to enterprise customers, expected to generate $100 million in revenue. 

• And to cap off the week, Mohamed Bin Zayed University of Artificial Intelligence awarded its first honorary doctorate to CEO Sam Altman on Friday. 

Though some fear that all of this hype may be heading toward a bubble burst (a narrative pushed by Altman himself), “what’s really happening is a massive infrastructure buildout that signals long-term commitment, not short-term froth,” said Jason Hardy, chief technology officer of AI for Hitachi Vantara. 

The race to build out this tech “resembles an arms race,” said Hardy, one that OpenAI sits at the forefront of. Although the market will likely experience corrections, Hardy noted that we are unlikely to see another dot-com bust. “There is too much enterprise momentum, and infrastructure is committed to its success.”

Despite its current frontrunner status, OpenAI’s moves could also highlight “significant overextension risks,” said Daniel Derzic, head of AI investments at Hartmann Capital. 

“If funding slows, partnerships falter or regulatory scrutiny intensifies, the massive scale could become a liability, potentially squeezing out smaller competitors,” Derzic said.

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AI ADOPTION

AI use among developers surges

Developers are becoming more confident in their AI coworkers. 

A recent survey of nearly 5,000 software developers revealed that 90% are using AI tools, according to Google’s State of AI-assisted Software Development report. These developers are using these tools for a median of two hours per day. 

According to the report, some of the top reported use cases included: 

• Writing new code (71%), modifying existing code (66%) and writing documentation (64%)

• Additionally, maintenance tasks, such as debugging (59%), code review (56%) and maintaining legacy code (55%) were commonly reported uses of the tech

Around 65% reported “heavily” relying on AI for software development, while 37% reported a “moderate amount” of usage, despite the fact that roughly 30% of respondents said they don’t entirely trust the technology. 

While the majority of respondents reported creating better quality code at a faster rate, developers face the “speed versus reliability tradeoff,” said Bob Rogers, chief product and technology officer of Oii.ai and co-founder of BeeKeeper AI. The more these tools scale, the harder it can be to track when things go wrong. 

For now, however, letting AI take the reins entirely is still not very popular: Around 61% of respondents reported never interacting with AI tools in an agentic mode, likely reflecting the fact that agents are still relatively nascent. 

Still, as companies seek to cut costs, tools like this threaten to flip the employment landscape on its head, Rogers said. AI tools can enable startups to operate with leaner workforces and allow larger enterprises to avoid filling certain roles after reorganization. Rather than building tools themselves, software developers’ roles may shift to helping facilitate where these AI-built tools fit in, he said. 

“There's going to be a lot of need for people with software engineering understanding to be making sure all the pieces sew together properly,” Rogers said.

LINKS

• AI capital spending is far outpacing revenue potential

• Accenture will cut staff who can’t be retrained on AI

• Call recording app Neon shuts down after exposing numbers and call recordings

• Senior health tech startup Inspiren raises $100 million in Series B

• Apple develops ChatGPT-like app to test Siri overhaul

• Vulnerable languages create a “doom loop” for AI models, Wikipedi

• Perplexity Search API: Perplexity is giving developers access to the web index it uses to power its answer engine. 

• Magiclight: Turn any script or idea into captivating story videos with AI-powered script generation and consistent character creation.

• Doraverse: This AI coworker is designed to streamline office work — assisting with tasks ranging from writing and research to creating spreadsheets and emails, all through a single unified interface.

• FakeRadar: Analyzes live video in real time to detect deepfakes, without any access to audio. 

• Neutron: This AI tool watches your screen and predicts what you need help with, including writing emails, searching files and summarizing documents.

• xAI: Grok Engineer

• ServiceNow: Senior Software Engineer

• Meta: Software Engineer, Machine Learning

• Nvidia: Principal Enterprise AI Architect, Agentic AI

GAMES

POLL RESULTS

Should streaming platforms flag AI-generated music?

• Yes, every AI track should be clearly marked (67%)

• No, labeling isn’t needed (14%)

• Not sure (19%)