Category Archives: Big Tech

Ever since the internet was introduced to the world, the demands placed on it by users have constantly evolved. It was once a blessing to simply be connected, but now that more than half the world relies on the internet for work, schooling, and day-to-day activities, the broadband industry must shift its focus to delivering a quality user experience.

For decades, speed has been used as the primary indicator of broadband performance. At the same time, networking experts have long realized that speed is just one dimension of broadband performance, and newer, increasingly interactive applications have made users aware that more than just speed is required to provide the best possible experience. As a result, the industry needs to look beyond conventional measurements of speed and even latency, to improve overall broadband experience and to facilitate the management of network performance against service and application requirements.

Because our always on, ultra-connected lifestyle now demands so much more from our networks, Quality of Experience can no longer be ignored. For example, the emergence of applications such as Virtual Reality, Augmented Reality, and other high bandwidth, latency-sensitive applications have the potential to place tremendous strain on broadband networks.

Notably, VR technology has become more accessible and widely used over the past few years and it only continues to grow in popularity, with an estimated base of more than 171 million users worldwide and applications in gaming, healthcare, education, architecture, and other markets.

As VR technology and applications evolve, they require much more responsiveness from the network, including stringent latency requirements that are critical to providing customers with a realistic and comfortable experience. In effect, a network providing VR must be invisible to the customer, delivering data packets so quickly and reliably that its presence between the user and the application is not detected.

Latency, or the amount of time it takes for a data packet to travel from one point to another, is one of the network performance metrics used to describe customer QoE and consumers have become increasingly aware of its importance. However, conventional latency measurements do not necessarily provide enough information to drive improvements to network performance, especially when supporting demanding applications and services.

The industry needs to be able to break latency into its components, each of which is affected by distinct factors within the network. By understanding the individual components that make up latency, network designers can focus on the most effective techniques to provide performance optimized for subscribers, services, and applications.

Broadband Forums Broadband Quality of Experience Delivered project, published as a series of specifications under the TR-452 umbrella, defines metrics that capture variability in network quality, relating directly to end-user QoE. The framework uses principles of Quality Attenuation (written Q) to characterize the performance metrics, measurements, and analysis required by innovative broadband networks, tackling factors such as latency, consistency, predictability, and reliability.

Quality Attenuation measurements provide the capability for decomposing latency into distinct components, matching them to the sources of performance degradation. For example, packet delay is decomposed into a constant component (due to distance travelled and also bounded by the speed of light), a variable component (caused by queuing or buffering), and a serialization delay (tied to link speeds).

Quality Attenuation then builds a representative statistical distribution of these latency components as well as packet loss, based on the measured transit times of variable sized packets sent over a network segment over time. This makes Quality Attenuation a powerful tool for evaluating both the nature and the causes of network performance issues.

For example, Broadband Quality Attenuation can be used to identify quality degradation due to an inadequate scheduling operation when the network is under load. This in turn allows network operators to optimize broadband performance more cost-effectively via configuration changes, treating the root cause of the issue rather than just increasing link speeds, which could entail significant expenditure without solving the problem.

In this new gigabit era with the likes of DOCSIS 4, XGS-PON, 25G, 50G, 100G, coherent PON, and Wi-Fi 7 either available now or on the horizon more speed has diminishing benefits as perceived by customers. Instead, a new generation of interactive apps and services requires a more responsive network. As this evolution continues, speed will no longer be the main differentiator, but rather just one factor in the quest for a more comprehensive understanding of network performance, based upon service and application QoE.

By focusing on QoE, service providers can achieve reduced churn, new Average Revenue Per User growth opportunities, service differentiation, and lower OPEX applied to customer support and network planning. Services differentiated for specific QoE can be offered initially to particular target groups and ultimately, to the wider broadband subscriber market. These offerings can be powered by Broadband QED, which provides the needed framework to specify, measure, and analyze, and ensure the quality required for these next-generation applications driving value-added services.

Gavin Young is responsible within Vodafone Group for the fixed broadband access technology strategy, architecture, vendor roadmaps and standards across the 17 countries where Vodafone currently has fixed access assets, including fiber, cable and DSL access technologies plus fixed-mobile access. Young was a founding director of the Broadband Forum, for which he served as technical chairman for 12 years, in addition to serving as co-chair of the UK21CN consultations broadband group and on other technical boards. He is chairman of the Ofcom Spectrum Advisory Board and is active in several CableLabs initiatives, and is a fellow of the IET. This piece is exclusive to Broadband Breakfast.

Broadband Breakfast accepts commentary from informed observers of the broadband scene. Please send pieces tocommentary@breakfast.media. The views expressed in Expert Opinion pieces do not necessarily reflect the views of Broadband Breakfast and Breakfast Media LLC.

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Tony Anscombe: It's Misleading to Ask if Big Tech Wants to Read ... - BroadbandBreakfast.com

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The Week Ahead: Fed, ECB and BoJ set rates, and Big Tech ... - Financial Times

BEIJING - China has asked its largest technology companies to provide case studies of their most successful start-up investments in consumer, telecom and media firms, a sign that the authorities are ready to grant broader leeway in backing such deals after a crackdown brought them to a virtual halt two years ago.

Companies including Tencent Holdings and Meituan received the requests from Chinas Ministry of Commerce and the National Development and Reform Commission (NDRC), people familiar with the matter said, asking not to be identified discussing private information.

Earlier requests for case studies on the robotics and semiconductor industries were followed by a rare post by NDRC the nations powerful economic planner on its official WeChat account highlighting investments by the two companies as being aligned with Chinas goals.

While the authorities did not give reasons for requesting the new case studies, any broadening of the types of investments looked upon favourably by regulators would be a significant step towards reversing a crackdown on disorderly capital that helped erase hundreds of billions of dollars in market value from Chinas tech giants since 2021.

President Xi Jinpings government has taken several steps to rebuild confidence in the private sector in recent weeks, including by ending regulatory probes into Tencent, which runs WeChat, and e-commerce billionaire Jack Mas Ant Group.

The moves have helped spur stock market gains, though it is far from clear that a recovery in private sector confidence can be sustained given continued worries over the risk of abrupt shifts in government policy.

Regulators requested information on the investments including the ownership structure and whether they involve foreign capital, as well as potential economic and social benefits such as how the investment serves goals including carbon neutrality, rural re-vitalisation and common prosperity, one of the people said.

The selected companies in the tech giants portfolios must be in compliance with relevant regulations and have no record of violations, the person said.

Representatives of food delivery platform Meituan, the Ministry of Commerce, NDRC and Tencent did not respond to requests for comment.

China is courting private sector companies as it looks to rescue its sputtering post-Covid-19 economic recovery.

China Securities Regulatory Commission vice-chairman Fang Xinghai met some global venture capital and private equity firms to hear their worries about investment in the country, Bloomberg News reported last week.

Encouraging Chinese tech companies to back consumer-facing businesses would represent a pivot from the governments guidance of the past few years. In December 2021, the Communist Partys top decision-makers, in a briefing following a key annual conference, reined in their language around the disorderly expansion of capital.

The briefing introduced a red-light, green-light metaphor indicating how the state would seek to guide the private sectors investment decisions.

Beijing has firmly steered investors towards bets on technologies it views as key battlegrounds with strategic rivals such as the United States. US President Joe Bidens administration is planning to further tighten existing curbs by restricting inflows into Chinas semiconductor, quantum computing and artificial intelligence (AI) sectors.

Tech companies, in particular, have heeded Beijings call to develop AI, a technology with far-reaching implications for the economy and national interests.

Tencent-backed Shanghai Enflame Technology, which develops AI chips, and Rongxin Semiconductor Ningbo, a wafer-level packaging and testing operator that Meituan invested in, are among the companies NDRC mentioned in its WeChat post.

Alibaba Group Holding was also praised for its investment in e-commerce platform Huitongda Network.

Some Chinese tech companies that once operated like venture capital firms have cooled on the strategy in recent years. ByteDance dissolved its venture capital and investing team and was set to radically overhaul its separate strategic investment arm, people familiar with the matter said in 2022.

Alibaba said in May its plan to break up the company into six different units will involve dispatching about half of its investment team to the various businesses. BLOOMBERG

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China's Big Tech making a comeback with Beijing offering fresh ... - The Straits Times

Montgomery County Public Schools, Marylands largest school district, is suing big tech companies in federal court, joining hundreds of other school systems in a legal battle over youth mental health, accusing the social media companies of profiting from vulnerable children, causing them to be depressed, commit violence or harm themselves.

James Frantz of Frantz Law Group is filing on behalf of dozens of districts anticipating that within the next month there will be more than 1,000 school districts involved in the litigation from at least 35 states.

The cases are being consolidated in the Northern District of California under Judge Yvonne Gonzalez Rogers, an Obama appointee. The litigation aims to hold big tech liable for using algorithms that target youth, which the lawsuit says are intentionally and deliberately designed to exploit and cause minors to become addicted, which has caused the harm.

It is a travesty what has happened and these social media companies wont take it upon themselves to regulate themselves, Mr. Frantz told The Washington Times.

The 107-page complaint filed Wednesday on behalf of Montgomery County Public Schools, which has more than 160,000 students, charges that Meta; Instagram; Snap Inc.; TikTok; Bytedance; Alphabet; Google; YouTube and WhatsApp should be held accountable under federal law for negligence and conspiracy to cause minors harm.

It also charges that Section 230 of the Communications Decency Act, which shields internet companies from legal liability for content posted by third parties, shouldnt be an escape from accountability for the tech giants because the companies know of the harm and do not censor the damaging content.

Defendants have successfully exploited the vulnerable brains of minors, causing millions of students across the United States, including in plaintiffs district, to become addicted to and excessively using defendants social media platforms. Furthermore, the content defendants direct to minors is many times harmful and [exploitative] (e.g., instigating vandalism, eating disorders, or encouraging self-harm), the lawsuit stated.

Defendants misconduct is a substantial factor resulting in a youth mental health crisis, which has been marked by increasingly higher proportions of minors struggling with anxiety, depression, thoughts of self-harm and suicidal ideation.

The Supreme Court had two cases this term challenging the liability of tech companies including an opportunity to chip away at Section 230 but the court left the protections intact for now.

Lawsuits from school districts against the tech companies began earlier this year and have been piling up, so the federal cases are being consolidated under one judge.

A spokesperson from Meta, the named plaintiff in the Montgomery County case, did not immediately respond to a request for comment. Meta owns Facebook, Instagram and WhatsApp, among other products.

Mark Zuckerberg, CEO of Meta, said in a Facebook post in 2021 that his company doesnt push content on users to induce a response.

The argument that we deliberately push content that makes people angry for profit is deeply illogical, he wrote at the time.

A report this year from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention found that teen girls are experiencing increased sadness and violence.

In 2021, 16% of high school students were electronically bullied, including through texting, Instagram, Facebook, or other social media, during the past year. Female students were more likely than male students to be electronically bullied, the report read.

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Montgomery County school district sues Big Tech over youth mental ... - Washington Times

With online services increasingly becoming the center of people's lives, the amount of personal data we share on the web is growing exponentially.

When data handling scandals occur, such as Meta's latest $1.3 billion blunder, we all get reminded of what's at stake for our right to privacy. However, the reality is that Big Tech companies have built their business model on exploiting information collected onlineand all too often they're found guilty of misconduct.

But, are citizens really aware of the risks of their digital lives? And, do they care about their privacy online? One of the best VPN services around, Proton VPN, asked these and other questions to people in the UK. What it found is that most Brits are "concerned about online surveillance but lack the knowledge and tools to protect themselves."

As mentioned, companies of the likes of Google and Meta are infamous for engaging in massive data collection. While we all know they can monitor basically anything their users do online, we are all still keen to use their services.

"If Big Tech sent actual spies into our homes, we would never stand for such an intrusion into our lives. But for some reason we put up with it online," said Andy Yen, Founder and CEO at Proton.

The discrepancy between people's attitude towards privacy in the offline and online world is known as the privacy paradox.

In March Proton, the company behind one of the best free VPN services and homonymous secure email app, decided to try to better understand why this happens and teamed up with YouGov to survey 2083 adults in the United Kingdom.

It turned out that more than three quarters of respondents (77%) are concerned about their online privacy, with two thirds of people preferring to lose their passport than access to their email account.

The results show that the data Brits are most worried about is financial information (78%), login details (74%), and other personal identification info (68%). Unsurprisingly, people who got hacked in the past were the ones expressing more concern over their sensitive data.

There was also a big generational discrepancy in the responses, as more than a quarter of respondents (26%) aged between 18 and 24 said not to be concerned about their privacy online at all.

Dr. Gus Hosein, Executive Director at UK-based charity Privacy International, said "People are concerned. People want agency. They want to be able to do something. Actually, perhaps, more often than not, they just want to be left alone. They don't want to be poked at, prodded and surveilled as they just go around their daily lives. People want to not have to be worried about these things."

The results also show that, (69%) don't understand how online services are using their data. Despite this, over half of them (52%) believe it's unethical for free services to make a profit on this information.

"For too long, people have gotten a raw deal from tech companies monetizing and abusing their data. And people are upset about their online privacy, but they dont know what to do about it," said Yen from Proton.

The survey depicts a quite grim picture when it comes user knowledge on how to secure their digital lives. The most popular measures were one-click solutions like refusing optional web trackers cookies or browsing the web in incognito mode. Sadly, these steps aren't enough to really escape digital surveillance.

The good news is that the majority of British people (83%) said to be willing to take additional steps to protect their privacy online in the next 12 months.

For those that want to take addtional steps, Proton advises users to introduce the following habits into their every day digital life:

As the so-called surveillance capitalism model becomes more prelevant, governments have been trying to regulate the wild world around the web. Legislations like the GDPR in the EU and UK are the current best attempts to minimize data collection. These are far away from perfect and many countries, most notably the US, are still lacking such a law.

Worryingly, commentators believe that simply fining the companies breaking privacy laws isn't enough to foster a real change. " When a companys market cap is the same size as a small country, the fines that are currently being issued are a drop in the ocean. Big Tech has calculated that the surveillance capitalism model is so profitable that fines are simply a cost of doing business," a Proton spokesperson told TechRadar.

Even if Big Tech change their ways, unethical commercial data abuses are just a side of the story. Government surveillance and cybercrime are other major risks that come from sharing too much of you online.

Proton is committed to keeping on with its mission by equipping users with a wide range of end-to-end encrypted products to help them protect themselves from Big Tech. The tools it currently provides are a VPN, secure email, password manager (Proton Pass), encrypted calendar, and drive. All are open-sourced too, and the company claims to collect no customer data.

Yen said: "Online business models where people come first and their data can never be seen, abused, or monetized need to become the norm. At Proton we firmly believe that surveillance-centric platforms arent the only way to operate online, and that the internet can work in the interests of people."

The Swiss-based security provider believes that "a carrot and stick approach" is what's really needed. This means that governments need to foster competition to help privacy-first alternatives to have a chance in the marketplace. That's partially what the EU Digital Market Act is trying to doacross the European Union at least.

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Big Tech knows most Brits don't know how to protect their online ... - TechRadar

Members of Congress have spent an enormous amount of time recently talking about online data privacy, highlighted by the House’s five-hour grilling session of TikTok’s CEO in March and subsequent calls for banning the social media platform in the United States. But instead of generating headlines for themselves by talking tough to Big Tech companies, lawmakers should focus on actual solutions for protecting consumers, such as legislation that has languished in Congress that could rein in the biggest abusers of data privacy.

Congress is certainly right: From TikTok to Amazon, Big Tech represents an imminent threat to Americans’ privacy — which is why it needs to get serious about taking action on bipartisan bills currently sitting on the table. There is, for example, the 2021 Social Media Privacy Protection and Consumer Rights Act, which would force websites to give users more control over their data and provide them the opportunity to reject data tracking and collection. Or there’s the 2022 American Data Privacy and Protection Act, which proposed a national standard for how companies can collect and use people’s data.

For each day these bills sit dormant, tech companies remain hard at work expanding their reach into our personal data. Take, for instance, Amazon’s recent acquisition of One Medical, which has raised fears among privacy experts that the tech behemoth will soon have unfettered access to millions of Americans’ medical records and other sensitive data. Or, the impending Federal Trade Commission case against the company for alleged privacy violations tied to the use of children’s data with the Alexa voice assistant.

Amazon’s lax approach to data security poses the greatest threat to Americans’ privacy. Today, the company has grown into a colossal data collector, allowing it to access troves of consumer and seller data. And while Google and Twitter may harvest the most consumer data, Amazon doesn’t fall far behind, and outpaces Facebook when it comes to intrusiveness.

The issue isn’t just whether Big Tech can simply mine personal data, but rather its ability to monetize said data. Even worse is if the data is left unguarded and falls into the wrong hands. The added convenience offered by these companies may seem alluring, but unwary consumers handing over their digital identities should be worried.

Amazon’s broad privacy policy allows the tech giant to collect information you provide, the data it already collects automatically, and information from other sources. Like other Big Tech companies, Amazon’s advertising network allows advertisers to use customer data for targeting. But Amazon’s data sharing processes across its various business units exist in a grey area, opening the door, for instance, for an Alexa user to see targeted advertisements on the company’s e-commerce site.

This may already be the reality. According to a recent study, Amazon harvests voice data from Echo devices to serve pointed ads on its own platforms and on the web, sharing your data with as many as 41 advertising partners. The company, which has a burgeoning advertising business and overshadows the $113 billion smart home market, is expected to emerge as a “winner” in the digital ads space due to its massive customer shopping database. Amazon hasn’t been forced to rely on tracking info provided by Apple’s mobile operating system, making it a more effective entity than other technology firms.

Additionally, consumers have expressed concern over the technology used in Amazon Go stores, where cameras and technology replace cashiers. A new lawsuit claims the stores in New York City illegally collect customer data, including a person’s size and shape, without their knowledge.

With Big Tech companies able to access our digital identities at any given moment, one would expect them to have robust data safeguards in place. But this is not the case. Amazon whistleblowers have warned about the company’s lax approach to data security, speaking out about how its security shortcomings may expose sensitive information in data breaches or theft.

Large tech companies are only going to continue exploiting our information for their gain — and never cared much about protecting this data to begin with. Rather than talking tough in hearings, Congress must take real action now by catalyzing the legislation already in motion to protect all American consumers.

José A. Marquez-Leon is national president and CEO of TechLatino: Latinos in Information Sciences and Technology Association (LISTA).

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The time for talk is over is time for action on data privacy - The Hill

Bill Weihl has lost his voice. In the last year, the San Franciscobased founder of ClimateVoice, a non-profit that is pushing the tech industry to support stronger climate policy, has developed an irreversible throat condition that has robbed him of speech.

But far greater than the irony of Weihls voicelessness is the symbolism of his determination to be heard. Possessed of the urgency of the climate crisis, Weihl is using all the means at his disposal to continue to broadcast his message: that Big Tech needs to step out of the shadows, take a decisive stance on the climate crisis and put its full financial and political weight behind climate policy and action.

Tech companies are viewed as forward looking, Weihl types into the chat function of our Zoom conversation. They have enormous influence. And theyre innovators. We need innovation at this point.

Weihl knows the tech industry from the inside. He spent the first decade of his career as a professor of computer science at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology before shifting into the tech sector to land the position of green energy czar at Google in 2006 and later acting as director of sustainability for Facebook. He acknowledges the significant efforts these companies were making to mitigate climate change: buying billions of dollars of clean energy to power their operations, maintaining venture investment funds for cleantech start-ups, investing heavily in the research and development of decarbonization technologies. And yet, as the climate clock ticked on, Weihl could also see that the sector wasnt doing enough.

We were winning, but we werent winning fast enough, and with climate, winning slowly is the same as losing, he said in a 2020 TED Talk. The same year, he founded ClimateVoice.

Inspiration for the project stemmed in part from what Weihl had observed in 2015/2016, as the American corporate world mobilized around LGBTQ2S+ rights. Companies like Apple, Walmart and the National Basketball Association threatened to pull out of states that were considering, or passing, regressive sexual- and gender-rights legislation. Weihl watched business affect social policy, and it got him thinking.

Most companies talk about how urgent climate is. And how committed they are to it. But when doing something on climate conflicts with or risks their core business, the profit concerns win.

He knew that the tech industry with its forward-looking leaders, focus on innovation and massive influence on culture and politics had a major role to play in climate action. But he also realized that despite the progress made the innovations and cost reductions in renewable technologies and investments in green energy the tech sector was failing to exploit its biggest lever: its potential to influence public policy.

Rather than stand up to the fossil fuel industry, as they were uniquely positioned to do, he saw tech companies playing at best a passive, and at worst an obstructive, role.

To illustrate this point, Weihl cites the fact that only one of the U.S.s five Big Tech companies Microsoft was prepared to endorse last years Inflation Reduction Act. Containing a US$369-billion investment in climate-related programs, the IRA represented the most significant single step the U.S. Congress has ever taken to tackle climate change. Only after it passed into law, in August 2022, did Google let out a quiet cheer in a tweet from its chief sustainability officer.

Most companies talk about how urgent climate is, Weihl types. And how committed they are to it. But when doing something on climate conflicts with or risks their core business, the profit concerns win. He says that tech companies are deeply compromised by their memberships in trade associations that consistently oppose climate bills, chief among them the U.S. Chamber of Commerce, which bristles at any mention of corporate tax hikes.

The tech sectors hypocrisy on climate plays out in many ways. Earlier this year, Amazon effectively killed a bill put forward in the Oregon legislature that would have impelled large data centres and crypto miners in the state to use only clean energy by 2040. Data centres are big business in Oregon, many of them owned by Seattle-based Amazon, and they require vast amounts of power equivalent to a small city to cool their armies of computers. The Oregon utility that serves Amazon has long since exhausted its renewable supply and been forced to buy fossil-fuel-backed electricity; its emissions per kilowatt hour have increased 543% since 2010.

Young employees want to see climate action. And recruitment and retention are big pain points, so companies have to pay attention to employee sentiment on this.

Amazon takes every opportunity to tout its Climate Pledge, a commitment to reach net-zero carbon emissions by 2040; the arena it built in 2021 for Seattles new NHL franchise is named Climate Pledge Arena and aspires to become the first net-zero-certified arena in the world. At the same time, Amazon was willing to lobby hard and successfully to ensure that that clean energy bill died on the floor this spring, claiming that Oregons transmission lines and energy infrastructure wouldnt support the switch.

Weihl says that this kind of duplicity doesnt wash well with the tech sector workforce and that ClimateVoice is working hard to harness its frustration. Young employees want to see climate action, he types. And recruitment and retention are big pain points, so companies have to pay attention to employee sentiment on this.

ClimateVoice engages with tech workers, informing them of what their employers are doing on the climate front both in and out of public view. Weihl says that when he launched his non-profit, most workers were oblivious to their companies lobbying activities and trade association involvement, but the more they learned, the more inclined they were to advocate. In the fall of 2021, he was pleased to see a loud chorus of tech workers speak out in support of the Build Back Better Act and again last summer in favour of the Inflation Reduction Act.

Weihl believes that this is how to foment change from below. In my experience, its very hard to persuade management on purely moral grounds, or on whats best for society, he types. But if the workforce is clamouring for something, that makes it a near-term operational issue.

In Weihls estimation, the tech industry has already developed some 80% of the technological solutions required to help mitigate the climate crisis. Now it has to deploy them faster, innovate further and, most importantly, speak louder and with one voice.

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Meet the man calling out Big Techs climate hypocrisy - Corporate Knights Magazine

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Letter: UK watchdog's tough stance on Big Tech should reassure MPs - Financial Times

News June 11, 2023 1 Technology Peter Thiel opens up about how artificial intelligence, 5G wireless, and blockchain security are converging in a new era News June 11, 2023 1 Technology

We’ve been sharing and promoting several videos from the 2022 COSM conference, but there’s also a wealth of material to be found in the YouTube archives. Today, we’d like to share a lecture from the 2019 conference featuring prominent venture capitalist and technology innovator Peter Thiel.

Peter Thiel opens up about how artificial intelligence, 5G wireless, and blockchain security are converging in a new era. In a substantive and wide-ranging discussion with tech guru George Gilder, Thiel outlines how new Internet and monetary systems can remedy the currently torturous relations between the U.S. and China, and how understanding money as time overthrows the prevailing economic and technological models and opens the way to a cornucopian future.

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Peter Thiel on Big Tech: A Throwback Lecture - Walter Bradley Center for Natural and Artificial Intelligence

Artificial intelligence has a lot of potentially huge upsides, but it is also big and scary because it could get out of control and possibly end all human life, according to some scientists. And so naturally the tech companies that stand to make bank off the menace are aping one of the original big and scary industries: Big Tobacco.

Thats the thrust of a recent study flagged for me by Dr. Max Tegmark after our fascinating and terrifying Lever Timediscussion about his dire AI warnings that have been making headlines across the planet.

Tegmark likens the situation to the plot of Dont Look Up, in which experts tout the benefits of the incoming comet rather than sounding the alarm about its dangers. The 2021 paper he sent me offers some answers about why: It shows how Big Techs has infiltrated the academic institutions studying and often promoting AI with little regard for the potentially catastrophic downsides.

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Big Tech Is Big Tobacco - The Lever