SUMMARY

HUMANS TAKEA BACK SEAT IN THE STUNNING
AI, SCI-FI EPIC ‘THE CREATOR’
SOFTBANK’S SON SAYS AI WILL SURPASS HUMAN INTELLIGENCE
IN A DECADE, URGES JAPANESE FIRMS TO ADOPT IT
PRO PHOTO - DEEP DIVE INTO THE BRAND NEW
CAMERA SET ON IPHONE 15 PRO
AI IS ON THE WORLD’S MIND. IS THE UN THE PLACE
TO FIGURE OUT WHAT TO DO ABOUT IT?

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APPLE RELEASES FIX FOR ISSUE CAUSING THE IPHONE 15 TO RUN ‘WARMER THAN EXPECTED’!!!32
NATIONAL SECURITY AGENCY IS STARTING AN ARTIFICIAL INTELLIGENCE SECURITY CENTER!!!40
THE SUPREME COURT WILL DECIDE IF STATE LAWS LIMITING SOCIAL MEDIA PLATFORMS...!!!76
FACING INCREASING PRESSURE FROM CUSTOMERS, SOME MINERS ARE SWITCHING TO...!!!102
TESLA 3Q SALES RISE 27% BUT FALL SHORT OF EXPECTATIONS DUE SOFTENING DEMAND...!!!126
UNITED AIRLINES MAKES 2ND LARGE ORDER FOR NEW PLANES IN LESS THAN A YEAR AS IT...!!!134
GOOGLE PACKS MORE ARTIFICIAL INTELLIGENCE INTO NEW PIXEL PHONES, RAISES PRICES...!!!140
GOT RETURNS? CALL UBER. THE RIDE-HAILING SERVICE IS NOW OFFERING TO RETURN PARCELS...!!!158
MICROSOFT CEO SAYS UNFAIR PRACTICES BY GOOGLE LED TO ITS DOMINANCE AS A SEARCH...!!!164
FACEBOOK AND INSTAGRAM USERS IN EUROPE COULD GET AD-FREE SUBSCRIPTION OPTION...!!!172
EU ANNOUNCES PLANS TO BETTER PROTECT ITS SENSITIVE TECHNOLOGIES FROM FOREIGN...!!!180

TOP 10 TV SHOWS!!!148
TOP 10 BOOKS!!!150
TOP 10 SONGS!!!152
TOP 10 ALBUMS!!!154
TOP 10 MUSIC VIDEOS!!!156

HUMANS TAKE
A BACK SEAT IN
THE STUNNING
AI, SCI-FI EPIC
‘THE CREATOR’

Movies
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&TV Shows

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The Creator | Official Trailer

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The Creator | Teaser Trailer | 20th Century Studios

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The artificial intelligence in Gareth Edwards’“
The Creator,” a visually magnificent if by-thebooks epic, is not the AI making headlines at the
moment. This is AI in the classic sci-fi mold —
the Roy Battys of “Blade Runner,” the Avas of “Ex
Machina,” the ones whose sentience we question
and debate endlessly. Will the machines kill us?
Take our jobs? Or do something that the movies
haven’t dreamed possible yet?
As the retired special forces guy cleaning up
nuclear debris, Joshua (John David Washington),
flatly tells a fellow worker when she posits that the
AIs were indeed after their jobs: “They can have
this one.”
Regardless, for now, artificial intelligence is more
allegory for the other than aspiring screenwriters,
filmmakers or trash collectors. And, for Edwards
and his co-writer Chris Weitz, they might even
have more capacity for humanity and goodness
than humans, which is not exactly part of the
ChatGPT conversation either, though that would
be an interesting twist.
In the world of “The Creator” they’re welcomed
by society at first as an unambiguous good — a
helpful servant class that have the ability to make
our human lives better. But as they so often do in
sci-fi dystopias, they turned on us. Actually, more
specifically, they turned on the U.S. when they
dropped a nuclear weapon on downtown Los
Angeles. Naturally, that means war.
Washington’s Joshua lost his family in the attack
and when we meet him, he’s undercover in New
Asia to try to find the creator of these advanced
AIs, a shadowy, elusive figure they call Nimrata.
Joshua got busy with other pursuits though. He
fell in love with, married and is about to welcome
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a baby with his on-the-ground source Maya
(Gemma Chan), taken from him in an unexpected
raid by his peers — one of many truly sublime
sequences in which a hovering death star-like
aircraft called NOMAD scans the lush landscape
with ominous blue lasers. Edwards, who had a
complicated journey making “Rogue One,” does
not deny himself the pleasure of riffing on “Star
Wars” iconography.
Allison Janney’s hardened Colonel later attempts
to recruit him for one last shot at finding Nimrata
and the ultimate weapon he’s suspected of
building, but a jaded Joshua demurs that he
doesn’t care about going extinct: “I’ve got TV to
watch.” Of course he eventually says yes and ends
up travelling with a Very Special Child, a wideeyed AI whom he names Alphie (Madeleine Yuna
Voyles), who might be able to help him find what
he’s looking for. Voyles is a captivating presence
and undeniably compelling. Unfortunately, the
script denies her the edge and nuance that would
make her more believable as a person as well as a
machine. Even Grogu is a little sassy sometimes.
But this is also a film where the visuals upstage
the pretty predictable story and even the actors,
including the likes of Washington and Ken
Watanabe. The lush landscapes of Southeast
Asia are stunningly photographed by Edwards
and co-cinematographers Greig Fraser (“Dune”)
and Oren Soffer, who shot on location in eight
countries with an unusually low-cost camera for a
Hollywood studio film (the Sony FX3, which goes
for under $4,000).
Speaking of cost — “The Creator” was made for
around $80 million and looks a thousand times
better than movies (mainly of the superhero
variety) that cost three times as much. This
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The Creator | Gareth’s Vision | 20th Century Studios

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The Creator | Final Trailer | 20th Century Studios

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The Creator | World of The Creator | 20th Century
Studios

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was part of Edwards’ design and could be
revolutionary for filmmaking. In addition to using
a camera any hobbyist could buy at a local store,
instead of pre-determining the concept art and
visual effects and forcing the actors to look at little
silver balls or tracking markers, they added them
in after the fact. It makes a huge difference.
“The Creator” is an original movie too, and even if
it is a somewhat convoluted and silly mishmash
of familiar tropes and sci-fi cliches, it still evokes
the feeling of something fresh, something novel,
something exciting to experience and behold —
which is so much more than you can say about
the vast majority of big budget movies these
days. And it’s worth taking a chance on it at the
cinemas.
“The Creator,” a 20th Century Studios release in
theaters, is rated PG-13 by the Motion Picture
Association for “strong language, some bloody
images, violence.” Running time: 132 minutes.
Three stars out of four.

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SOFTBANK’S SON
SAYS AI WILL
SURPASS HUMAN
INTELLIGENCE
IN A DECADE,
URGES JAPANESE
FIRMS TO ADOPT IT

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Softbank CEO Masayoshi Son on Wednesday
said he believes artificial intelligence will
surpass human intelligence within a decade,
urging Japanese companies to adopt it or be
left behind.
Son, speaking at a corporate conference in
Tokyo, said “artificial general intelligence will
surpass the total intelligence of humankind by
10 times in 10 years.”
It will affect every industry, from transportation
and pharmaceuticals to finance, manufacturing,
logistics and others, and the companies and
people that work with AI will be the leaders in
the next 10 to 20 years, Son said.

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Image: Shizuo Kambayashi

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Image: Kiyoshi Ota

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Son, who founded SoftBank and is a leading
figure in Japan’s business world, has enjoyed
both victories and defeats in his array of
technology investments. He latched on to the
potential of the internet decades ago, and now
is seeking to invest in AI-related companies.
“I want to be on the side of progress,” he said.
“It would be sad to be on the side that gets
left behind, like an old, shuttered high street,”
he said, and called on Japanese companies to
“wake up” to his vision of a future led by AI. “The
youth of Japan, let’s wake up.”
At the Hiroshima summit in May, Group of
Seven leaders agreed to promote reliable AI,
and Japan’s government is seeking to be part of
an international rule-making to achieve reliable
use of AI.

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Image: Kyodo

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Prime Minister Fumio Kishida, at a science
forum in Kyoto last weekend, said he
acknowledges a big potential for generative AI
and hopes it will contribute to an even more
convenient society. But he also noted the need
to address concerns of disinformation and risks
to privacy and copyright.
Son said Japan should not repeat its past
mistake of falling behind in the internet age,
warning against reluctance of some companies
due to fear of data leaks and other possible risks.
SoftBank recently expanded on the Nasdaq
listing of its chip subsidiary Arm Holding Plc,
which Son acquired in 2016. Son said the British
unit will be key to AI development.

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APPLE RELEASES
FIX FOR
ISSUE CAUSING
THE IPHONE 15
TO RUN ‘WARMER
THAN EXPECTED’

Apple has released an iOS 17 system update that
includes a fix to prevent the iPhone 15 lineup
from becoming uncomfortably hot.
According to the release’s accompanying patch
notes, iOS 17.0.3 “addresses an issue that may
cause iPhone to run warmer than expected.”
The Cupertino, California, company blamed a
software bug and other issues tied to popular
apps such as Instagram and Uber for causing
its recently released iPhone 15 models to heat up
and spark complaints about becoming too
hot to handle.
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Image: Patrick T. Fallon

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Image: Jeff Chiu

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“We have identified a few conditions which can
cause iPhone to run warmer than expected,”
Apple in a short statement provided to The
Associated Press last week after media reports
detailed overheating complaints that are
peppering online message boards.
It’s not unusual for new iPhones to get
uncomfortably warm during the first few days of
use or when they are being restored with backup
information stored in the cloud — issues that
Apple already flags for users. The devices also can
get hot when using apps such as video games
and augmented reality technology that require
a lot of processing power, but the heating issues
with the iPhone 15 models have gone beyond
those typical situations.
In its acknowledgement, Apple stressed that
the trouble isn’t related to its new processor or
titanium casing that houses the high-end iPhone
15 Pro and iPhone 15 Pro Max.
Apple also dismissed speculation that the
overheating problem in the new models might
be tied to a shift from its proprietary Lightning
charging cable to the more widely used USB-C
port that allowed it to comply with a mandate
issued by European regulators.

Image: Sophia Stark

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NATIONAL
SECURITY AGENCY
IS STARTING
AN ARTIFICIAL
INTELLIGENCE
SECURITY CENTER

The National Security Agency is starting an
artificial intelligence security center — a crucial
mission as AI capabilities are increasingly
acquired, developed and integrated into U.S.
defense and intelligence systems, the agency’s
outgoing director announced.
Army Gen. Paul Nakasone said the center would
be incorporated into the NSA’s Cybersecurity
Collaboration Center, where it works with private
industry and international partners to harden
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the U.S. defense-industrial base against threats
from adversaries led by China and Russia.
“We maintain an advantage in AI in the United
States today. That AI advantage should not
be taken for granted,” Nakasone said at the
National Press Club, emphasizing the threat
from Beijing in particular.
Asked if the U.S. has detected either Russia
or China trying to influence the 2024 U.S.
presidential elections, Nakasone said, “We
haven’t seen that yet.” He noted that a
number of elections will take place around
the world before that and said the U.S.
would work with partners and allies to help
deter any such efforts.
China has in recent months stepped up
cyber operations focused on U.S. and allied
institutions that may include pre-positioning
malware designed to disrupt military
communications, cybersecurity researchers
say. The U.S. and Japan issued an alert saying
Chinese hackers were targeting government,
industrial, telecommunications and other
entities that support their militaries.
Nakasone was asked about using AI to
automate the analysis of threat vectors
and red-flag alerts — and he reminded the
audience that U.S. intelligence and defense
agencies already use AI.
“AI helps us, But our decisions are made by
humans. And that’s an important distinction,”
Nakasone said. “We do see assistance from
artificial intelligence. But at the end of the
day, decisions will be made by humans and
humans in the loop.”

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The AI security center’s establishment
follows an NSA study that identified securing
AI models from theft and sabotage as a
major national security challenge, especially
as generative AI technologies emerge with
immense transformative potential for both good
and evil.
Nakasone said it would become “NSA’s focal
point for leveraging foreign intelligence
insights, contributing to the development of
best practices guidelines, principles, evaluation,
methodology and risk frameworks” for both AI
security and the goal of promoting the secure
development and adoption of AI within “our
national security systems and our defense
industrial base.”
He said it would work closely with U.S. industry,
national labs, academia and the Department of
Defense as well as international partners.
Nakasone is to be succeeded as dual leader of
the NSA and U.S. Cyber Command by Air Force
Lt. Gen. Timothy Haugh, his current deputy.
The job puts one individual in charge of
both U.S. cyber-defense and offense as well
as the gathering of what is known as signals
intelligence through telecommunications
surveillance. Nakasone has led both
organizations since May 2018.

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Pro Photo

DEEP DIVE INTO THE BRAND NEW
CAMERA SET ON IPHONE 15 PRO

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The Apple iPhone 15 Pro Max is the talk of the
tech world, with its camera capabilities pushing
the envelope even further and offering
professional users even more tools to shoot
cutting-edge videography and photography
from their pockets without a DLSR in sight!

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AN EVOLUTIONARY LEAP
Apple might have kept the 48-megapixel
Main camera introduced with the iPhone 14
Pro, but the all-new A17 Pro chip brings new
capabilities to this already impressive hardware.
The camera features a 24mm focal length,
an ƒ/1.78 aperture, and second-generation
sensor-shift optical image stabilization. This
combination ensures less movement and
crisper photos and videos, even in challenging
conditions. This year, Apple has introduced a
24-megapixel setting via the Photonic Engine,
a significant upgrade from the previous
12-megapixel. This offers ultra-high resolution
without significantly increasing the file size, a
balancing act photographers will appreciate.
Both the 24-megapixel and 48-megapixel
photos can be saved in the standard HEIF
image file format, providing flexibility without
the need for RAW, which is often cumbersome and thanks to the iPhone’s USB-C port, moving
them to a Mac for editing is easier than ever.
Apple’s computational photography capabilities
are nothing short of revolutionary. Users with
iPhone 15 Pro Max models can now switch
between 24mm, 28mm, and 35mm focal
lengths, effectively mimicking what’s possible
with a DSLR camera. These focal lengths
are accessible when taking a photo and are
reflected as distinct zoom levels. Apple claims
the triple-lens camera and variable Main camera
options equate to having seven lenses at your
disposal. The bold claim seems increasingly
credible, given the device’s capabilities.

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IMPRESSIVE NEW TECHNOLOGIES
The Ultra-Wide camera on the iPhone 15 Pro Max
comes with an ƒ/2.2 aperture and serves a dual
purpose by functioning as a macro lens. This is
particularly useful for capturing intricate details in
subjects close to the lens, offering photographers
more versatility without needing additional
equipment. This year, the Telephoto lens sets
the Pro models apart from the standard iPhone
15 models. The iPhone 15 Pro Max features a
Telephoto system that allows for 5x zoom, thanks
to its innovative folded glass structure, known as
tetraprism technology. This technology reflects
light four times, enabling a longer focal length
of 120mm. Coupled with 3D sensor-shift optical
image stabilization, the Telephoto lens delivers
crisp photos even at maximum zoom. This is a
significant leap forward in mobile photography,
offering capabilities previously only possible with
high-end cameras.
The iPhone 15 Pro Max supports up to 4K video
recording at various frame rates, including 24,
25, 30, or 60 frames per second. This range
allows for greater creative freedom, whether
shooting a cinematic masterpiece or capturing
high-action scenes. The device also offers HDR
recording, ProRes video, Cinematic mode, Action
mode, slo-mo video, and time-lapse, making it
a versatile tool for any videographer. Apple has
announced that the iPhone 15 Pro models will
also support 3D spatial videos later this year.
These will be viewable on the upcoming Apple
Vision Pro headset, promising to make “memories
come alive.” While the full capabilities of this
feature are yet to be seen, it represents an exciting
development in the realm of mobile videography.

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MORE SOFTWARE OVERHAULS
As well as introducing some impressive new
hardware, it’s worth discussing software and
its impact on picture quality and performance.
Apple has redefined Portrait mode, enabling
automatic depth detection for people or pets.
This feature eliminates the need to pre-select
Portrait mode, making the user experience
more intuitive. Background blur can be
adjusted, and focus can be shifted between
objects in the scene, offering a level of postcapture control often missing in smartphone
photography. The iPhone 15 Pro Max continues
beyond the basics, offering features like Smart
HDR 5, which recognizes one or more people
in a scene and optimizes contrast, lighting,
and even skin tones, and Photonic Engine,
which combines the best pixels from a highresolution image and an image optimized for
light capture, leading to a 24-megapixel image
with unparalleled detail.
Photographic Styles allows for intelligent,
adjustable filters that selectively apply to
an image, offering a range of styles without
affecting skin tones. Night Mode aggregates
images over a few seconds to allow for
photography in extreme low-light conditions.
Deep Fusion works in mid to low-lighting
needs to bring out texture and detail. Macro
Mode activates when you are close to a subject,
shifting into Macro for intricate detail capture.

THE REVIEWS ARE IN
Speaking of the new camera rig on the iPhone
15 Pro and Pro Max models, Digital Spy said:
“The new default 24MP output from the main
sensor is fantastic, as is the option to shoot a
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high-res 48MP shot in good lighting conditions.
We also like that you can pick a few focal
lengths (24mm, 28mm and 35mm). This isn’t
quite the same as a simple zoom, with Apple
applying some computational photography
magic to these shots.” During testing, Lance
Ulanoff of TechRadar said that the new camera
delivered “eye-popping images,” adding that
“the colors are brighter and, with the exception
of maybe a just too-blue sky (possibly a result
of more aggressive use of smart HDR), the most
accurate I have ever seen from a smartphone…
Portrait photography – including that taken
with the front-facing TrueDepth camera – got a
huge upgrade with access to Apple’s Photonic
Engine. Night photography is better, too. I
noticed less green in the star photography
and more stars.” Phone Arena complemented
the iPhone’s new zoom models, writing: “You
can see a big improvement in quality at 5X
and 10X zoom levels with clean detail and
excellent stabilization, so shots turn out crisp
both during the day and in low light,” but
MacWorld wasn’t quite as impressed. “There’s
nothing to “wow” you about the iPhone 15
Pro Max’s camera. Apple’s image processing
still seems a little aggressive and can give your
images a bit of an over-smoothed and oversaturated look, but the bump to 24 megapixels
does help give sharp detail without as many
sharpening artifacts,” they wrote in their piece.
Tom’s Guide compared the new iPhone with
a Samsung flagship, writing, “In side-by-side
testing with the Galaxy S23 Ultra, the iPhone
15 Pro Max delivered a sharper and warmer
picture at 5x. But at 25x digital zoom, the

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iPhone’s shot has more noise and less
definition.” The Verge added, “A 5x lens will
get you meaningfully closer to distant objects
so you can play around with compression or
frame a shot of that famous bridge without
a lot of stuff in the foreground.” It also made
comparisons between the iPhone and other
models, writing: “Overall, Apple seems to be
staying the course relative to Samsung and
Google. The Pixel 7 Pro does a little better in

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night mode, where the 15 Pro and Galaxy S23
Ultra are a little more prone to the watercolor
effect. The iPhone’s jump to a 24-megapixel
image means there’s more detail there for
the taking straight from the default JPEG, but
normalized to the same viewing size, I see
about the same level of detail across the
three cameras.”

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The Apple iPhone 15 Pro
Max is not just another
smartphone with a
good camera; it’s a
technological marvel that
pushes the boundaries
of what’s possible in
mobile photography
and videography. It’s
time to upgrade your
device and get out there
to take some pictures!

73

THE SUPREME
COURT WILL
DECIDE IF STATE
LAWS LIMITING
SOCIAL MEDIA
PLATFORMS
VIOLATE THE
CONSTITUTION

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The Supreme Court agreed to decide whether
state laws that seek to regulate Facebook, TikTok,
X and other social media platforms violate
the Constitution.
The justices will review laws enacted by
Republican-dominated legislatures and signed
by Republican governors in Florida and Texas.
While the details vary, both laws aim to prevent
the social media companies from censoring
users based on their viewpoints.
The court’s announcement, three days before
the start of its new term, comes as the justices
continue to grapple with how laws written at the
dawn of the digital age, or earlier, apply to the
online world.
The justices had already agreed to decide
whether public officials can block critics from
commenting on their social media accounts, an
issue that previously came up in a case involving
then-President Donald Trump. The court
dismissed the Trump case when his presidential
term ended in January 2021.
Separately, the high court also could consider
a lower-court order limiting executive branch
officials’ communications with social media
companies about controversial online posts.
In all, the justices added 12 cases that will be
argued during the winter. They include:
— A dispute over the FBI’s no-fly list. The appeal
came from the Biden administration in a case
involving an Oregon man who once was on
the list, but had been removed years ago. A
federal appeals court said he could continue
his lawsuit because the FBI never disavowed his
initial inclusion.

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— A copyright case that involves a hit for the
hip-hop artist Flo Rida in which he made use
of someone else’s song from the 1980s. Music
publishing companies that were sued for
copyright infringement over the 2008 song “In
the Ayer” are challenging a lower court ruling
against them.
— A plea by landowners in southeast Texas
who want the state to compensate them for
effectively taking their property. Their lawsuit
claims that a successful project to renovate
Interstate 10 and ensure it remains passable in
bad weather results in serious flooding on their
properties in heavy rainfall.
The new social media cases follow conflicting
rulings by two appeals courts, one of which
upheld the Texas law, while the other struck
down Florida’s statute. By a 5-4 vote, the justices
kept the Texas law on hold while litigation
over it continues.
But the alignment was unusual. Chief Justice
John Roberts and Justices Stephen Breyer, Sonia
Sotomayor, Brett Kavanaugh and Amy Coney
Barrett voted to grant the emergency request
from two technology industry groups that
challenged the law in federal court.
Justices Clarence Thomas, Samuel Alito, Elena
Kagan and Neil Gorsuch would have allowed the
law to remain in effect. In dissent, Alito wrote,
“Social media platforms have transformed the
way people communicate with each other and
obtain news.”
Proponents of the laws, including Republican
elected officials in several states that have
similar measures, have sought to portray social
media companies as generally liberal in outlook
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and hostile to ideas outside of that viewpoint,
especially from the political right.
The tech sector warned that the laws would
prevent platforms from removing extremism
and hate speech.
“Online services have a well-established First
Amendment right to host, curate and share
content as they see fit,” Chris Marchese, the
litigation director for the industry group
NetChoice, said in a statement. “The internet is
a vital platform for free expression, and it must
remain free from government censorship. We
are confident the Court will agree.”
Without offering any explanation, the justices
had put off consideration of the case even
though both sides agreed the high court should
step in.
The justices had other social media issues before
them last year, including a plea the court did
not embrace to soften legal protections tech
companies have for posts by their users.

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AI IS ON THE
WORLD’S MIND.
IS THE UN THE
PLACE TO FIGURE
OUT WHAT TO
DO ABOUT IT?

Just a few years ago, artificial intelligence got
barely a mention at the U.N. General Assembly’s
convocation of world leaders.
But after the release of ChatGPT last fall
turbocharged both excitement and anxieties
about AI, it’s been a sizzling topic this year at
diplomacy’s biggest yearly gathering.
Presidents, premiers, monarchs and cabinet
ministers convened as governments at various
levels are mulling or have already passed AI
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regulation. Industry heavy-hitters acknowledge
guardrails are needed but want to protect the
technology’s envisioned benefits. Outsiders
and even some insiders warn that there also are
potentially catastrophic risks, and everyone says
there’s no time to lose.
And many eyes are on the United Nations as
perhaps the only place to tackle the issue at scale.
The world body has some unique attributes to
offer, including unmatched breadth and a track
record of brokering pacts on global issues, and
it’s set to launch an AI advisory board this fall.
“Having a convergence, a common
understanding of the risks, that would be a
very important outcome,” U.N. tech policy
chief Amandeep Gill said in an interview. He
added that it would be very valuable to reach
a common understanding on what kind of
governance works, or might, to minimize risks
and maximize opportunities for good.

A CONVERSATION THAT IS GAINING
MOMENTUM
As recently as 2017, only three speakers brought
up AI at the assembly meeting’s equivalent of
a main stage, the “ General Debate.” This year,
more than 20 speakers did so, representing
countries from Namibia to North Macedonia,
Argentina to East Timor.
Secretary-General António Guterres teased plans
to appoint members this month to the advisory
board, with preliminary recommendations due
by year’s end — warp speed, by U.N. standards.
Lesotho’s premier, Sam Matekane, worried
about threats to privacy and safety, Nepalese
Prime Minister Pushpa Kamal Dahal about
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potential misuse of AI, and Icelandic Foreign
Minister Thórdís Kolbrún R. Gylfadóttir about
the technology “becoming a tool of destruction.”
Britain hyped its upcoming “AI Safety Summit,”
while Spain pitched itself as an eager host for a
potential international agency for AI and Israel
touted its technological chops as a prospective
developer of helpful AI.
Days after U.S. senators discussed AI behind
closed doors with tech bigwigs and skeptics,
President Joe Biden said Washington is working
“to make sure we govern this technology — not
the other way around, having it govern us.”
And with the General Assembly as a center of
gravity, there were so many AI-policy panel
discussions and get-togethers around New York
last week that attendees sometimes raced from
one to another.
“The most important meetings that we are
having are the meetings at the U.N. — because
it is the only body that is inclusive, that brings
all of us here,” Omar Al-Olama, the United Arab
Emirates’ minister for artificial intelligence,
said at a U.N.-sponsored event featuring four
high-ranking officials from various countries.
It drew such interest that a half-dozen of
their counterparts offered comments from
the audience.
Tech industry players have made sure they’re in
the mix during the U.N.’s big week, too.
“What’s really encouraging is that there’s so
much global interest in how to get this right —
and the U.N. is in a position to help harmonize
all the conversations” and work to ensure all
voices get heard, says James Manyika, a senior
vice president at Google. The tech giant helped
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develop a new, artificial intelligence-enabled
U.N. site for searching data and tracking
progress on the world body’s key goals.

LOTS OF PEOPLE TALKING, BUT
PERHAPS A SLOW PROCESS
But if the United Nations has advantages, it also
has the challenges of a big-tent, consensusseeking ethos that often moves slowly. Plus its
members are governments, while AI is being
driven by an array of private companies.
Still, a global issue needs a global forum, and
“the U.N. is absolutely a place to have these
conversations,” says Ian Bremmer, president of
the Eurasia Group, a political risk advisory firm.
Even if governments aren’t developers, Gill
notes that they can “influence the direction that
AI takes.”
“It’s not only about regulating against misuse
and harm, making sure that democracy is not
undermined, the rule of law is not undermined,
but it’s also about promoting a diverse and
inclusive innovation ecosystem” and fostering
public investments in research and workforce
training where there aren’t a lot of deeppocketed tech companies doing so, he said.
The United Nations will have to navigate
territory that some national governments and
blocs, including the European Union and the
Group of 20 industrialized nations, already are
staking out with summits, declarations and in
some cases regulations of their own.
Ideas differ about what a potential global AI
body should be: perhaps an expert assessment
and fact-establishing panel, akin to the
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Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, or
a watchdog like the International Atomic Energy
Agency? A standard-setting entity similar to the
U.N.’s maritime and civil aviation agencies? Or
something else?
There’s also the question of how to engender
innovation and hoped-for breakthroughs
— in medicine, disaster prediction, energy
efficiency and more — without exacerbating
inequities and misinformation or, worse,
enabling runaway-robot calamity. That sci-fi
scenario started sounding a lot less far-fetched
when hundreds of tech leaders and scientists,
including the CEO of ChatGPT maker OpenAI,
issued a warning in May about “the risk of
extinction from AI.”
An OpenAI exec-turned-competitor then
told the U.N. Security Council in July that
artificial intelligence poses “potential threats
to international peace, security and global
stability” because of its unpredictability and
possible misuse.
Yet there are distinctly divergent vantage points
on where the risks and opportunities lie.
“For countries like Nigeria and the Global
South, the biggest issue is: What are we going
to do with this amazing technology? Are
we going to get the opportunity to use it to
uplift our people and our economies equally
and on the same pace as the West?” Nigeria’s
communications minister, Olatunbosun Tijani,
asked at an AI discussion hosted by the New
York Public Library. He suggested that “even the
conversation on governance has been led from
the West.”

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Chilean Science Minister Aisén Etcheverry
believes AI could allow for a digital do-over, a
chance to narrow gaps that earlier tech opened
in access, inclusion and wealth.

AN INTRICATE PATH FORWARD, BUT
WITH CLEAR UPSIDES
But it will take more than improving
telecommunications infrastructure. Countries
that got left behind before need to have “the
language, culture, the different histories that we
come from, represented in the development of
artificial intelligence,” Etcheverry said at the U.N.sponsored side event.
Gill, who’s from India, shares those concerns.
Dialogue about AI needs to expand beyond
a “promise and peril” dichotomy to “a more
nuanced understanding where access to
opportunity, the empowerment dimension of it
... is also front and center,” he said.
Even before the U.N. advisory board sets a
detailed agenda, plenty of suggestions were
volunteered amid the curated conversations
around the General Assembly. Work on global
minimum standards for AI. Align the various
regulatory and enforcement endeavors around
the globe. Look at setting up AI registries,
validation and certification. Focus on regulating
uses rather than the technology itself. Craft a
“rapid-response mechanism” in case dreaded
possibilities come to pass.
From Dr. Rose Nakasi’s vantage point, though,
there was a clear view of the upsides of AI.
The Ugandan computer scientist and her
colleagues at Makerere University’s AI Lab are
using the technology to streamline microscopic
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analysis of blood samples, the gold-standard
method for diagnosing malaria.
Their work is aimed at countries without
enough pathologists, especially in rural areas. A
magnifying eyepiece, produced by 3D printing,
fits cellphone cameras and takes photos of
microscope slides; AI image analysis then
picks out and identifies pathogens. Google’s
charitable arm recently gave the lab $1.5 million.
AI is “an enabler” of human activity,
Nakasi said between attending General
Assembly-related events.
“We can’t be able to just leave it to do each and
every thing on its own,” she said. “But once it is
well regulated, where we have it as a support
tool, I believe it can do a lot.”

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FACING INCREASING
PRESSURE FROM
CUSTOMERS,
SOME MINERS
ARE SWITCHING
TO RENEWABLE
ENERGY

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Red hot sparks fly through the air as a worker
in a heat-resistant suit pokes a long metal rod
into a nickel smelter, coaxing the molten metal
from a crucible at a processing facility on the
Indonesian island of Sulawesi.
The smelter run by global mining firm Vale
and powered by electricity from three dams
churns out 75,000 tons of nickel a year for use in
batteries, electric vehicles, appliances and many
other products.
While the smelting creates heavy emissions of
greenhouse gases, the power used is relatively
clean. Such possible reductions in emissions
come as demand for critical minerals like nickel
and cobalt is surging as climate change hastens
a transition to renewable energy.
Mining operations account for some 4%-7% of
global greenhouse gas emissions, according to
global consulting firm McKinsey & Company. But
some miners are moving to reduce use of fossil
fuels in extracting and refining, partly due to
pressure from downstream customers that want
more sustainable supply chains.
Located beside a crystal-blue lake in the lush
jungle of Sorowako, South Sulawesi, Vale
Indonesia — a subsidiary of Vale international —
runs its smelters entirely from hydroelectricity.
Vale says that can reduce its emissions by over
1.115 million tons of carbon dioxide equivalent a
year, compared to using diesel. Vale claims it has
reduced its greenhouse gas emissions nearly a
fifth since 2017.
As demand for materials needed for batteries,
solar panels and other components vital for
cutting global emissions rises, carbon emissions

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Image: Dita Alangkara

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by miners and refiners will likewise rise unless
companies actively work to decarbonize.
Experts say improved technology, pressure
from customers and enforcement of clean
energy policies all are needed to keep moving
toward more sustainable mining and refining
practices while raising output to keep pace with
global needs for pivoting away from reliance on
polluting fossil fuels.
Other companies and countries around the
world also are reducing use of fossil fuels in
their mining operations. Solar plants in Chile
help power the mining sector, which consumes
much of the country’s electricity demand to
produce copper, lithium and other materials. In
recent years, wind power has helped electrify
the Raglan Mine in Canada.

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Image: Dita Alangkara

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Companies are learning from past mistakes of the
industrial revolution, where reliance on fossil fuels
was paramount for development, said Michael
Goodsite, a pro vice chancellor and professor
of civil and environmental engineering at the
University of Adelaide in Australia.
“I think as you see the future of certain
operations, you’ll see them transitioning,” he
said. “The way that they transition and how
they move from fossil fuel operations to other
energy sources can and should be learned
from by others.”
Indonesia is the world’s largest nickel
producer and Indonesian President Joko
Widodo has promoted the country developing
its own industries.
The push to cut emissions and use cleaner
energy has been helped by investment
and interest from governments and
multinational companies. Volvo, Mercedes,

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Hyundai, Apple and other manufacturers need
materials made in a more sustainable way
to meet their own environmental, social and
governance, or ESG, commitments.
Widodo visited Vale Indonesia’s Sorowako
facilities in March, the same month a deal was
signed for a $4.5 billion nickel procession plant
to be built by Vale Indonesia with investment by
Ford Motor Co.
“Ford can help ensure that the nickel that
we use in electric vehicle batteries is mined,
produced within the same ESG standards as
... our business around the world,” Christopher
Smith, Ford’s chief government affairs officer,
said at a signing ceremony for a new $4.5 billion
nickel processing plant in Indonesia with Vale
Indonesia in March this year.
Even companies already taking steps to
decarbonize are still reliant on at least
some fossil fuels.
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Image: Dita Alangkara

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At Vale Indonesia in Sorowako, coal is still
used to power drying and reduction kilns. The
company’s CEO, Febriany Eddy, said she plans
to switch such operations to liquefied natural
gas — cleaner but still another fossil fuel.
It’s the best option available given current
technology, she said in an interview.
“I have two options in front of me: I continue
to say that there is no viable option, that we
will wait until that perfect solution is to come,
which (could take) 15 or 20 years to come. Or I
work with LNG first, knowing it is not a perfect
solution, knowing it is a transition only,” Eddy
said. “But with conversion to LNG, I can reduce
40% of my emissions.”
The use as LNG as a “bridge fuel” has been
contested by climate experts, as the fuel
releases climate-warming methane and
carbon dioxide when it’s produced,
transported and burned.
Initial costs for switching to, expanding and
building new renewable infrastructure are
another steep barrier.
It took decades to recoup costs from building
the three hydropower dams in the remote,
sparsely populated area, that are used to
power Vale’s Sorowako facilities. But now,
having that infrastructure means big savings at
a time when global energy prices are high.
“Hydropower isn’t just reducing our carbon
emissions, but also reducing our costs today
because we are no longer that (vulnerable)
to fuel and coal costs— because we have
hydropower,” Eddy said.

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Image: Dita Alangkara

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Having mining operations powered by
renewable sources instead of fossil fuels could
also help unlock green financing and attract
future investors, said Aimee Boulanger,
executive director of the Initiative for
Responsible Mining Assurance.
“The finance and investment sector is
more tuned in than it ever has before to
the environmental and social responsibility
of supply chains and their investments in
them. And they’re looking at greenhouse
gas emissions,” she said. “When the world is
recovering from a global pandemic and facing
the global crisis of climate change, there’s never
been a time when they’ve been more interested
in these issues.”

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Image: Dita Alangkara

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Image: Dita Alangkara

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While many companies are stepping up
efforts to decarbonize their supply chains,
others — such as many of those making green
energy materials in China, have less stringent
requirements for their materials.
“We can find jurisdictions around the world
that — if they’re able to do things cheaply
because they have access to fossil fuels and
they already have the capital assets and
the capital expenditures— they’re going to
continue doing that,” Goodsite said when asked
about Chinese businesses.
Ultimately, investors and consumers play a vital
role in getting companies to clean up their
operations, he said.
But phasing out the mining industry’s reliance
on fossil fuels will be costly, especially as the
United States and other countries build up
the capacity to bring production of critical
materials onshore.
“If the end users care about them coming
from ...a green energy based process... then
we all need to be prepared to pay a significant
premium for that,” Goodsite said.
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TESLA 3Q SALES
RISE 27% BUT
FALL SHORT OF
EXPECTATIONS
DUE SOFTENING
DEMAND AND
FACTORY
DOWNTIME

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Tesla’s summertime deliveries of electric vehicles
surged 27% from last year but still fell below
analyst projections as Elon Musk’s car company
navigated through softening customer demand
as well as factory upgrades.
The Austin, Texas, automaker sold 435,059
vehicle s during the July-to-September period,
up from 343,830 at the same time last year.
Analysts had predicted Tesla would sell about
461,000 vehicles during the latest quarter,
according to FactSet Research.
As usual, Tesla’s sales consisted primarily of its
Model 3 and Model Y vehicles, which have been
made even more attractive by rounds of price
cutting that have eaten into the company’s
profit margins. The third-quarter sales also
marked a step back from Tesla’s 466,140 vehicle
deliveries during the April-to-June period.
The company blamed the sequential sales
decline on planned downtime to upgrade
its factories.
Tesla said it made 430,488 vehicles in the latest
quarter, slightly below the number it delivered.
Despite large price cuts, sales of the aging
models S and X fell 14% year over year to 15,985.
The company will need a big finish to 2023 to
realize CEO Musk’s stated goal of increasing its
sales by 50% annually. To hit that target, Tesla
will have to sell 1.97 million vehicles this year.
Through the first nine months of the year, Tesla
has delivered just over 1.3 million vehicles.
Analysts are anticipating Tesla will sell 1.84
million vehicles for the full year.
Tesla has been slashing prices most of this year
to keep attracting buyers who now have a wider
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selection of electric vehicles as more automakers
shift away from gasoline-powered cars and
trucks. The discounts range from $4,400 on
Tesla’s top-selling vehicles to as much as $20,000
on its most expensive models.
Just how much the latest round of cost cutting
has trimmed Tesla’s profit margins will be
detailed Oct. 18 when it plans to release its thirdquarter earnings.
Shares of Tesla rose slightly to $251.35 after
the announcement. Despite the squeeze that
already has occurred on Tesla’s profits, the
company’s stock price has doubled so far this
year. Part of the run-up has stemmed from a deal
allowing rivals General Motors and Ford to join
its charging network.
Tesla also could be an indirect beneficiary from a
labor strike that began last month and continues
to close down factories operated by GM, Ford
and Stellantis. The United Auto Workers labor
union is demanding major wage increases that
would likely drive up the prices of their cars and
trucks — a pain point that Tesla isn’t facing with
its non-union workforce.
The UAW is also fighting for higher wages and
union representation at factories that make the
batteries for electric vehicles, demands that the
U.S. automakers are resisting in a battle they say
they need to win to remain competitive with
Tesla and foreign companies.

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UNITED AIRLINES
MAKES 2ND
LARGE ORDER
FOR NEW
PLANES IN LESS
THAN A YEAR
AS IT RENEWS
ITS FLEET

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United Airlines is making its second large order
of new planes in less than a year, more than 100
in all, as the carrier renews its fleet.
The most recent order announced this week will
include 50 Boeing 787-9s for delivery between
2028 through 2031, and 60 Airbus A321neos for
delivery between 2028 and 2030.
The agreement comes with options for up to
50 more Boeing 787s and for an additional 40
A321neo aircraft at the end of the decade.
The airplanes will be larger than those United
is replacing. The Chicago-based company said
that in 2019 it averaged 104 seats per North
American departure. By 2027, United anticipates
the figure climbing more than 40% to more than
145 seats.
“I’m convinced our strategy is the right one
as we continue to add new, larger aircraft
to take full advantage of our growing flying
opportunities both internationally and
domestically,” United CEO Scott Kirby said
in a statement.
Financial terms were not disclosed. The 7879 has a list price of $292.5 million, while the
A321neos have a list price of $129.5 million.
Airlines routinely negotiate deep discounts on
aircraft orders.
In December, United ordered 100 new Boeing
787s to replace planes nearing retirement
age and to expand its international flying. The
company ordered 200 Boeing Max jets and 70
planes from Airbus in June 2021.

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GOOGLE PACKS
MORE ARTIFICIAL
INTELLIGENCE
INTO NEW PIXEL
PHONES, RAISES
PRICES FOR
DEVICES BY $100

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Google on Wednesday unveiled a next-generation
Pixel smartphones lineup that will be infused with
more artificial intelligence tools capable of writing
captions about photos that can also be altered by
the technology.
The injection of more artificial intelligence, or
AI, into Google’s products marks another step
toward bringing more of the technology into
the mainstream – a push company executives
signaled they were embarking upon during their
annual developer’s conference five months ago.
“Our focus is on making AI more helpful for
everyone in a way that is bold and responsible,”
Rick Osterloh, Google’s senior vice president of
devices and services, said during Wednesday’s
event held in New York. As if to leave no doubt
about Google’s current priorities, Osterloh
described the new Pixel 8 and Pixel 8 Pro phones
as a conduit for having “AI in your hand.”
The next moves will include allowing the 7-yearold Google Assistant to tap into the company’s
recently hatched AI chatbot, Bard, to perform
tasks. The expanded access to Bard comes just
two weeks after Google began connecting the AI
chatbot to the company’s other popular service
such as Gmail, Maps and YouTube.
Google is leaving it up to each user to decide
whether to allow Bard to interact with its other
services, an effort to address worries about AI
sifting through potentially sensitive information as
it seeks to learn more about language and people.
One of the new tricks that the Bard-backed
assistant is supposed to be able to do is scan a
photo taken on a phone powered by Google’s
Android software and generate a pithy caption
suitable for posting on social media. As Google
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has been doing with most of its AI gambits, the
Bard-backed Google Assistant initially will only be
available to a test audience before it is gradually
offered on an opt-in basis to more owners of the
latest Pixels.
As has become common across the industry,
most of the other technology in the Pixel 8 and
Pixel 8 Pro phones unveiled Wednesday will be
similar to what has already been available in
last year’s models.
One of the main selling points of the new phones
will be improved cameras, including more AIempowered editing tools that will mostly be
available on the Pixel 8 Pro. The AI features will
be able to spruce up photos, zoom into certain
parts of images, substitute faces taken from other
pictures in group shots and erase objects and
people from images.
Google is counting on the new AI twists added to
this year’s lineup to be enough to justify a price
increase — with the starting prices for both the
Pixel 8 and Pixel 8 Pro increasing by $100 over last
year’s comparable models.
That will result in the Pixel 8 selling for $700 and
the Pixel 8 Pro for $1,000 when they go on sale in
stores next week. Apple also raised the starting
price of its top-end iPhone by $100 when its
latest models came out last month, signaling
inflationary pressures are starting to drive up the
costs of devices that have become essential pieces
of modern life.
The Pixel 8 Pro will also be able to take people’s
temperatures — an addition that could be a
drawing card in a post-pandemic era as various
strains of COVID evolve. But Google is still trying to
get regulatory approval to enable that capability
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in the U.S. A 2020 phone, the Honor Play
4 Pro made my Huawei, also was able to
screen for fevers, so Google isn’t breaking
totally new ground.
Despite generally getting positive reviews,
the Pixel phones have barely made a dent in
a market dominated by Samsung and Apple
since Google began making the devices seven
years ago. But they have been gaining slightly
more traction in recent years, with Pixel’s
share of the high-end smartphone market
now hovering around 4% from less than 1%
three years ago, according to the research firm
International Data Corp.
Google can afford to make a phone that
doesn’t generate huge sales because it brings
in more than $200 billion annually from a
digital ad network that’s anchored by its
dominant search engine. A big chunk of the
ad revenue flows from the billions of dollars
that Google pays annually to lock in its search
engine as the main gateway to the internet on
the iPhone and Samsung’s Galaxy lineup.
The agreements that have given Google’s
search engine a lucrative position on phones
and computers are the focal point of an
ongoing antitrust trial in Washington, where
the U.S. Justice Department is trying to prove
its allegations that Google has been abusing its
power to stifle competition and innovation.

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The Golden Bachelor

148

WELL HEALED

THE REAL HOUSEWIVES OF NEW YORK CITY

THROWING IN THE TOWEL

SISTER WIVES

101

THE GOLDEN BACHELOR

HE SAID, SHE SAID

SOUTHERN CHARM

FASTEN YOUR SEATBELT

JERSEY SHORE: FAMILY VACATION

901

BACHELOR IN PARADISE

TELL ALL PART 2

90 DAY FIANCE: BEFORE THE 90 DAYS

LA DAME DE FER

THE WALKING DEAD: DARYL DIXON

WE CAN DO HARD THINGS

SURVIVOR

WELCOME TO THE FREAK SHOW

THE REAL HOUSEWIVES OF ORANGE COUNTY

149

Walter Isaacson

150

GOING INFINITE: THE RISE AND FALL OF...

MICHAEL LEWIS

12 MONTHS TO LIVE

JAMES PATTERSON & MIKE LUPICA

THE ARMOR OF LIGH

KEN FOLLETT

CODE RED

VINCE FLYNN & KYLE MILLS

FOURTH WING

REBECCA YARROS

THE RUNNING GRAVE

ROBERT GALBRAITH

ENOUGH

CASSIDY HUTCHINSON

BIG SKY

KATE ATKINSON

THE MODIGLIANI SCANDAL

KEN FOLLETT

ELON MUSK

WALTER ISAACSON

151

Jack Harlow

152

3D

JUNG KOOK & JACK HARLOW

3D (ALTERNATE VER.)

JUNG KOOK & JACK HARLOW

DON’T LET THE OLD MAN IN

OLIVER ANTHONY MUSIC

3D (CLEAN VER.)

JUNG KOOK & JACK HARLOW

3D (INSTRUMENTAL)

JUNG KOOK & JACK HARLOW

BETTER PLACE (FROM TROLLS BAND...)

*NSYNC & JUSTIN TIMBERLAKE

3D (A. G. COOK REMIX)

JUNG KOOK & JACK HARLOW

3D (SLOWED DOWN)

JUNG KOOK & JACK HARLOW

3D (SPED UP)

JUNG KOOK & JACK HARLOW

LIL BOO THANG

PAUL RUSSELL

153

Lil Wayne

154

AUTUMN VARIATIONS

ED SHEERAN

HIT ME WHEN U LEAVE THE KLUB: THE...

TYGA & YG

GANGSTA ART 2

MONEYBAGG YO, GLORILLA & CMG THE LABEL

THA FIX BEFORE THA VI

LIL WAYNE

ZACH BRYAN

ZACH BRYAN

LOVER

TAYLOR SWIFT

I’VE TRIED EVERYTHING BUT THERAPY...

TEDDY SWIMS

PAPER HEARTS - EP

SLEEP THEORY

LIFESONGS: A CELEBRATION OF THE...

CASTING CROWNS

GUTS

OLIVIA RODRIGO

155

Billy Joe Shaver

156

3D (FEAT. JACK HARLOW)

JUNG KOOK & JACK HARLOW

GOOD NEWS (FEAT. TODD GALBERTH

MAVERICK CITY MUSIC, NAOMI RAINE & CHANDLER MOORE

GET THEE BEHIND ME SATAN (FEAT...)
BILLY JOE SHAVER

DON’T LET THE OLD MAN IN

TOBY KEITH

ATOMIC CITY

U2

AUTUMN VARIATIONS - TRAILER
ED SHEERAN

TRUST IN GOD (FEAT. CHRIS BROWN

ELEVATION WORSHIP

TRY THAT IN A SMALL TOWN

JASON ALDEAN

NEED A FAVOR

JELLY ROLL

FREEDOM! ‘90

GEORGE MICHAEL

157

GOT RETURNS?
CALL UBER. THE
RIDE-HAILING
SERVICE IS NOW
OFFERING TO
RETURN PARCELS
FOR A FEE

158

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Uber is adding a new task to its list of services:
mailing consumers’ return packages.
The ride-hailing and delivery company said
this week that its drivers will collect up to five
prepaid and sealed packages and drop them off
at a local post office or at UPS or FedEx stores.
Uber will charge a flat fee of $5 for the service or
$3 for its Uber One members.
The San Francisco-based company said the
service will be available in nearly 5,000 U.S. cities
to start.
Uber said customers will be able to choose
package drop off locations within its app. Only
locations open for at least the next hour will be
listed. Drivers will provide visual confirmation
once a package has been dropped off.
While the service is expected to be used
primarily to return packages, Uber drivers will
also mail new packages that are sealed and have
prepaid labels.
The new service gives Uber a vast opportunity.
Package returns have become a big business as
consumers do more of their shopping online.
According to the National Retail Federation, a
trade group, 16.5% of online shopping sales
were returned in 2022, or $212 billion worth
of merchandise.
FedEx and UPS deliver 31 million parcels each
day, while the U.S. Postal Service delivers 25
million, said Satish Jindel, a shipping and
logistics consultant and president of ShipMatrix.
Much of that volume involves delivery to
businesses that do not return packages often,
Jindel said, and he believes many people will

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continue to return packages themselves, rather
than pay Uber to do it.
“Consumers do not like to pay to return things,”
he said.
Jindel estimates the target market for Uber’s
return package service is around 574,000 parcels
each business. That would rise about 25% in
January because of holiday returns, he said.
Still, Jindel has doubts about the service and
whether it can be profitable for Uber, since it
could cost drivers more than $5 in time and gas
to drop off packages. He also said retailers are
trying to cut back on the volume of returns by
making it harder and more expensive to return
items, so that could limit demand for Uber.
163

MICROSOFT CEO
SAYS UNFAIR
PRACTICES BY
GOOGLE LED TO
ITS DOMINANCE
AS A SEARCH
ENGINE

164

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Microsoft CEO Satya Nadella said that unfair
tactics used by Google led to its dominance as a
search engine, tactics that in turn have thwarted
his company’s rival program, Bing.
Nadella testified in a packed Washington,
D.C., courtroom as part of the government’s
landmark antitrust trial against Google’s parent
company, Alphabet. The Justice Department
alleges Google has abused the dominance
of its ubiquitous search engine to throttle
competition and innovation at the expense of
consumers, allegations that echo a similar case
brought against Microsoft in the late 1990s.
Nadella said Google’s dominance was due to
agreements that made it the default browser on
smartphones and computers. He downplayed
the idea that artificial intelligence or more niche
search engines like Amazon or social media sites
have meaningfully changed the market in which
Microsoft competes with Google.
Nadella said users fundamentally don’t have
much choice in switching out of default web
browsers on cell phones and computers.
“We are one of the alternatives but we’re not the
default,” he said.
Google’s lead litigator John Schmidtlein
questioned Nadella about instances when
users switched from Bing to Google even when
Microsoft’s search engine had default status on
their devices — arguing that Microsoft made
missteps with Bing that prevented it from
rivaling Google.
When questioned, Nadella denied that Bing’s
adoption of artificial intelligence had led to
dramatic shifts in its market share. Google has
argued that artificial intelligence programs like
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chatbot ChatGPT have increased competition in
the search engine market.
“Even the app store downloads are interesting
but not ... something you write home about,”
Nadella said about Microsoft’s revamped search
engine enhanced with artificial intelligence.
Nadella was called to the witness stand as the
biggest U.S. antitrust trial in the past quartercentury moved into its fourth week of testimony
before U.S. District Judge Amit Mehta, who isn’t
expected to issue a decision in the case until
next year.
The Justice Department’s antitrust case against
Google centers on deals the company struck
with Apple and other device makers to use
Google’s search engine.
In the 1990s, Microsoft faced accusations it set
up its Windows software in ways that walled off
applications made by other tech companies,
just as Google is now facing accusations of
shelling out billions of dollars each year to
lock in its search engine as the go-to place for
finding online information on smartphones and
web browsers.
In an ironic twist, the constraints and distractions
posed by the government’s antitrust case
against Microsoft helped provide a springboard
for Google to turn its search engine into a
dominant force. By the time Microsoft started
its scramble to develop its own search engine,
Google had already become synonymous with
looking things up on the internet.
But Microsoft nevertheless has poured billions
of dollars trying to mount a serious challenge to
Google with Bing and, at one point, even tried to
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buy Yahoo for more than $40 billion in a bid that
was rejected while Steve Ballmer was still the
software maker’s CEO.
Nadella, who was working at Microsoft during
the late 1990s antitrust showdown with the
Justice Department, succeeded Ballmer as CEO
in 2014. During his tenure, he has steered to
Microsoft huge gains in personal and cloud
computing that have boosted the company’s
stock price by nearly nine -fold since he took
over while creating more than $2 trillion in
shareholder wealth.
Despite all that success, he hasn’t been able to
make any significant inroads in search against
Google, with Bing still a distant second in
the market.

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FACEBOOK AND
INSTAGRAM USERS
IN EUROPE COULD
GET AD-FREE
SUBSCRIPTION
OPTION, WSJ
REPORTS

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Meta plans to give Facebook and Instagram
users in Europe the option of paying for ad-free
versions of the social media platforms as a way
to comply with the continent’s strict data privacy
rules, the Wall Street Journal reported Tuesday.
The company wants to charge users about 10
euros ($10.50) a month to use Instagram or
Facebook without ads on desktop browsers,
the newspaper reported, citing unnamed
people familiar with the proposal. Adding more
accounts would cost 6 euros each.
Prices for mobile would be higher, at roughly 13
euros a month, because Meta needs to account
for commissions charged by the Apple and
Google app stores on in-app payments, the
newspaper said.

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Meta reportedly is hoping to roll out paid
subscriptions in the coming months as a way to
comply with European Union data privacy rules
that threaten its lucrative business model of
showing personalized ads to users.
Meta would give users the choice between
continuing to use the platforms with ads or
paying for the ad-free version, the WSJ said.
“Meta believes in the value of free services
which are supported by personalized ads,”
the company said in a statement. “However,
we continue to explore options to ensure we
comply with evolving regulatory requirements.
We have nothing further to share at this time.”
The EU’s top court said in July that Meta must
first get consent before showing ads to users —
a ruling that jeopardizes the company’s ability
to make money by tailoring advertisements for
individual users based on their online interests
and digital activity.
It’s not clear if EU regulators will sign off on
the plan or insist that the company offer
cheaper versions. The newspaper said one issue
regulators have is whether the proposed fees
will be too expensive for most people who don’t
want to be targeted by ads.

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EU ANNOUNCES
PLANS TO
BETTER PROTECT
ITS SENSITIVE
TECHNOLOGIES
FROM FOREIGN
SNOOPING

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The European Union announced plans to
better protect its cutting-edge technologies
from foreign snooping that might threaten its
economy and security in the wake of repeated
warnings that the bloc needs to “de-risk” its
relations with China.
“Technology is currently at the heart of
geopolitical competition and the EU wants to
be a player, and not a playground,” European
Commission Vice President Vera Jourova said.
To better protect its relatively open market,
the European Commission wants the
member states to immediately carry out risk
assessments of its most sensitive industries,
including advanced semiconductor, artificial
intelligence, quantum and biotechnologies.
Those are considered “highly likely to present
the most sensitive and immediate risks related
to technology security and technology leakage”
and are up for the highest level of protection.
Even though the European Commission
refrained from putting the onus on any
specific country, the EU itself has repeatedly
said that it must be better prepared to
develop measures to protect trade and
investment that China might exploit for its
own security and military purposes.
“China indeed is a big elephant in general
terms, but in our recommendation, we are
country agnostic,” Jourova said.
Thierry Breton, the EU’s internal market
commissioner, said that the measures would
reach well beyond Beijing.
“We want to de-risk, but not only with China,
with everybody, including some time, if
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it’s needed, with some of our like-minded
partners,” he said.
How the risk assessments would be followed
up with measures wasn’t fully clear.
The measures are the latest example of the
struggle the 27-nation has in setting its
relations with Beijing. The EU has said that
despite sometimes fundamental differences
on human rights and state involvement in the
economy, it was no option to fully decouple
relations with such a superpower.
Hence, the EU has sought to center on derisking relations, and better protecting its vital
economic sectors from undue interference.

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