FTI Consulting News Bytes – 20 October 2023

FTI Consulting News Bytes

We start this week looking at the UK’s AI Safety Summit, which is just under two weeks away. A preview of the programme was released, with the risks presented by ‘frontier AI’ expected to dominate the conversation. Next, we look at Netflix who has hiked its prices up despite gains in subscriber count and successfully cracking down on password changes. We then turn to a study run by Israel-based Family Medicine and Community Health group who hypothesised that AI chatbots could help doctors treat depression. After, we cover Five Eyes’ warning regarding Chinese intellectual property threat. We crown this week’s news bytes with Elon Musk’s company Tesla setting the 30th November as the new date for the delivery of its new Cybertruck. An early Christmas present maybe!

This week’s news

The countdown begins to the UK AI Safety Summit 

Earlier this week, the Department for Science, Innovation & Technology (DSIT) published the programme for the UK AI Summit with plans to address: understanding frontier AI risks; improving frontier AI safety and flying the banner of ‘AI for good’ for the next generation. According to Bloomberg, the eagerly-anticipated event will include delegates from other nations, a select group of governments, businesses and industry experts. The article added the UK is expected to propose creating an “AI Safety Institute”, which will share assessments on the national security implications of AI between allies. After the Summit, the UK will aim to produce a communiqué that expresses a shared understanding of the risks and opportunities of frontier models. The Financial Times also reported representatives from China are now planning to be in attendance although the relationship with the UK remains strained. 

Netflix raises prices despite password crackdown success

Netflix confirms that its monthly charges for the UK basic service would rise by £1 to £7.99 (from £6.99) and the premium option will increase by £2 to £17.99 (£15.99). This is despite Netflix reporting an 8.8 million rise in subscriber numbers and successfully cracking down on password sharing amongst households by introducing a small fee. For viewers in the US, the premium plan will cost $3 more per month and France faces an extra €2. Simultaneously, Netflix launched a cheaper plan with the inclusion of adverts which accounted for 30% of sign-ups in the countries where it was available, according to the BBC.

AI chatbots could help doctors treat depression, after study using ChatGPT

Sky News reports that AI chatbots could improve decision-making in primary care by occasionally removing any gender and social class biases doctors exhibit. Research published by the Israeli Family Medicine and Community Health group showed ChatGPT “aligned well with accepted guidelines for managing mild and severe depression, without showing the gender or socioeconomic biases observed among primary care physicians”. Using different versions of ChatGPT and offering brief descriptions of hypothetical cases doctors had dealt with, AI recommended psychotherapy in 96.25% of cases compared to regular doctors who only recommended it in 4.3% of cases and opted for prescribing drugs to address mental illnesses.

Five Eyes spy chiefs warn Silicon Valley over Chinese threat

The heads of security services in the US, UK, Canada, Australia and New Zealand have urged the world to step up efforts to shield innovation from “unprecedented” Chinese spying. The Financial Times reports that this was the first time all five heads of security from these respective countries had appeared publicly on any topic. Mike Burgess, head of the Australian Security Intelligence Organisation, said the Chinese government was engaged in the “most sustained, scaled and sophisticated theft of intellectual property and expertise in human history.”

Tesla sets another date for deliveries of first set of Cybertrucks

Finally, according to Tech Crunch, Tesla has confirmed the first delivery of their new Cybertrucks will now be held on November 30 at their Austin gigafactory. Despite remaining obscure on how many would be delivered, production is said to be ramping up with targets being set to be able to produce 125,000 a year by 2025.  In a follow-up Tech Crunch piece, however, Elon Musk sought to tamper expectations acknowledging scaling of production will be hard. He added, “I do want to emphasize that there will be enormous challenges in reaching volume production with the Cybertruck and then making the Cybertruck cashflow positive —this is simply normal.”

Top Tweets of the Week

• BBC: Matt Brittin, president of Google for Europe, the Middle East and Africa. “AI is too important to not get right.”
• Tech News Tube: WhatsApp will soon let you stay logged in to two accounts at once.
• Now This News: Adobe demonstrated a digital, interactive dress called ‘Project Primrose’ at its Max Conference.
• Web Summit: Apology from Paddy Cosgrave.

Number of the Week

4.7 – The magnitude of the biggest ever earthquake on Mars, recorded by NASA’s InSight lander, causing vibrations that reverberated through the planet for 6 hours.