Awesome, not awesome.

#Awesome

“At the moment, music creation is something that’s kind of the reserve of the elites, in a way. You need a very long and expensive education to get good at music. Musical creation is not something that’s open to most people in a realistic way. AI will help democratize that, it will let more people make music. It means there’s more music out there. It will mean music’s personalized.” — Ed Newton-Rex, Founder. Learn More on The Next Web >

#Not Awesome

“Some fear that after squeezing immigration — which would put a brake on entrepreneurship [that creates jobs] — the White House will move to bottle up automation and artificial intelligence. That would be bad news for AI researchers, but also for the economy. If the AI transformation slows in the US, many suspect, it will only accelerate in other parts of the world, putting American jobs at even greater risk due to global competition..” — Cade Metz, Writer. Learn More on Wired >

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What we’re reading.

1/ If large businesses fail to adopt AI, they’ll experience a slow death, just like Blockbuster did when Netflix started to eat its lunch. Learn More on Gigaom >

2/ Synchronized self-driving cars that anticipate cars braking ahead of them will reduce your commuting time by 10–20%, but a few bad human drivers might ruin everyone’s morning. Learn More on NPR >

3/ If you plan on being in the market for a new job or house soon, you can bet an AI will be able to tell you the best place to move. Learn More on Hacker Noon >

4/ Ford invests $1 Billion into a self-driving car startup to better compete against Uber and Google in snatching up Tech talent from Silicon Valley. Learn More on The New York Times >

5/ The rich will get richer at Goldman Sachs as algorithms replace front line staff and managing directors can keep a bigger share of profits for themselves. Learn More on MIT Technology Review >

6/ We’re setting ourselves up for an awful future if we waste time fearing “Terminator” AI scenarios and ignore the real damage biased algorithms will do to our society. Learn More on Motherboard >

7/ A machine learning system is learning about gamers’ habits and intervening when it detects signs of a growing addiction. Learn More on BBC >

Links from the community.

“Fueling the Gold Rush: The Greatest Public Datasets for AI” submitted by Andy Sparks (@sparkszilla). Learn More on Medium >

“Get Ready for Pinners to Search Outside the Box” submitted by Angela Mann Learn More on Pinterest for Business >

“The German Artificial Intelligence Landscape” submitted by Fabian Westerheide (bootstrappingme). Learn More on Medium >

“How Top Investors Separate A.I. Hype from Reality” submitted by Adelyn Zhou (@adelynzhou). Learn More on TOPBOTS >

“Silicon Valley Hedge Fund Takes on Wall Street with AI Trader” submitted by Robert Domingo. Learn More on Bloomberg Technology >

Where are we going?

Every other week, it seems like Tech news is dominated by self-driving cars. Sometimes it’ll be a major announcement from Tesla that wins the headlines, or an acquisition by Google, or even an autonomous Uber doing illegal stuff. This week it was all about Ford and their $1 billion investment in Argo AI. What I find most interesting is the difference in opinions I’ve noticed around the space from West Coast to East Coast.

In Silicon Valley, everyone I speak to seems to share the opinion that autonomous cars are inevitable. They believe the roads will be filled with robo-cars once enough people experience the convenience of texting (safely) on their entire drive to work, or that the hand of regulators will be forced when stats on reduced vehicular deaths become too overwhelming to ignore.

On the East Coast, my comments about self-driving cars are typically greeted with blank stares and “wtf”s.

After this week of self-driving car headlines, it seems like a future with humans in the backseat is closer than ever. I wonder how people in other parts of the country feel…

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