Ukrainian soldiers of 47th Mechanized Brigade on M2 Bradley infantry fighting vehicle on Avdiivka direction on February 23, 2024 in Donetsk Oblast, Ukraine.
Global Images Ukraine | Getty Images
Ukraine's 47th Mechanized equipped with top US military hardware, continuous combat.
It has been in continuous cobat for many months.
The Pentagon plans to replenish the powerhouse brigade with Bradley fighting vehicles, Forbes said.
Ukraine's hard-fighting 47th Mechanized Brigade is battle-weary and urgently needs US support, Forbes reports.
Trained by NATO instructors, the 47th Brigade all-volunteer unit is one of Ukraine's powerhouse brigades. It is equipped with US-made military hardware, including M1 Abrams tanks, M2 Bradley fighting vehicles, and M-109 howitzers.
In January, the 47th battling reputation was burnished when an attack using Bradley fighting vehicles became an international news story. A video of one of the US-built combat vehicles hammering a T-90M, which Putin has called "the world's best tank," with chain gun fire from its 25 mm cannon, was widely reported.
The Ministry of Defense of Ukraine posted the video online, attributing it to the 47th Mechanized Brigade fighting in Stepove, a village outside Avdiivka in northeastern Ukraine.
This week, the ministry released new footage showing the destruction of Russian tanks and combat vehicles that it said had been eliminated by Bradley IFVs and FPV drones of the 47th Brigade.
That's how russian combat vehicles look like after the meeting with Bradley IFV and FPV drones.
But with nearly continuous combat since Ukraine's unsuccessful counteroffensive last summer, the Brigade's 2,000 troops are in dire need of respite, resupply, and reinforcement, Forbes said.
The Pentagon is set to swoop in to help replenish depleted resources and bolster combat effectiveness, Forbes said.
Recently, despite initial plans for withdrawal, the brigade was rushed into action when the Russian 30th Motor Rifle Brigade launched an assault near Ocheretyne, northwest of Avdiivka in eastern Ukraine. The rapid redeployment highlights the unit's fighting reputation as an "emergency brigade,' Forbes said.
However, it now appears the 47th Brigade fought for nothing. Russian troops were able to take most of Ocheretyne following a rotational blunder involving the 47th and 115th Mechanized Brigades in April.
Russia's 30th Motor Rifle Brigade took advantage of the rotational lapse as the 47th Brigade withdrew and attacked, capturing a large swathe of territory.
Months of fighting have taken a toll on the 47th Mechanized Brigade, with casualties and equipment losses escalating, said Forbes. Repeated changes in leadership have further exacerbated challenges.
A US Abrams tank was put on display for Moscow residents to see in an open-air exhibition featuring equipment from nearly a dozen NATO countries.
Russian Ministry of Defense
Indeed, the 47th Brigade had also lost its Abrams tanks. They were pulled from the front due to Russian drone tactics, two US defense officials told the Associated Press last month.
The New York Times reported that Ukraine has lost five out of its 31 Abrams tanks in recent months, citing an unnamed senior US official.
The recent approval of fresh aid to Ukraine signals a crucial lifeline, with replacement Bradleys poised to bolster the Brigade's capabilities on the battlefield.
The first new US arms shipment to Ukraine following Congress's approval included an unspecified number of Bradleys. The 47th Brigade is the only Ukrainian unit that uses the vehicle, said Forbes.
Beyond material support and tactical adjustments, the 47th Brigade needs a reprieve from the relentless cycle of conflict.
"Another month, and there will be a year without rotation." said Melnyk.
Sora isn't perfect but creatives seem optimistic about incorporating it into their workflow.
OpenAI
OpenAI introduced Sora, a text-to-video model that generates high-quality videos, in February.
Early testers have said Sora can enhance their creative process.
Despite its potential, users agree that Sora still requires human oversight.
Early testers for OpenAI's Sora are breathing a sigh of relief. Some are even feeling a rush of inspiration.
In February, OpenAI introduced a text-to-video model called Sora to "understand and simulate the physical world in motion." Sora was touted for generating videos up to a minute long from text, and its proof-of-concept videos stunned the internet with their image quality.
But some in Hollywood saw it as a threat.
Veteran filmmaker Tyler Perry was so impressed — and intimidated — by demonstrations of Sora that he put his plans for an $800 million studio expansion on pause. He even called for Hollywood workers to organize under a single union to protect jobs from the threat of AI.
The tool hasn't officially been released to the public, but workers in creative fields have already begun experimenting with it. They say it makes their jobs easier without making them feel replaceable. Sora can help them communicate abstract concepts more clearly, they say, push them to visualize ideas in new ways, and cut production costs. But, for now, it still needs human oversight.
Know when to pick your battles.
Brand advertising consultant Charlotte Bunyan put Sora to the test by creating a campaign for a "well-known high street supermarket" and told the Financial Times that she could "potentially" use the video it made as a "taster of something we could bring to life in a virtual experience."
Bunyan participated in a comparison organized by the Financial Times between Sora and its competitors Runway and Pika — both of which claim to create AI-powered videos with just a few words.
Bunyan wrote a prompt fed directly into Pika and Runway, while OpenAI gave Sora a revised version. Sora rendered the elements of the prompt more "faithfully" than the other tools, Bunyan said, but all three can "speed up the way we communicate creative ideas and make them more tangible." Regardless of the tool, though, she said there probably still needs to be a "human layer" added to any content they generate through editing tools.
Others say Sora isn't always consistent, which can bring about new creative opportunities.
The video's director, Paul Trillio, said he "leaned into the hallucinations, the strange details, the dream-like logic of movement, the distorted mirror of memories, the surreal qualities unique to Sora / AI," in a post on X.
Washed Out "The Hardest Part"
I leaned into the hallucinations, the strange details, the dream-like logic of movement, the distorted mirror of memories, the surreal qualities unique to Sora / AI that differentiate it from reality. Embrace the strange. pic.twitter.com/AlhsVTO78B
The Times reported that the video was made by stitching 55 clips Sora generated based on detailed prompts. But the clips weren't always consistent. The appearance of the couple in the video and their child varies from clip to clip. Trillo said he overlooked the discrepancies, and in some sense, they enhance the dream-like nature of the video. He believes Sora can complement the creative process, but it shouldn't be the main tool.
"You have to know where to pick your battles with it," Trillo told the Times. "You kind of have to relinquish a bit of your free will in working with this thing and you kind of have to accept the nature of how chaotic it is."
Coffee is so popular that bean-growing crops are devastating the environment.
So some companies are using biotechnology to create viable coffee alternatives.
Some use beanless coffee made from other ingredients, while others are developing lab-grown coffee.
Your morning cup of joe might be missing a key ingredient in the future: coffee beans.
Coffee is so popular around the world that the vast crop requirements are devastating the environment. So some companies are seeking a more sustainable alternative.
A handful of them are already using biotechnology and food science to create viable coffee replacements, The Wall Street Journal reported.
Atomo, one of those companies, has launched a series of beanless products. Its Coachella Latte Blend is a ground espresso made from things like date seeds, lemon, and guava. A one-pound bag of the regular and decaf versions both retail for $15.99.
Other companies are relying on lab-grown cells from coffee plants, the Journal reported.
Coffee beans and coffee
Getty Images
Demand for coffee remains high, with the National Coffee Association reporting in 2020 that the average American drinks "just over 3 cups per day." The Journal reported that people worldwide drink two billion cups of coffee daily.
This has led to mass deforestation, heightened carbon emissions, and low wages for the farmers who tend to the crops. The climate crisis is also making land typically suitable for coffee production unfit.
The coffee industry is also eyeing a possible price surge in the future as El Niño causes a drought in Vietnam, which produces the largest amount of the robusta coffee variety in the world, Bloomberg reported in April.
Beanless coffee and other alternatives might be a good solution to all these coffee woes. But much like the lab-grown and alternative meat industry, convincing consumers to try it might be the biggest challenge of all.
Hello! A submersible superyacht sounds like it should belong to a supervillain in an animated movie. But an Austrian company says it's a real possibility, and it's already in talks with potential buyers.
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DNY
This week's dispatch
Job market slowdown
The US economy added 175,000 jobs in April, falling short of expectations for the first time in six months and showing a steep drop from the revised 315,000 figure for March.
That sent stocks soaring and bond yields plunging. Why? A higher number had the potential to push any rate cuts from the Federal Reserve further out into the future. A lower number would signal cracks in economic growth and hint at stagflation.
Instead, investors took the not-too-high, not-too-low hiring numbers as a sign that the hoped for soft landing for the economy is still on the cards, despite sticky inflation.
"In our view, the softening trend in labor markets will make it easier for the Fed to cut rates," Brian Rose, a senior US economist at UBS Global Wealth Management, wrote.
While investors might be happy with the jobs numbers, they're likely to do little for the economic mood. Wage growth slowed while unemployment picked up. White-collar workers are finding it harder to get hired.
It's a reminder that good news for the stock market isn't always good news for workers.
Christie Hemm Klok for BI
Big Tech's urban hero
Jan Sramek quietly became the largest landowner in Solano County, a sparsely populated area wedged between Napa and Sacramento that he hopes will one day become California Forever.
Sramek, a former Goldman Sachs trader, is backed by a who's who of Silicon Valley billionaire investors. Tech barons from Reid Hoffman to Marc Andreessen are betting on him to make the city of the future — the question is whether he can pull it off.
For people who've recently searched for a job, the market appears to be brutal.
That's especially true if you're a relatively high-earning worker. New data from Vanguard shows a two-tier job market: one divided between a blue-collar boom and a white-collar recession.
As competition dwindles and the green-card process gets tougher, some Big Tech companies are backing off green-card applications.
The situation is making it harder for foreign tech workers to stay in the US. One top immigration attorney said overseas candidates may want to search far beyond Silicon Valley and New York City for jobs in the industry.
"Satya (Nadella) and the entire senior leadership team lean on (Bill) Gates very significantly. His opinion is sought every time we make a major change."
The Insider Today team: Matt Turner, deputy editor-in-chief, in New York. Jordan Parker Erb, editor, in New York. Dan DeFrancesco, deputy editor and anchor, in New York. Lisa Ryan, executive editor, in New York.
Two recovering Kush users at a hospital in Freetown, Sierra Leone, on June 22, 2023.
JOHN WESSELS | Getty Images
Sierra Leone declared a state of emergency over widespread drug abuse.
One drug causing particular concern in the West African nation is the synthetic drug "kush."
Locals say the drug is made with ground human bones.
Sierra Leone's capital, Freetown, is a bustling African port city on the Atlantic Ocean, where even the dead can't rest, say its residents.
Cemeteries are bolstering their security measures because gravediggers are stealing human bones to make powerful synthetic drugs, local journalists told Business Insider.
Sierra Leone, in West Africa, declared a state of emergency in April over rising cases of synthetic drug abuse due to the spread of "kush," which contains ground human bones, locals say.
Addressing the nation on April 4, Sierra Leone's president, Julius Maada Bio, said the country was facing "an existential threat" from "the ravaging impact of drugs and substance abuse, particularly the devastating synthetic drug kush."
A vendor sells daily necessities at a market in Freetown, Sierra Leone, Feb. 21, 2024.
Xinhua News Agency | Getty Images
As with the rise of synthetic drug use in other parts of the world, such as the fentanyl crisis in the US, kush could be set to spread.
International expansion is "almost inevitable," Michael Cole, a professor of forensic science at Anglia Ruskin University in the UK, told BI.
While there are no official statistics on the number of users of the drug, they are not hard to spot, reports say.
The streets of Freetown, the country's capital, are said to be awash with young men, often sitting or lying in the spot where they lost consciousness after smoking the drug, Sally Hayden reported for The Irish Times.
Why locals say kush is sometimes made with ground human bones
A man sleeps on a motorbike inside a drug den at the Kington landfill site in Freetown on June 21, 2023.
JOHN WESSELS
Kush has been around for years in Sierra Leone, but its exact origin and composition remain unclear.
Cole told BI that kush was a mixture of tobacco, cannabis, tramadol, and fentanyl — but he noted that some believe it can also contain formaldehyde, a preservative used in embalming fluid for corpses.
Formaldehyde also has euphoric properties, says the National Library of Medicine, which explains why kush users could be raiding Freetown's cemeteries.
Mabinty Magdalene Kamar, the editor of a local news outlet, Politico SL, said that kush users had claimed to her that the drugs did indeed contain bones.
"We heard stories about boys breaking into cemeteries and tombs and then taking out the bones of dead bodies, grinding them just to produce kush," she told BI.
The drug has a ravaging effect on users' physical health. Abdul Jalloh, a mental health expert and hospital care manager at the Sierra Leone Psychiatric Teaching Hospital, told BI he had observed kush users suffering from issues such as skin necrosis, ulcers, wounds, oral issues, kidney and liver problems, and eye infections.
It can also be fatal, with one doctor telling the BBC that "in recent months," hundreds of men had died in Freetown after suffering organ failure caused by the drug.
Police guard Freetown's cemeteries
Headstones line the Waterloo Ebola graveyard in Waterloo, Sierra Leone on December 14, 2017.
Thomas Dixon, the editor of the Salone Times newspaper in Freetown, told BI that while his publication had not been able to confirm the use of human bones in the drug, "you will see missing bones" if you go to cemeteries in the city.
Fears over grave robbing for kush production have become so widespread in the city that some cemeteries have requested police protection, the BBC reported.
Business Insider contacted the Freetown Police Force for comment.
"It makes you forget"
Jalloh said most kush users were "between the ages of 20 to 34."
Sierra Leonians face soaring unemployment rates, and much of its population lives in poverty — and some seem to be turning to kush in a bid to forget such problems.
Two men relax on a car at the Kington landfill site in Freetown on June 21, 2023. In recent years Kush, a mix of various chemicals and plants that mimic the natural properties found in cannabis, according to the National Drug Agency, is increasingly being used by youth in Sierra Leone.
JOHN WESSELS | Getty Images
Jalloh said that many of the patients he had dealt with cited unemployment, stress, and peer pressure among the reasons they had started using the drug.
"It makes you forget," Salifu Kamara, a 21-year-old kush user, told NPR. "We're under such strain. There's no work. There's nothing here."
Thomas Dixon said he believed it pointed to a "systemic failure" in the country, adding that kush turned young people into "zombies."
"Young people don't believe in the authorities anymore. The people don't believe in the political system anymore – they are sliding into taking drugs," he said.
People gather in a Kush drug den in Freetown on June 26, 2023.
JOHN WESSELS | Getty Images
Jalloh noted that the use of synthetic drugs was not unique to Sierra Leone.
"It's a global crisis everywhere," he said.
And with the rise of synthetic drug use in other parts of the world, such as the fentanyl crisis in the US, kush could be set to spread.
International expansion is "almost inevitable," Cole said.
Synthetic cannabinoids
Authorities have likened kush to synthetic cannabinoids, the Guardian reports.
Synthetic cannabinoids are chemically engineered substances that mimic the effects of cannabis but can be much more harmful and unpredictable.
"Synthetic marijuana" can be up to 100 times as potent as traditional marijuana, inducing extreme physical effects like seizures, psychosis, and even death.
Packets of synthetic marijuana illegally sold in New York City put on display at a news conference in New York, 2015.
Reuters
In 2015, BI's Erin Brodwin covered the rise of these synthetic drugs, marketed as "spice," "K2," "black mamba," or "crazy clown."
Brodwin reported that drugmakers change the specific ingredients in the drugs so fast — and produce them in such massive quantities — that drug enforcement can't keep up.
In 2021, Kensington, a low-income neighborhood in North Philadelphia, became notorious for abuse of a sedative called "tranq." Also known as "xylazine," the animal sedative was often cut with other drugs. A side-effect of this drug can be struggling to stand upright, which is why users are commonly described in the media as "zombies."
AndreyKrav/iStock, Michael M. Santiago/Getty, Tyler Le/BI
Nvidia is dominating earnings season, and it hasn't even reported results yet.
Other mega-cap tech giants have been mentioning on earnings calls that they're boosting investment in AI infrastructure.
Nvidia offers the popular H100 GPU chip that many companies use, and was specifically name-checked in some instances.
Nvidia is dominating first-quarter earnings season, and it hasn't even reported its results yet.
The company has received several nods, both directly and indirectly, from mega-cap tech companies that it counts as some of its biggest customers.
Words like "AI Infrastructure" and "generative AI" and "infrastructure capex" consistently popped up on the earnings calls of Microsoft, Alphabet, Amazon, and Meta Platforms, and it all points to more money being directed to Nvidia for its incredibly popular H100 GPU chip.
The company is gearing up for the release of its next-generation AI chip, named Blackwell, later this year.
Elon Musk shouts out Nvidia's AI chips
Perhaps the biggest vote of confidence for Nvidia during this earnings season came from Tesla CEO Elon Musk, who said on his company's earnings call that the electric vehicle manufacturer will more than double its H100 GPU chips by the end of the year.
"We've installed and commissioned, meaning they're actually working, 35,000 H100 computers or GPUs," Musk said last month. "Roughly 35,000 H100s are active, and we expect that to be probably 85,000 or thereabouts by the end of this year."
Musk said the H100s are helping Tesla further improve its Full Self-Driving software.
Mega-cap tech's AI spending is soaring
Meta Platforms said it was increasing its forecasted capital expenditures for 2024 to a range of $35 billion to $40 billion from a prior range of $30 billion to $37 billion. The increase, according to Meta, is primarily being driven by the buildout of its "infrastructure investments to support our AI roadmap."
In January, Meta said it would buy 350,000 H100 GPUs from Nvidia in 2024, but a recent update from the company's head of AI, Yann LeCun, suggests that the company has bought even more H100 chips in recent months.
Speaking at the Forging the Future of Business with AI summit last month, LeCun and host John Werner said that Meta has bought an additional 500,000 GPUs from Nvidia, bringing its total to 1 million with a retail value of about $30 billion.
Alphabet said its first-quarter CAPEX was $12 billion, or about double from the prior year, driven "overwhelmingly by investment in our technical infrastructure with the largest component for servers followed by data centers."
Microsoft said it expects $50 billion in capital expenditures in its upcoming fiscal year, and its fiscal third-quarter spending soared almost 80% to $14 billion.
And while Amazon didn't detail its capital expenditure plans, it did say it expects to spend more money.
"We anticipate our overall capital expenditures to meaningfully increase year-over-year in 2024, primarily driven by higher infrastructure capex to support growth in AWS, including generative AI," Amazon CFO Brian Olsavsky said.
Altogether, the combined capex of Microsoft, Alphabet, Meta, and Amazon is expected to reach $205 billion this year, representing a 40% increase from 2023 levels, according to UBS. And a good chunk of that money will likely be funneled to Nvidia for its H100 and Blackwell AI chips.
AMD said its MI300 AI chip would generate revenue of about $4 billion in 2024, which pales in comparison to Nvidia's expected revenue of more than $100 billion this year.
Meanwhile, Intel recently unveiled its Gaudi 3 AI chip that will compete with Nvidia, but it said it expects the chip to generate only $500 million in sales this year.
Investors will have to wait until after the market close on May 22 to hear what Nvidia's earnings results actually are.
Many Americans have come to feel that a middle-class lifestyle is out of reach.
Blame inflation for bringing down the mood and making the economy seem much worse than it is.
Money experts say people feeling downbeat can create a financial plan to alleviate stress.
Vincent, a 29-year-old medical sales rep, makes $130,000 a year.
It was a dream when he was younger — once he was making six figures, he assumed he'd be in financial nirvana, worry-free, off on vacation somewhere at least once a year, perhaps able to buy a home in the not-too-distant future.
"I was like, if I could make six figures, I'd have a nice life. I can save up the down payment on a home and start to begin my life," Vincent, who preferred to only use his first name to protect his privacy.
He was surprised to find out that in Santa Barbara, a coastal California city where the cost of living is 65% higher than the national average, he's barely able to save for anything, let alone buy a house, plan for kids, or hit other milestones of middle-class life.
"Bigger ticket items that our parents could have bought, like a home or car, that is, just to me, out of reach," said Vincent, though he acknowledged his budget could go further in a city with a lower cost of living.
"I would have to save 10k for six or seven years straight and really sacrifice to put down on maybe the dumpiest thing I could find here."
Vincent's experience is emblematic of what has become of the middle-class American dream, with many earning well into six figures but feeling like they're way behind the curve or that the economic chips are stacked against them.
Some of these concerns are real — see the wildly expensive US housing market — while others, experts say, may be a matter of perception versus reality, as the economy feels tough even as earnings are growing and employment is strong.
Vincent is among a growing group of middle-class Americans — most recently defined in 2022 by the Pew Research Center as households earning between $48,500 and $145,500 — who don't feel they can't afford to live a traditional middle-class life, replete with a home and a comfortable retirement.
According to Eoin Sheehan, a senior research analyst at Redfield & Wilton, inflation has caused many Americans to ignore the overall strength of the US economy.
Growth, hiring, and financial markets are strong, while wage growth has started to exceed the pace of inflation.
Wage growth has started to beat the pace of inflation.
Federal Reserve
While higher costs pose challenges to retiring or buying a home, those goals aren't out of reach with careful planning, according to Chris Collins, a wealth advisor at Northwestern Mutual's Collins Financial.
Collins suspects that most middle-class Americans feel anxious about their financial situation due to financial shock fatigue — the exhaustion of navigating one big economic shock after another — as well as a lack of financial planning.
His clients typically start to calm down once they crunch the numbers and figure out how much they need to save for retirement or meet their other financial goals. Prior to that, many falsely assumed they needed to work forever, he says.
"I'm not telling people, 'You are going to die broken and alone.' It's, 'Hey, with a little bit of work here, you're going to be all right,'" Collins said. "They don't feel like they can relax until somebody runs the financial plan, runs the modeling and says, 'you're going to be fine.'"
Still, those statements don't square with how many households may be feeling about their financial and wealth status. The sentiment is all over the place online, expressed by social media users who identify as middle class but say they're increasingly feeling less well-off.
TikTok user Jessica in Alabama said she believed the middle class was dying. She pointed to her eldest daughter, who she says worked 60 hours a week during her pregnancy to provide for her family.
"Do we even have a middle class anymore, or is it just the haves and the have-nots?" Jessica said in a TikTok post in February. "Because the haves are having, and the have-nots are struggling."
"I'm sorry, but if you know somebody with kids and they say they're not struggling financially, they're lying," Kayla, another TikTok user said. She pointed to the rising cost of groceries and other essentials.
"Honestly, life is difficult for the middle class," Vincent added. "I feel like I can make ends meet, but I can't really move this lifestyle."
Cost-of-living crisis
Middle-class Americans have been feeling worse about the economy for a long time, but the negative mood appears to have ticked up sharply in recent years.
Financial anxiety has hit an all-time high, according to a survey from Northwestern Mutual, and a survey from Primerica found that half of middle-class households say their financial situation is "not so good" or outright "poor."
For many in the middle class, inflation is at the heart of this feeling. 51% of respondents in the Northwestern Mutual survey said inflation was the biggest obstacle to financial security, while 67% of households in Primerica's survey said their income was falling behind the cost of living.
That's making people feel locked out of many of the milestones long associated with middle-class life. 74% of middle class Americans have cut back on non-essential spending, according to Primerica's survey. A full half of Americans surveyed said they didn't plan on going on a summer vacation due to a higher cost of living, according to a 2023 Redfield & Wilton survey conducted for Newsweek.
Many are also dipping into their savings, making retirement feel uncertain. 60% of Americans say they don't think they're saving enough to comfortably retire, according to Primerica.
46% of middle-class Americans said they've dialed back or completely paused saving for the future and 38% said they didn't think they could afford an unexpected expense over $1000.
"The anxieties about things like owning their own home, going to college — all these things that the majority of Americans perceive as being sort of indicators of middle-class status — many of them now don't think those things are attainable for them," Sheehan said.
Buying a home may be the greatest example of a tenet of middle-class life feeling out of reach for many, and that struggle is very real rather than merely negatively perceived.
Vincent says owning a home seems out of the question for now. If he cut back on some expenses and lived more frugally, he estimates he could save up to $10,000 a year. At that rate, it would take him at least eight years to save up for the average down payment on a home, which notched a record $84,000 last year, according to data from CoreLogic.
President Joe Biden's 2023 executive order on "Safe, Secure, and Trustworthy Development and Use of Artificial Intelligence" has been his biggest contribution to regulating AI so far while in office.
BRENDAN SMIALOWSKI/AFP via Getty Images
The development of artificial intelligence technology is happening at a rapid pace.
That's made it hard for Congress to regulate it, but Biden and Trump have tried by executive order.
A lack of AI experts in government has also made it difficult for lawmakers to regulate.
The battle over AI isn't just happening in Silicon Valley among tech giants.
It's also happening within the halls of Congress and the White House as lawmakers try to figure out how to rein in the technology without stalling progress.
Congress hasn't been able to pass a comprehensive set of federal laws and regulations around artificial intelligence — the majority of the restrictions around the innovative advancements have been made on the state level — leading President Joe Biden and former President Trump to fill in the gaps via executive decree, which provide little to no course to fight against bad actors in the industry that cross the line.
Why does the US not have federal AI regulation?
Passing legislation in Congress can be a painfully slow and sometimes impossible process. Bills are often quashed in committee and on the chamber floors. Many legislators will require amendments of their own to be added to the bill for them to consider supporting it, disrupting the process even more.
The chaos of the current session, with Republican infighting leading to the removal of former Speaker Kevin McCarthy, has made things even worse.
So far, the 118th Congress has passed just 1% of all proposed bills.
With it being increasingly difficult for Congress to pass substantive laws and establish industry regulations, presidents have used executive orders as a means of establishing precedents in groundbreaking and developing industries, such as AI.
How is the development of AI governed?
During Trump's presidency, he issued several executive orders related to AI. In 2019 he signed into effect "Maintaining American Leadership in Artificial Intelligence," which was an executive order aimed to establish the need for companies to prioritize the development of AI. And in 2020, he issued "Promoting the Use of Trustworthy AI in the Federal Government," which set principles for how federal employees could safely and effectively use AI on the job.
Other than executive orders, Trump created the National Science & Technology Council's "Select Committee on AI" in 2018, which continues to advise the White House on ways the federal government can promote AI growth in the US.
More than 80 bills directly or indirectly addressing AI have been introduced in the current 118th Congress alone, but none have passed and become law, leading Biden and his administration to follow Trump's lead and set precedents using executive order.
Biden signed the executive order on "Safe, Secure, and Trustworthy Development and Use of Artificial Intelligence" near the end of 2023. The 36-page directive set safety standards for AI researchers to follow, though critics say it provided little teeth for federal agencies to enforce it.
How do Trump's and Biden's AI policies differ?
Major AI powerhouses like Microsoft and Google have praised Biden's efforts, but Trump promised in December 2023 that he'd overturn the executive order.
"When I'm reelected, I will cancel Biden's artificial intelligence executive order and ban the use of AI to censor the speech of American citizens on day one," Trump said.
Some conservative lobbyists and think tanks have criticized Biden's regulations, arguing that the executive order abuses the Defense Production Act — a 1950 Korean War-era law empowering the president to unilaterally issue regulations and guidance to private companies during times of emergency — by violating the intended purpose of the act itself.
AI policy advocates don't seem entirely convinced of that argument.
Trump and Biden's "executive orders have contributed to a bipartisan consensus that AI ought to be trustworthy," said Jason Green-Lowe, the Center for AI Policy's executive director.
"It's changed the culture," he said. "You see sort of responsible scaling policies being rolled out on a voluntary basis by some of the more responsible labs, but then you have other companies that are just ignoring it, which right now is their legal right. Nobody's required to make sure that they're dealing with these catastrophic risks."
How are policymakers balancing regulation and innovation?
Sen. Martin Heinrich speaks with Sam Altman, CEO of OpenAI, during a break as the Senate held an AI forum with industry leaders in Washington, DC.
Bill O'Leary/The Washington Post via Getty Images
Several AI-policy experts told Business Insider that they're not completely against setting federal regulations on artificial intelligence as long as it won't cripple research.
Some experts, like Rebecca Finlay, who is the CEO of a non-profit organization called Partnership on AI, said that regulations are necessary to further innovation. Finlay's nonprofit is focused on responsibly promoting the development and regulation of AI.
"We've been very clear that you need to have regulation in place in order to advance innovation," Finlay said. "Clear rules of the road allow for more companies to be more competitive in being more innovative to do the work that needs to be done if we're really going to take the benefits of AI. One of the things that we are advocating strongly for is a level of transparency with regard to how these systems are being built and developed."
She said that she doesn't think there's a right or wrong decision between developing open or closed-source AI tools — she said she's seen "harms" from both types — as long as they're both developed responsibly.
"Rather than arguing between a binary choice between open and closed, I think it's really core that we hold all model developers and deployers accountable for ensuring that their models are developed as safely as possible," she said.
Daniel Zhang, the senior manager for policy initiatives at the Stanford Institute for Human-Centered Artificial Intelligence, echoed Finlay's hope that regulations don't stifle research.
"We want to make sure the governance around open foundation models are, for the long term, beneficial for opening innovation," Zhang said. "We don't want to too-early restrict the development of open innovation that academia, for example, academic institutions thrive on."
What are the challenges of crafting AI regulation?
The median age of the Senate is over 65 years old, and lawmakers are having a difficult time hiring AI experts to their offices, who are mostly choosing to work in the private sector.
Drew Angerer/Getty Images
One of the biggest hurdles that legislators face in regulating AI, Finlay said, is "just keeping up to the state of the science and the technology as it is developed."
She said it's difficult for lawmakers to draft regulations because most AI companies develop their models not in a "publicly funded research environment," but they do so privately until they choose to share their advancements.
"The ideal solution would be to empower some kind of office or regulator to update the laws as they go forward," Green-Lowe, from the Center for AI Policy, said,
That's not the easiest thing to accomplish.
"We're also in a moment where people are very concerned about overreach from executive power and about the proper role of bureaucracies or the civil service," Green-Lowe said. "And so there are people in Congress who are skeptical that Congress can keep up with the changes in technology, but also skeptical that the power to do so should be delegated to an agency."
He added that failing to implement a formal way of regulating the sector would effectively let companies play by their own rules, something he and the Center for AI Policy don't purport to be the best course of action.
Another challenge comes from AI experts and researchers choosing private sector jobs instead of ones in the government, a kind of "brain drain," Zhang said.
"Most of the new AI Ph.D.'s that graduate in North America go to private industry," he said, citing Stanford's 2024 AI Index Report. "Less than 40% go to government looking to create all those AI regulations and governance structures."
The vast majority of AI experts end up working in the private sector rather than for universities or federal governments.
Stanford's Institute for Human-Centered AI
Lacking staffers who can fully understand the complexity of AI and its future puts more onus on an aging US Congress to regulate the far-reaching tech, a difficult task.
Zhang said there's also a common misconception that working in government provides less access to money than working in the private sector.
"That's not a hundred percent true," he said. "For governments to appeal to those technical students, I think they just need to highlight the public service aspect and then give them the resources to be able to do their jobs.
In January, the Biden Administration released a "call to service" aimed at solving this problem.
"We are calling on AI and AI-enabling experts to join us to advance this research and ensure the next generation of AI models is safe, secure, and trustworthy," the administration said.
Donald Trump said he doesn't care too much about his numerous legal troubles, NBC News reported.
The former president spoke at a luncheon during the RNC's spring retreat in Florida.
He also compared the Biden Administration to the Gestapo, the Nazi secret police force.
Donald Trump told attendees at a private donor event in Florida on Saturday that he wasn't too bothered about his numerous legal troubles.
Speaking about his criminal indictments during a luncheon at Mar-a-Lago, the former president said: "If you care too much, you tend to choke. And in a way, I don't care. It's just, you know, life is life," NBC News reported, citing audio of the event.
Nevertheless, Trump told those in attendance that he was shocked when he first found out he had been indicted.
"Once I got indicted, I said, Holy shit. I just got indicted. Me. I got indicted," Trump said, per the report.
Last month, Trump made his first appearance in court for one of his four criminal cases, facing 34 counts of falsifying business records to hide payments to adult film star Stormy Daniels.
In this courtroom sketch, former President Donald Trump is surrounded by his attorneys, court security and Secret Service seated behind him, during jury selection in his New York criminal trial on April 16, 2024.
REUTERS/Jane Rosenberg
During the Mar-a-Lago event, Trump also took the opportunity to hit out at Democrats, saying they were "running a Gestapo administration," referencing the Nazi secret police force.
"And it's the only thing they have. And it's the only way they're going to win in their opinion," he said.
"Once I got indicted, I said, well, now the gloves have to come off," Trump continued, adding that Biden was "the worst president in the history of our country. He's grossly incompetent. He's crooked as hell. He's the Manchurian candidate, he accepts massive amounts of money from China, from Russia, from Ukraine, and many other countries."
The luncheon was part of the Republican National Committee's (RNC) spring retreat in the Sunshine State. Hundreds of people came together for the event, and several donated $40,000 or more, CNN reported, citing sources familiar with the fundraiser.
Trump also brought up several potential vice president candidates onstage, NBC News reported, including South Carolina Sen. Tim Scott, New York Rep. Elise Stefanik, North Dakota Gov. Doug Burgum, Ohio Sen. JD Vance, Florida Sen. Marco Rubio, and Florida Rep. Byron Donalds.
Sources familiar with the retreat's itinerary told CNN that attendees first gathered for a welcome reception featuring House Speaker Mike Johnson, RNC cochair Lara Trump, and House GOP Conference Chair Elise Stefanik.
Business Insider has reached out to Donald Trump's team for comment.
For the second time in a 10-week span, Christine Wilson of Attleborough has won a $1 million prize on a Massachusetts State Lottery instant ticket.
Massachusetts State Lottery
Christine Wilson from Massachusetts won her second $1 million lottery prize within 10 weeks.
She plans to save her winnings, having opted for lump sum payments both times.
Despite the odds being 283 billion to one, there have been several double lottery wins.
A woman has claimed her second $1 million lottery prize within 10 weeks, playing the Massachusetts State Lottery.
Christine Wilson of Attleborough, Massachusetts, latest windfall came from the "100X Cash" $10 instant ticket game, adding to her previous win of $1 million from the "Lifetime Millions" $50 instant ticket game back in February.
She opted for the lump sum payment of $650,000 on both occasions.
Wilson used some of her previous winnings to buy an SUV. This time, she plans on putting her prize into savings.
The Family Food Mart in Mansfield, where Wilson purchased her latest winning ticket, will receive a $10,000 bonus from the Massachusetts State Lottery for making the sale.
Wilson's first $1 million prize was from Dubs's Discount Liquors, also in Mansfield.
Getting rich overnight does not always change lives
Inflatable lottery balls in the crowd during a National Lottery event on May 07, 2023 in Liverpool, UK.
Stuart C. Wilson/Getty Images
Winning the lottery even once is extremely unlikely. You have a better chance of getting struck by lightning than winning a Mega Millions or Powerball contest.
Winning more than once is remarkable, but Wilson's back-to-back wins aren't a first in lottery history.
Fellow Massachusetts residents Kevin Miller and Kenneth J Stokes hit the jackpot twice.
A UK couple, David and Kathleen Long, who won £1 million ($1.25 million) in July of 2013, banked another £1 million and a Jaguar car in March of 2015.
But getting rich overnight does not always change lives for the better — some winners have ended up in debt or even been sent to prison.
However, the lucky double win didn't sate Adams' gambling addiction, and she gambled her winnings away. As of 2016, she was penniless and living in a trailer park.
Juan Hernandez of Nassau County, New York, won the New York Lottery's Deluxe scratch-off game twice. When he struck gold a second time in 2022, he was "still trying to spend the $10m" he'd won in 2019.
Any lucky winner should think of it as preparing for a marathon and learn to say no to friends and family, a lottery advisor previously told Business Insider.
Business Insider contacted the Massachusetts State Lottery for comment.