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Welcome to AI Decoded, Fast Companys weekly newsletter that breaks down the most important news in the world of AI. You can sign up to receive this newsletter every week here. Nvidias Huang says chip bans arent the way to deal with China Nvidia founder and CEO Jensen Huang has been active on the government relations and lobbying front, and now hes got something big to show for his efforts: the Trump Administration has agreed to lift a ban on selling Nvidia H20 AI chips to China. Huang met with leaders in both Washington and Beijing, arguing that the AI revolution is a tide that will lift all boatsthat AI technology can boost business productivity, raise the standard of living, and improve GDP for both the U.S. and China. He emphasized that the best way for America to maintain an edge in the AI race is to ensure the worlds AI models and apps run best on chips made by a U.S.-based company. The U.S. (under Biden) initially began restricting sales of Nvidias most powerful chips to China in an effort to slow Beijings AI ambitions. The Trump Administration later doubled down, effectively banning sales of the H20 back in April. As a result, Nvidia reported a loss of about $2.5 billion in sales during its quarter ending in April, and projected it would miss out on another $8 billion in the quarter ending in July. Huang apparently persuaded the Trump Administration to reverse course. His argument likely sounded something like this: Our mission, properly expressed, is that in order for America to have AI leadership is to make sure that the American tech stack is available to markets all over the world so that amazing developers, including the ones in China, are able to build on the American tech stack so that AI runs best on the American tech stack, Huang said during a recent interview with CNNs Fareed Zakaria. Huang also noted that half of the worlds AI researchers are in China and Chinese. Huang seems to be suggesting that the U.S. can retain technological dominance by controlling the platform AI runs onsimilar to how it maintains financial dominance by ensuring most world trade is based on the dollar. There may be some truth to that. But it raises important questions: What does such control actually mean? Will the U.S. be able to dictate how the Chinese use the chips? Nono more than it did when DeepSeek used the H20 to build its world-class models. Is Huang implying that the U.S. could collect information about Chinese AI activities through these chips (as the U.S. once accused China of doing through Huawei)? That seems very doubtful. Theres no doubt that Nvidia and its shareholders benefit when the worlds AI is built on its chips and softwarebut is America really better off? And if Huang truly believes the best AI chips shouldnt be restricted, doesnt it follow that hell also ask the Trump Administration for permission to sell China its most powerful Blackwell chips, too? Fears grow that the U.S. government will use AI to surveille Six months into a chaotic second Trump presidency, new reports have emerged suggesting the government is increasingly interested in using AI tools to track and profile U.S. residents. According to multiple whistleblowers and insiders, agents of Elon Musks DOGE are actively working to build a centralized, cross-agency database of Americans personal informationsome of it highly sensitive. The Washington Post reported in May that DOGE is rapidly constructing a centralized database that includes Social Security numbers, medical records, and tax filesdoing so without regard for federal data privacy rules, and without standard oversight or even interagency agreements. From the outset, DOGE has pushed past barriers and sidelined individuals to gain access to data stored at the Treasury, Office of Personnel Management, Social Security Administration, Health and Human Services, and the Departments of Education and Labor, reports the Brookings Institution Meanwhile, concerns are also growing about how other agencies may be using AI to expand surveillance capabilities. ProPublica reported this week that the Internal Revenue Service is now developing a computer program that would give Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) deportation officers unprecedented access to confidential tax data belonging to millions of American taxpayers, including their home addresses. In the past, ICE requested IRS data only for individuals it was actively investigatingtypically no more than a dozen at a time. The new system could serve as a mass surveillance tool, possibly using AI, to identify new deportation targets. Due process may be a secondary concern. Adding to the unease, FedScoop reported last week that the General Services Administration is considering using an AI model developed by Elon Musks xAI to process the personal data of American citizens. Palantir (cofounded by Trump ally Peter Thiel) has become deeply embedded within agencies across the federal government. Its AI is used for data integration, analysis, and decision-making at defense and intelligence agencies, as well as FEMA, ICE, and HHS. Critics have raised concerns about the breadth and depth of data Palantir can access, and the lack of transparency regarding how its systems function. After 9/11, Palantir began addressing the governments urgent need to make sense of the vast volumes of intelligence data it was collecting on potential terrorist operatives and events both domestically and abroad. Since then, the use of Palantirs platform has only grownand it could easily be leveraged to form deep profiles on regular American citizens. AWS launches a one-stop shop for enterprise AI Agents Amazons AWS cloud division is placing a big bet on AI agents. At this weeks AWS Summit in New York City, the company unveiled AI Agents and Tools, a new section within the AWS Marketplace designed as a kind of concierge service for businesses looking to buy, deploy, and manage AI agents. The store will feature agents from AWS, as well as third parties like Anthropic, IBM, Perplexity, and Salesforce. Typically, AI agents can store large amounts of information about a company and its workflows, and can reason through tasks. For existing AWS customers, the platform will likely simplify the process of integrating AI agents with AI modelsallwing both to reside within the same secure cloud environment as their data. Amazon AWS is bundling everything companies needdatabases, security tools, IT support, and deployment infrastructureinto one streamlined experience. Businesses will be able to describe their automation needs in plain English to an AI-powered search tool and receive customized recommendations on which agents are best suited for the job. Gartner predicts that agents will automate half of all business decisions by 2027. And no company wants to fall behind while competitors gain new efficiencies. However, building custom agents from scratch can be a major challenge for corporate IT departments, often requiring significant additional infrastructure and integration work. The new AWS agent platform and marketplace could help eliminate those hurdles. AWS is optimistic about the potential. It upends the way software is built, said AWS VP for Agentic AI Swami Sivasubramanian at the announcement. It also introduces a host of new challenges to deploying and operating it, and potentially most impactfully, it changes how software interacts with the worldand how we interact with software. More AI coverage from Fast Company: Why sleep-time compute is the next big leap in AI Slack expands AI features with enterprise search, translation, and smart summaries The CEO of Ciena on how AI is fueling a global subsea cable boom AI data centers require massive amounts of powermaking electricity more expensive for everyone around them Want exclusive reporting and trend analysis on technology, business innovation, future of work, and design? Sign up for Fast Company Premium.
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Its hard work soaking up sunlight to generate clean electricity. After about 25 to 30 years, solar panels wear out. Over the years, heating and cooling cycles stress the materials. Small cracks develop, precipitation corrodes the frame and layers of materials can start to peel apart. In 2023, about 90% of old or faulty solar panels in the U.S. ended up in landfills. Millions of panels have been installed worldwide over the past few decadesand by about 2030, so many will be ready to retire that they could cover about 3,000 football fields. As an electrical engineer who has studied many aspects of renewable energy, recycling solar panels seems like a smart idea, but its complicated. Built to withstand years of wind and weather, solar panels are designed for strength and are not easy to break down. The cost conundrum Sending a solar panel to a landfill costs between US$1 and $5 in the U.S. But recycling it can cost three to four times as much, around $18. And the valuable materials inside solar panels, such as silver and copper, are in small amounts, so theyre worth about $10 to $12which makes recycling a money-losing prospect. Improvements in the recycling process may change the economics. But for now, its even hard to reclaim the glass in solar panels. Many layers are glued together and need to be separated before they can be melted down for reuse. And if the separation is not precise enough, the glass that is recovered wont be of high enough quality to use in making other solar panels or windows. It will be suitable only for lower-quality uses such as fill material in construction projects. Other panels, usually older ones, may contain small amounts of toxic metals such as lead or cadmium. It can be difficult to tell whether toxic materials are present, though. Even experts have trouble, in part because current tests, such as the toxicity characteristic leaching procedure, can give inaccurate results. Therefore, many companies that own large numbers of solar panels just assume their panels are hazardous waste, which increases costs for both disposal and recycling. Clearer labels would help people know what a solar panel contains and how to handle it. If someone wants to recycle a solar panel, and is willing to bear the cost, there arent many places in the U.S. that are willing to do it and are equipped to be safe about it. Designing for a new life Despite the Trump administrations cuts to subsidies for solar projects, millions of solar panels are already in use in the U.S., and millions more are expected to be installed worldwide in the coming years. As a result, the solar industry is working on ways to minimize waste and repeatedly reuse materials. Some ideas include sending used solar panels that still work at least a bit to developing nations, or even reusing them within the U.S. But there are not clear rules or processes for connecting reused panels to the power grid, so reuse tends to happen in less common, off-grid situations rather than becoming widespread. Future solar panels could also be designed for easier recycling, using different construction methods and materials, and improved processing systems. Making panels last longerperhaps as long as 50 yearsusing more durable materials, weather-resistant components, real-time monitoring of panel performance and predictive maintenance to replace parts before they wear out would reduce waste significantly. Building solar panels that are more easily disassembled into separate components made of different materials could also speed recycling. Components that fit together like Lego bricksinstead of using glueor dissolvable sealants and adhesives could be parts of these designs. Improved recycling methods could also help. Right now, panels are often simply ground up, mixing all of their components materials together and requiring a complicated process to separate them out again for reuse. More advanced approaches can extract individual materials with high purity. For example, a process called salt etching can recover over 99% of silver and 98% of silicon, at purity levels that are appropriate for high-end reuse, potentially even in new solar panels, without using toxic acids. That method can also recover significant quantities of copper and lead for use in new products. A shared journey Increasing the practice of recycling solar panels has more than just environmental benefits. Over the long term, recovering and reusing valuable materials may prove more cost-effective than continually buying new raw materials on the open market. That could lower costs for future solar panel installations. If they are fully reused, the value of these recoverable materials could reach over $15 billion globally by 2050. In addition, recycling panels and components reduces American reliance on materials imported from overseas, making solar power projects less vulnerable to global disruptions. Recycling also keeps toxic materials out of landfills. That can help ensure a shift to clean energy doesnt create new or bigger environmental problems. Also, recycling solar panels < href="https://doi.org/10.1016/j.psep.2023.03.053">emits far less carbon dioxide than manufacturing panels from raw materials. There are already some efforts underway to boost solar panel recycling. The Solar Energy Industries Association trade group is working to collect and share information about companies that recycle solar panels. Governments can provide tax breaks or other financial incentives for using recycled materials, or ban disposing of solar panels in landfills. California, Washington, New Jersey and North Carolina have enacted laws or are studying ways to manage solar panel waste, with some even requiring recycling or reuse. These efforts are important steps toward addressing the growing need for solar panel recycling and promoting a more sustainable solar industry. Anurag Srivastava is a professor of computer science and electrical engineering at West Virginia University. This article is republished from The Conversation under a Creative Commons license. Read the original article.
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Mark Zuckerberg and current and former directors and officers of Meta Platforms agreed on Thursday to settle claims seeking $8 billion for the damage they allegedly caused the company by allowing repeated violations of Facebook users’ privacy, a lawyer for the shareholders told a Delaware judge on Thursday. The parties did not disclose details of the settlement and defense lawyers did not address the judge, Kathaleen McCormick of the Delaware Court of Chancery. McCormick adjourned the trial just as it was to enter its second day and she congratulated the parties. The plaintiffs’ lawyer, Sam Closic, said the agreement just came together quickly. Billionaire venture capitalist Marc Andreessen, who is a defendant in the trial and a Meta director, was scheduled to testify on Thursday. Shareholders of Meta sued Zuckerberg, Andreessen and other former company officials including former Chief Operating Officer Sheryl Sandberg in hopes of holding them liable for billions of dollars in fines and legal costs the company paid in recent years. The Federal Trade Commission fined Facebook $5 billion in 2019 after finding that it failed to comply with a 2012 agreement with the regulator to protect users’ data. The shareholders wanted the 11 defendants to use their personal wealth to reimburse the company. The defendants denied the allegations, which they called “extreme claims.” Facebook changed its name to Meta in 2021. The company was not a defendant. The company declined to comment. A lawyer for the defendants did not immediately respond to a request for comment. This settlement may bring relief to the parties involved, but its a missed opportunity for public accountability,” said Jason Kint, the head of Digital Content Next, a trade group for content providers. Zuckerberg was expected to take the stand on Monday and Sandberg on Wednesday. The trial was scheduled to run through the end of next week. The case was also expected to include testimony from former Facebook board members Peter Thiel, Palantir Technologies co-founder, and Reed Hastings, co-founder of Netflix. Meta investors alleged in the lawsuit that former and current board members completely failed to oversee the company’s compliance with the 2012 FTC agreement and claim that Zuckerberg and Sandberg knowingly ran Facebook as an illegal data harvesting operation. The case followed revelations that data from millions of Facebook users was accessed by Cambridge Analytica, a now-defunct political consulting firm that worked for Donald Trump’s successful U.S. presidential campaign in 2016. Those revelations led to the FTC fine, which was a record at the time. On Wednesday, an expert witness for the plaintiffs testified about what he called “gaps and weaknesses” in Facebook’s privacy policies but would not say if the company violated the 2012 agreement that Facebook reached with the FTC. Jeffrey Zients, a former board member, testified on Wednesday that the company did not agree to the FTC fine to spare Zuckerberg legal liability, as shareholders allege. On its website, the company has said it has invested billions of dollars into protecting user privacy since 2019. The trial would have been a rare opportunity for Meta investors to see Zuckerberg answer probing questions under oath. In 2017, Zuckerberg was expected to testify at a trial involving a lawsuit by company investors opposed to his plan to issue a special class of Facebook stock that would have extended his control over that company. That case also settled before he took the stand. “Facebook has successfully remade the ‘Cambridge Analytica’ scandal about a few bad actors rather than an unraveling of its entire business model of surveillance capitalism and the reciprocal, unbridled sharing of personal data,” Kint said. “That reckoning is now left unresolved.” Tom Hals, Reuters
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