CNBC: Former President Donald Trump said that Tesla and SpaceX CEO Elon Musk likely couldn’t serve in his hypothetical White House cabinet due to the demanding schedule of running his various companies.
“He wants to be involved. Now look, he’s running big businesses and all that, so he can’t, really, I don’t think he could be cabinet,” Trump said of Musk in an interview with former Navy Seal Shawn Ryan, an excerpt of which was published on Sunday. “I’d put him in the cabinet, absolutely, but I don’t know how he could do that with all the things he’s got going.” Full story.
hello future, it’s me kev.
…and this is a dispatch from the digital frontier. Your one-stop shop for markets, tech and the future. The day is 233. The year is 2024. The planet is Earth. And my name is Kevin Cirilli.
I’m still digging out of the email hole that we’ve found ourselves in as a result of the Democratic National Convention in Chicago. So bear with us.
Speaking of the DNC — thank you to everyone who came out to our mtf.tv’s meet the future breakfast at the dnc. We were able to talk all things future tech policy with Sen. Kirsten Gillibrand and Rep. Raja Krishnamoorthi.
It was great for us… not so great for ByteDance’s TikTok…
REP. RAJA KRISHNAMOORTHI GOES NATIONAL, via POLITICO:
Rep. Raja Krishnamoorthi drew on his experience in China relations with his attacks on Donald Trump while speaking at the Democratic National Convention.
If the former Republican president wins again, he “will pit American against American, and that’s just what China wants for us — to fight amongst ourselves, because that’s how we lose. But we’re not going back,” Krishnamoorthi said, echoing the phrase Kamala Harris has used on the campaign trail. Full story.
New Boeing CEO Faces Hard Choices After NASA Snubs Starliner for SpaceX, via Bloomy:
After a humiliating setback to its space ambitions, Boeing Co. faces a dilemma that pits its national duty against strained cash reserves.
The decision about the future of the struggling Starliner program now rests with Boeing’s newly installed chief executive officer, Kelly Ortberg, after NASA announced Saturday that it wouldn’t send astronauts home from the space station on the faulty spacecraft. Following weeks of testing and heated debate, the space agency decided it was safer to use Elon Musk’s SpaceX.
The specter of NASA astronauts being stuck in space is just one embarrassing moment of many for Boeing during an epically bad year that’s included a near-catastrophic blowout of an airborne 737 Max jetliner, federal investigations and an executive suite shake-up.
Full story.
BIG REPUTATION: WILL TAYLOR SWIFT SUE TRUMP?
The New Republic: Trump Suddenly Looks Very Afraid of Being Sued by Taylor Swift.
Donald Trump is trying to brush off the fact that he shared A.I.-generated images of Taylor Swift endorsing his campaign to his Truth Social account earlier this week, now claiming that he doesn’t know “anything about them.”
“I don’t know anything about them, other than somebody else generated them,” Trump told Fox Business correspondent Gary Trimble after his campaign event in Asheboro, North Carolina, on Wednesday. “I didn’t generate them.”
Trump’s Truth Social Taylor Swift controversy comes as a bipartisan group of lawmakers — backed by Nashville and Hollywood — want to make it harder for people to use celebrities’ image to make false claims.
FLASHBACK - - > ELVIS ACT: Ensuring Likeness Voice and Image Security (ELVIS) Act.
AIBusiness.com in March 2024: “Tennessee Gov. Bill Lee has signed into law a first-of-its-kind piece of legislation that would protect singers from unauthorized use of their voices by AI technologies… Prior state law covered performer’s names, images and likenesses. The ELVIS Act adds voice to the mix in a bid to protect one of Tennessee's most prized exports, being the home of country music.” Full story here.
Recording Industry Association of America reaction at the time here: “Tennessee Leads the Nation… Creative Community Applauds Modern Voice & Likeness Protections in AI Era.”
Meta: Iranian hackers targeted WhatsApp accounts of staffers in Biden, Trump administrations.
More via The Associated Press:
WASHINGTON (AP) — The same Iranian hacking group believed to have targeted both the Democratic and Republican presidential campaigns tried to go after the WhatsApp accounts of staffers in the administrations of President Joe Biden and former President Donald Trump, Meta Platforms said Friday.
Meta said it discovered the network of hackers, who posed as tech support agents for companies including AOL, Microsoft, Yahoo and Google, after individuals who received the suspicious WhatsApp messages reported them. Meta’s investigators linked the activity to the same network blamed for the hacking incident reported by Trump’s campaign.
The FBI this week said a hack by Iran of the Trump campaign and an attempted breach of the Biden-Harris campaign was part of a broader Iranian effort to interfere with the U.S. presidential election.
KISSINGER WARNED XI OF A.I. IN FINAL CHINA MEETINGS.
The Economist: Is Xi Jinping an AI doomer?
In July of last year Henry Kissinger travelled to Beijing for the final time before his death. Among the messages he delivered to China’s ruler, Xi Jinping, was a warning about the catastrophic risks of artificial intelligence (AI). Since then American tech bosses and ex-government officials have quietly met with their Chinese counterparts in a series of informal meetings dubbed the Kissinger Dialogues. Full story.
BBC: Trump uses AI photos to falsely imply Taylor Swift endorsed him.
BYTES:
PBS: As artificial intelligence rapidly advances, experts debate level of threat to humanity
The Guardian: Scientists to use AI to analyse 1.6m brain scans to develop tool predicting dementia risk.
Forbes: Your Next Career Coach Could Be A Chatbot.
JENNA ORTEGA’S A.I. HORROR STORY
The Hollywood Reporter: Jenna Ortega Reveals She Deleted Twitter After Receiving Explicit AI Images of Herself as a Teen: “It’s Disgusting”.
BACK TO BOTS — IOWA SCHOOLS USING A.I. BOTS AS TUTORS.
SHOT, in Iowa — bots are helping tots learn to read, via KIWA:
IOWA (KIWA) - The digital avatar named “Amira” is an online, interactive reading tutor that can be used in all Iowa elementary schools.
According to KIWA Radio, the Iowa Department of Education used pandemic relief money to buy access to the app for this school year.
Amira is designed to respond when students struggle with words while reading aloud. All public and private elementary schools in the state will have access to the program.
CHASER, via Columbus Jewish News: Use of artificial intelligence in education draws mixed reactions.
about kev: Kevin Cirilli, based in D.C., is a media fellow at the Atlantic Council and former chief Washington correspondent for Bloomberg News, where he launched a daily geopolitical program. His work has appeared on major networks like CBS, NBC, Fox, CNN, and more.
With more than a decade in DC, he’s launched successful news verticals and programs. Kevin, who grew up in Delco, is now launching mtf.tv’s Meet the Future NOW, a weekly newsletter on markets, tech, and all things the future. The first season of the mtf NOW video podcast is in development. Stay tuned…
Washington AI Network founder Tammy Haddad speaks at the inaugural AI Honors in Washington. Source: Getty.
Tammy Haddad and Vice Admiral Frank Whitworth, eighth Director of the National Geospatial-Intelligence Agency. Source: Getty.