Technology

➚ MOVE FAST: Relocating. Israeli startup founders are voting with their feet. Amid ongoing political turmoil at home, more entrepreneurs are leaving the country and incorporating new businesses in the U.S. this year compared to 2022.

➘ BREAK THINGS: Dealmaking. Speaking of Israel’s tech sector, Intel dropped its $5.4 billion bid for contract chipmaker Tower after it failed to get regulatory approval from China. Intel will pay the Israeli firm a $353 million termination fee — collateral damage in an era of heightened Washington-Beijing tensions.

Percentage of essays written by international students that were incorrectly labeled as AI-generated, according to a new study. Researchers from Stanford University looked at seven computer programs designed to automatically assess whether students are using tools like ChatGPT to cheat. They concluded the classifiers “​​exhibit significant bias against non-native English authors.” That could become a thorny problem as the second post-ChatGPT school year begins in the Northern Hemisphere.

Ex-Google CEO to launch AI-science moonshot

THE SCOOP

Former Google CEO Eric Schmidt is building an ambitious new organization to tackle scientific challenges with the help of artificial intelligence, according to people briefed on the plans.

Schmidt has already hired two accomplished scientists to spearhead the nonprofit initiative: Samuel Rodriques, founder of the Applied Biotechnology Laboratory at the Francis Crick Institute; and Andrew White, a University of Rochester professor and a pioneer in the use of artificial intelligence in chemistry.

People familiar with the plans say the effort is modeled after OpenAI, the company behind ChatGPT, which was founded with great fanfare as a philanthropic organization.

Schmidt wants the new nonprofit to become a big draw for top talent in science and AI, two areas that are converging to potentially create breakthroughs in everything from drug discovery to material sciences. Funding will come mostly from Schmidt’s personal wealth, but outside funds may be necessary given the ambition of the project, people familiar with the plans said.

Schmidt intends to offer competitive salaries and resources, in particular compute power that can be difficult to come by in academia. The project is still in the early stages, the people said, and exact plans could change.

Spokespeople for Schmidt declined to comment. Rodriques and White did not respond to requests for comment.

REED’S VIEW

Schmidt’s new venture has a lot to do with talent. The great minds in science and biology are scattered all over academia and the private sector. Schmidt wants to bring together a substantive number of them in the same place.

While the plan is to build a nonprofit, the organization could presumably develop valuable intellectual property or spin off startups, much like academic labs. In the case of OpenAI, the nonprofit essentially became a for-profit.

The move reflects a shift that is happening in Silicon Valley. For decades, the most interesting thing in the tech industry was the internet and all of the businesses built around it. And the dominant method of financing the internet was advertising.

The targeted ads and the massive wealth created were so compelling that the mainstream press and most venture capitalists have kind of forgotten about actual science and technology.

But that’s starting to change. The artificial intelligence tactics that more effectively matched ads to consumers have grown so powerful that they can now possibly be used to save lives or fight climate change. And that’s a lot more interesting.

For Room for Disagreement and the rest of the story, read here.

Scientific collaboration between the U.S. and China could soon get even harder, further hampering progress in important areas like biotechnology, clean energy, and telecommunications, reports the Wall Street Journal. After the two countries normalized relations in 1978, they signed a bilateral agreement to work together on science and technology, which was routinely renewed. But now, American lawmakers like Mike Gallagher, who chairs a new House select committee on China, are pushing to let it expire.

That would make a slow-moving disaster even worse. Research ties between the U.S. and China have been decaying for at least five years, and America is already paying the price for it. Fewer top scientists from China now want to work and study in the U.S., where they may be viewed with heightened suspicion and subject to immigration rules their peers are not. Instead, they’re going to places like Saudi Arabia and building AI tools that will compete with technology from U.S. firms, as the Financial Times reported this week.

— Louise

As part of a more low-profile antitrust push by the U.S. Justice Department, two board directors at Pinterest have stepped down from similar roles at neighborhood app Nextdoor because the agency considers them rivals. It’s part of the DOJ’s efforts over the last few years to enforce a provision prohibiting what’s known as interlocking directorates. In 2021, concerns about the same rule spurred Ari Emanuel, CEO of the entertainment agency Endeavor, and company president Mark Shapiro to relinquish their board seats at concert giant Live Nation.

Matt Sheehan is a fellow at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace, where his research covers global technology issues with a focus on China.

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