Technology

➚ MOVE FAST: Chinese chips. Huawei’s successful launch of the Mate 60 smartphone may be a sign that China’s chip industry has advanced more quickly than some experts thought possible. The device is just as fast as the iPhone, according to reports, suggesting Chinese firms can build advanced chips, despite being cut off from U.S. resources.

➘ BREAK THINGS: Chinese AI. According to Reuters, 110 companies have filed requests with the government to develop “deepfake” technology. China’s government has strictly regulated the development of AI, potentially curtailing innovation.

(Or, in this case, smell). A new paper in Nature, published Thursday, offers a new roadmap for scientists trying to understand scents. Osmo, a company that spun out of Google earlier this year with $60 million in venture funding, has been trying to use artificial intelligence to predict the scent of different molecules. In the paper, Osmo claims to have created the first “map” of scents, the same way we have maps of color and sound.

Scent is one of the most complicated parts of human biology. We don’t completely understand how it works and it’s also extremely powerful. Subtle variations in scents can evoke all kinds of emotions in people.

Just like scientists are manufacturing drugs based on an AI-powered understanding of proteins, we may be on the verge of a similar change when it comes to smell. It’s part of a larger trend made possible by AI: The digitization of the physical world. When bits start rearranging atoms, we are in for some strange and wild times.

Keith Krach is founder of the Krach Institute for Tech Diplomacy at Purdue University and was Under Secretary of State for Economic Growth in the Donald Trump administration. He is also the former CEO of DocuSign and ex-chair of Angie’s List. He recently visited Taiwan, where he met President Tsai Ing-wen and Foreign Minister Joseph Wu.

Q: What are the unintended consequences of a tech decoupling from China?

A: It’s not about decoupling from China. It’s about taking off our rose-colored glasses and seeing the Chinese Communist Party for what it is, not what we hoped it would be.

Q: You worked in both the tech sector and for the U.S. government. How do you see the White House executive order on Chinese investments wearing those hats?

A: It’s the right thing to do. We can’t provide our top foreign adversary access to our most sophisticated technology. Plus, tech companies have an important role to play in strengthening U.S. national security and advancing the freedom which enables them to thrive. The key will be in implementation of the EO, keeping exemptions to a minimum. We can’t win on paper but lose in real life.

Q: Are you worried the US will lose the war for AI talent when it comes to Chinese experts?

A: Not at all. American leadership in tech innovation is a testament to what a free society can accomplish. The bigger point is AI, like other high tech, isn’t about tech. It’s about TRUST. AI can empower human progress or be weaponized against us.

There are some voices urging us to slow down. I don’t think we should tie our own hands by limiting the development of AI and high tech. China is not slowing down, so if we don’t develop AI responsibly, China will do it irresponsibly. That’s the real danger.

Q: Is there still a large disconnect between Silicon Valley and DC?

A: What I discovered during my public service as the Under Secretary of State was that Silicon Valley tech entrepreneurs and Washington politicians don’t speak the same language. They may as well be from different planets.

To lawmakers, terms like 5G, AI, EV, quantum are meaningless. Until we brought the TSMC fab to the U.S. and architected the CHIPS and Science Act, “chips” were something you ate.

To the startup crowd, techies, and engineers, foreign policy is really foreign. There is not much of an appreciation for how much their work impacts national security. If you’ve ever watched Congressional hearings about high tech, they’re entertaining and scary at the same time.

The number of people who have signed up for a World ID as of 11 a.m. ET today. It’s part of the WorldCoin project, which officially launched in July and was created by OpenAI co-founder Sam Altman. With the aim of establishing a digital identity in the age of AI, users have their irises scanned by an orb before receiving an ID.

The Propelify Innovation Festival (described by Forbes as “SXSW of the Northeast”) takes place on October 5th at the scenic Maxwell Place Park in Hoboken. This year’s theme: artificial intelligence. Speakers include Scott Belsky, Adobe’s Chief Product Officer and EVP of Creative Cloud, and Debika Bhattacharya, Verizon Business’s Chief Product Officer. Semafor Tech subscribers enjoy free admission. Get your ticket using this link.

Data shared exclusively with Semafor provides a glimpse into the global influencer industry, and the countries where the most creators are getting paid to promote brands on Instagram. Intelligence platform HypeAuditor uses an algorithm to detect posts that are labeled as sponsored and those that are “likely” paid for, even if the promotion isn’t disclosed. In the chart below, “influencers” are defined as accounts with more than 1,000 followers who shared a sponsored or likely sponsored post.

—Semafor reporter J.D. Capelouto

Search “Elon Musk books” on Amazon and you’ll eventually give up trying to count them all. Soon, there will probably only be one you really need to read: The upcoming one by Walter Isaacson that was just excerpted in The Wall Street Journal.

The outtake gives some interesting behind-the-scenes detail on Musk’s takeover of what was known as Twitter, but it tracks with everything we already know about how the whole thing went down.

In other words, it’s not going to move the needle for Musk’s fans or his critics.

The excerpt highlights an interesting challenge for Isaacson. How do you surprise and delight readers when your subject is a man who is under an intense public microscope and seems to tweet his every thought?

For instance, the book passage was one of the least explosive things The Wall Street Journal has published about Musk in the past two years. The paper has alleged an extramarital affair with the wife of Google co-founder Sergey Brin and detailed Musk’s use of the drug Ketamine to treat his depression.

Musk observers — the core customers for a book like this — are polarized. His critics would like to see him depicted as a drug-fueled maniac, and his fans want to gain new insight into how the world’s greatest entrepreneur operates. The book will need something earth shattering for both sides of the debate.

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