Latest news with #AxiosWhat'sNextSummit
Axios
26-03-2025
- Business
- Axios
D.C. plots a future beyond federal jobs
D.C.'s leaders are thinking about how to grow the city if federal jobs ship out over President Trump 's next four years. Why it matters: D.C. wants to repurpose federal buildings that may be offloaded to create new neighborhoods, lean on sports and entertainment for the economy, and identify emerging sectors to replace federal jobs, transit and planning officials said at this week's Axios What's Next Summit. "We gotta be eyes wide open," Metro general manager Randy Clarke said in an interview at the summit. Federal job cuts could throw a wrench in getting Metrorail ridership back on par with pre-pandemic levels. "There is a regional conversation about if all of these federal agencies left D.C., we're going to have a different region," he said. Zoom in: Nina Albert, D.C.'s deputy mayor in charge of economic development, said the city is looking closely at the Trump administration's proposal to offload a cluster of federal buildings in Southwest. "We'd be talking about redeveloping everything basically between Independence Avenue down to I-395," she said in an interview. "Can you imagine walking out of your door and going to the Air and Space Museum to have breakfast at their cafe? And then at the end of the day, you go to the Wharf, all in walking distance." It could take a decade-plus to build that out, but she compared it to how the city partnered with the feds to redevelop Navy Yard over the last two decades. Meanwhile, Trump could derail D.C.'s plan to free up the square block of land near the FBI headquarters, which was poised to move to Greenbelt, Maryland. Trump wants it to stay downtown. Albert said the city is open to the current site or another Metro-accessible location. Due to federal job cuts, D.C.'s chief financial officer recently said the city is expected to enter a "mild recession" in the next fiscal year, before economic conditions improve again. Albert said it would take "the next three to four years" to "figure out how to get back up and out." What's next: Albert's staff is in talks with the Washington Commanders to build a new football stadium and mixed-use development at the RFK site. Mayor Muriel Bowser's budget proposal is expected to come out next week. It will likely include details about the proposed redevelopment, which Bowser's administration hopes will contribute to economic growth.
Axios
25-03-2025
- Business
- Axios
OpenAI's Chris Lehane: "We're in a real race"
The winner of the AI race will make decisions that could set industry norms and influence global AI policy for years to come, OpenAI's chief global affairs officer, Chris Lehane, told Axios' Ina Fried Tuesday at the Axios What's Next Summit in Washington, D.C. Why it matters: Lehane says beating China in the AI race is so important that we should not tie the hands of AI makers by limiting their use of data under copyright laws that China won't observe. "Whoever ends up winning ends up building the AI rails for the world," Lehane said. Between the lines: Lehane argued that OpenAI plays a critical role in ensuring that the U.S. is leading in AI. The requirement to remain competitive in this space, Lehane told Fried, infuses every AI regulation debate right now. "There's a growing recognition and understanding that we do need to make sure that we are leading as a country on a U.S. competitiveness perspective," Lehane said. Zoom out: Lehane insisted that there are plenty of laws already on the books that govern what AI companies can and can't do. He said OpenAI and some of the other big tech companies are already doing everything they can to build models that align with the average person's top concerns about AI — protecting kids, limiting deepfakes, identifying AI-generated content. OpenAI has already struck licensing deals with publishers, including the Associated Press, Axel Springer and Axios, while pushing for a broader industry conversation around fair compensation and transparency. Zoom in: In a recent White House memo, Lehane and OpenAI argued that AI companies should be able to train their models on copyrighted material as a matter of national security and that the government should codify this right under the "fair use" principle. Asked about what material OpenAI trains its models on, Lehane said the company uses "data that is appropriately accessible and available," a common phrase used by AI companies to describe their broad use of internet data that might or might not be protected by copyright.
