Latest news with #Kaplan
Engadget
a day ago
- Business
- Engadget
Google will sign EU's AI Code of Practice
Google says it will sign the European Union's new AI Code of Practice, which provides a framework for compliance with the EU's AI Act. The act itself was passed in 2024, but its many provisions will take months to years to come into effect. The non-binding Code of Practice is a voluntary measure intended to help ensure that companies generally meet the obligations laid out by the Act in the meantime. In a blog post announcing Google's participation, the tech giant shared some skepticism about the AI Act's impact on the technology in the EU. The statement reads in part, "While the final version of the Code comes closer to supporting Europe's innovation and economic goals than where it began — and we appreciate the opportunity we have been provided to submit comments — we remain concerned that the AI Act and Code risk slowing Europe's development and deployment of AI." Just recently, Meta said it would not be signing the Code of Practice. The company's chief global affairs officer, Joel Kaplan, called the Code an "over-reach." In a statement, Kaplan said, "Europe is heading down the wrong path on AI." The EU's AI Act is the first of its kind from a major regulator and is comprehensive in its approach. Meanwhile, the United States is in the earliest stages of determining its approach to AI regulation. Obligations under the EU's AI Act are being implemented in a staggered fashion, though rules governing general‑purpose AI (GPAI) models will apply on August 2, 2025. Any models brought to market before then must be fully compliant with the rules by August 2, 2027. The current implementation timeline lists assessment and enforcement steps as far out as August 2031. If you buy something through a link in this article, we may earn commission.
Business Insider
2 days ago
- Business
- Business Insider
Anthropic's cofounder says 'dumb questions' are the key to unlocking breakthroughs in AI
Anthropic's cofounder said the key to advancing AI isn't rocket science — it's asking the obvious stuff nobody wants to say out loud. "It's really asking very naive, dumb questions that get you very far," said Jared Kaplan at a Y Combinator event last month. The chief science officer at Anthropic said in the video published by Y Combinator on Tuesday that AI is an "incredibly new field" and "a lot of the most basic questions haven't been answered." For instance, Kaplan recalled how in the 2010s, everyone in tech kept saying that "big data" was the future. He asked: How big does the data need to be? How much does it actually help? That line of thinking eventually led him and his team to study whether AI performance could be predicted based on the size of the model and the amount of compute used — a breakthrough that became known as scaling laws. "We got really lucky. We found that there's actually something very, very, very precise and surprising underlying AI training," he said. "This was something that came about because I was just sort of asking the dumbest possible question." Kaplan added that as a physicist, that was exactly what he was trained to do. "You sort of look at the big picture and you ask really dumb things." Simple questions can make big trends "as precise as possible," and that can "give you a lot of tools," Kaplan said. "It allows you to ask: What does it really mean to move the needle?" he added. Kaplan and Anthropic did not respond to a request for comment from Business Insider. Anthropic's AI breakthroughs Anthropic has emerged as a powerhouse in AI‑assisted coding, especially after the release of its Claude Sonnet 3.5 model in June 2024. "Anthropic changed everything," Sourcegraph's Quinn Slack said in a BI report published last week. "We immediately said, 'This model is better than anything else out there in terms of its ability to write code at length' — high-quality code that a human would be proud to write," he added. "And as a startup, if you're not moving at that speed, you're gonna die." Anthropic cofounder Ben Mann said in a recent episode of the "No Priors Podcast" that figuring out how to make AI code better and faster has been largely driven by trial and error and measurable feedback. "Sometimes you just won't know and you have to try stuff — and with code that's easy because we can just do it in a loop," Mann said. Elad Gil, a top AI investor and No Priors host, concurred, saying the clear signals from deploying code and seeing if it works make this process fruitful. "With coding, you actually have like a direct output that you can measure: You can run the code, you can test the code," he said. "There's sort of a baked-in utility function you can optimize against." BI's Alistair Barr wrote in an exclusive report last week about how the startup might have achieved its AI coding breakthrough, crediting approaches like Reinforcement Learning from Human Feedback, or RLHF, and Constitutional AI. Anthropic may soon be worth $100 billion, as the startup pulls in billions of dollars from companies paying for access to its models, Barr wrote.
West Australian
3 days ago
- Business
- West Australian
JACKSON HEWETT: Five bold tax ideas that could rebalance the budget and close billion-dollar loopholes
As the Government gears up for a productivity roundtable, some of Australia's brightest minds were brought together last week in a roundtable convened by independent MP Allegra Spender to put forward suggestions to simplify the tax system. Here are five that make sense. Australia's top 5 per cent of income earners contribute around 37 per cent of all income tax revenue. Yet according to economist Greg Kaplan from the e61 Institute, the tax system becomes fundamentally flawed above the $180,000 threshold. Drawing on anonymised ATO tax return data, Mr Kaplan's research shows that once an individual earns above $180,000, the effective tax rate they pay depends more on how they earn their income than how much they make, with the wage slave the worst off. '(Above that threshold) the absolute worst case that you could be in is to earn all of your income as an employee working for someone else,' Mr Kaplan said. Mr Kaplan said Australia's current tax structure becomes inefficient and inequitable beyond that threshold, largely due to distortions introduced by the 50 per cent capital gains tax (CGT) discount. He found that 10 per cent of Australians earning over $390,000 pay a lower average tax rate than half of those earning $70,000, by exploiting the CGT concession, along with the different treatment of deductions and superannuation contributions. Income tax avoidance in favour of CGT discount accruing activities risks 'incentivising people to prioritise activities that are rewarded with capital gains over other forms of income even when they have a lower economic return,' he argued. The message it sends to young people is to be rich you should 'choose a career where you can generate capital gains'. 'Strive for property development or funds management, not for engineering that matters for productivity,' he said. He calls for cuts to income tax on middle and higher earners. 'We need to lower income taxes in the middle and the top of the distribution. We need to think harder about the message we are sending when we tax work as an employee at 47 per cent and passive income from unproductive investments at 23 per cent,' he said. To lower taxes on middle and higher earners, Mr Kaplan said the capital gains discount should be reduced, something also supported by Luci Ellis, former chief economist at the Reserve Bank and current chief economist at Westpac. 'Reforming CGT will eliminate that incentive to make an income loss today, which you can deduct to the full marginal rate, and then get the capital gains at half marginal rate,' she said. Miranda Stewart, Professor of Law at the University of Melbourne, argued that both capital gains and income flowing through privately controlled trusts and companies are under-taxed. 'We need to tax capital gains more, and we need to tax privately controlled trusts and companies more,' she said. Professor Stewart backed a modernised version of the Henry Tax Review's 'discount savings box' model, which would net off income and expenses from investments, then apply a modest discount — far less generous than the current 50 per cent. 'Maybe it should be 30 per cent or 25,' she said, citing the combined benefit of deferral and tax planning that allows many investors to significantly reduce their tax liability. Grattan Institute's Alison Reeve argues that Australia's century-old fuel tax system is no longer fit for purpose. Originally introduced as a general revenue measure, fuel excise now delivers declining returns, thanks to improved fuel efficiency and the rise of electric vehicles. Businesses using diesel face wildly different tax treatments: miners receive a full rebate, trucking companies get partial refunds, and ordinary drivers pay full excise and GST. Ms Reeve says the current system not only weakens incentives to decarbonise — by effectively subsidising diesel — but also fails to support efficient road use. 'For most of its life, this has been a tax that we have just had for general revenue,' she said, noting it contributes about 2 per cent of Budget revenue. She warns that as more Australians switch to electric vehicles, it's becoming increasingly possible to avoid paying the tax altogether — eroding the base and making the system less sustainable. To modernise the approach, Ms Reeve recommends gradually replacing fuel excise with a road user charge that better reflects how much people actually use and wear down infrastructure. She also argues for reforming road funding to ensure more equitable treatment between urban and regional drivers, who often face longer distances and receive less investment. Finally, she calls for aligning diesel tax credits with the carbon cost of emissions, saying current settings make it cheaper for businesses to stick with diesel rather than transition to cleaner alternatives. 'The pull away from net zero is stronger than the push towards it,' she said. Brendan Coates from the Grattan Institute said the case for winding back superannuation tax concessions needs to be 'back on the agenda,' with the cost to the Budget nearing $60 billion a year, more than 2 per cent of GDP, and growing. 'More than two-thirds of those concessions go to the top 20 per cent,' he said. The current system is not only inequitable, Coates argues but also ineffective at reducing pension costs. 'The cost of those tax breaks far outweighs the age pension savings they produce,' he said. Worse, many retirees do not spend down their balances. 'One in three dollars coming out of super by 2060 will be in the form of a bequest,' Coates said. 'That's turning the system into a taxpayer-subsidised inheritance scheme.' To better align super with its original purpose — ensuring income adequacy in retirement — Coates proposes several reforms. These include reducing the concessional contributions from a flat 15 per cent tax to the marginal tax rate minus 15 per cent. He also recommends lowering the Division 293 income threshold to $220,000 and increasing the tax rate to 30 per cent for high-income earners, raising a further $1.2 billion annually. Finally, he recommends scrapping co-contributions and catch-up contributions, noting they are mostly being used by people already saving enough for retirement and looking to minimise tax. Veteran budget watcher Chris Richardson argues Australia is leaving billions on the table due to outdated or poorly implemented tax settings in three key areas: gas, banking, and tobacco. On gas, he notes that while Australia has become one of the world's top LNG exporters, the Petroleum Resource Rent Tax (PRRT) has failed to keep up. The tax take has flatlined even as export earnings surged. He attributes this to flaws in the original tax design — particularly generous deductions based on outdated economic assumptions — and successive governments failing to act, especially under political pressure from key Western Australian seats. 'The fault is ours,' Richardson said, pointing to inaction in Canberra despite Treasury offering viable reform options. On banking, he says Australia has rightly prioritised a safe financial system, but taxpayers effectively insure the big four banks by virtue of their 'too big to fail' status. A levy exists, but Richardson says it's insufficient and should be increased to reflect the true value of that implicit government guarantee. Finally, he labels the tobacco excise policy as 'one of the dumbest things I have ever seen'. Initially successful in cutting smoking and raising revenue, successive hikes eventually created a thriving black market as enforcement lagged. The result, he says, is that cigarettes are now cheaper on the street than in stores, undermining both health and fiscal outcomes. Richardson estimates reforms could raise 'a couple of billion a year out of gas, a couple of billion a year out of the banks, (and) potentially $10 billion a year out of cigarettes.'
International Business Times
23-07-2025
- Business
- International Business Times
Meta's $100 Million AI Bait Faces Resistance as Anthropic, Others Hold Ground
July 23, 2025 12:44 +08 Meta is stepping up its AI recruitment game with enormous compensation packages, reportedly offering up to $100 million to top talent in a bid to power its new "Superintelligence Team." However, not all researchers are biting. According to Anthropic's top brass, many within their AI-focused teams are choosing purpose over pay. Anthropic co-founder and CEO Dario Amodei recently confirmed Meta's lucrative outreach attempts, and Jared Kaplan, a key executive at the company, opened up about the intensity of the current hiring war in a podcast interview. While not naming companies directly, Kaplan referenced outsized offers that some of his colleagues have turned down. "My best-case scenario at Meta is we make money. My best case at Anthropic is that we affect the future of humanity," he said. Despite the eye-popping numbers, Meta has allegedly offered $100 million over four years per researcher, Kaplan noted that these deals may actually be "cheap" for the business given the value AI breakthroughs can generate. Still, he emphasized that many at Anthropic are mission-driven, prioritizing long-term impact over short-term financial gain. Meta has already made high-profile moves in this space. In June, the company appointed Scale AI CEO Alexandr Wang to lead its Superintelligence efforts and successfully recruited six researchers from OpenAI. These moves show Meta's aggressive play to dominate next-generation AI. Meanwhile, others in the industry are weighing in. Aravind Srinivas, CEO of Perplexity AI, said retaining talent requires more than money. While acknowledging the size of Meta's offers as "surprising," he also noted, "Failure is not an option" at that level of investment. As the AI talent race intensifies, it's becoming clear that for many researchers, the choice isn't just about money—it's about meaning.
Scientific American
22-07-2025
- Politics
- Scientific American
NASA Staff Rebuke White House Cuts in Rare Public Dissent
More than 280 NASA employees past and present, including at least 4 astronauts, have signed a declaration of opposition to the many drastic changes that the administration of US President Donald Trump is working to enact. The declaration also urges the acting head of NASA not to make the unprecedented budget cuts Trump has proposed. 'The last six months have seen rapid and wasteful changes which have undermined our mission and caused catastrophic impacts on NASA's workforce,' reads the employees' letter to interim administrator Sean Duffy. It argues that Trump's changes threaten human safety, scientific progress and global leadership at NASA. The Voyager Declaration joins similar protest documents by employees at other US federal agencies, including the National Institutes of Health (NIH) and the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA). The appeals stem from Trump's sweeping campaign to overhaul the federal government, which has led to mass firings of workers and the proposal of steep cuts to agency budgets. On supporting science journalism If you're enjoying this article, consider supporting our award-winning journalism by subscribing. By purchasing a subscription you are helping to ensure the future of impactful stories about the discoveries and ideas shaping our world today. The declaration is 'about getting our dissent out to the public and saying, hey — this is what's happening at NASA, and this is not OK', says Ella Kaplan, who has signed the document. Kaplan works on a contract basis as a website administrator at NASA's Goddard Space Flight Center in Greenbelt, Maryland, and was speaking on her own behalf and not that of her employer or of NASA. Kaplan says she does not expect Duffy to read the document or to care much about it if he does. When Duffy ran for a seat in the US Congress more than a decade ago, he released a campaign advertisement that featured him wearing lumberjack clothing and saying he would bring his axe to 'topple the big spending in Washington'. The agency is not interested in sustaining 'lower-priority missions', said NASA spokeswoman Bethany Stevens. 'We must revisit what's working and what's not so that we can inspire the American people again and win the space race.' Staff exodus The Voyager Declaration, named after the twin NASA spacecraft that are exploring interstellar space, protests against staffing cuts at the agency and Trump's proposed cuts to science funding and other NASA budgets. The agency has fired some employees and pressured others to leave, resulting in the loss of more than 2,600 of the 17,000-plus NASA employees, according to news platform Politico. At least US$118 million in NASA grants has been cancelled outright, and the White House has proposed slashing nearly half of the agency's science budget for next year. Congress, which sets US spending, might reject at least some of those proposed cuts. But the managers of many NASA science projects have been asked to draw up plans for winding down their programmes even though Congress hasn't finalized the budget — drawing dissent from the declaration's signers. 'Once operational spacecraft are decommissioned, they cannot be turned back on,' the document says. NASA, like other agencies, is supposed to follow spending priorities laid out by Congress, and Duffy, as interim administrator, could theoretically ignore the White House requests until a budget is finalised. The declaration asserts that since Trump took office, safety has taken a back seat to politics, marking a 'dangerous turn' away from NASA's efforts to make human space flight less risky. Stevens responded that 'NASA will never compromise on safety.' The document's signers also disapprove of the agency's withdrawal from international missions, saying that such actions threaten partnerships with other nations' space agencies. The White House budget proposal, for instance, would cancel NASA participation in European Space Agency missions to Mars and Venus. Dissent by employees at other federal agencies has met with mixed reactions. At the NIH, where more than 480 employees signed a Bethesda Declaration, director Jay Bhattacharya has said he intends to foster respectful dissent. But EPA administrator Lee Zeldin has placed more than 100 signatories to a dissenting document on administrative leave, saying he will not tolerate employees undercutting the president's agenda. Staff at the US National Science Foundation are also planning a declaration, according to a leaked version of the document. Of the 287 signatories to the NASA document, 156 are anonymous.
