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Time Magazine
a day ago
- Business
- Time Magazine
Californians Say AI Is Moving 'Too Fast'
Hello and welcome to the Tuesday edition of In the Loop. I'm writing to you while looking out over the sunny city of San Francisco, where I'm spending the week on a reporting trip. If you're working on something cool here and want to say hi, feel free to shoot me an email at What to Know: Californians are fearful of AI Californians are more concerned than excited about the future of AI, by a margin of 55% to 33%, according to new polling shared exclusively with TIME ahead of its publication this Tuesday. Of the 1,400 adults polled, 48% said the technology was progressing 'too fast,' compared to 32% who said the pace was 'about right' and just 4% who said it was 'too slow.' And 59% of respondents said they believed AI would benefit the wealthiest corporations and households most, compared to 20% who said it would most benefit working people and the middle class. The poll was funded by TechEquity, a progressive non-profit. Support for regulation — The new data shows that 70% of Californians believe in the need for 'strong laws to make AI fair.' But the data also reveals high levels of skepticism that those laws will ever be enacted. 59% of those surveyed say they don't trust the California state government to control AI. Even more — 64% — said they do not trust the federal government. A picture emerges — The poll adds to a growing collection of data from around the world suggesting that ordinary people are worried about the impact of AI on their lives. In January, I wrote about a U.K. poll that showed 60% of Brits favoring a ban on the development of 'smarter-than-human' AI models. And in April, the Pew Research Center found that 43% of U.S. adults believed AI was more likely to harm than benefit them, compared to 24% who expected the benefits to outweigh the harms. Ground zero — California is emerging as a key battleground for efforts to legislate on AI, as the state where most top American AI companies are based. Last year a bill that aimed to regulate so-called 'frontier' models cleared the state legislature, only to be vetoed by Governor Gavin Newsom. That hasn't stopped other efforts to regulate AI in the state, however. California 'is a place where you can still legislate and govern with a semi-functioning legislative process, which is not something you can say about D.C., particularly on this topic,' says Catherine Bracy, the CEO of TechEquity. 'The federal government has made it clear that they are going to be completely hands-off, if not creating rules that unleash the industry even more,' Bracy says. '[So] it is incumbent on the states to pick up the slack and make sure that real people who are going to be impacted by these tools are protected.' Who to Know: Dean Ball, former White House advisor on AI For a stint in office, it was an unusually impactful one. Dean Ball joined the Trump Administration in April—headhunted based on an essay he had written titled 'Here is what I think we should do' about AI policy. What followed was a whirlwind five months in government, in which he played a key role contributing to the AI Action Plan, Trump's AI policy, which was announced in July. Earlier this month, Ball announced he was leaving the government to focus on his own research. Action planning — Trump's Action Plan won praise for its emphasis on bolstering U.S. energy grid capacity, plus onshoring datacenters and the production of the chips that power them. The document also urged U.S. companies to focus more on developing open-weight AI models, to prevent the world from coming to rely on Chinese models (which are currently the best in class). The document framed these recommendations, and more, in terms of the escalating AI race with China. Exit interview — In an interview with TIME, Ball emphasized the importance of AI to the Trump administration. 'AI is the President's number one technology policy priority, by a significant margin,' he said. At the same time, Ball says, there is a lot of skepticism inside the Administration toward AI industry projections that superintelligent machines are some two to five years away. 'The diffusion of AI is going to take a really long time,' Ball says. 'I've lived through technology revolutions before, where I was young and bright-eyed and thought it was all going to happen in two or three years. And it turns out a lot of it did happen, but it took 15.' AI in Action: Should you delete your old emails to save water? An official U.K. government document, published last week, has caught a lot of heat online for suggesting that users should 'delete old emails and pictures' to save water during a drought, because data centers 'require vast amounts of water to cool their systems.' It is true that many data centers use water for cooling, but let's get a sense of perspective here. Andy Masley, a blogger who has written several illuminating pieces about the energy and water expenditure of AI systems, ran the numbers. Fixing a leaking toilet, he wrote, can save 200-400 liters of water per day. 'To save as much water in data centers as fixing your toilet would save, you would need to delete 1.5 billion photos, or 200 billion emails. If it took you 0.1 seconds to delete each email, and you deleted them nonstop for 16 hours a day, it would take you 723 years to delete enough emails to save the same amount of water in data centers as you could if you fixed your toilet. Maybe you should fix your toilet.' As always, if you have an interesting story of AI in Action, we'd love to hear it. Email us at: intheloop@ What We're Reading 'Meta's flirty AI chatbot invited a retiree to New York. He never made it home' by Jeff Horwitz in Reuters A relentlessly bleak story from Jeff Horwitz, the best Meta reporter in the business. 'Bue's story, told here for the first time, illustrates a darker side of the artificial intelligence revolution now sweeping tech and the broader business world. His family shared with Reuters the events surrounding his death, including transcripts of his chats with the Meta avatar, saying they hope to warn the public about the dangers of exposing vulnerable people to manipulative, AI-generated companions.'
Forbes
09-06-2025
- Business
- Forbes
Why We Need Black Voices In Tech
Leon Burns III Photo Credit: Leon Burns III As a young Black executive in tech, Leon Burns III is making it his mission to bridge the gap between underserved communities and opportunities in STEM. In the past year, he has launched and funded 11 STEM initiatives for Black students, created a $100,000 scholarship for HBCU business and management information systems (MIS) majors at his alma mater -- historically Black Hampton University -- and provided laptops to graduating high school girls through nonprofit partnerships. Why is Burns, who is the president and CEO of Open Technology Group (OTG), doing all of this work? According to the McKinsey Institute for Economic Mobility, whereas Black people make up 14% of the workforce in the U.S., they only account for 8% of employees in tech jobs. And their representation is even smaller among executives. According to Burns, the 'gap stems from a lack of exposure, limited investment in tech programs in our communities, and minimal access to mentors who reflect us.' Burns himself was afforded exposure to tech from an early age, which was unique compared to many of his peers. That early start made a lasting impact on him, and, as he shared, 'I have always felt a responsibility to give back and open doors for others. He added, 'With tech evolving rapidly, especially in areas like AI, there is a real fear that we will be left behind if we do not act now. That sense of urgency is what fuels my commitment to helping others see that they, too, can thrive in this field.' Currently, about ten HBCUs offer formal business analytics programs. From Burns' perspective, 'This is a major gap, especially as analytics increasingly drive decisions in business and across society.' He further explained, 'The problem is that African Americans and other minorities are often left out of the equation when these algorithms and tools are being developed. Without diverse input, the data and the decisions that follow become dangerously skewed.' Diversity in AI getty Organizational behaviorist Karim Ginena confirms Burns' thoughts, noting that both women and people of color are underrepresented in AI output in terms of answers and images. In an interview with Knowledge at Wharton, he stated, "If these issues of bias are left unaddressed, they can perpetuate unfairness in society at a very high rate. We're not just talking about your prototypical kind of bias. We're talking at an exponential rate with these automated decision systems, which is why they can be very dangerous.' According to Burns, 'My scholarship supports 20 students who major in business and minor in MIS, with a focus on those interested in business analytics careers. The goal is to build interest, expand access. This is about sparking long-term change that ensures our voices and perspectives are part of the data shaping the future.' He added, 'At OTG, I have led initiatives to close the pay gap for women in tech, launched a company-wide certification program to help our team overcome societal barriers to advancement, and created a resume revamp program to support employees pursuing internal promotions and government opportunities.' As an HBCU graduate, it was never enough for Burns to simply 'be in the tech space.' It has always been just as important to 'create real pathways for others to grow and lead in it as well.' While a student at Hampton, he learned that people thrive when they feel 'seen, supported, and included in the culture.' That lesson has shaped his leadership. For Burns, 'inclusivity and transparency' are the principles on which he has built his role as CEO. Burns is also focused on the mental health of Black people in tech, which he thinks is often overlooked in the fast-paced corporate and tech environments. I asked him how he makes mental health a priority at OTG, given his commitment. He shared, 'We added a floating holiday to everyone's schedule for a dedicated mental health day, and once a month, I sponsor a company lunch where the team comes together to openly discuss our work environment and share ideas for improvement. We also made updates to our insurance policies to provide easier access to therapy.' He further explained the reason for his commitment: 'I am a huge advocate for therapy myself and began going after my father, Leon Burns Jr., who founded the company, passed in 2011.' Burns also credits his alma mater for his learning how to embrace conversations around vulnerability. He stated that Historically Black Colleges and Universities (HBCUs) in recent years have 'created space for students to understand how our unique challenges and insecurities can be exploited in professional environments, and why prioritizing wellness over discomfort or financial gain is an essential part of leadership.' Burns' vision is focused on transformation and access. For him, being a leader means creating environments where others can imagine more for their futures. He is focused on reshaping the tech space to be a place where equity is engineered rather than assumed. His ultimate goal: To make sure that Black students don't get left behind.
Bloomberg
31-03-2025
- Business
- Bloomberg
TechEquity CEO: Venture Capital's Bad Practices
Catherine Bracy, CEO of the advocacy group TechEquity and author of "World Eaters," discusses how VCs chasing returns are creating business models that are "eating the world." She joins Caroline Hyde on "Bloomberg Technology." (Source: Bloomberg)
Politico
14-03-2025
- Business
- Politico
5 questions for author Catherine Bracy
With help from Alfred Ng Happy Friday, and welcome to The Future in 5 Questions. This week we talk with Catherine Bracy, a civic technologist and CEO of the advocacy group TechEquity whose new book, 'World Eaters: How Venture Capital Is Cannibalizing the Economy,' is getting attention for its provocative argument that the structure of venture capital – the financial engine of the tech industry — has a distorting effect not just on companies and their values, but on American society overall. With Elon Musk currently running a startup-style disruption playbook on the federal government itself, she talks to DFD about the puzzling opacity of private tech giants, how 'moneyball for startups' could improve the economy — and the very disappointing device in her pocket. (You can also hear her on this recent POLITICO Tech podcast.) This interview has been condensed and edited. What is one underrated big idea right now? I would say, something like moneyball for venture capital. Technology itself is valueless, and the thing that gives it its potential to do harm or to create opportunity is the economic structure in which it's created. People should know that the way that investors are incentivizing their companies is to be the biggest they can possibly be, because that's how they create the financial return that they have promised to investors. The playbook for doing that is a bulldozer effect. Speed is goal, not efficiency. I think we see that with the way that Elon is moving — sledgehammer, not scalpel. That's a strategy. It's not a mistake. And all the fallout from that is a cost that is borne by the rest of us. So those companies skirt regulations. They exploit workers. They ship products that aren't good enough or that, you know, have risks to the customer. They do rugpulls. It attracts grifters. I came to believe, by the end of my research, that we were missing out on a ton of great innovation and financial gain by ignoring companies that were only kind of naturally able to hit doubles or triples instead of grand slams. And that in areas like housing and other areas of the economy that I care a lot about, either they were ignoring the right solutions, or they were forcing some of those companies to shape-shift. And that was because the investors are chasing power law returns, I think, to the detriment of the economy. What is a technology that you think is overhyped? Well, that's the thing about VC — everything is overhyped, right? It's like that joke: You can be underwhelmed, or you can be overwhelmed, but you can never be like, appropriately whelmed. And I feel like that's true in VC. Nothing is ever appropriately hyped. But if I'm giving my cheeky answer, I would say I have been really disappointed with the iPhone. I've been an Android girl since day one. I got my first Google phone in 2008, and I've been on Android ever since, and then my friend group shamed me into getting an iPhone so that I would no longer be a green bubble. And I came in thinking this was going to be like, so much better. And it's so much worse. So my spicy take is that the iPhone is really overhyped. What could the government be doing in regard to technology that it is not? I've actually got two answers to this. The first answer is to force more transparency for private capital markets and private companies. I think it's kind of a farce at this stage that companies that are as large and valuable and critical to the financial system as Stripe or OpenAI don't have the same reporting requirements as companies that are much smaller, but in the public markets. And then on the tech policy side, where I do my day job, we're working on a lot of regulation in California to set standards around the deployment and development of AI. A lot of the stuff that we're worried about AI doing in the world is actually already illegal, or there are laws to enforce that behavior, but they're very difficult to enforce when AI is perpetrating them. So we need to properly resource enforcement agencies, empower enforcement agencies and breathe life into them so that there are real, practical methods for people to enforce their rights against AI. What book most shaped your conception of the future? I've been thinking a lot since the election, and about what kind of economic system we will build after whatever this is that we're living through. How do we envision something that is positive about what we can build after? The first thing I did was kind of try to ground myself in history, and so 'The Rise and Fall of the Neoliberal Order,' by Gary Gerstle, has been very helpful in thinking through the grand sweep of how economic systems are created and political economies spring up around them, and what that means for how we got to where we are now, but also what it means for what we might build in the future. And I have found a lot of solace in the very optimistic and heartfelt vision that Natalie Foster laid out in her book 'The Guarantee,' which really points out that, while we think about these things — this sort of utopian idea of what you know, how the abundance economy could work for everybody — there are things we have already accomplished over the last 10 years that point us in the right direction. And then it's not all just fantasy and imagination. What surprised you the most this year? I feel like the cliche answer is the election results. Now, I feel like I shouldn't be surprised by anything. But I've been a little bit surprised by how transparent the Silicon Valley right has been about their goals and methodologies. Elon Musk is nakedly blitz-scaling his way across the federal government, and it's just a very literal interpretation of Silicon Valley's methodology as brought to government. I thought they would be more subtle about that. Maybe I shouldn't have been as surprised as I was. But, you know, here we are. HUAWEI BANNED The Chinese tech giant Huawei's lobbyists are banned from the European Parliament's premises until authorities wrap up a bribery investigation into the company. POLITICO EU's Max Griera reported Friday that Huawei is at the center of a corruption scandal linked to its lobbying in Brussels. The company had nine people registered to enter the European Parliament according to its most recent records in October, and the ban applies to all of the government's premises. Authorities so far have raided 21 addresses in Brussels, Flanders, Wallonia and Portugal, and made several arrests. CALIFORNIA'S PRIVACY COP GETS A NEW CHIEF The California Privacy Protection Agency announced a new executive director: Tom Kemp, a Silicon Valley-based investor who has advocated for the state's privacy regulations in the past. POLITICO's Tyler Katzenberger reported exclusively in today's California Decoded that the tech entrepreneur will lead the agency starting on April 1. He will replace Ashkan Soltani, who left in January. In his Q&A, Kemp said he wants to help Californians exercise their privacy rights, saying there's a disconnect between people worried about their data privacy and people taking action to protect it. POST OF THE DAY THE FUTURE IN 5 LINKS Stay in touch with the whole team: Derek Robertson (drobertson@ Mohar Chatterjee (mchatterjee@ Steve Heuser (sheuser@ Nate Robson (nrobson@ Daniella Cheslow (dcheslow@ and Christine Mui (cmui@
Bloomberg
18-02-2025
- Business
- Bloomberg
Venture Capital Kills ‘More Value Than It Creates,' Author Says
Go Big or go home. Move fast and break things. Winner takes all. In a new book, Catherine Bracy argues that this ethos underpins much of what's wrong with venture capital. In search of grand slam investment opportunities, VC investors choose startups according to what's known as nature's 'power law,' the tendency for outliers to have undue impact—in investing, astronomical returns. (And the vast majority of startups fail miserably.) Despite their oft‑repeated, and much ridiculed, claims to 'make the world a better place,' VCs either avoid addressing societal problems or, in their push for breakneck growth, make them worse, according to World Eaters: How Venture Capital Is Cannibalizing the Economy, out in March. Bracy calls herself a civic technologist. She's the founder and chief executive officer of TechEquity, a nonprofit advocacy group in California focused on the tech industry's impact on housing and workers. (Funders include the Ford and MacArthur foundations, as well as the Chan Zuckerberg Initiative, the philanthropy of Meta Platforms Inc. founder Mark Zuckerberg and his wife, Priscilla Chan.) Bracy, who opened Barack Obama's technology field office in San Francisco during the 2012 presidential election cycle, started TechEquity after seeing the unequal social impact of the tech boom in the Bay Area. She spoke with Bloomberg Television's Sonali Basak in January. Their conversation has been edited for clarity and length.
