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Chinese e-commerce giant Alibaba‘s cloud business unit has launched its second data center in Dubai, it said on Tuesday, nine years after its first, as it expands its global cloud computing services to meet growing demand. Alibaba Cloud, the digital technology and artificial intelligence division, said in a statement the launch was part of the technology major’s pledge to invest 380 billion yuan ($53 billion) over three years. No financial details were disclosed in Tuesday’s statement. “The Middle East’s advantageous position in fast-tracking AI adoption and its collaborative ecosystem are crucial enablers for private and public sector companies to thrive,” said Eric Wan, vice president of Alibaba Cloud International and regional general manager at Alibaba Cloud Intelligence. The United Arab Emirates, among the world’s top oil exporters, has been spending billions of dollars on an AI push, and under a deal signed in May, it is building the largest AI campus outside the United States in partnership with technology giants such as Nvidia and OpenAI. The long-coveted agreement was a major win for the Gulf country, which has been trying to balance its relations with its longtime ally, the U.S., and its largest trading partner, China. However, Reuters reported, citing sources, that the deal has not been finalized amid U.S. security concerns around Beijing’s access to advanced semiconductors via third parties such as the UAE, where major Chinese companies remain active. Alibaba Cloud said in the statement on Tuesday that it had partnered with several companies from various sectors, including Abu Dhabi-backed digital lender Wio Bank, during tech and AI exhibition GITEX Global in Dubai to take advantage of its local infrastructure capabilities to accelerate AI deployment. Rachna Uppal and Federico Maccioni, Reuters
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Ten major philanthropic organizations are banding together to ensure that regular Americans, not just a small group of tech billionaires, have a say in how AI will shape society and who will benefit. The organizations announced Tuesday the formation of Humanity AI, a $500-million five-year initiative aimed at ensuring artificial intelligence serves people and communities rather than replacing or diminishing them. The coalition includes the Doris Duke Foundation, the Ford Foundation, the John D. and Catherine T. MacArthur Foundation, the Mellon Foundation, the Mozilla Foundation, the Omidyar Network and other philanthropies. The core group, which is expected to expand to include other philanthropies, will make the grants both on their own (with input from the group) and together from a common pool of capital. Many now believe that generative AI systems are about to revolutionize the way companies do business, from accounting to engineering to operations. Humanity AI is betting on a future where AI plays a supporting role, wherein it strengthens communities, and enhances human creativity. The groups want to rebalance the public policy conversation around AI to include the interests of normal people, not just the big tech players and financiers who are betting big on the transformative potential of the technology. So much investment is going into AI right now with the goal of making money, which is our capital system and that’s all fine, MacArthur Foundation president John Palfrey said in an interview with Fast Company. What we are seeking to do is to invest public interest dollars to ensure that the development of the technology serves humans and places humanity at the center of this development. The coalition knows it wont be able to match the AI industrys cash — its $500 million is a quarter Mira Muratis seed round for Thinking Machines Lab. Palfrey says that even if his organization would put its entire $9 billion in assets into this one issue, it wouldnt come close to the money being invested by the tech companies and their investors. But, he says, the ten organizations in Humanity AI working together could have a real impact. We each have a slightly different angle on it, but we’re going to share knowledge and hopefully have the whole be greater than the sum of the parts, he says. The goal, after all, is not to compete with the tech industry so much as it is to expand the conversation. It’s all building a broader community of folks who are engaged in this topic,” Omidyar Network president Michele Jawando tells Fast Company. [T]heres just one or two people who are saying this is how [AI] should be used, and we’re saying, Hey, wait a minute. I’m going to pull up a few more chairs at the table and get a few different voices and perspectives.Workers are increasingly worried that the real value that AI companies and their investors hope to deliver to big business is the ability to eliminate positions and cut payroll. AI companies and their backers counter by saying that some positions will be eliminated but that many kinds of jobs will be created. Creatives and artists wonder whether AI will enhance their performance or replace them, and many question how their authentic intellectual property can be protected in a world of AI-generated content. But the private sector would actually benefit by making sure that the benefits of AI are broadly distributed across geographies and classes, Jawando points out. Because if people don’t see that, we’ve seen what happens when people feel completely on the outside and used and abused, she says. Every major industrial revolution has had [that] moment, and so the private sector should be incentivized to do this, but they’re not right now. Some of the investments Humanity AI plans to make focus on giving underrepresented people ways to influence AIs trajectory. The group plans to award funds to the Electronic Privacy Information Center (EPIC), which works to protect peoples right to data privacy as tech companies (and governments) work to bend norms toward having no expectation of privacy at all.The group also plans to fund the work of the Berkeley Labor Center, which develops technology to measure the real effects of AI on the workforce. In addition, it trains union organizers and labor advocates and other organizations that support them, so that workers can act as decision makers on how AI gets applied and not just passive participants (or victims) of the way AI is deployed in the workplace.Some of the groups funding targets are more politically focused, working to raise the voices of people who will be affected by AI but lack thelobbying firepower of big tech. The public advocacy group AI Now, for example, seeks to inject into the policy debate the idea that the corporations developing AI should have to be accountable to the public. The group provides technical expertise to lawmakers (who often rely on AI industry sources), and researches and develops an intellectual framework that legitimizes public intervention in AI development. Some of the members of Humanity AI are focused on the creative industries. Omidyars Jawando says one of the projects Humanity AI wants to fund is focused on preserving the intellectual property of human creatives, and giving people like actors technology tools to stay in control of their image and work when generative AI tools can easily duplicate and remix them and post the results on social media. At a deeper level, Jawando says, society is beginning to grapple with the question of what role AI should play in society. Should it support and amplify people, or should it stand in for (or replace) people in many tasks?AI might be better used to address problems like healthcare accessibility or housing availability rather than making sure we all have better access to Canva, Jawando told me. I think this is when you have the conversation about human flourishingI think it comes down to that level of detail and thoughtfulness. Humanity AI wants to find, and fund, people who share that worldview and speak that language. We want to raise up a whole group of scientists and academics and researchers and advocates and young people who are going to raise these issues, she says, so that you can then empower the policymakers [to] incentivize the private sector folks to do the right thing . . . Humanity AI partners will begin making grants as soon as fall 2025. Rockefeller Philanthropy Advisors will serve as a fiscal sponsor and manage a pooled fund, with grants from that fund beginning in 2026.
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A startup called Orion is ready to take on America’s sleep loss epidemic with a new, AI-enabled mattress cover that can adjust its temperature throughout the night to maximize comfort and rest. Cofounder and CEO Harry Gestetner previously cofounded the startup Fanfix, which helped Gen Z content creators build paid subscription programs. After the company sold to SuperOrdinary for a reported $65 million, Gestetner says he became interested in sleep and its well-documented links to health and longevity. “Every longevity expert tells you that sleep is the cornerstone of longevity,” he says. Gestetner found that most sleep and fitness trackers could detect bad sleep patterns, but they couldn’t directly do anything to help users get a better night’s rest. “All they do is just give you a bunch of data that tells you slept badly,” he says. And while sleep temperature has been shown to have a significant impact on sleep quality, existing sleep temperature control devices from companies like Eight Sleep were too expensive for many people Gestetner spoke to. Working with his father Daniel Gestetner, himself a serial entrepreneur and Orion’s chairman, Gestetner set out to craft a more affordable alternativethe “Tesla of sleep,” rather than the Ferrari, as he puts it. The company has since raised $10.3 million in venture funding and developed the technology with sleep expert and clinical psychologist Michael Breus, who serves as Orion’s chief sleep officer. Orion’s technology, unveiled for preorder on October 14, costs users with a queen-sized bed $2,300 up front plus $17 per month for a subscription. The subscription pays for access to Orion’s AI, which can automatically make dozens of temperature adjustments throughout the night to maximize comfort at various phases of sleep, taking into account sensor readings and users’ stated preferences. Buyers can indicate whether they want a firmer or softer cover, with other options in the works, and the equipment typically takes 10 to 15 minutes to install, Gestetner says. [Photo: Courtesy of Orion] Sensors within the mattress cover can detect factors like body temperature, breathing rate, and heart rate, which allow the AI to optimize its temperature to match natural circadian rhythms, allowing for longer, deeper sleep. We can tell, for example, if your body temperature is heating up, your heart rate’s starting to increase, and you’re getting into a lighter and lighter phase of sleep where you might wake up, says Gestetner. We can adjust your body temperature back down to keep you in deeper sleep longer and increase your sleep quality. The package includes the mattress cover, along with a companion device that can be unobtrusively positioned near the bed or behind a nightstand, where it heats or cools water circulated through the mattress cover. Unlike waterbeds of yore, notorious for disastrous leaks and often banned from rental apartments, Orion’s mattress cover includes sturdy tubing and a second waterproof layer to prevent spillage, he says. It also only uses about 1.5 liters of water, which can be topped off about twice per year. [Photo: Courtesy of Orion] Sensors in the mattress cover help monitor sleep quality and adjust temperature throughout the night. The technology works for couples as well, Gestetner says, avoiding quarrels over settings by maintaining two temperature zones, since many people don’t sleep best at the same temperature as their partner. “My girlfriend gets very cold at night, and so she likes to set her side very warm,” he says. “I get very hot at night, so I like to set my side very cold, and then I like to wake up very warm.” Before Orion’s customers begin using the device, which is expected to ship to preorder customers in December, they typically will do a home sleep test with a disposable wearable sensor, letting Orion observe their sleep patterns. The wearable, which looks similar to a large Band-Aid, lets the company chart their sleep habits and temperatures needs throughout the night. “We can show you pretty much everything that’s wrong with your sleep on a graph, and then preprogram the Orion device to you based on your data,” Gestetner says. The wearable isn’t essential, though, and Gestetner says the company already has a deal to place the mattress covers in hotels, where the built-in sensors will be able to help adjust temperatures and let guests get a better night’s sleep. [Photo: Courtesy of Orion] Other companies have worked to develop AI and sensor technology to optimize other aspects of sleep: Heka offers mattresses that physically adjust to support different body types and changing sleeping positions throughout the night, while Nitetronic produces pillows that detect snoring and inflate to adjust the users head position and keep airways clear. A Tempur-Pedic bed base with adjustable contours can even alter its position during the night in response to snoring. But while many smart sleep devices can be fairly pricy, Orion aims to develop more affordable versions of its product, which could be available in the future for as little as $500, thanks in part to Daniel Gestetners manufacturing experience. Harry Gestetner envisions the product could appeal to any of the millions of people already tracking health and sleep stats with smartwatches and other wearables. The company is also about to participate in a formal clinical study, and Gestetner imagines that users will also amass concrete data to confirm the technology improves their sleep. “As people use the product, they should see improvements in their sleep data, which should be pretty undeniable,” he says.
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