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Welcome to AI Decoded, Fast Companys weekly newsletter that breaks down the most important news in the world of AI. You can sign up to receive this newsletter every week here. Will native-AI operating systems run our computers in the near future? Samantha, the AI that Theodore falls in love with in the 2013 movie Her is actually an OS. Thats how he meets her: He buys a new OS called OS1 (its not just an operating system, its a consciousness) and she is its persona. Samantha becomes his intuitive and personalized companion to all his digital stuff, from email to video games. ChatGPT set off the generative AI boom in part because consumers (not just academics and developers) saw shades of Her. Two years later, the chatbot is a major consumer destination and is the AI interface with which people are most comfortable and familiar. More than 400 million people around the world now use ChatGPT every week, OpenAI COO Brad Lightcap recently told CNBC. For comparison, Apples iOS operates on more than 2 billion active devices worldwide, including more than 1.5 billion iPhones. Those are impressive numbers, but iOS is standing relatively still while ChatGPT is steadily moving up the adoption curve. Historically, Apples superpower has been its uncanny understanding of the user interfacethe technology that acts as the mediator between a human user and their digital tools and content. Apples user interfaces rely mainly on older input technologies, such as mouse-clicking and touchscreen-tapping (though Siri remains a problem child). ChatGPT feels more and more like a new generation of user interface, one thats powered by a very advanced mastery of language and the ability to intuit the intent behind a users input. Increasingly, it can act as a personal assistant with the ability to reason through problems. It can reason about things a user says with their voice or shows to the AI via their phone cam. Now OpenAI (and Anthropic) are rapidly developing the AIs ability to control computer functions and apps. At the moment, OpenAI is packaging all this stuff inside ChatGPT. But how long before a chatbot app no longer contains it? Throughout the day, I call up the ChatGPT desktop app (by hitting <Option> and <Space Bar>) to run quick research lookups. For $200 per month, it can conduct deep research projects and control my mouse as it uses the web. Its not a far leap from there to the AI using an app on my computer or printing something. Soon enough, Ill likely have a running voice dialog with my AI OS throughout the day. Like Samantha (presumably) did for Theodore, the OS will learn my workflows, habits, and preferences. (In fact, many people in the field of natural language are working hard to build EI, or emotional intelligence into these systems, so that your AI operating system can be your friend tooas Sam was to Theodore.) The analyst Ben Thompson said in a recent Stratechery newsletter that OpenAI itself has realized that ChatGPT (and everything contained in it) is taking over the focus of the company. Consumer tech companies . . . require a completely different culture and value chain than a research organization with an API on the side, he wrote. That is the fundamental reality that I suspect has driven much of the OpenAI upheaval over the last two-and-a-half years . . . In short, OpenAI started out as an AI research lab, then became a provider of one-size-fits-all foundation models to enterprises and developers, then watched as ChatGPT stole the show and became its main source of revenue and fame. The question is, where does ChatGPT go from here? I think it’s the OS. LLMs could help solve the glacial change of government systems Jen Pahlka has a big idea: She says we should use large language models (LLMs) to eat through the government red tape that often stymies badly needed change to bureaucratic systems. She should know. She served as deputy chief technology officer (DCTO) under the Obama administration and helped found the United States Digital Service (USDS). Pahlka says that change agents like the USDS often encounter thousands of pages of policy and regulations that may or may not apply to a proposed change to a government website or system. Those pages pile up administration by administration, often creating overlapping and conflicting rules or a tangle of ambiguities. And agency bureaucrats often use that ambiguity to put new proposals into a state of perpetual review, saying neither yes nor no, effectively freezing attempts at change that they dont really want anyway. Thats why interagency organizations like USDS need lawyers as much as they need top-notch designers and coders. LLMs could be another tool to cut through the ambiguity and shorten timelines. You can use an LLM to figure out why there are 7,719 pages [of rules and regulations around a proposed system change] and what of that could get reduced, Pahlka told Robert Safian in a recent Rapid Response podcast. You can pretty quickly get to this stuff is conflicting, this stuff is vestigial, this stuff is really controversial but you’ve got to deal with it. Pahlka has done work with Stanfords Regulation, Evaluation, and Governance Lab (RegLab), which is studying the development of LLMs that specialize in swimming through years of policies, guidelines, and regulations. Its still pretty early days, but its starting to get used that way, Pahlka says. I want to see somebody like the labor commissioner in a state saying, Oh yeah, we actually now have a regulatory environment that allows us to serve the needs of our state. Nvidia earnings: Good enough to keep the Boom booming Nvidias fiscal fourth-quarter earnings report on Wednesday marked the companys first since the Chinese company DeepSeek showed the world that it could train a world-class AI model with far fewer Nvidia GPUs than anyone thought possible. If any big AI companies ran to the phone to cancel their orders of Nvidias new Blackwell processors it wasnt apparent in the numbers the company reported. Revenues came in at $39.3 billion (35.6% from data center sales), up 78% from a year ago and up 12% from the previous quarter. Analysts had expected $38.04 billion. The company also said the good times would continue at least through the current quarter, in which it expects $43 billion in revenues. Analysts on the earnings call did, however zero in on the one weak point in the report: Nvidias profit margin, which remained flat for the second quarter in a row. But that metric is indicative of overall demand fo GPUs only in an indirect way. Also, the companys stock sagged somewhat in after-hours trading Wednesday, which is very dependent on the (mysterious) assumptions that institutional investors had already baked into the value of the stock. The bottom line is that the tech companies betting big on AIthink Google, Meta, OpenAI, and Microsoftare not hedging on their infrastructure spending. Not yet, anyway. Blackwell generating billions in sales validates Nvidias top position just as the market is expanding on the agentic and physical AI fronts, wrote eMarketers Jacob Bourne in a research note published Tuesday. Short-term volatility is still on the horizon, but Nvidias market command remains unmatched.” More AI coverage from Fast Company: Anthropics new Claude AI model can decide between speed and deep thinking Autonomous AI agents are amazingand scary People are most worried about AI replacing these 2 jobs This new AI tool helps Walmarts merchandising team plan whats in stores Want exclusive reporting and trend analysis on technology, business innovation, future of work, and design? Sign up for Fast Company Premium.
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California Democrat Rep. Sam Liccardo, a freshman congressman who represents Silicon Valley, said he’s surprised the first piece of legislation he’s sponsoring takes aim at President Donald Trump’s meme coin.“That wasn’t my plan when I ran for office, I can assure you,” said Liccardo, the former mayor of San Jose.But the president’s launch of a meme coin just before taking office last month needed some kind of response, said Liccardo. Those who bought the meme coin right after launch made out, but the price quickly dropped leaving others with big losses. Even Trump-supporting crypto enthusiasts found the launch distasteful.“That behavior is so self-evidently unethical that it raises the question why isn’t there a clear enough prohibition,” he said, adding that Trump’s meme coin raises concerns about transparency, insider trading and improper foreign influence.The bill is set to be called the Modern Emoluments and Malfeasance Enforcement, or MEME act. According to a draft of the legislation, it would block the president, members of Congress, and other senior officials, as well as their spouses and children, from issuing or sponsoring securities, commodities, and cryptocurrencies like meme coins. It would also force Trump to disgorge any profits he’s made from the sale of his meme coins.Liccardo’s bill, which he plans to introduce Thursday, has no chance of passing in this Republican-controlled Congress. But the freshman lawmaker said it would serve as a placeholder if Democrats come to power as well an important symbolic gesture against what he called obvious corruption. His bill comes amid a fractured Democratic Party struggling to find its footing in the early weeks of the Trump presidency.Meme coins are a strange and highly volatile corner of the crypto industry that often start as a joke with no real value but can surge in price if enough people are willing to buy them. Critics view them as nothing more than Ponzi schemes that enrich insiders and unethical celebrities. Supporters say meme coins could be early indicators of ways in which the internet could revolutionize financial and other transactions.Trump has long defied presidential norms when it comes to endorsing and promoting products like branded Bibles and perfume. But he’s leaned in particularly hard with cryptocurrency-related projects that could significantly boost his personal wealth.The Trump meme coin quickly soared in price to nearly $70 shortly after it was launched but has since fallen to about $12. Researchers have estimated that trading fees have generated tens of millions of dollars for entities that launched the coin, including a company owned by Trump.Trump and his sons also helped launch a decentralized finance cryptocurrency platform last year, and the president has backed online stores that sell crypto-themed sneakers and $100,000 watches.The Trump family business recently released an ethics agreement that prohibits Trump from “day-to-day” decision-making involving outside business deals and limits financial information shared with him.Once a skeptic of cryptocurrencies, Trump changed course and promised last year to make the U.S. the world capital of digital assets. The cryptocurrency industry, which felt unfairly targeted by the Biden administration, embraced Trump and spent heavily to help him win last year’s election.First Lady Melania Trump also launched a meme coin that spiked in value around the inauguration but has since cratered. A crypto developer who said he helped launch that meme coin was also involved in a disastrous meme coin launch that’s led to Argentine President Javier Milei facing a corruption probe.That developer, Hayden Davis, has said meme coins are essentially a rigged game that benefit a small group of people at the expense of retail investors.“It is an insiders’ game. This is an unregulated casino,” Davis said.Besides a criminal prohibition, Liccardo’s bill would also allow private investors who lose money on a meme coin backed by a public official to sue. Liccardo said that’s a key part of the legislation, given what he sees as a lack of independence in the current Justice Department.“You need to have some enforcement mechanism and a private right of action helps to keep everybody honest,” Liccardo said. Alan Suderman, AP Business Writer
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Vietnam is revising its energy plans to focus more on large solar farms and less on reliance on coal and natural gas. The fast-growing economy now aims to get 16% of its energy from the sunmore than triple its earlier target of just 5%.A draft of the new policy outline, likely to be finalized in coming weeks, scraps plans to build offshore wind turbines, instead building more onshore wind capacity, rooftop solar and energy storage.Offshore wind and new gas projects have proven expensive and difficult. Large solar farms are cheaper and easier to build.But Vietnam also is emphasizing expansion of large solar farms to meet soaring demand for power generation. It forecasts it will need more than 211 gigawatts of energy by 2030 as its economy grows, 40% more than its previous estimate and more than Germany’s current total capacity.“This reflects both an overall increase in potential power demand by 2030 and the fact that LNG (or liquefied natural gas) projects are not on track to be completed by 2030,” said Giles Cooper, a partner at the international law firm Allens based in Hanoi who specializes in energy policy.Solar power expanded rapidly in Vietnam from 2018 to 2020, helped by generous government policies, as it leaped past its neighbors and some richer nations like the United Kingdom. But construction of new solar capacity stalled in 2020 as the Southeast Asian nation realized that its creaky electricity grid was getting overloaded since electricity was only available when the sun shone.“It was like the market almost stopped,” said Dimitri Pescia, of Berlin-based thinktank Agora Energiewende.Use of polluting coal, which releases earth-warming gases into the atmosphere, has surged and Vietnam is set to become of the world’s top five coal importers, displacing Taiwan, according to the International Energy Agency.Like many other countries, Vietnam still needs to upgrade its rickety grid, which has failed to keep up with rapid growth of clean power generation. However, it has made improvements and gained experience dealing with energy sources that aren’t always availables, Cooper said.Last year, authorities allowed electricity-guzzling factories to buy power directly from energy producers, aiming to ease pressure on the overstrained power grid and help big manufacturers like Samsung Electronics meet their climate targets. But that was hindered by a lack of space to build clean energy projects close to factories.Solar energy is “seen as the most promising technology to kick-start” those direct purchases, Cooper said.But while it’s building clean power capacity, Vietnam is also ramping up use of coal. That’s partly to make up for lost hydropower capacity due to drought, and also to meet soaring demand as businesses shift factories from China to Vietnam.Vietnam is Southeast Asia’s second-biggest coal producer after Indonesia. It also imported 50 million ton of coal in the first three quarters of 2024a 31% increase, according to government data.Pescia noted that Vietnam’s coal-fired power plants aren’t very old and operators have yet to recoup their investments.“Phasing out coal in a country like Vietnam will take more time,” he said. The Associated Press’ climate and environmental coverage receives financial support from multiple private foundations. AP is solely responsible for all content. Find AP’s standards for working with philanthropies, a list of supporters and funded coverage areas at AP.org. Aniruddha Ghosal, Associated Press
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