Author: Jaxon Bennett

Unlock the White House Watch newsletter for freeYour guide to what the 2024 US election means for Washington and the worldWhen Donald Trump was first elected to the White House in 2016, Silicon Valley recoiled in horror. His nativism and open trolling of liberal pieties were an affront to the ultra liberal values of many in the industry, forged in the San Francisco Bay area.There were also good business reasons for concern. The populism promoted by Trump stood in clear opposition to the internationalist, free-trade agenda that US tech had ridden to global dominance since the mid-1990s. The prospect of…

Unlock the Editor’s Digest for freeRoula Khalaf, Editor of the FT, selects her favourite stories in this weekly newsletter.The writer is a fellow at Stanford University’s Institute for Human Centered Artificial Intelligence and the Cyber Policy Center. She is the author of ‘The Tech Coup’Mario Draghi’s report on EU competitiveness addresses what the Japanese call “the digital deficit” in Europe: the over-dependence on foreign technology. This leaking of money, talent and independence is a strategic, existential problem. The report quickly reignited a debate on the decades-long ambition of removing unnecessary barriers and finally creating a capital markets union. It also…

Hi from Taipei, where it’s really starting to feel like autumn! This is Cheng Ting-Fang, your #techAsia host for this week.I just got back from a short trip to Bangkok, and I can still taste the refreshing flavours of pomelo salad with chilli, roasted peanuts and heart-shaped betel leaves. With its wide variety of crispy fish cakes, satay, spring rolls and pork wantons, not to mention curries and coconut treats, Thailand truly lives up to its nickname as the “kitchen of the world”.During these overseas trips, I always love to observe my surroundings, especially at or near the airport, as…

Concerns about artificial intelligence’s disruptive effects on the workplace often dominate discussions about how the emerging technology will impact the labour market.Much commentary on the topic veers from bleak predictions of the destruction of jobs and outmoding of traditional skills to celebrations of the fortunes on offer to those who can unleash AI to boost performance.However, for some employers and educators, AI is already helping to smooth out the acquisition of skills, and to improve existing jobs. They say the technology can help organisations assess worker skills, plan for emerging needs and train their staff — boosting corporate productivity and…

Few industries are more ripe for creative disruption than healthcare, which consumes huge sums of public and private funding while still battling to meet demand from growing and ageing populations around the world.As a result, artificial intelligence is increasingly becoming a force to be reckoned with in the medical field. But, as in many industries, its full potential is only now starting to emerge, and uncertainty remains about exactly how AI can best be harnessed to deliver better, more efficient care — and improve the experiences of patients and healthcare staff.  Diagnostics and imagingPerhaps the area where AI has provoked…

Stay informed with free updatesSimply sign up to the Artificial intelligence myFT Digest — delivered directly to your inbox.Even the smartest experts have a hard time predicting the future of technology. Consider the example of Bob Metcalfe, the inventor of Ethernet who, in 1995, boldly forecast that the internet would experience a catastrophic collapse — or a “gigalapse” — the following year. But, when he got it wrong, Metcalfe literally ate his own words. To chants of “Eat, baby, eat!” at a tech industry event, Metcalfe ripped up a copy of his future-gazing InfoWorld column, fed it into a blender,…

Leaders at top big tech firms rushed to congratulate Donald Trump on his landslide election victory as they sought to rebuild bridges with the president-elect — and his most influential Silicon Valley booster, Elon Musk — ahead of a transformative period for the sector.The chief executives of Amazon, Apple, Google, Meta and Microsoft posted supportive messages on social media on Wednesday, which stood in contrast to their more circumspect reaction to the results of the 2016 and 2020 elections. All of their companies have since faced significant regulatory probes and antitrust threats as part of a crackdown by Joe Biden’s…

Stay informed with free updatesSimply sign up to the Artificial intelligence myFT Digest — delivered directly to your inbox.The UK will bring in legislation to safeguard against the risks of artificial intelligence in the next year, technology secretary Peter Kyle has said, as he pledged to invest in the infrastructure that will underpin the sector’s growth.Kyle told the Financial Times’ Future of AI summit on Wednesday that Britain’s voluntary agreement on AI testing was “working, it’s a good code” but that the long-awaited AI bill would be focused on making such accords with leading developers legally binding. The legislation, which…

“A star is born: Elon,” said Donald Trump in a lengthy shout out to his biggest donor while claiming victory in the US presidential race on Wednesday morning. Trump’s impending win ushers in a new era for Musk — already the world’s richest person with a $260bn fortune — whose gamble on a knife-edge US election paid off as he is set to become one of the president’s most influential political and business advisers.Musk’s promised role as head of a new Department of Government Efficiency will give the billionaire sweeping powers to recommend deep cuts to what he deems a “vast…

Unlock the Editor’s Digest for freeRoula Khalaf, Editor of the FT, selects her favourite stories in this weekly newsletter.The UK government will provide businesses with a new platform to help assess and mitigate the risks posed by artificial intelligence, as it seeks to be the global leader in testing the safety of the novel technology. The platform, launched on Wednesday, will bring together guidance and practical resources for businesses to use to carry out impact assessments and evaluations of new AI technologies, and review the data underpinning machine learning algorithms to check for bias.Science and tech secretary Peter Kyle said…