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Bill Gates sounds the alarm on AI: In a new essay, Gates warned that the AI industry is crossing the safety lines it set for itself — and that nobody is preparing for the job displacement, cybersecurity threats and other risks that follow. His ideas: new institutions to manage the transition, a tax on AI and robots, and a category of jobs reserved exclusively for humans.
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On this week’s GeekWire Podcast: Listen to highlights from our interview with Gates, including insights into his own AI usage. “If you’re a curious person,” he says, “this is a mind-blowing time.” Read more and listen here, and subscribe on Apple or Spotify.
- Computer scientist and columnist Oren Etzioni says Gates has the diagnosis right but the prescription mostly wrong.
AWS absorbs the DuckDB team: Amazon has agreed to acquire Amsterdam-based DuckLabs as part of its strategic push to turn S3 into an active data analysis hub. While the open-source DuckDB project will remain independent, Seattle-based MotherDuck, which builds its cloud analytics platform on DuckDB, pointed to a familiar playbook from the tech giant: waiting for an open-source tool to gain scale before building a service around it.
Washington’s $339M Meta windfall: Washington state is set to receive up to $339 million from a $17.1 billion multistate settlement with Meta over claims that Facebook and Instagram used addictive features that harmed youth mental health.
Unexpected cancer signal: An AI tool built by the Allen Institute for AI (Ai2) discovered evidence that a common breast cancer subtype may actually respond to immunotherapy, defying long-held assumptions. This prompted an expanded partnership with the Paul G. Allen Research Center at Providence Swedish.
Biotech win for UW & TwinStrand: A federal judge ordered Guardant Health to pay more than $245 million to Seattle biotech TwinStrand Biosciences and the University of Washington over DNA sequencing patents, formalizing a 2023 jury verdict.
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