AI Australia Presents: This Week in AI vol 11

In our last episode for 2023, Kobi & Nat discuss the following recent developments around the world and how they relate to Australia: The EU AI Act, which has made it another step closer to reality, albeit with some conditions for regulating foundation models that not everyone is happy with. Kobi has been reading Nancy Levison's new book, which looks at large historical accidents and unpacks what that looks like from a human perspective. We wonder how the Act will plug into the new international standards coming out, and whether that might result in some more granular teeth for the Act. Microsoft has been quietly talking to industrial organisations in the US, leading us to wonder how the Hollywood Writer's strike will impact other union negotiations around the world. The attribution of job losses to AI or automation is proving difficult, and will make future union negotiations even more interesting. Kobi talks about the history and evolution of boards over time, which leads us to circle back to the Open AI board purging and reflect on recent information that has come out about why exactly Sam Altman was fired in the first place.