The year is drawing to a close and it’s time to take stock. It is inevitable, for those like Tech Princess who deal with technology with particular attention to the impact on public opinion, to make a short retrospective on five of the main tech events of 2023.
Rereading them in overview, one really gets the impression that the further one delves into the future, the more rapid and sensational the innovations are and will be, and ready to change our way of living, of expressing ourselves and perhaps even of thinking. Let’s start.
The boom of generative artificial intelligence
The prize for the tech event of 2023 undoubtedly goes to the extraordinary spread of generative artificial intelligence.
It is actually an umbrella news story, which contains a large quantity and variety. For example, we could elect ChatGPT (whose first year of “life” we celebrated on November 20th, and in this case the quotes appear unintentionally ironic) as the progenitor of conversational chatbots. But now there is no giant in the sector that is not preparing, or has already shown to the public, its own generative AI software.
Let’s then think, in the space of just one year, how the approach to the topic has changed. We were immediately divided into enthusiastic fans or detractors, then less instinctive reasoning began and far-sighted volumes were printed. And finally we have dealt with (as often happens, Europe has taken care of it) the most important aspect of the issue: generative AI must not be opposed, but known and above all regulated, in order to be able to exploit it in the best way.
Sam Altman’s ballet in OpenAI
The second of the tech events of 2023 remains in the field of AIand it seems to follow the 2022 waltz surrounding Elon Musk’s acquisition of Twitter.
This time, we are in November 2023, the ballet saw as its protagonist Sam Altman, head of OpenAI, first removed from the board of directors, then in danger of moving to Microsoft, finally returning to the helm of OpenAI, which he instead reorganized almost for entire board.
And it seems to have been Altman’s particularly libertarian attitude towards AI that caused his (very brief) dismissal.
Elon Musk’s twists and turns
But the spotlight on OpenAI’s artificial intelligence is not enough to make Sam Altman the tech personality of the year.
We suspect that the prize still goes to him, Elon Musk, the eccentric billionaire and prone to the coup. In this case, it is not a question of a single event, but of a difficult to calculate number of actions and proclamations.. For a very partial list of his exploits throughout 2023, we recall the rebranding of Twitter to curious and often difficult to understand.
Furthermore, all of Musk’s eccentricity has been summarized in a best-selling biography that we have read and reviewed for you.
The Microsoft-Activision deal
There really has been no shortage of back and forth among the tech events of 2023.
Another of no secondary importance is that which concerns Microsoft’s acquisition of Activision.
In short, the almost 69 billion dollar deal had to overcome several vetoes. The two main ones were the one imposed by the FTC, the American antitrust authority, and that by the CMA, the UK competition authority. The former feared that the agreement would harm consumers because it would severely limit competition, while the latter saw the risk of a monopoly situation in the cloud gaming sector. The CMA only gave its final green light to the deal in October.
Guerre e fake news
Let’s go back to talking about generative artificial intelligence, but this time in its worse sense. Demonstrating how urgent, as we were saying, clear and unambiguous rules are.
The conflict between Russia and Ukraine first, and then the one between Israel and Hamas, reminded us that every war waged now also has its counterpart in fake news. Which, precisely by exploiting the AI that generates texts or images, can be very refined today, and tomorrow who knows.
To take the conflict in the Middle East, the examples of the spread of hoaxes by both sides would be countless. We prefer to remember that once again it was the EU that intervened firmly, opening an investigation first on X and then on Meta and TikTok for misinformation on the ongoing war between Hamas and Israel.
