Elon Musk and Bill Gates on AI

Hullo, it’s Alex in London. Big tech’s bigwigs are headed to Washington. But first…Three things you need to know today:• Here are the key ta [View in browser]( [Bloomberg]( Hullo, it’s Alex in London. Big tech’s bigwigs are headed to Washington. But first… Three things you need to know today: • Here are the [key takeaways from Apple’s iPhone event]( • Google’s search domination [began with a plan]( • Arm is expected to [price its IPO at the top end]( AI summit In a previous time, Tuesday’s [unveiling of a new iPhone]( would have made for a natural subject of this newsletter (again). But we’re in a very different era from 10 or even five years ago. Artificial intelligence is upon us. And even as iPhones generate $200 billion a year for Apple Inc., smartphones aren’t exactly delivering the seismic technological advances they once did. There also seems to be an enthusiasm in the corridors of power to avoid the missteps of that era. The brisk adoption of smartphones put a portal to the world in everyone’s pocket and with it came a deluge of unanticipated consequences for which lawmakers, and indeed society, were unprepared. As is now lore, few of them expected the impact of untrammeled social media. Next year will mark the 20th anniversary of Facebook. And yet, even after plagues of misinformation, [election chicanery](, mental health scandals, deluges of data leaks and waves of extremist content, the US still doesn’t have [comprehensive regulation]( for social media platforms. Europe does, in the form of the Digital Services Act and Digital Markets Act, but they didn’t [come into full effect]( until this year. Regulation is slow. Which is why Wednesday’s [bipartisan forum]( on regulating AI, convened by Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer, is noteworthy. Attendees will include Sam Altman, Bill Gates, Elon Musk, Sundar Pichai and Mark Zuckerberg. For Capitol Hill, this is breakneck speed, coming just 10 months after the [introduction of ChatGPT](. We’re a long way from anything entering the statute book, but there is movement. [Fifteen meaningful technology companies]( have now signed the White House’s voluntary AI pledge, which includes [commitments]( to “build systems that put security first.” Work is underway on an AI executive order, and Schumer is leading efforts to pass AI legislation. The subtleties and intricacies will, inevitably, be significant and multifaceted. Regulations will have to take into account transparency, accountability, safety, bias, privacy, economic impact, the environmental impact of the data processing and plenty more. Critics, among them Senator Elizabeth Warren, have said the behind-closed-doors nature of the hearing is problematic. Yes, democracy may well die in darkness (to [borrow a phrase](), but the privacy in this instance may not be a bad thing. In public hearings, tech executives to equivocate and lawmakers have a propensity alternately to grandstand and demonstrate their knowledge shortfalls. Nobody wants a repeat of Zuckerberg’s 2018 trip to Capitol Hill: Senator Orrin Hatch: “How do you sustain a business model in which users don’t pay for your service?” Zuck: “[Senator, we run ads](.” Schumer has promised that public hearings will follow the private one. If it means the next ones are more substantive, it may be a price worth paying. There will be a more public AI Safety Summit in the UK in November, with attendees set to include OpenAI’s Altman, Microsoft CEO Satya Nadella and Google DeepMind’s Demis Hassabis. The pace of AI innovation and adoption is, perhaps slightly terrifyingly, remarkable. Let’s hope that regulators are able, for once, to match the pace. —[Alex Webb](mailto:awebb25@bloomberg.net) The big story Want a deeper look at Apple’s iPhone event? The company raised prices on some versions. The titanium on the pro models [looks cool](. AT&T and T-Mobile are [offering a free iPhone 15]( to lure US customers. And Apple hailed the new watches as the [first carbon-neutral product](. One to watch [Watch the Bloomberg Technology TV analysis]( of the iPhone event. Get fully charged Amazon’s next big bet: restocking shelves [at physical stores](. T-Mobile will buy up to $3.3 billion worth of [airwaves from Comcast](. Arm aside, tech IPOs are not achieving the valuations that [some had hoped](. Tencent secured the rights to develop and publish a mobile game based on [Bandai Namco’s highly anticipated Blue Protocol](. 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