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U.S. Commission Proposes Manhattan Project-Style Strategy For AGI To Compete Against China
- Written by Andrea Miliani Former Tech News Expert
- Fact-Checked by Sarah Frazier Former Content Manager
The United States–China Economic and Security Review Commission (USCC) issued its annual Report to Congress 2024 yesterday, suggesting a Manhattan Project-style strategy to accelerate advanced AI development in the country and compete against China in Artificial General Intelligence (AGI)—a technology that surpasses human intelligence.
In a Rush? Here are the Quick Facts!
- The USCC issued its annual Report to Congress and suggested a Manhattan Project-style strategy to develop AGI
- The commission warns about China’s fast pace on advanced AI technology and shares recommendations for the U.S. Congress
- Commissioners explain to Reuters the urgency of the matter and the reasons behind certain recommendations
The document shares recommendations to the U.S. Congress and begins with the suggestion to “establish and fund a Manhattan Project-like program,” the secret research used to build nuclear weapons before nazi Germany during World War II, resulting in the Hiroshima and Nagasaki bombings.
USCC suggests multiyear contracts in alliances with the private sector to fund AGI research—including leading AI clouds and data center companies—and for the U.S. secretary of defense to prioritize this project.
The commission also suggests eliminating the “de minimis” exemption in the Tariff Act of 1930—which permits goods valued at less than $800 to enter the country without paying fees—as it goes through less intensive inspection.
According to Reuters , USCC agents have noticed how fast China has been developing AI technologies and believe in fast reactions.
“We’ve seen throughout history that countries that are first to exploit periods of rapid technological change can often cause shifts in the global balance of power,” said Jacob Helberg, USCC commissioner, to Reuters. “It’s critical that we take them extremely seriously.”
The suggestion to build alliances with the private sector emerges as the main obstacles to developing this advanced technology are related to energy infrastructure.
Another commissioner explained why they are suggesting to end the “de minimis” exemption. “Just to give you a sense of the trajectory, it’s 4 million boxes a day, estimated to be 1.4 billion de minimis shipments over this past year, according to CBP,” said Commissioner Kimberly Glas. “It is impossible to police what is in those boxes.”
The USCC suggests preferring safety over capital and avoiding dangerous products like pill presses and fentanyl. The document provides more details on procedures, improvement opportunities, and other recommendations for the U.S. government.
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Microsoft Partners With HarperCollins For Nonfiction AI Training
- Written by Andrea Miliani Former Tech News Expert
- Fact-Checked by Sarah Frazier Former Content Manager
The tech giant Microsoft and HarperCollins, one of the world’s largest English-language publishing companies, signed a deal to train artificial intelligence model with data from nonfiction titles.
In a Rush? Here are the Quick Facts!
- Bloomberg revealed Microsoft is the AI company behind HarperCollins’s AI training process
- A heated debate emerged in social media and news publications regarding the authors’ work and the publisher’s new AI deal
- Microsoft’s AI model will not generate new books, but it will be trained with the publisher’s non-fiction books
According to Bloomberg , the book publisher will allow Microsoft’s software to learn information from its books to train an AI model—that has not been disclosed yet—but not to generate books. An anonymous source with knowledge of the deal shared the information with Bloomberg.
Microsoft’s role in this deal was revealed by Bloomberg yesterday, right after a heated debate between authors and HarperCollins and after 404 Media shared that a secret tech company was behind the AI training. Microsoft declined to comment on the new deal when Bloomberg reached out.
American writer and comedian Daniel Kibblesmith shared on Bluesky that HarperCollins offered him a fixed price of $2,500 to opt in and allow AI to use his creative content on his book Santa’s Husband—a fictional children’s book suggesting that the deal could go beyond non-fiction. The author was outraged and many users joined the debate.
It’s not the first time this year that a big tech company has partnered with a large publisher. In May, OpenAI signed a multiyear agreement with News Corp —HarperCollins’s parent company—to access multiple publications like the New York Post, The Wall Street Journal, and The Daily Telegraph with a focus on journalism.
In June, it was revealed that Microsoft has been training a new large language model (LLM) , known as MAI-1, to compete with Google and OpenAI. The tech giant has been working on multiple AI developments and expanding its chatbot capabilities. In September, Microsoft announced multiple enhancements to its AI agent Copilot and new features like Copilot Pages and interactions with programs like PowerPoint, Excel, and Outlook.
