Hello everybody. Welcome to Daily Zaps.

Here’s what we got for ya today:

• 🚙 Apple cancels electric car project to focus on AI

• 🕵🏻‍♂️ AI chatbots reducing search engine demand

• 🗳️ AI election interference

• 🧞 Google Genie - AI for creating video games

Let’s get right into it!  

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BIG TECH

Apple cancels electric car project to focus on AI

Apple has decided to halt its long-term project of developing an electric car, a venture that was internally known as Titan, involving nearly 2,000 employees. This shift in focus, communicated through an internal memo by Chief Operating Officer Jeff Williams and Vice President of Technology Kevin Lynch, is part of a broader realignment towards artificial intelligence.

The discontinuation of the electric vehicle project, initially planned to launch by 2028 after a previous delay, may lead to layoffs, though specifics remain unclear. Apple's ambitious foray into the auto industry since 2014 aimed at producing an autonomous electric car, potentially priced at $100,000, but concerns over profitability and the project's direction have prompted this strategic pivot away from automotive endeavors.

ANALYSIS

AI chatbots reducing search engine demand

Gartner predicts that by 2026, websites might get 25% less traffic from search engines like Google because of new AI technologies like ChatGPT. This change could affect how businesses use SEO (search engine optimization) and PPC (pay-per-click advertising) since less traffic might mean fewer customers.

However, it's important to remember that these are just predictions and might not come true. Gartner suggests that businesses should start looking at other ways to attract customers, just in case. They're saying this because more people are starting to use AI for finding information, which could change how we all use the internet to find what we need.

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POLITICS

AI election interference

Robocall utilizing artificial intelligence (AI) targeted New Hampshire voters with a fake message from President Joe Biden, marking potentially the first AI-driven interference in a U.S. election. This incident underscores the burgeoning threat of AI in politics, exemplified by various global instances: fake audio swaying elections in Slovakia, an AI-generated avatar boosting a defense minister's image in Indonesia, and resurrected politicians in India praising current officials.

The misuse of AI, from creating deceptive audio to manipulating images, amplifies disinformation, complicating voters' ability to discern reality. While some companies have pledged to limit AI's electoral influence, the lack of stringent regulations and the ease with which bad actors can circumvent platform limitations pose significant challenges.

TECH

Google Genie - AI for creating video games

Google DeepMind, introduced Genie, a generative AI model capable of creating playable 2D platformer games from simple text prompts. This technology, developed in collaboration with the University of British Columbia, leverages hundreds of thousands of gameplay videos to understand game mechanics.

The AI has been trained on over 200,000 hours of video, allowing it to generate games and potentially teach other AI models about 3D worlds. This advancement is seen as a step towards achieving artificial general intelligence (AGI), with the potential to transform how AI agents are trained.

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