Weeks after testifying before Congress about monopolistic force allegations to depose the competition of developers, Apple and Google were sued for banning Fortnite, one of the most successful games on iOS and Android, in a direct pay feature that encourages players to buy pieces in their store. instead of the platform’s app stores.
Few people can oppose the parties in conflict with a combined market capitalization of $3 trillion, but for the publisher Epic Games, which would earn more than $5 million a day in the hit Game Battle Royale, they have much to gain if they maintain 30% relief in profits through Apple and Google. With 350 million players, Fortnite has the world’s largest gaming network and is considered a full-fledged force to consider.
To underscore the irony of Apple’s power, Epic announced its demand with a parody of the iconic 1984 Super Bowl announcement of tech titan. With a frightening call to action, the video reads: “Epic Games has challenged the App Store’s monopoly. In retaliation, Apple blocks Fortnite from one billion devices. Join the fight to prevent 2020 from adjusting to 1984. Since its launch, several leading apps developers have protested the “Apple Tax”, adding Spotify, Match and Facebook, which is also the subject of antitrust investigations.
But as insurgent forces come together to fight the machine, the great technology has become more powerful as the global economy moves more online to work, buy, socialize, and protect itself from the pandemic. To see how the giants are temporarily growing, apple’s market price, Amazon, and Facebook jumped to a quarter of a billion dollars in the two days following the July 29 U.S. Congressional hearings. This is more than New Zealand’s GDP and AI is largely responsible.
The Rockefeller Foundation and the Brookings Institution have published reports on how corporate profit drives well-intentioned corporations to engage in market abuses, while device learning algorithms optimize knowledge monetization to maximize shareholders at all costs.
I spoke to Internet pioneer Tim O’Reilly of O’Reilly Media, Zia Khan of the Rockefeller Foundation, of AI – 1: Our Integrated Future, and researcher Brookings Darrell West of Turning Point: Politymaking in the Era of AI, on how greater governance of AI can succeed in surveillance capitalism.
Robots can’t save us from ourselves
“Facebook, Google and Amazon are bigger than many countries in terms of economy, but they don’t serve the public smartly because they’re not programmed,” O’Reilly said. “AI is constantly told to do things. It focuses on manipulating the customer for profit. The destruction of small businesses through giant corporations is appropriate because it is less costly to the customer.”
To achieve economic results that benefit everyone, O’Reilly advocates that corporations build more complex systems and take into account a wider diversity of factors, adding what is smart for users, society and the planet, not just results. “Innovation will have to happen the right way, not in the tools,” Khan added.
“Like Elon Musk’s strawberry-picking robot that makes the decision that humanity is on its way to strawberry fields, self-enhancing AI becomes a challenge when we’re not intentional setting goals,” O’Reilly said.
“When other people fantasize that AI goes wrong, they think this dishonest agent is acting independently, but the real threat is that he’s wrong through other people with bad motivations.”
Looking ahead, O’Reilly said: “This is not a question of when computers will be smarter than humans, you can simply say that you’ve passed the Turing test. Robots deceive other people all the time, they just can’t do anything for themselves. But there’s no horizon in that. We don’t even notice where the will comes from in us.
Khan agreed that AI is still in its infancy and can be handled smoothly: “When the killer robot arrives, just close the door. They are for many things, but bad for opening doors.”
With regard to the techlash opposed to the dominance of the developing market and the alleged predatory practices of Apple, Google, Facebook and Amazon, West says that greater governance is needed, “the position of non-intervention in the sector of greater oversight and public regulation”.
See the full testimony of Tim Cook, Sundar Pichai, Jeff Bezos and Mark Zuckerberg here:
Award-winning journalist covering Facebook, Amazon, AI, robotics, space, customer technology, entertainment, e-commerce, chain logistics, security, surveillance, data.
Award-winning journalist covering Facebook, Amazon, AI, robotics, space, customer technology, entertainment, e-commerce, source chain logistics, security, surveillance, knowledge privacy, payments, financial technology, venture capital and the long-term cash for Fast Company. , Business Insider, VentureBeat and SF Business Times. Keep @contentnow.