WSJ: “Outspent by Silicon Valley, some [universities] are turning their research focus to less computing-power intensive areas of artificial intelligence, even as they seek to build additional computing resources capable of powering bigger models. “Academic institutions are scrambling to get access to compute,” said Hod Lipson, chair of the mechanical engineering department at Columbia University. While basic university research has been critical to waves of technological innovation, generative AI research has been dominated by private companies, thanks in part to their access to the data and dollars needed to build and train models like OpenAI’s GPT-4 and Google’s Gemini…The stakes are high as universities compete against technology companies for the type of AI talent that can bring prestige to their computer science programs. Universities have a critical role in the talent pipeline for the tech industry, which has struggled in recent years to find qualified candidates for some jobs.”
FT: “During the 20th century, growth came about by providing human beings with ever more education: first basic schooling and then, later on, colleges and universities. For that reason it is known as the human-capital century, a time when a country’s prosperity depended on its willingness to invest in its people. The current century will be different. New ideas will come less frequently from us and more from the technologies around us. We can already catch a glimpse of what lies ahead: from large companies like Google DeepMind using AlphaFold to solve the protein-folding problem to each of us at our desks using generative AI — from GPT to Dall-E.”
Art Carden: “Companies like Google, Microsoft, Apple, Amazon, and OpenAI have made it so that anyone with an internet connection can access cutting-edge ideas, data, analytical tools, and the received wisdom of the ages at the click of a button. For this, they have earned many billions of dollars but also the sneering contempt of an academy and intelligentsia that hates nothing so much as success and no one as much as pretentious rabble who confuse their Google search with our academic credentials, accolades, and authority. I remain an optimist, though. Tools like search engines and now AI have laid the groundwork for revolutionary changes in the Great Conversation. Every new connection adds a new voice to the conversation. It gives the person with that voice access to research resources and a knowledge base that would have been unthinkable at the world’s greatest universities even a few short decades ago. As the kids say, I’m here for it.”
Gulzar: “It’s clear that the corporates used the pandemic to cut manpower costs, increase automation, deleverage, and fortify their financial position, and are reaping its benefits in the form of high margins and record profits. But this cannot go on without commensurate topline growth, which is of course dependent on consumer demand. Be that as it may, the record surpluses are a great opportunity for corporates to invest in innovation and R&D, the foundation for future growth and increasing global competitiveness, which are also the traditional weakness of India’s private companies. Given the very promising long-term economic prospects of the country and the 6-8% GDP growth rates in recent years, it’s short-sighted on the part of corporations to pull back on investments on grounds of demand weakness.”
