Another week in the bag, FutureParty fam. Here’s something cool: thanks to the rise of remote work, more disabled Americans are employed than ever before. Data from the Center for Employment and Disability Research shows that there’s been an almost 9% increase in the hiring of disabled Americans, with 12.6% of those employees now working fully from home. There’s still plenty of room for hiring growth, but that’s a great start in the post-COVID world.

In other news… OpenAI’s co-founder starts a new safety-first AI company, McDonald’s AI drive-thrus get chaotic, and Sundance may move to Colorado.

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• YouTube – The Front Room

• X (Twitter) – Peso Pluma 

• Google – Donald Sutherland

• Reddit – Kendrick Lamar

• TikTok – “Not My Problem” - Laila!

• Spotify – “Look up!!” - James Vincent McMorrow 

.ARTIFICIAL INTELLIGENCE.

OpenAI’s ousted co-founder starts safety-focused AI firm

The Future. Ilya Sutskever, the AI legend who helped attract the best talent to OpenAI, has finally revealed his next endeavor — a startup focused on creating an AI system more intelligent than humans with safety as its top priority. While the idea of artificial superintelligence is still only a theory, Sutskever’s startup (if well-funded for decades) could end up building the most beneficial or most dangerous technology of the modern era.

Secret safety
After instigating the firing of Sam Altman as CEO of OpenAI, then helping bring him back, then going silent for months, and then quietly leaving the company, Silicon Valley’s question of “Where’s Ilya?” has finally been answered.

• Sutskever has founded Safe Superintelligence Inc. with Daniel Gross (a major AI investor and former head of Apple’s AI division) and Daniel Levy (a lieutenant of Sutskever at OpenAI).

• The company won’t have any flashy products or other forms of revenue; therefore, there’s no reason to really compete with the likes of the constantly-accelerating OpenAI and Google. It’s essentially just a research organization.

• The startup hasn’t disclosed its backers or how much money it’s raised, but it’ll have offices in Palo Alto, California, and Tel Aviv, Israel.

Safe Superintelligence, which has a vision similar to the original iteration of OpenAI, has a major hurdle to overcome: defining what makes an all-powerful AI system safe. Sutskever likens his definition of safety to be closer to “nuclear safety” as opposed to the typical tech meaning behind “trust and safety.”

Additionally, Sutskever says that the model must not harm humanity on a large scale and will need to be trained on “maybe the values that have been so successful in the past few hundred years that underpin liberal democracies, like liberty, democracy, freedom.”

You know, the basics.

63.9% of you voted Yes in yesterday’s poll: Are you worried about the heat this summer?

“Higher electricity costs are concerning.”

“The weather is getting hotter and affects my garden and the temperature of the water in a small koi pond. Trying to keep the water and fish cool may be a struggle.”

“I grew up in South Georgia, worked mostly outdoor jobs, and have been a runner for over 40 years. I still live in Hot ‘lanta, and my superpower is doing well in heat!”

.A WORD FROM OUR FRIENDS AT AUGIE.

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Media, Music, & Entertainment

• Sundance plans to announce three finalists for the new home of its annual film festival next month, and a surprising frontrunner has emerged: Boulder, Colorado. [Read More]

• Universal Studios Orlando showed off details from one of its new worlds that will be part of its Epic Universe expansion: the classic monsters-themed Dark Universe. [Read More]

• The Daily Show with Jon Stewart plans to go live at both the Republican and Democratic Conventions. [Read More]

Fashion & E-Commerce

• Apple has quietly become a leader in financial services as Apple Pay has become the most popular digital wallet in the world. [Read More]

• Target is piloting a new AI tool for employees called the “Store Companion chatbot” that helps workers with questions regarding company processes and policies. [Read More]

• Business of Fashion has a great roundup of the skills most in demand in the fashion industry right now, which includes several “soft skills.” [Read More]

Tech, Web3, & AI

• An investigation by Wired found that hot AI-search startup Perplexity routinely steals content without attribution and also makes things up. [Read More]

• YouTube is rolling out tools that will allow music labels to take down visual and audio deepfakes of their artists. [Read More]

• A CloudArmy survey found that adults prefer EVs to sound like normal gas-powered cars than any artificial “tonal” sounds currently available. [Read More]

Creator Economy

• MrBeast looks to be launching a beverage brand and a mobile game sometime next year, per some disclosures in an ongoing lawsuit with MrBeast Burger partner, Virtual Dining Concepts. [Read More]

• TikTok is quietly releasing a new Instagram competitor called Whee… but it’s not in the US yet. [Read More]

• Instagram is now allowing users to livestream exclusively to their Close Friends list. [Read More]

.ARTIFICIAL INTELLIGENCE.

McDonald’s fires its AI drive-thrus

The Future. McDonald’s is pausing its AI drive-thrus after they went viral for showing their incompetence at doing their one task: getting orders right. As McDonald’s and other fast-food chains still hope to make AI ordering a thing, expect the next iteration to have a human overlord to ensure quality control.

Menu meltdown
Humans have officially beaten the machines… at least at Mickey D’s.

• The fast food chain admitted that it’s getting rid of its IBM-powered AI ordering system, which was being tested at roughly 100 restaurant drive-thrus by July 26th.

• Why? Because it was slowing down operations and ringing up insane orders, including a handful of butter, hundreds of nuggets, and ice cream topped with a whole lot of bacon.

• So, the chain is bringing back humans to do what AI apparently can’t in a loud, chaotic drive-thru: listen to orders correctly.

McDonald’s plans to reintroduce voice-ordering after some updates later this year, especially as the fast-food AI race is in full swing. Wendy’s, Taco Bell, and Dunkin’ Donuts have all implemented the tech at some point.

Wendy’s, for example, uses AI to switch featured menu items or adjust prices based on the weather. Want a frosty on a hot summer day? Expect AI to make you pay an extra dollar.

• Listen: The Town chats with Scott Galloway, a professor of marketing at NYU, about what Hollywood has gotten wrong about implementing new technologies.

• Read: The Guardian digs into how FAST service Tubi has become a hit by replicating the video-store model — a cool place to find a lot of diverse films and shows.

• Learn: José Andrés, the founder of World Kitchen, hosts a three-part series on Masterclass about the power food has in connecting people.

There are simply too many software updates these days.

LATEST PODCAST EPISODE

Today, on an extra special bonus episode of Future Forecast, our hosts Boye and Chris sit down with Larry Fitzgibbon, the co-founder and CEO of Tastemade. Tastemade is an independent media company that creates award-winning video content and original programming in the food, travel, and home & design space.