When it comes to artificial intelligence, Los Angeles is emerging as one of the top "early adopter" cities in the nation. That's the conclusion of a new Brookings Institute report that also found that a quarter to a third of all AI activity in the U.S. is concentrated in San Francisco and San Jose.
🧬 Immunity Bio, a Culver City-based immunotherapy company, has appointed Helen Luu as its first chief commercial officer.
📃 California legislators plan to vote next week on a bill aimed at limiting productivity algorithms' use at fulfillment centers.
🖼 Hollywood's Dream Hotel has opened the city's first NFT gallery to the public.
📱 TikTok users are now spending more time watching content than those on YouTube each month.
💵 Los Angeles-based fintech startup A.ID has raised a pre-seed investment round of $500,000.
📡 SpaceX is trying to catch up with demand for its Starlink dishes as it pumps out about 5,000 each week.
Why It Matters Who Uses AI
As more and more industries adopt AI technology, bias encoded into artificial intelligence applications has been a problem. A new report finds that expansion of AI's use in 'early adopter' cities like L.A. might help mitigate the problem.
"A diverse, broadly distributed industry will likely develop fairer, more ethical products if it's developed in more places, and not just in the homogeneous Bay Area environment," said Mark Muro, senior fellow for the Metropolitan Policy Program at Brookings. "The homogeneity of the Bay Area AI development community is a problem. Having more research and adoption conducted in more places, and in cities with greater diversity, will be important. "
Big Tech Workers Overwhelmingly Back Newsom
Campaign finance data shows that workers at big tech companies have overwhelmingly backed Gov. Gavin Newsom over his opponents in the upcoming California recall election.
Gov. Newsom's Stop the Republican Recall committee has received 448 individual monetary contributions this year from workers at Apple, Microsoft, Alphabet, Amazon, Facebook and Tesla, totaling $49,491, according to the data. In contrast, committees supporting leading Republican candidate Larry Elder have received about a tenth as many individual contributions.
Sweetgreen CEO Walks Back COVID Post
In a new LinkedIn post, Sweetgreen co-founder and CEO Jonathan Neman walked back his earlier comments on the coronavirus a week after he proclaimed, without evidence, that "no vaccine nor mask will save us" from the pandemic.
"My intention was not to be discriminatory or to discount the importance of getting vaccinated and wearing masks to combat COVID-19," he said in his new post. "Wearing masks and getting vaccinated works to protect against COVID-19. Full stop."
Meet The New App for Music Creators
A former TikTok employee has launched a new app called Mayk.it to let other TikTok creators and amateur musicians create tunes for their audience. On Tuesday, the Los Angeles-based company — which has the backing of hip hop singer and producer T-Pain — said it raised $4 million in a round of seed funding.