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Blade Runner wasn’t that far off after all

In November 2022, the release of an artificial intelligence (AI) online chatting program named ChatGPT shocked the world. This program is so “smart” that it delivers frighteningly human-like responses and seems to have very few flaws compared to previous versions. Not only do people treat it as a conversation companion, but they have also started to use this AI technology for a variety of tasks, such as completing homework, creating stunning images, writing poems, etc.

Using ChatGPT is like accessing a supercomputer’s brain, making this technology intriguing and exciting but also a bit scary and threatening. In 2014, Elon Musk warned that with AI, “we are summoning the demon,” but this threat could only become real when AI like ChatGPT could generate responses to questions that are indistinguishable from how a human would respond. This technology is so powerful that there now exists a widespread concern that the landscape of many industries will be transmuted by this advancement, including academia and health care.

Jobs that usually require a human touch, such as those in the fields of journalism and the service industry, are facing replacement and automation. We have long thought that the art of language stands at the pinnacle of human wisdom, yet AI is knocking right at its doorstep. It is challenging our uniqueness and intruding upon our lives.

AI Is Now Extremely Advanced and Capable

ChatGPT can basically chat about anything you want. From analyzing code for you to writing full-on essays and poems, this free online program describes itself as a computer program designed to “understand and respond to natural language inputs,” such as text conversations.

ChatGPT stands for Chat Generative Pre-trained Transformer. The program is based on a set of technologies developed and used in programs that generate user-friendly responses. AI is something that needs to be taught how to think and respond using technology that functions like neural networks. This process involves feeding the AI mountains of information before it can process it, adapt, learn, create, and become intelligent.

ChatGPT uses the latest edition of GPT and is capable of generating a large amount of human-like text based on minimal input. It already processed an unimaginably large amount of data that enabled it to learn what to return to the user when asked a question. For example, if you asked ChatGPT to write you a poem, it would generate something like this:

“Beneath the starry sky so bright,

With gentle breeze and silver light,

I stand and gaze into the night,

And let my thoughts take flight.

The moon and stars above me shine,

Guiding me through the dark divine,

Reminding me of love and time,

And all the beauty that is mine.

The world is vast, yet small and grand,

A mystery waiting to be scanned,

With secrets hidden in the sand,

And stories waiting to be canned.

So let me stand beneath the stars,

And let my soul and spirit soar,

For in this beauty, free from bars,

I find my heart forevermore.”

Isn’t this poem impressive? With the tremendous volume of data feeding ChatGPT, it can process our poems, analyze them, and produce a new poem in seconds. And the result could be different each time, even if you write the same command for it.

ChatGPT can also do the same with essays, entire chunks of code, and much more. It can have a casual conversation with you and knows how to adjust its jargon to even explain quantum computing in a way seventh graders can understand it.

It is understandable why many are instantly attracted to the program, as it can seemingly solve many issues and offers a significant shortcut for completing tasks. The chat is free and works extremely well; what could go wrong with this technology, except for being a teacher’s nightmare?

ChatGPT Can’t Be Held Accountable for Its Work

Recently, scientists have tested the limitations of ChatGPT and instructed it to write components of research articles that were later published in distinguished scientific journals like Nature. After the news broke that an AI was able to write research papers, it became the epicenter of a hot debate still shaking the community today.

Pro-AI arguments see technology like ChatGPT as the next step in human advancement. It would make even science more efficient, reduce human labor, and make life easier.

The other side of the argument is that there is no way to hold artificial intelligence accountable for its work. If the program reaches the wrong conclusions or its algorithms aren’t mature enough, how can the program take responsibility for it?

The accountability issue is not just about when things go wrong. The use of AI-generated text without proper citation “could be considered plagiarism,” says Holden Thorp, editor-in-chief of the family of Science journals. For that reason, a few articles have already been published with ChatGPT listed as one of the authors, while publishers are hastening the push for regulation.

In fact, after papers were published in Nature with ChatGPT as a co-author, the editors-in-chief for Nature and Science concluded that “ChatGPT doesn’t meet the standard for authorship” because such a title carries accountability and liability to it, something out of the question for AI.

However, the core issue behind the authorship dispute is that journal editors are no longer certain about how much or to what extent the article was generated by ChatGPT. Scientific experiments likely still require studies conducted by humans. But authors of review articles that attribute ChatGPT likely did so because it played a significant role in the writing process.

Some biomedical researchers have used ChatGPT to conduct drug development research and have been able to identify potential drug chemicals that were missed in the past. With the help of AI, a new age of explosive advancements in the biomedical field is sure to be ushered in.

However, how will researchers know when AI data become misleading? Will anyone dare to challenge the algorithms behind this data? These are not the only questions we face today, because AI seems to also be taking over health care, either functioning as a robot or through an app.

Artificial Intelligence Should Not Replace Health Care Workers

Some clinics have been exploring the usage of ChatGPT to conduct patient consultations. Mental health clinics even obtained better performance outcomes when they adopted ChatGPT to take over consultations with their patients, with many patients not even realizing that they were talking to a robot.

AI could become the next nurse or physician’s assistant that helps you recover after an accident, or that performs the key incisions on your next operation. The future of health care could transform rapidly, as people might not even have to go to the doctor’s office at all with the combination of AI and telemedicine. All you have to do is open an app on your phone and talk with a chatbot, tell it about your symptoms, and it will curate a prescription for you. But there is a level of trust developed during face-to-face interactions that is missing from this AI model.

AI robots using a GPT can also be used to treat high-risk patients such as those with mental disorders or in rehab by replacing the doctor when monitoring the patients and administering treatment, conducting checkups, evaluating risks, and taking action if needed. However, the same accountability question arises when we implement AI into the medical field.

Here, the accountability question is more concerning, because who will be held accountable when the patient experiences complications from the wrong medicine or the wrong dose? You can’t blame the doctor because he was just following the AI. You can’t blame the AI because it’s a program. In the end, who will be held accountable?

For people to feel safe around AI, strict liability rules need to be imposed to restrict the freedom these things have. However, if these programs are to improve, they need to have more freedom to operate and learn. Although this appears to be a catch-22, the core issue is whether humans should let AI and robots take care of them.

With the capability of AI increasing exponentially, why are medical schools even training their students, and for what? In the future, if AI loses power or malfunctions, would licensed doctors still know how to treat patients without the help of AI? How dependent will we become on AI?

Human Beings Are Accelerating Toward a Crossroad

AI has a lot of potential and will inevitably become a part of our future. However, allowing AI to play a more significant role in medicine and health care will give it more power to influence our understanding of health and well-being. It may even allow AI to alter our bodies.

If AI becomes ubiquitous, will it make humans dumber and reduce us in all aspects? Over time, children might just talk to their chatbot tablets instead of their parents, people might forget how to alleviate symptoms of things as common as colds, and basic tasks like writing an essay might become things of the past. This will inevitably undermine humans and affect our development. When technology becomes so advanced that we can command robots with our minds, might we one day devolve into those aliens with lanky limbs and inflated heads?

When AI begins to mimic human thinking and presents human-like language, we begin to see the reality of the human brain laid bare: They are essentially machines that process information. When computers gather enough of a volume of data, they can engage a sophisticated algorithm to generate human-like thinking and response. The more people use it, the more the ChatGPT AI will be trained to become more human-like, possibly eventually becoming wiser than mankind.

So what makes us humans unique?

We have witnessed supercomputers defeat the human champions of chess and Go games.

Now, AI has arrived in the fields of which people are genuinely proud—fields that revolve around creation, emotion, human interaction, artistic expression, and so on.

This is a critical time when human beings need to think more deeply about where our wisdom comes from. Are our inspirations simply born of an accumulation of myriad data? AI and computers get their data from human input or via trawling the depths of seas of data. Do we, too, get our “original” ideas this way? Why do people get inspiration and creative ideas that seemingly have nothing to do with their prior experience and knowledge?

The threat of AI and supercomputers is not just about losing more jobs. And it goes beyond reducing human thinking capability. The fundamental threat of uncontrolled AI technology is that it cuts off human beings’ connection with our creator. Through technological advancement, human beings are constructing digital gods for people to worship. Using AI or robots to improve life may be the sweet side of this drug, but using AI to replace human thinking is the darker side.

The pressing issue here is how to safeguard our human spirituality. How do we maintain our connection to the divine? Human beings are not just flesh and bones, like how a machine is simply composed of mechanical parts.

The development of AI technologies like ChatGPT is the tipping point for a long-standing issue we’ve been facing—the (dis)connection with God and the true meaning of our human lives as we replace that connection. We’re faced with a choice: Do we keep falling into this bottomless technological pit, or should we return to a traditional way where human beings maintain their connection with the divine?

Here’s some food for thought: “How Humankind Came To Be” by Li Hongzhi.

Companies hoping to dip into the coffers of the Biden administration’s $7.5 billion EV charging initiative will have to meet a new set of requirements that even Tesla has agreed to.

The Biden administration laid out Wednesday the final standards for its plan to build a national network of 500,000 electric vehicle chargers along highways, including a requirement that all EV chargers funded through the Inflation Reduction Act must be built in the United States. Specifically, the final assembly and all manufacturing processes for any iron or steel charger enclosures or housing must occur in the United States. And by July 2024, at least 55% of the cost of all components will need to be manufactured domestically, as well.

All chargers are also required to use a standardized payment system that is smartphone-friendly and all connectors must use the “combined charging system” (CCS), which dominates in the U.S.

Tesla doesn’t use CCS in North America; its vast Supercharger network in the U.S. uses a proprietary connector that only Tesla vehicles can use. That’s going to change, at least a little bit, under an agreement reached with the Biden administration.

Tesla will open up a portion of its Supercharger and destination charger network to non-Tesla EVs. The company will make at least 7,500 chargers available for all EVs by the end of 2024, according to the White House. At least 3,500 of those will be 250 kW chargers located along highway corridors. All EV drivers will be able to access these stations using the Tesla app or website.

Notably, Tesla has agreed to more than double its supercharger network.

Tesla’s concession, which will allow it to access that $7.5 billion, comes just days after CEO Elon Musk met with White House officials. There’s been talk of Tesla opening up its EV chargers in the U.S. for years. In July 2022, a memo from the White House indicated that Tesla would open its chargers to other EVs by the end of the year.

That date came and went. Doubt was cast on whether Tesla would make the move after it shared its EV charging connector design in an effort to encourage network operators and automakers to adopt the technology and help make it the new standard in North America. It seemed, at the time, that Tesla was angling to make its technology the standard.

Tesla has opened up its Supercharger network to other non-Tesla vehicles in parts of Europe. That transition has been easier since its chargers and vehicles use the CCS standard. The transition will likely be more complicated here, although there have been reports that the company has come up with a solution called the Magic Dock to give non-Tesla vehicles access to its proprietary chargers in the U.S.

Tesla isn’t the only company to make commitments in order to access incentives in the Biden EV charging plan.

GM previously announced a partnership with Pilot Company and EVgo to build a coast-to-coast network of 2,000 high-power 350 kW fast chargers at Pilot and Flying J travel centers along U.S. highways. The companies announced Wednesday that the first 200 chargers in this network are expected to be available for use by drivers in 2023. GM is also working with Canadian EV charging company Flo to install 40,000 Level 2 units in communities across the U.S. and Canada.

Other previously announced partnerships include TravelCenters of America and Electrify America, which plan to install 1,000 EV chargers at 200 locations along major highways over the next five years, and an agreement between Mercedes-Benz, ChargePoint and MN8 Energy to install 400 charging hubs with more than 2,500 publicly accessible DC fast charging ports across the U.S. and Canada.

ChargePoint, Volvo Car and Starbucks have also announced a partnership to add 60 DC fast chargers at up to 15 locations along the 1,350-mile pilot route between Seattle and Denver to be completed by summer 2023.

Brad Pitt, Margot Robbie and more attended the SoHo bar's opening night party, held in the middle of fashion week.

It’s no small feat for a non-fashion-related establishment to throw an opening night party on one of the busiest nights of New York Fashion Week, and draw the starriest turnout of the week.

Yet Friday night inside The Mulberry it was packed wall to wall with A-listers. Inside the hidden Whisper Room, Brad Pitt, Margot Robbie, Leonardo DiCaprio and Taika Waititi mingled, while out in the main room the likes of Alexander Skarsgård, Sebastian Stan, Annabelle Wallis, BJ Novak, Tati Gabrielle, Camila Mendes, David Harbour and Paul Wesley partied.

So just what is this newcomer? The Mulberry, located in a subterranean space at 240 Mulberry Street in SoHo, is the brainchild of Phil Meynell, vice president of creative at TSX Entertainment; Leo Jacob, director of marketing for The Bowery Hotel and The Hotel Chelsea, and Justin Sievers, managing partner at Bar Primi. Together the three of them set out to open a place in New York that would be a “destination,” rather than a convenience.

“The Mulberry was born out of necessity really,” Meynell says. “There have become less and less places to go where we can take ‘notable people’ where they can feel at home, left alone and have a great time.”

The decision to open their own space was made in a single night: they saw the space, reached out to friends throughout the industry and a lease was signed the following week.

“The first thing is that we are not just a cocktail bar,” Meynell explains. “We are a safe haven for like-minded individuals located right in the middle of SoHo, heavily influenced by places like the Chiltern Firehouse with the vibe of The Beatrice mixed with Rose Bar, a hint of the Waverley and then born at the Bowery. There is a clear renaissance happening in New York City, especially in the bar and nightlife sector, and we created The Mulberry to fill a much-needed void of a scene that has been missing in New York City for a while.”

The three partners each come from different sides of New York’s scene. Sievers opened Locanda Verde at The Greenwich Hotel before turning to Bar Primi, where he is now managing partner. In addition to his roles at The Bowery Hotel and The Hotel Chelsea, Jacob is a photographer who published a book of photos called “New York is Dead? Long Live New York.” Meynell started in nightlight at the London club Trash before taking a break to tour with close friend Amy Winehouse and drum with Pete Doherty and Babyshambles. He returned to the hospitality scene and cites Ian Schrager as a mentor.

For The Mulberry, they tapped Ateljé Nordöst to handle the design and decor.

“We started with a completely raw space tucked into the heart of the Five Points area in downtown New York, which was one of the very few spots that earned a liquor license in 1895 in an era when the area was quite rough,” Meynell explains. “The intention was to stay true to the rather unique story of the space while creating a new chapter for it in a reborn New York, and also reflecting our vision and curating it into one.”

Come summer, the bar will unveil its garden, which opens up into the middle of SoHo. But for now, it’s already proven itself to be the space to be — if you can get in.

The multi-hyphenate musician’s appointment at Louis Vuitton shows the all-conquering power of celebrity

Pharrell Williams is one of the most influential music producers of the past three decades. A phenomenal singer-songwriter, he is the winner of 13 Grammy awards. As a cultural pioneer, he has straddled the worlds of fashion and music in a variety of guises, founded multiple brands and steered dozens of collaborations with what seems like seamless ease.

Williams has become central to our cultural lives, and done so with uncanny nonchalance. His forays into fashion have seen him walk the catwalk at Chanel, partner with Japanese fashion designer Nigo to create two bestselling streetwear brands, work long-term with sportswear giant Adidas and launch a skincare range called Humanrace.

Williams is not a fashion designer. But this did not preclude his being appointed this week as the new creative director of menswear for the LVMH-owned Louis Vuitton, one of the most prestigious jobs in the industry. Louis Vuitton revenues surpassed €20bn for the first time in 2022, making it by far the largest and most successful maison within the group. Most of that money is made via its sale of handbags. Clothes make up only a fragment of overall sales.

But Williams’s appointment brings with it a tacit acknowledgment from a house that has long promoted a narrative of savoir faire and craftsmanship that, when it comes to customer engagement, celebrity wins out.

Williams is by no means the first designer who lacks a basic training in pattern-cutting, or who may not have studied drape and fold. Ralph Lauren founded his business empire shilling home-made ties to retailers. Karl Lagerfeld never studied fashion. And Miuccia Prada obtained a PhD in political science and studied mime before returning to Milan to take on the family’s leather business and launch a debut fashion line.

None of these figures was a celebrity, however, and none of them had made a name in any industry before. This latest appointment seems the apex of the trend for celebrity appointments: where former chancellors of the exchequer are made the editors of newspapers, TikTok influencers are given TV shows, and social media stars helm magazines.

LVMH has some form in this tradition. In 2019, and amid much fanfare, the group launched only its second-ever start-up business when it backed Rihanna’s Fenty, a direct-to-consumer project that shuttered after two years. But it had great success with the appointment of Virgil Abloh to the role now occupied by Williams. A creative polymath and DJ, who worked with Kanye West and had a background in architecture and furniture design, Abloh was much criticised by traditionalists when he took the role in 2018. But when he died in 2021, he left a legacy strong enough for the brand to mount a full year of projects and posthumous collections with no successor in the wings.

As such, the industry reaction to the news of Williams’s new role has been warm — which is mandatory, I imagine, when his employer is the richest person in the world. And no one is saying that Williams lacks vision or creative brilliance. It simply begs the question: where do we go from here?

What of the fashion students at London’s Central Saint Martins, now finessing the details on their graduate shows? Who do they look to for inspiration, when it’s palpably obvious that experience and training will run a distant second in your employment prospects to the millions of followers you can amass? Why bother racking up student debt if you can go viral with a video? Why spend years studying design? As one designer tells me: “There’s no need for a designer in this new system.” Except that, presumably, even the biggest hype appointment still needs a silent workhorse on the team.

“My initial reaction to the news was one of ‘why do we bother?’ mixed with depression,” says Cozette McCreery, a fashion consultant and mentor for many emerging brands. “Seeing the mixed bag of incredible designers in the [initial Louis Vuitton] running gave me hope for one of them to get the huge platform and the financial break they deserved. Don’t get me wrong — Pharrell’s definitely creative. He will have the best team and I’ve no doubt that the collections will sell. I just personally find it a shame that pop celebrity is what gets you the job, not years of learning within colleges or on the job.”

Fashion is hardly the only place where celebrity is edging out experience. The influencer market now dictates every corner of the culture, from who is cast on Broadway to who gets the book deal, or signs the million-dollar brand partnership. And while Williams is by no means only an influencer, he represents an ethos where the actual job requirements are less important than the name.

If I were currently a school student considering my options, I would probably spend my student loan on a social media manager and a GoPro, rather than waste my time and effort training for a specific creative path.

Funds will fuel next stage of €38bn alternatives manager’s international expansion

France’s Tikehau Capital has secured €400mn in backing from two of the secretive founding families of beer giant Anheuser-Busch InBev to help fuel the next stage of the €38bn alternatives manager’s international expansion.

The Van Damme and Van der Straten Ponthoz families will invest the €400mn in equity in Tikehau Capital Advisors, the main shareholder in a publicly traded business spanning private debt, real assets, private equity and capital markets strategies.

The funding will come through SFI, a subsidiary of Patrinvest, a long-term investment vehicle representing the two AB InBev families, which has also combined on deals with Brazil’s 3G Capital and German conglomerate JAB Holdings.

Following the transaction, the Van Damme and Van der Straten Ponthoz families will own 9.3 per cent of Euronext-listed Tikehau Capital.

Alexandre Van Damme, the billionaire chair of Patrinvest and a key architect of AB InBev’s acquisition-fuelled growth, and another representative of the fund, Gregory d’Ursel, will join the board of Tikehau Capital Advisors.

“We built this firm by partnering with institutions and families,” Antoine Flamarion, co-founder of Tikehau, said in an interview. “Our goal is to build a global champion in the alternative investment space . . . Having the right partner will help us to grow in a successful manner.” 

Paris-based Tikehau was founded in 2004 with €4mn in assets and has emerged as one of Europe’s fastest-growing asset managers in recent years. Its two founders, Mathieu Chabran and Flamarion, formerly of Merrill Lynch and Goldman Sachs, were aged only 28 and 31 when they set it up, with vocal ambitions to build a “Blackstone of Europe”.

Tikehau, named after a Pacific coral atoll in French Polynesia, listed on Euronext Paris in 2017 through a reverse merger. Its assets have grown from €10bn at its listing to around €38bn today, with 740 employees across 14 offices.

The group has raised funds to invest in cyber technology, defence and aerospace assets and energy transition companies among other areas. It is targeting €65bn in assets under management by 2026 through organic growth.

“We’re at a critical moment in the development of the group,” said Chabran. He pointed to potential acquisition opportunities in the US and Asia, where Tikehau sees opportunities to both raise money from the large pools of savings and make investments.

The deal comes as alternative managers are grappling with higher interest rates, tighter access to loans and decreasing valuations, which the Tikehau founders said was all the more reason to go on the offensive.

“The cycle has changed,” said Flamarion. “People will start realising that the party is over.”

Tikehau Capital Advisors owns just over half of Tikehau Capital. Once the transaction is completed, Tikehau Capital Advisors will be two-thirds owned by its management and the remainder held by investors including SFI, Singapore sovereign wealth fund Temasek and Morgan Stanley Investment Management.

The firm has €3.1bn of equity on its balance sheet and uses this to invest alongside clients in each of its strategies.

Subject to shareholder approval, Maximilien de Limburg Stirum, executive chair of SFI, will become chair of Tikehau Capital’s supervisory board

Tikehau’s management and Financière Agache, a holding company controlled by France’s Arnault family, are also buying out the Peugeot family’s 6 per cent stake in Tikehau Capital Advisors.

The Peugeots, known primarily for their links to the eponymous car brand, were announced this week as among the major new investors in a deal to take Franco-British investment bank Rothschild & Co private.

SFI intends to support Tikehau “to reinforce its position as a global leader in its sector,” said Van Damme in a statement.