#government-subsidies

#government-subsidies

Government officials in Hangzhou have grand ambitions to make their city in eastern China a global center for artificial intelligence-and the funds to try to make it happen. In June, they pledged $140 million to subsidize AI firms that operate in town. Not to be outdone, Shanghai promptly followed in July with its own $140 million subsidy program, and inaugurated an "AI innovation town" two months later with low-cost office space for start-ups in the sector.

Millions of Americans are facing a huge increase in the amount they have to pay for health insurance. A dispute about government subsides for healthcare was one of the major issues that led to a 43-day shutdown of the US government last year the longest in history. But even when the shutdown ended, Republicans and Democrats failed to agree on and extension of the the subsidies.

OpenAI, which is behind ChatGPT and the video generator Sora, was founded in 2015 as a nonprofit that claimed to have ambitions to protect humanity from the potential harms of generative AI. Last month, the company wrapped up a long-awaited restructure that that turned it into a for-profit entity valued at $500 billion, despite the fact that its products have yet to yield significant revenue streams (which explains why ChatGPT can now be used as a sexbot).