[Weekly Podcast] What are the 9 key features of AI development in 2020?

HAI has released the 2021 edition of the AI Index, which summarizes a vast amount of research data on AI every year. This report analyzes from a number of perspectives, including the impact of Corona 19, which was a trend in 2020, on AI development.

This report summarizes the key features of AI development in 2020. First, investment in the AI field for drug development has increased significantly. Second, the industry is continuing to change. The third is that AI creates everything, and the next points out that AI has diversity as a challenge. The following pointed out that China has overtaken the United States in AI thesis citations, and that most of the doctoral students in the United States’ AI-related courses are from overseas and have been staying in the United States after graduation. Seventh, surveillance technology becomes increasingly ubiquitous as it becomes faster and cheaper. Eighth, I heard that AI ethics lacks benchmarking or consensus, and finally, I heard that AI is getting the attention of the US Congress.

Next news. The number of Disney Plus members, a video streaming service that handles popular works such as Disney, Pixar, Marvel, and Star Wars, has exceeded 100 million.

Launched on November 12, 2019, Disney Plus has surpassed 10 million paid members on the first day of service. It was also revealed that the number of paid members reached 94.9 million on January 2, 2021, as the number of members increased smoothly due to the increase in demand due to the Corona 19 epidemic. Then, at the annual shareholders’ meeting held on March 9, 2021, CEO Bob Chapek revealed that the number of paid Disney Plus members continued to increase and eventually exceeded 100 million. This is the result of one and a half years from the start of service.

Next, a mobile security service company, Jimperium, found that 18,000 of iOS and Android apps that use external cloud services are at risk of leaking personal information such as phone numbers and addresses. It is explained that the cause is that app developers are lazy to follow cloud service guidelines.

As a result of a survey of more than 1.3 million apps by Jimperium, 131,000 apps use cloud services rather than their own servers, of which 14%, or 18,485 apps, have an application setting error, such as user personal information, password, or medical information. It was confirmed that it is in a state that can be easily accessed. By allowing access to personal information through cloud services, the app ranges from music to games, some of which have millions of users.

The 2020 sound recording sales, announced by the U.S. RIAA, reached $12.2 billion, an increase of 9.2% year-on-year, perhaps due to the increase in the number of people listening to music at home due to Corona 19. Among them, the revenue of music streaming companies such as Spotify and Apple Music rose 14.6% to $7 billion. It has continued to lead the sales of physical media such as CDs and downloads since 2018.

The number of subscribers per year increased from 60.4 million in 2019 to 75.5 million in 2020, the largest increase in subscriber growth. In addition, Facebook, which has signed a new comprehensive license agreement, seems to have supported the increase in revenue.

Bill Gates said it wasn’t good for the climate, citing that bitcoin mining requires tremendous power. He newly said that Bitcoin is not very good in the climate because it requires more power per transaction than any other method known to mankind. This mining, as Gates mentioned, requires tremendous power. Not only does the computation itself require power, but high-performance computing devices require a cooling system, so power consumption increases as a synergy effect. Thank you.