The power players

Would you like to be ahead of 99% of the world when it comes to AI?

That’s what I try to do every day.

My work, both as a developer and a writer, requires that I follow the latest breakthrough technologies and the people inventing that new tech.

I also keep a close eye on the politicians shaping AI policy and the deep-pocketed investors pushing the AI industry in new directions. On top of all that, I check in on the philosophers who hopefully will guide us all through this strange new world without setting off an apocalypse.

So in today’s edition, I'm outlining some of my go-to sources in the AI world that will help you stay ahead of New York Times or Bloomberg headlines.

These are the people who can help inform and shape the way you think about AI, just like the A.I. Agenda does.

The AI educators are my favorite group. They care deeply about educating the public and demystifying AI. But they do not underplay its significance.

Andrej Karpathy: Ex-AI head at Tesla and founding member of OpenAI. He’s also one of the best educators of AI there is. He is patient, optimistic and also extraordinary in simplifying very complex topics, like understanding how large-language models work.

Fei Fei Lee: A pioneer of image recognition in AI and a brilliant thinker. She has a unique perspective on the future of AI and she is also a professor at Stanford.

Andrew Ng: Founder of Coursera and DeepLearning.ai. Millions of students join his courses on his platform. You can watch him explain how AI could be used in virtually any business, even a pizza shop.

These are the AI geniuses. They're some of the greatest minds in modern AI and this trio also has slightly contradictory perspectives, which really helps to see new tech from different angles.

Yaan LaCun: One of the pioneers in the field of neural networks and the chief scientist at Meta. He is in the camp that believes we are far away from God-like artificial intelligence.

Ilya Sutskever: Co-founder of OpenAI and not the founder of Super Safe Intelligence. He is basically the reason you have ChatGPT.

Demis Hassabis: The co-founder of Google DeepMind. Besides his vast contributions to AI, he's also a child prodigy in chess. He is knighted for his contributions in AI and is also discovering drugs to love forever.

Follow the money! These Venture Capitalists and financiers hold a lot of strings and a lot of leverage. In AI, just as in journalism, it's important to follow the money and the motives of the folks with that money.

Masa Son: One of the wealthiest tycoons in the world. He writes billion-dollar checks like you pay a $20 tip. He is feared and loved and, most importantly, too big to ignore.

Peter Thiel: The contrarian tycoon and the leader of the PayPal mafia. Has probably “incubated/created” more business and money rockstars than anyone else. And he has extraordinary amounts of influence with the U.S. government.

Mark Andreessen: OG of Silicon Valley and Web 1.0. He is one of the loudest and wealthiest investors in the game.

Bred in Silicon Valley, now holed up in the nation's Capital, these are some of the newest power players in Trump’s White House.

David Sacks: Originally trained by Thiel, then became famous from the "All In Podcast" and now is the AI and crypto czar of the White House.

Sriram Krishnan: Worked under Andreessen in A16Z and now is the Senior White House Policy Advisor on Artificial Intelligence. He's another Silicon Valley veteran.

Michael Kratsios: Another protege of Thiel who is now the national science and technology advisor to the president of the United States.

These are the thinkers and philosophers who have conceptualized a lot of what could be our future with AI. If you talk about AI, you’ve probably quoted them without even realizing it.

Yuval Noah Harari: Author of “Sapiens,” and “Nexus: A Brief History of Information Networks from the Stone Age to AI.” He paints an interesting picture of our story as humanity.

Ray Kurzweil: The author of “The Singularity Is Near” and “The Singularity Is Nearer.” He has been exploring the idea of Human + AI merging for decades now.

Nick Bostrom: The author of “Superintelligence.” He’s a deep thinker and philosopher who talks about the grave dangers of AI.

The Trump administration unveiled its long-awaited AI Action Plan on Wednesday.

The plan could prove to be a bonanza for AI companies looking to build more data centers and semiconductor factories in Arizona, as well as U.S.-based computer engineers and scientists.

On the other hand, lawmakers and regulators in states like Arizona might have a harder time establishing state-level guardrails for AI.

And it was bad news for environmental advocates who are concerned about all the water and electricity needed to run data centers, including Tucson activists who oppose building nearly 300 acres of data centers on the city’s outskirts.

The 28-page plan lays out a broad framework for the future of AI, with the goal of establishing the U.S. as the industry leader.

To achieve that dominance, the Trump administration plans to streamline environmental regulations to speed up the construction of data centers and semiconductor factories, which have flourished in Arizona in recent years.

Specifically, the plan mentioned “streamlining or reducing regulations promulgated under the Clean Air Act, the Clean Water Act” and other laws.

The plan also indirectly resurrects the moratorium on state regulation that federal lawmakers floated last month, which was rejected by a 99-1 vote in the Senate.

States wouldn’t be explicitly barred from passing AI regulation. Instead, the Trump administration would limit AI-related federal funding for states with “burdensome AI regulations.” But federal officials wouldn’t punish states that pass “prudent laws that are not unduly restrictive to innovation.”

The plan also would unleash the Federal Communications Commission to crack down on state-level AI regulations.

The Trump administration also plans to protect free speech and “American values” by removing what they see as “ideological bias” from AI models.

The future is now: A so-called “factory of the future,” where AI runs the machines, is coming to Mesa, 12News’ Kevin Reagan reports. Hadrian, a company that specializes in AI-powered factories, is investing $200 million in a 270,000-square-foot facility to support the defense industry.

Stepping up the pace: After TSMC’s sales surged recently, the Taiwanese semiconductor manufacturer is speeding up its expansion in the Phoenix area, the Republic’s Sasha Hupka reports. The company just finished its second factory and broke ground on a third this spring. The plan is to build a total of six factories in the Phoenix area, along with two advanced packaging facilities and a research and development facility.

Thrilling and chilling: Comedian and all-around Renaissance Man Stephen Fry sat down with historian Yuval Noah Harari (who we mentioned as one of our reliable sources) to talk about AI. Among the many gems in their conversation was this one: “For the first time in history, we encounter a better storyteller than we are.”

Buyer beware: The data centers that power the AI industry are going to double electricity demand in Virginia, and dozens of areas across the country should expect to see similar jumps, States Newsroom reports. Those jumps are leading to rate increases not just for the companies that run the data centers, but also for residential customers.

Moving on up: The chair of the Department of Radiology at the University of Arizona is going to head a new AI-focused committee for the American College of Radiology. Dr. Frank J. Rybicki will help the committee figure out how to use AI for radiology and how to invest in the best AI tech.

This robot never rests. China’s new Walker S2 can hot‑swap its own battery and stroll back to work — 24/7 shifts are suddenly a hardware feature, not a labor violation.