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Global payments giant Visa says it will invest $1 billion by 2027 to expand its investments in Africa amidst a digital payments boom on the continent.

Visa chief Al Kelly announced this pledge on Wednesday during the U.S.-Africa Business Forum, a sub-event in the broader U.S.-Africa Leaders Summit, a three-day event where U.S. President Joe Biden invited heads of state and senior government officials from Africa to discuss several issues ranging from food security to climate change.

“Visa has been investing in Africa for several decades to grow a truly local business, and today our commitment to the continent remains as firm and unwavering as ever,” said the Visa CEO in a statement.

Continue reading “Visa to invest

Global payments giant Visa says it will invest $1 billion by 2027 to expand its investments in Africa amidst a digital payments boom on the continent.

Visa chief Al Kelly announced this pledge on Wednesday during the U.S.-Africa Business Forum, a sub-event in the broader U.S.-Africa Leaders Summit, a three-day event where U.S. President Joe Biden invited heads of state and senior government officials from Africa to discuss several issues ranging from food security to climate change.

“Visa has been investing in Africa for several decades to grow a truly local business, and today our commitment to the continent remains as firm and unwavering as ever,” said the Visa CEO in a statement.

B in Africa over the next five years” | >

Less than two weeks ago, OpenAI released ChatGPT, a powerful new chatbot that can communicate in plain English using an updated version of its AI system. While versions of GPT have been around for a while, this model has crossed a threshold: It’s genuinely useful for a wide range of tasks, from creating software to generating business ideas to writing a wedding toast. While previous generations of the system could technically do these things, the quality of the outputs was much lower than that produced by an average human. The new model is much better, often startlingly so.

Put simply: This is a very big deal.

We’re hitting a tipping point for artificial intelligence: With ChatGPT and other AI models that can communicate in plain English, write and revise text, and write code, the technology is suddenly becoming more useful to a broader population of people. This has huge implications. The ability to produce text and code on command means people are capable of producing more work, faster than ever before. Its ability to do different kinds of writing means it’s useful for many different kinds of businesses. Its capacity to respond to notes and revise its own work means there’s significant potential for hybrid human/AI work. Finally, we don’t yet know the limits of these models. All of this could mean sweeping changes for how — and what — work is done in the near future.

Page-utils class= article-utils—vertical hide-for-print data-js-target= page-utils data-id= tag: blogs.harvardbusiness.org, 2007/03/31:999.345899 data-title= ChatGPT Is a Tipping Point for AI data-url=/2022/12/chatgpt-is-a-tipping-point-for-ai data-topic= AI and machine learning data-authors= Ethan Mollick data-content-type= Digital Article data-content-image=/resources/images/article_assets/2022/12/Dec22_14_1273459694-383x215.jpg data-summary=

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It’s been just over a month since Elon Musk moved ahead with a $44 billion-dollar deal to buy Twitter and take the company private. These have been eventful weeks: Layoffs and resignations roughly halved the headcount at the company. Major changes to the service (Twitter Blue) have been rolled out only to be almost immediately rolled back, and Musk has begun to outline a new vision for what the company might become. On top of that, thousands of banned accounts have been reinstated, advertising is way down, and users have speculated about the service’s impending collapse and searched out alternatives.

Changing the strategic direction of an existing company is among the hardest management challenges out there. Most attempts fail. In trying to remake Twitter, Elon Musk has a daunting task ahead of him. There’s precedent, however, for dramatically reimagining a major tech company: Steve Jobs’ transformation of Apple after he returned to the company in 1997. And it may have important lessons for how Musk — and other leaders — can navigate the period of painful misalignment that comes with strategic change. Namely, how this period requires managers to commit to tough decisions in three areas: product, organization, and stakeholders.

Page-utils class= article-utils—vertical hide-for-print data-js-target= page-utils data-id= tag: blogs.harvardbusiness.org, 2007/03/31:999.345768 data-title= What Elon Musk Can Learn from Steve Jobs’s Return to Apple data-url=/2022/12/what-elon-musk-can-learn-from-steve-jobss-return-to-apple data-topic= Strategy data-authors= Andy Wu; Goran Calic data-content-type= Digital Article data-content-image=/resources/images/article_assets/2022/12/Dec22_13_1245242394-383x215.jpg data-summary=

Jobs pulled off a difficult — and controversial — strategic realignment, offering lessons for Musk’s attempts to transform Twitter.

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Researchers implanted 14 electrodes into the brains of volunteers with depression. One says it saved his life.

John’s life changed forever when he broke up with his girlfriend. The breakup sent him into a downward spiral, and led to his first depressive episode when he was 27 years old. “At first it’s just extreme sadness… then you start losing sleep,” says John (not his real name), who spoke on condition of anonymity. He developed crippling anxiety and experienced panic attacks and dark thoughts that eventually led him to attempt to end his own life.

Drugs didn’t work for John—he says he has tried pretty much every antidepressant, antipsychotic, and sedative out there.

Continue reading “Neuroscientists have created a mood decoder that can measure depression” | >

My avatars were cartoonishly pornified, while my male colleagues got to be astronauts, explorers, and inventors.

When I tried the new viral AI avatar app Lensa, I was hoping to get results similar to some of my colleagues at MIT Technology Review. The digital retouching app was first launched in 2018 but has recently become wildly popular thanks to the addition of Magic Avatars, an AI-powered feature which generates digital portraits of people based on their selfies.

But while Lensa generated realistic yet flattering avatars for them—think astronauts, fierce warriors, and cool cover photos for electronic music albums— I got tons of nudes.

Continue reading “The viral AI avatar app Lensa undressed me—without my consent” | >

Year 2020 face_with_colon_three

Scientists are working to end the need for human heart transplants by 2028. A team of researchers in the UK, Cambridge, and the Netherlands are developing a robot heart that can pump blood through the circulatory network but is soft and pliable. The first working model should be ready for implantation into animals within the next 3 years, and into humans within the next 8 years. The device is so promising that it is among just 4 projects that have made it to the shortlist for a £30-million prize, called the Big Beat Challenge for a therapy that can change the game in the treatment of heart disease.

The other projects include a genetic therapy for heart defects, a vaccine against heart disease, and wearable technology for early preclinical detection of heart attacks and strokes.

The need

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Japan sold a fully-functional robot suit that doesn’t just resemble a combat mech from a video game, it was able to actually fight like one too. With video games like “Armored Core,” mech fans already have a good idea of what giant fighting robots would be like in real life. One such fan is Kogoro Kurata –- an artist who wasn’t satisfied with leaving that notion to the imagination. Kurata explained that driving these giant robots was his dream, saying it was something the “Japanese had to do” (via Reuters). Unlike some of the coolest modern robots available today, Kurata envisioned a full-sized mech he can actually enter and operate: Something he actually accomplished in 2012.

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