2024 is set to be a busy year for the UK, with Donald Trump being re-elected as President of the United States, interest rates slightly declining, and geopolitical tensions intensifying. As the new year approaches, Bloomberg News has interviewed several CEOs in the UK to discuss their outlook for 2025. These CEOs come from various industries, including finance, construction, and energy, sharing their insights on key themes for the coming years. Image source note: The image is AI-generated, with licensing provided by Midjourney.

In the latest earnings call on December 20, 2024, Accenture announced that its orders for Generative AI reached a record $1.2 billion. This brings the company's total sales in Generative AI to $4.2 billion since September 2023, marking a new quarterly sales high in the field, reflecting the growing investment from clients in Generative AI. Image source note: Image generated by AI, licensed from Midjourney.

In a recent round of financing, Silicon Valley startup Perplexity reached a valuation of $9 billion, tripling its previous valuation. The funding amount was $500 million, marking Perplexity's rapid development in the artificial intelligence search engine sector and strong investor interest. Established in 2020, the company focuses on developing AI-based search engines aimed at enhancing user search experiences. Its technology enables users to obtain information more efficiently, especially in

With the surge in demand for artificial intelligence and large-scale data processing, data centers, as the infrastructure for these operations, are having an increasingly negative environmental impact. A recent research report delves into the environmental and regulatory issues associated with AI data centers, highlighting the urgent need for improvements in the current policy framework to address the growing consumption of energy and water resources. Image source note: The image is generated by AI and licensed through the service provider Midjourney. The research report emphasizes significant gaps in the current approaches of the EU and the US in this field, calling for countries to develop more robust regulations.

Recently, U.S. presidential candidate Donald Trump, alongside SoftBank Group CEO Masayoshi Son at his Mar-a-Lago resort in Florida, announced a plan for SoftBank to invest $100 billion in U.S. projects over the next four years. This major investment is expected to focus on the development of artificial intelligence. Image source note: The image was generated by AI, with licensing provided by Midjourney. During the announcement, Trump stated that SoftBank's investment reflects tremendous confidence in America's future. He mentioned that since his election, many have expressed hopes to invest in...

Recently, Anthropic hired a researcher specifically focused on 'welfare'—Kyle Fish—a move that has sparked widespread discussion. Fish's goal is to explore how certain technological systems should be accorded respect and to examine whether these systems should have moral consideration and how to protect their 'interests.' This issue has attracted the attention of many experts, involving the definition of consciousness and agency in technological systems, and whether they should possess some form of rights. Image source note: Image generated by AI.

On December 16, 2024, MidJourney announced an exciting new feature - 'Moodboards', a collection of images inspired by Pinterest. This feature allows users to upload a carefully curated selection of images to serve as inspiration for generating new artworks. By analyzing the uploaded images, MidJourney's latest AI model (version 6.1) can adapt to diverse and complex visual elements, creating unique outputs.

According to the latest report released by Goldman Sachs, as of the fourth quarter of 2024, only 6.1% of U.S. companies have integrated Artificial Intelligence (AI) technology into their operations, slightly up from 5.9% in the previous quarter. This data reflects that despite the huge potential of AI technology, its actual application in U.S. companies is still progressing slowly. Image source note: The image is generated by AI, with image licensing provided by Midjourney.

In recent years, the number of readers in the United States has been gradually decreasing. According to data from the 2024 National Book Survey, nearly half (48.5%) of respondents did not read a single book in the past year, and less than one-third read for entertainment. Noted business author Seth Godin stated in a video call that this phenomenon is primarily due to people's excessive obsession with internet connectivity. Note: The image is generated by AI and provided by image licensing service provider Midjourney. Godin pointed out that people are reading books...

According to Southern Metropolis Daily, a recent typical case announced by the Cybersecurity Bureau of the Ministry of Public Security reveals a concerning new model of online misinformation. The public security authorities in Guangzhou, Guangdong, successfully cracked a criminal gang that used artificial intelligence tools to produce false information on a large scale, arresting 6 criminal suspects. The gang aimed to earn traffic revenue from online platforms and employed meticulously planned criminal tactics: recruiting part-time workers to register social media accounts, using AI tools to quickly rewrite popular articles, and batch publishing false information. Statistics show that the gang has published more than 500,000 pieces of traffic-driving graphic information.

Midjourney is a popular AI image generation startup with over 21 million Discord users. Recently, the company announced the launch of a new world-building tool called 'Patchwork', marking their expansion from image creation into the realm of more complex creative collaboration. 'Patchwork' was showcased live in Midjourney's Discord channel, where users need to connect their Midjourney Discord accounts.