Bill Gates

Elon Musk reaffirms AI’s potential to destroy civilization

Speaking about artificial intelligence’s potential for civilizational destruction, Musk said, “Anyone who thinks this risk is 0% is an idiot.”

While tech giants worldwide work on materializing the idea of having a generative artificial intelligence (AI) to aid humans in their daily lives, some believe the risk of the nascent technology going rogue remains imminent. Considering this possibility, Tesla and Twitter chief Elon Musk reminded people of AI’s potential to destroy civilization.

On March 15, Musk’s plan to create a new AI startup surfaced after the entrepreneur reportedly assembled a team of AI researchers and engineers. However, Musk continues to highlight the destructive potential of AI — just like any other technology — if it falls into the wrong hands or is developed with ill intentions.

According to Musk, AI can be dangerous. In a FOX interview, he said AI could be more dangerous than mismanaged aircraft design or production maintenance, for example. While acknowledging the low probability, he stated:

“However small one may regard that probability, but it is non-trivial — it has the potential of civilizational destruction.”

As Crypto Twitter picked up on the discussion, Musk followed up with strong support for his statement:

“Anyone who thinks this risk is 0% is an idiot.”

On the other hand, tech entrepreneurs like Bill Gates remain more optimistic about AI and the positive impacts it can bring to humanity.

Related: Elon Musk reportedly buys thousands of GPUs for Twitter AI project

On April 13, Amazon became the latest tech giant to join the race of creating AI services. Amazon Bedrock allows users to build and scale generative AI apps.

According to a blog post announcing the service, Bedrock allows users to “privately customize foundation models with their own data, and easily integrate and deploy them into their applications.”

A Fool’s Game: Bill Gates criticizes the intangible value of NFTs

Speaking at a conference on climate change, Gates affirmed his apprehension about the asset class, stating that it is “100% based on greater fool theory.”

Tech billionaire, and currently the world’s fourth-richest person, Bill Gates, spoke at the TechCrunch Climate Change conference Tuesday about the progress society has made in supporting the climate movement, his assessment of current global economics, alongside his skepticism of nonfungible tokens (NFTs). 

The NFT market has closely correlated the tumultuous financial decline of cryptocurrencies over the past few months, as previously sought-after collections resort in the vicinity of 60%–80% reductions in value. As a result, cynical attitudes have emerged to dominate the industry narrative.

In his interview, Gates singled out the market’s most popular collection, Bored Ape Yacht Club, sarcastically stating, “Obviously, expensive digital images of monkeys are going to improve the world immensely,” adding, “We all agree on that.” 

“I’m used to asset classes where like a farm they have output, or a company where they make products. Having an asset class that’s 100% based on […] greater fool theory that somebody is going to pay more [for] […] it than I do — and where it has at its heart this sort of anonymity that you avoid taxation or any sort of government rules about kidnapping fees or things […] I’m not involved in that. I’m not long or short, or any of those things.” 

In financial terms, the greater fool theory refers to the inflated valuation of assets — whether that be stocks, real estate or indeed NFTs — distributed between the hands of foolish willing participants. 

Microsoft’s inaugural affiliation with NFTs came while Gates occupied a seat on the board in December 2019 with the launch of Azure Heroes, an Ethereum-based digital collectible on the Azure cloud platform designed to promote and reward inclusive behaviors between developers. 

The beaver avatars ascend in rarity level determined by the difficulty of attainment, with the learner being the entry-level asset, and the prized possessions being the Mentor and Maker Badgers. 

Just over two years later, Microsoft released “Azure Space Mystery” a digital game in partnership with Enjin and interoperable with Minecraft that educates players on prominent female scientists throughout history. 

Related: Xbox head Phil Spencer is skeptical about NFTs in video games

As for Gates, he has consistently advocated for cryptocurrency investors to adopt cautious discretion when investing in the market, most recently in February declaring that “I do think people get drawn into these manias who may not have as much money to spare,” and that “I’m not bullish on Bitcoin”.

Nifty News: Lacoste’s luxury DAO, Bill Gates slams Bored Apes and more…

Bill Gates has slammed “expensive digital images of monkeys” while an NFT trader made a 921.12 ETH profit on a BAYC NFT overnight.

Lacoste launches NFTs and DAO

Accessible luxury brand Lacoste has launched an NFT project named “Undw3” that includes a new decentralized autonomous organization (DAO) that will offer token holders voting power on certain products and business partnerships.

There are 11,212 NFTs in total — in a nod to the firm’s popular polo shirt L1212 — that were sold for a mint price of 0.08 Ether (ETH) or roughly $96 a pop yesterday.

The NFTs depict an animated alligator that pokes the top of its head out from underwater, and the collectibles appear to have had reasonable demand as the floor price on OpenSea has since more than doubled to 0.193 ETH ($233).

The company is yet to release the full details of its roadmap and the utility offered to NFTs hodlers, but has confirmed the DAO will enable users to participate in the “creative process” on a range of products and partnerships under the Lacoste Underwater line.

Holders will also have access to unique customization features on Lacoste’s clothing line, however it is unclear if they will have to fork out the money for the products or if they will receive a certain amount of freebies.

Lacoste also hinted via Twitter that it could be looking at Metaverse integrations as well, but noted “we can’t say more about it except: be ready ser.”

Not everyone liked the idea of performing Creational Labor.

“So in return for the purchase of your NFT you will receive my creative customization ideas for free? And I still have to purchase the customized clothing I create? Plus I have to attend meetings? Not sure how I benefit from anything here…” questioned OffKeyMagazine on Twitter.

921 ETH profit on Bored Ape

Despite the floor price of Yuga Labs’ Bored Ape Yacht Club NFT project falling to around 86 ETH this week (under $100K) investor BoredWEB3 paid an eye-watering 1,024 ETH ($1.22 million) for Ape #7537 overnight.

The trade marks a 921.12 ETH profit for seller DB1C00, or roughly $914,000 in fiat terms, as they purchased the NFT for 102.88 ETH worth 305,553 on March 22. Before that, the NFT went for a mere 40.99 ETH eight months ago.

BAYC NFT #7537: DappRadar

It is unclear what prompted someone to spend over $1 million on a single NFT amid a bear market, butthe BAYC NFT has relatively rare properties including a police motorcycle helmet (1% have this trait), Bandolier (2% have this trait) and closed eyes (7% have this trait). 

Bill Gates not convinced by tokenized apess

Microsoft co-founder and billionaire Bill Gates has slammed NFT projects as being “based on the greater-fool theory. ”

He made the comments while speaking at a climate conference in California on Tuesday hosted by TechCrunch, and in this instance he noted that he was neither long nor short the entire sector, and sarcastically stated:

“Obviously, expensive digital images of monkeys are going to improve the world immensely.”

Gates is a well-known crypto skeptic that has slammed Bitcoin (BTC) on multiple occasions, and recently in February, he warned investors that unless they have as much money as Elon Musk, they should stay away.

“I’m not bullish on Bitcoin, and my general thought would be: If you have less money than Elon, you should probably watch out,” he said.

Related: NFT ticketing may catch on faster in France after UEFA championship debacle

Colorado Governor is fundraising via NFT sales

Colorado Governor and Democrat Jared Polis launched 2,022 NFTs as part of a fundraising campaign in the lead-up to the Colorado gubernatorial election in November.

The NFTs depict Polis standing in front of a rainbow-colored mountain, a pair of hanging sneakers and his dog Gia who has red lasers firing out of her eyes. The tokens were rolled out on June 13 and are priced at $52.80 apiece.

At the time of writing there are still 1895 NFTs up for sale, and if they sell out Polis will have raised roughly $118,893 from this fundraising initiative.

Other Nifty News

OpenSea announced on Tuesday that it will be migrating to Seaport. Among many perks, the protocol says it will feature lower gas fees, the ability to make offers on entire collections, removal of new account initialization fees and more user-friendly signature options.

The Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) has reportedly launched a probe to discover how crypto exchanges and potentially NFT platforms are working to prevent insider trading.

Nifty News: Lacoste’s luxury DAO, Bill Gates slams Bored Apes and more

Bill Gates has slammed “expensive digital images of monkeys” while an NFT trader made a 921.12 ETH profit on a BAYC NFT overnight.

Lacoste launches NFTs and DAO

Accessible luxury brand Lacoste has launched a nonfungible token (NFT) project named Undw3 that includes a new decentralized autonomous organization (DAO) that will offer token holders voting power on certain products and business partnerships.

There are 11,212 NFTs in total — in a nod to the firm’s popular polo shirt L1212 — that were sold for a mint price of 0.08 Ether (ETH) or roughly $96 each on June 14.

The NFTs depict an animated alligator that pokes the top of its head out from underwater. The collectibles appear to have had reasonable demand, as the floor price on OpenSea has since more than doubled to 0.193 ETH, or $233 at the time of writing.

The company has yet to release the full details of its roadmap and the utility offered to NFTs hodlers but has confirmed that the DAO will enable users to participate in the “creative process” on a range of products and partnerships under the Lacoste Underwater line.

Holders will also have access to unique customization features on Lacoste’s clothing line. However, it is unclear if they will have to fork out the money for the products or if they will receive a certain amount of freebies.

Lacoste also hinted via Twitter that it could be looking at metaverse integrations as well, but noted “we can’t say more about it except: be ready ser.”

Not everyone liked the idea of performing Creational Labor.

“So in return for the purchase of your NFT you will receive my creative customization ideas for free? And I still have to purchase the customized clothing I create? Plus I have to attend meetings? Not sure how I benefit from anything here…” questioned OffKeyMagazine on Twitter.

921 ETH profit on Bored Ape

Despite the floor price of Yuga Labs’ Bored Ape Yacht Club NFT project falling to around 86 ETH this week, or under $100,000, investor BoredWEB3 paid an eye-watering 1,024 ETH, $1.22 million at the time of writing, for Ape #7537 on June 15.

The trade marks a 921.12 ETH profit for seller DB1C00, or roughly $914,000, as they purchased the NFT for 102.88 ETH worth 305,553 on March 22. Before that, the NFT went for a mere 40.99 ETH eight months ago.

BAYC NFT #7537: DappRadar

It is unclear what prompted someone to spend over $1 million on a single NFT amid a bear market. Still, the BAYC NFT has relatively rare properties including a police motorcycle helmet (1% have this trait), Bandolier (2% have this trait) and closed eyes (7% have this trait). 

Bill Gates not convinced by tokenized apes

Microsoft co-founder and billionaire Bill Gates has slammed NFT projects as being “based on the greater-fool theory. ”

He made the comments while speaking at a climate conference in California on Tuesday hosted by TechCrunch. In this instance, he noted that he was neither long nor short the entire sector and sarcastically stated:

“Obviously, expensive digital images of monkeys are going to improve the world immensely.”

Gates is a well-known crypto skeptic that has slammed Bitcoin (BTC) on multiple occasions, and recently in February, he warned investors that unless they have as much money as Elon Musk, they should stay away.

“I’m not bullish on Bitcoin, and my general thought would be: If you have less money than Elon, you should probably watch out,” he said.

Related: NFT ticketing may catch on faster in France after UEFA championship debacle

Colorado Governor is fundraising via NFT sales

Colorado Governor Jared Polis launched 2,022 NFTs as part of a fundraising campaign in the lead-up to the Colorado gubernatorial election in November.

The NFTs depict Polis standing in front of a rainbow-colored mountain, a pair of hanging sneakers and his dog Gia who has red lasers firing out of her eyes. The tokens were rolled out on Monday and are priced at $52.80 apiece.

At the time of writing, there are still 1895 NFTs up for sale, and if they sell out, Polis will have raised roughly $118,893 from this fundraising initiative.

Other Nifty News

OpenSea announced on Tuesday that it will be migrating to Seaport. Among many perks, the protocol says it will feature lower gas fees, the ability to make offers on entire collections, removal of new account initialization fees and more user-friendly signature options.

The United States Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) has reportedly launched a probe to discover how crypto exchanges and potentially NFT platforms are working to prevent insider trading.