Apple could be the first publicly traded company to be worth $1 trillion, tech leaders sign a pledge to not develop lethal AI weapon systems, and Apple’s new i9 Macbook Pro is really, really hot.
First up from LinkedIn, Apple is officially the front runner to become the first publicly traded company valued at $1 trillion US dollars. The tech giant’s value hovers just under $940 billion, but its closest competitor isn’t far behind. Amazon’s valuation jumped over $900 billion on Wednesday after its most successful Prime Day ever, which reportedly saw more than 100 million products sold worldwide and brought in more than $3 billion in revenue in just 36 hours. Apple replaced Exxon Mobil in late 2011 as the US company with the largest stock market value, and has seen its shares rise 12 per cent in 2018 so far.
Next up from Reddit, tech leaders around the world have signed a pledge promising not to develop lethal autonomous weapons. The pledge warns that weapon systems that use AI to select and engage targets without human intervention are moral and pragmatic threats. Notable signatories include SpaceX and Tesla CEO Elon Musk, the three cofounders of Google’s AI subsidiary, Skype founder Jaan Tallinn, and some of the world’s most respected and prominent AI researchers. They all say the decision to take a human life should never be delegated to a machine and that the spread of such weaponry would be dangerously destabilizing for every country and individual. You can read the full text of the pledge online.
And last but not least from Reddit again, apparently Apple’s latest 15 inch Macbook Pro is burning up – literally. On paper, the laptop is a monster that boasts a new i9 Intel processor upgrade option that has a base clock speed of 2.9 gigahertz. However, new reviews online have found that the i9 throttles the CPU’s processing speed significantly when using intense programs like Adobe Premiere. One YouTuber even found that the device can only hold the i9’s base clock speed for a few seconds before it’s throttled down to 2.2 gigahertz to prevent overheating. While all CPUs run hot when they’re performing intensive tasks and they all slow themselves down to prevent damage, this seems to be caused by bad engineering. The verdict seems to be that the new Macbook Pro’s fans can’t cool the i9 properly, with some even saying that this powerful of a CPU belongs in a 2 inch thick gaming laptop, not a sleek Apple product. And with Apple publicly admitting to throttling old iPhone batteries last year, trust in the company is wearing thin.