Insight: Issue 138 | Thurs 01 June

El Scorchio Events News Forecast

Ooft it’s a hot one innit? But not as hot as this upcoming bundle of pure hellfire we call this week’s events news roundup.

On the sunny horizon we have: Glasgow named as host of the 92nd Interpol General Assembly; The Podcast Show organisers plan to expand overseas; Microsoft’s Ilya Bukshteyn: ‘The future is multi-camera’; Your next job may depend on how well you understand AI tools like ChatGPT; and on the contrary – AI poses ‘extinction’ risk comparable to nuclear war, CEOs of OpenAI, DeepMind, and Anthropic say; and, 3 reasons why ‘Succession’ tech bro Lukas Matsson is Elon Musk crossed with Daniel Ek.

Glasgow named as host of the 92nd Interpol General Assembly

The Scottish Event Campus (SEC) has announced it will host the 92nd Interpol General Assembly (GA), taking place 4-7 November 2024.

The SEC announcement took place during IMEX, Frankfurt. The event will bring together over 1,000 senior delegates, including heads of police, ministers, senior government officials and Interpol senior leadership, from across 195 member countries.

Aileen Crawford, head of tourism and conventions, Glasgow Convention Bureau, added: “Glasgow once again takes centre stage for another crucial international conference. As host city we’re looking forward to making the international delegation welcome, and to supporting all stakeholders in delivering a world-class event.”

The Podcast Show organisers plan to expand overseas

Event organiser SME London managing director Tim Etchells said there are plans to expand The Podcast Show London into locations such as Sydney, New York and Berlin.

Speaking to Mash Media during day one of the show at the Business Design Centre (BDC), in Islington, London, Etchells said there are plans to launch a convention with a ‘Confex model’ featuring seminar-led content alongside exhibition stands. He said the plan is to launch at locations which are similarly strong media hubs as London.

The second edition of the Podcast Show London took place from 24-25 May, with over 3,000 people from over 40 countries in attendance and 95% of floor space filled.

Reflecting on this year’s event, Etchells said: “It’s made the quantum leap that we expected – we’ve got more exhibitors and even bigger brands. It’s positive to see the increase in investment that these brands have made. They’ve really upped their game in terms of engagement with the audience.”

Microsoft’s Ilya Bukshteyn: ‘The future is multi-camera’

With platforms like Zoom now ubiquitous, and Teams now having 300 million monthly active users, Microsoft’s VP of Teams Calling & Devices declared that in the near future, most meeting rooms will have multi-camera systems.

Photo credit: Chris Neto, CTS, (Twitter)

Indeed, when demoing a Microsoft boardroom using Crestron intelligent camera technology to CEOs, Bukshteyn had shown how a multi-camera system could frame each speaker at the table, automatically follow the presenter, and frame a person who gets up and draws at a whiteboard.

“I had multiple CEOs walk up and say ‘I want this’,” Bukshteyn said.

“When I look at this industry we’ve been stuck at video enabling about 10% of rooms for about a decade,” said Bukshteyn. “We think that’s going to change. We think that has to change.”

Big brother is watching you…..

Your next job may depend on how well you understand AI tools like ChatGPT

AI – it’s a hoot ain’t it? Sitting there in your browser all smart and pretty, and also threatening to make you unemployed overnight and simultaneously initiate the extinction of the human race. Fear not though – in fact your next job may actually depend on how well you understand AI and AI related tools like Chat GPT.

Iparraguirre Recio via Getty

Jensen Huang, the CEO of chip giant Nvidia, suggested workers should find a way to make AI work to their favour. “Everyone is a programmer now. You just have to say something to the computer,” he said.

Moreover, the value placed on AI-related skills like this is changing quickly too. Prompt engineer jobs can reportedly pay up to $375,000 a year, and don’t necessarily require a background in computer science. Kerching.

But, with every ying there’s a yang (y’all)…..

AI poses ‘extinction’ risk comparable to nuclear war, CEOs of OpenAI, DeepMind, and Anthropic say

The CEOs of three leading AI companies have signed a statement issued by the Center for AI Safety (CAIS) warning of the “extinction” risk posed by artificial intelligence.

Per CAIS, OpenAI CEO Sam Altman, DeepMind CEO Demis Hassabis, and Anthropic CEO Dario Amodei have all signed the public statement, which compared the risks posed by AI with nuclear war and pandemics.

Kevin Dietsch/Getty Images

The CAIS statement reads: “Mitigating the risk of extinction from AI should be a global priority alongside other societal-scale risks such as pandemics and nuclear war.”

Guessing now might be a good time to build that lead encased bunker in the back garden…..

3 reasons why ‘Succession’ tech bro Lukas Matsson is Elon Musk crossed with Daniel Ek

And finally, from an AI Armageddon to Elon Musk in one swift stroke.

In the award-winning TV series Succession, Alexander Skarsgard plays Matsson, the billionaire CEO of tech streaming media giant GoJo – a socially awkward, vaguely sinister tech bro. Just as the Roy family is based on media power players like the Murdochs, Matsson shares many similarities with major figures in the tech world.

Skarsgard has said Matsson is based on an “amalgamation” of different tech figures. But viewers have been pointing out the character’s similarities to two bosses in particular — Elon Musk, and Spotify CEO Daniel Ek.

Musk, Ek, or just a masterful mash-up of industry stereotypes, the character of Matsson doesn’t do anything to diminish the idea that many tech bros are a bit weird, have too much money – and maybe too much power as well.

And on that musky bombshell, we’ll leave it there for another week.

Catch y’all on the flipside for some masterful events-related musings collated from around the globe.