Manifest-Oh-Oh 🤖🏗️

👀 TLDR

In this week’s What’s Appening, we cover Mark Zuckerberg’s big, bold mission statement on the future of AI. The Meta boss laid out quite an idealistic blueprint for where he thinks AI should go, and what we need to change to get there. He also had plenty of advice for governments and rival companies. We also have news on a ban on Meta’s smartglasses, Anthropic giving a win to anti-plagiarists with text watermarks for Claude, how an AI agent booking a gym class went spectacularly wrong, and loads more!

🎬 Our Top Take

🤖🏗️ Meta – Mark Zuckerberg Releases Lengthy AI Manifesto Outlining Vision

It’s fair to say that AI has had an interesting summer so far: From competition from China to those autonomous hacks to more legal trouble for Sam Altman, it’s been tumultuous. But what about the future? Well, Mark Zuckerberg has had a stab at telling us his vision, and it’s… interesting. Zuck’s manifesto, grandiosely titled The Future Is for Everyone and coming in at over 6,500 words, was somewhat utopian, predicting that we will all have personal AI agents doing just about everything for us in this wonderful future. It was also logical (we think), because he took aim at the concentration of AI power (a barb at OpenAI, Google, and even governments), saying it could only work if it were democratized in terms of access. And it also had a warning, explaining that too much regulation, or maybe caution, from the US government would cede ground to China. As ever, these things are a mix of personal views, roadmaps for investors, and pleas to regulators, but Zuckerberg raised some interesting points.  We are particularly interested in seeing a bit more substance for his vision on democratizing access to AI. Is it really possible to put money second when Meta itself has already spent an estimated $1 trillion in AI investments? #ZuckerVision Read more here.

📲 App of the Week: Bingers

When you first read about Bingers: TV & Movie Tracker, you’ll probably ask yourself, “Do I really need an app to track the shows I am watching?” Heck, if you have kids, you probably know the one show you’ve been trying to watch for the last six months. However, Bingers is a bit more than that. It’s actually the successor app to the popular but now-defunct TV Time, and it acts as a bit of a social media hub for all your shows. You can build a library, leave comments, partake in forums, and even (our favorite part) get notifications when desired movies and episodes are finally added to your platforms. If you were a TV Time user, it is also possible to reactivate your old profile. You can check out Bingers for iOS here and Android here.

🧐 Stat of the Week: 40K Apps

📈📉 Google – New Rules Sees First Competitor Added to Play Store

After many years of legal battles, you can now head over to Google Play and download Aptoide. What is Aptoide? It’s an app store with around 40,000 Android apps, which until now, had to be sideloaded onto Android phones. New regulations, a consequence of the famous Epic Games court battles, mean that companies like Aptoide can compete with Google within Google Play. Aptoide is the first, but more will surely follow. #StoreFront Read more here.

🗞️ Other Stories

📍 Meanwhile at 3Advance

It’s been a busy summer so far for the team at Shift, the app for the Irish and culturally Irish around the world. But we aren’t done yet: Over the next two weeks, we will be at the Milwaukee Irish Fest (August 13-16), Mor Fest NYC (Aug 19-23), and Chicago Irish Fest (Aug 21-23). Come along and say “dia duit” (hello 🇮🇪) if you happen to be in the neighborhood on those dates! ☘️