Werk Week News Update - Google’s AI War Weapons, Amazon’s Robot Empire, and Trump’s Crypto Fund

This episode analyzes Google's significant policy change regarding AI military applications, Amazon's increasing automation in its fulfillment centers, and the implications of Trump's proposed sovereign wealth fund that may incorporate cryptocurrency. We delve into the ethical, economic, and social ramifications of these pivotal developments, sparking essential discussions for our listeners. 

• Google's revised AI principles and military implications 
• Internal backlash against Google's shift in policy 
• Amazon's expansion of robotic systems in fulfillment centers 
• Introduction of a US sovereign wealth fund 
• Controversies around incorporating Bitcoin in public finance 
• Speculation on cryptocurrency's influence on the economy and public investment

Transcript

Speaker 1: 0:21

Welcome back, architects. This is your work week news update. The date is February the 5th my goodness, this year is already going by too fast for me. But today we are going to discuss three different topics. One we have Google, who has just recently shifted some of its AI policies related to weapons. We have Amazon pretty much doing a push for more robots, and we have Trump's wealth fund and its connection to Bitcoin. So let's go ahead and get started. So just a little background.

Speaker 1: 0:56

In 2018, google established really a set of AI principles that explicitly prohibited the development of their technologies and the development of AI for use in weapons and certain surveillance technologies, and so they put this in place in 2018. And really this decision was influenced by kind of internal protest over the company's involvement in a couple of different kind of US military projects focused on AI and how to analyze drone footage, so on and so forth, and so this was really put in place as a response to those protests, those internal protests to say we will not use at Google, we will not use our AI technology for the purpose of weapons and know weapons and surveillance systems. Well, that has changed. So, as of February 2025, google has now revised those AI principles and removed the ban, explicitly removing the ban on developing AI for weapons and surveillance applications. So they updated this on their website and basically saying that they're going to continue to adhere to international law and human rights, but no longer contains any specific language against using these technologies for weapons and for surveillance, and this is again Google's rationale for this. But their leadership is saying and arguing that AI has become a general purpose technology, integral to various sectors, including national security. So they're pretty much saying that democracies, including, obviously, the United States, should lead in AI development to ensure it aligns with values such as freedom, equality and human rights. So now we are saying that we will be able to use these Google AI technologies as a nation to improve weapons and to improve surveillance technologies.

Speaker 1: 3:00

There has been a lot of reaction, kind of internal and external to Google, so this shift in policy really has sparked a lot of concern among some Google employees and critics as well. Really, they fear that the removal of these prohibitions could lead to the misuse of AI technologies in the military and in the surveillance area, and especially at a time when, if you're kind of following the news, we have people working for the CIA and other government offices that are essentially being pushed out if they don't agree with the vision of the new president, and we have new folks coming in. So a lot of different moving pieces here, but just very interesting that Google would come out and explicitly remove that from their language. And this move really kind of aligns with other tech companies like OpenAI and Meta, which have already not ruled out military applications for their AI technologies, and so this trend kind of continues to reflect the growing intersection between big tech companies, this tech industry, the defense sectors, and it starts to kind of raise some questions about the ethical implications of such collaborations. We really have to kind of watch this as it continues to develop. Again, as a country, we want to make sure that we are put in the best position to protect ourselves, put ourselves in the best position to maintain freedom. But to what extent is that using these technologies to protect us globally or to actually kind of do surveillance and other things like that internally on its own citizens here in America? We'll see.

Speaker 1: 4:42

So Amazon is making a push for more robots in its fulfillment centers, and in Amazon fulfillment centers is roughly about 1.54 million full-time and part-time employees globally, with hundreds of thousands kind of working alongside in other areas, but in these fulfillment centers. So we have a lot of Amazon employees in these fulfillment centers making sure packages are put together, sent out and get into your home, sometimes the same day that you order them. And so these employees, you know they're handling tasks such as picking up packages, packaging them, shipping customer orders. And this robotic integration at Amazon has been developing over several, several years. Matter of fact, they really started in 2012, where Amazon acquired a system, a robotic system, kind of marking its initial step into this warehouse robotics game. And in 2021, the company actually reported having over 520,000 robotic drive units in operation just in 2021. So in that timeframe, 2012 to 2021, huge increase in terms of using robotic equipment. And now we are here in 2025 and Amazon has just opened a new facility, a new fulfillment center located in Louisiana, using 10 times more robots than the older design. So it's really showcasing their leap, which is a significant leap, into the field of automation as it relates to these fulfillment centers.

Speaker 1: 6:33

Their rationale is simple right Cost efficiency. Analysts are projecting that Amazon's advancement in robotics could save the company up to $10 billion annually in five years, so by 2030, this kind of new robotics revolution that they're involved in would save the company $10 billion annually. So they are highly motivated to automize and add robots to their fulfillment centers and it's actually expected to reduce their costs currently, right now, by 25% during peak periods. This is a huge, huge win for Amazon if they can manage to pull all of this off and they have a couple of new systems, matter of fact, the most recent one really improves inventory identification and storage speeds by like 75%. They're integrating mobile robots, they have robotic arms and work I mean all the different things. You can imagine walking into a fulfillment center and you have different type of robots, some moving around, some in place, handling all kinds of different things in their fulfillment center packaging the items, putting the labels on them, checking the items right on down the line. So, from an employee impact perspective, again, you know you're talking about one, one and a half million employees working in these fulfillment centers for Amazon. Amazon is claiming that these robots are just designed to assist rather than replace the human workers, to help them work faster. I would challenge that. I'm not quite sure, especially if we're talking about saving money annually. I think these robots maybe not next year, but five, 10 years from now, from a fulfillment perspective, probably can take over a large portion of what these humans are doing, and so re-skilling, retooling, making sure folks have the skills they need to kind of either advance in that space when those robots are taking over those jobs and or be able to search for new employment elsewhere. But I think you know if you're talking about by 2030, 10 billion dollars a year saved annually. That's going to be a fast change in the Amazon space. One point, five million employees. Let's keep an eye out for that.

Speaker 1: 8:53

And last but not least, your president's sovereign wealth fund. So we have a new sovereign wealth fund that is looking to be created and just for kind of a A little bit of a description here, so this, this wealth fund, essentially would be a state owned investment fund made up of essentially government generated money. So this is sourced from, you know, could be surplus reserves or any kind of government generated funds, and this fund would essentially invest in stocks, bonds, real estate, commodities, anything to kind of generate long term returns and help to kind of stabilize the national economy. So that's, that's basically what a what a sovereign wealth fund is. On February the 3rd, donald Trump signed an executive order directing the Treasury and Commerce Departments to establish the first US sovereign wealth fund within 12 months. So this this is supposed to happen within the year, and this fund is intended to invest in infrastructure, invest in manufacturing, invest in research, all with the goal of paying down the national debt.

Speaker 1: 10:13

So a lot of different opinions about whether or not we should have this fund or not, a lot of different opinions in terms of what we should invest in. But one of the more interesting things, at least from my perspective, is that the administration is now exploring how Bitcoin and other digital assets could be incorporated into the fund, and Trump's new commerce secretary nominee has been a very, very vocal advocate for crypto and essentially will be leading this initiative and allowing the government to really have a fund that's investing, or, you know, just kind of exchanging these digital assets would be000, as speculation increased about this. Government backed investments into crypto, so the move has fueled debate already over Bitcoin's role in public finance and really the future of the US dollar. So we have some analysts warning that the government involvement in crypto could just cause financial instability, but at the end of the day, it looks like this is going to be a part of the American economy on some level.

Speaker 1: 11:43

I know we were talking about regulations coming and a bunch of other different things, but on some level, if we have this fund as a country, we are investing in a bunch of different assets. You are holding Bitcoin and other different cryptocurrencies as part of this. It will get to be very interesting, moving forward, how that impacts not just the price of Bitcoin but the price of any of these cryptocurrencies that are out there on the market, and how that might funnel down into really everyday lives of humans. I am a proponent of crypto. I believe that it is something that can be used in the right way for all kinds of different communities, not just as a nation, but marginalized communities across the world, and so I think you're going to see crypto kind of make a huge comeback, and we're seeing that already with the markets. And that is it for your Workweek News update. Please don't forget to follow us on Apple Podcasts, spotify or wherever you listen to your podcast, and until next time, keep up the scratch work. Keep building Bye.