Policy & Regulation
Jul 29, 2024
Fed's September Rate Cut Signals Awaited Amid Economic Data Releases
According to BlockBeats, the market has fully priced in a rate cut by the Federal Reserve in September. However, a key question for the Federal Open Market Committee (FOMC) meeting on July 30-31 is how clearly the FOMC will signal this move. Economists, including Anna Wong, believe that the communication from the July meeting will only provide a preliminary hint of a rate cut in September. Federal Reserve Chair Jerome Powell is expected to indicate that a rate cut is possible if the data evolves as anticipated. The main reason for this cautious approach is the significant amount of data yet to be released before the FOMC meeting on September 17-18, including two inflation and employment reports, which could show considerable changes. The best time to clearly signal a September rate cut would be during Powell's speech at the Jackson Hole central bank symposium at the end of August, by which time he will have an additional month of employment and inflation data.Economists' expectations for the July 30-31 FOMC meeting are that, despite calls from many Wall Street analysts for a rate cut, the FOMC will unanimously decide to keep rates unchanged at 5.25%-5.50%. Since the June FOMC meeting, inflation data has been encouraging, while economic activity data has been somewhat concerning. Overall, the committee is likely to view the balance of risks between its two goals—price stability and full employment—as roughly equal.
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Jul 27, 2024
Social Media Platform X Under Investigation By Irish Data Protection Commission
According to Cointelegraph: Elon Musk's social media platform X is under scrutiny by the Irish Data Protection Commission (DPC) following reports that a change in default settings allows user data to be fed into the training of Musk’s artificial intelligence chatbot, Grok.“The DPC has been engaging with X on this matter for several months, with our latest interaction occurring as recently as yesterday,” the DPC told TechCrunch on July 25. The Commission expressed surprise at the recent developments and is awaiting a response from X, with further engagement expected early next week.Grok and User Data ControversyGrok is an AI chatbot designed to be witty, informative, and engaging, developed by xAI, a research and development company founded by Musk. Several posts on X have warned users about the controversial setting change, which allows the platform to use posts, interactions, inputs, and results with Grok for training and fine-tuning purposes.Encrypted email service ProtonMail advised its 304,500 X followers on how to turn off the default setting: “Your data on X is used by default to train Grok. Turn it off in Settings > Privacy and safety > Data sharing and personalization > Grok,” Proton explained in a July 26 X post.Open Source Move and Legal BattlesThis controversy comes months after Musk announced that xAI would make Grok open source, amid a lawsuit against rival AI chatbot developer OpenAI. Musk's announcement received positive responses from users, with many praising the decision and calling for OpenAI to do the same.On February 29, Cointelegraph reported that Musk filed a lawsuit against OpenAI, claiming a breach of the agreement made when OpenAI was founded as a nonprofit organization. Musk argued that OpenAI’s partnership with Microsoft contradicts the founding principles of the nonprofit agreement to advance open-source artificial general intelligence (AGI) for the benefit of humanity.
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