Davis Wilson:

Tesla Shares Drop Sharply After Disappointing Second-Quarter Earnings

Tesla’s financial position is getting worse as the fallout continues from CEO Elon Musk’s politics.

The electric automaker reported Wednesday that both revenue and profits fell in the second quarter of the year compared with a year ago. It’s the second straight negative earnings report from the company, which has suffered damage to its brand and become a lightning rod for street demonstrations.

While Tesla is still the No. 1 seller of electric vehicles in the United States by a wide margin, the earnings report shows a deteriorating situation with no obvious quick fix for Musk, the world’s wealthiest person.

On a conference call with analysts, Musk laid out aggressive plans to try to expand Tesla’s nascent robotaxi service beyond its limited service area in Austin, Texas. He said he wants to make self-driving Tesla taxis available to half the U.S. population by the end of the year.

Tesla’s Austin robotaxi service is small and still uses human safety observers in the vehicles, putting Tesla far behind Google spinoff Waymo, the market leader in robotaxis.

The stock price of Tesla dropped sharply Thursday, declining about 8% in morning trading. It is now down more than 36% from its December high.

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Enrique Abeyta:

Trump’s AI Action Plan Gives AI Industry Lots To Smile About

The Trump administration's new AI Action Plan, which offers the industry much of what it says it needs to compete with China, also contains a time bomb for tech companies — an attempt to dictate how chatbots deal with contentious political issues.

The big picture: Trump's move could spark a broader wave of efforts by governments around the world to require AI systems to toe political lines, setting up endless conflicts between tech firms and rulers eager to promote agendas and quash dissent.

Zoom in: The plan — and a related executive order on "Preventing Woke AI in the Federal Government" — insists that any AI model procured by a federal agency must promote "ideological neutrality." The requirement poses thorny technical challenges and raises questions about who decides what counts as an acceptable answer.

Zoom out: Most of the 23-page Action Plan gives a green light to the tech industry, focusing on accelerating AI innovation rather than addressing concerns such as model safety, environmental risks and the potential for wealth concentration and job loss.

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James Altucher:

Meta Wants To Replace Your Mouse and Keyboard With This Bracelet

Researchers at Meta have developed a wristband that could make today's personal devices a lot more accessible to people with reduced mobility or muscle weakness, and even unlock new ways for people to control their gadgets effortlessly.

Reality Labs' sEMG-RD (surface electromyography research device) uses sensors to translate electrical motor nerve signals that travel through the wrist to the hand into digital commands that you can use to control a connected device.

Those signals are essentially your brain telling your hand to perform actions you've decided to carry out, so you can think of them as intentional instructions.

You can not only control an onscreen cursor in a one-directional mode (like a laser pointer), but also navigate through an interface and select items using finger pinches, thumb swipes, and thumb taps. You can even enter text by mimicking handwriting at a decent 20.9 words per minute. That last one is especially neat, considering that phone keyboard typing averages at about 36 words a minute.

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