The world should completely calm down from the fear that there are new variants or special variants circulating in China, George Gao, professor at the Institute of Microbiology at the Chinese Academy of Sciences and former head of the Chinese Center for Disease Control and Prevention, told Reuters on Wednesday.

A study published in The Lancet on Wednesday by Gao and colleagues, including several from the Beijing Center for Disease Prevention and Control, found no evidence of new variants among 413 genetically sequenced samples collected between Nov. 14 and Dec. 20, 2022.

Although our data were only from Beijing, the results could be considered a snapshot of China, due to the frequent population exchange and the presence of circulating strains with high transmissibility, the authors wrote.

Experts have eyed China for the potential evolution of new variants, given its massive population and widespread lack of COVID exposure, prior to the relaxing of restrictions in December. Rampant COVID spread gives the virus a statistically better chance of spawning a new, more dangerous variant, many scientists have said.

Dr. Amesh Adalja, an infectious disease specialist and senior scholar at the Johns Hopkins Center for Health Security, agrees with Gao, however. COVID variants evolve to evade immunity that exists in a populationand China had precious little immunity prior to the lifting of so-called zero COVID restrictions in December, he tells Fortune.

Thus, its not surprising that no concerning variants arose there, despite media speculation, Adalja says. The data from China is backed up by surveillance of individuals who have traveled to China, showing these variants to be well characterized versions of Omicron that are not particularly concerning.

Dr. Ryan Gregorya COVID variant tracker and biology professor at the University of Guelph in Ontario, Canada, who has been assigning street names like Kraken to high-flying COVID variants like XBB.1.5tells Fortune that the sample examined in Gaos study is hardly representative. While its estimated that a few billion Chinese have been infected since December, the study only looks at a few hundred cases over one month, in one city.

New variants would not be expected to show up that soon, he says, adding that no one expected new variants to emerge from post-zero COVID China right away. The issue is what evolves there now.

While its unreasonable to single out China as the worlds sole COVID evolution threat, it would be equally foolhardy to pretend that variants arent evolving there, he adds. This study certainly doesnt provide strong evidence that nothing new is emerging in China.

While Gaos study has a comforting takeaway, it doesnt mean we should let our guard down, Dr. Georges Benjamin, executive director of the American Public Health Association, tells Fortune.

New variants can occur at any time, and China is a big country with an outbreak that is still robust, he said. The risk is not over yet.

Omicron subvariants BA.5.2, dubbed Triton, and BF.7, dubbed Minotaur, accounted for 90% of sequenced cases in Gaos study. Both are spin-offs of BA.5, which dominated globally this summer. BA.5 and its descendants continue to dominate globally, though are on the decline, according to the WHO.

Globally, 10.5 million new cases of COVID, and more than 90,000 COVID deaths, were reported over the last 28 days, the WHO said in a Wednesday report, adding the numbers are undoubtedly underestimated. Recent reports of cases and deaths have been fueled by the Western Pacific region, namely China, the report noted.

Of the more than 70,000 COVID sequences shared globally over the past month, more than 99.6% were Omicron strains, according to the WHO.

Learn how to navigate and strengthen trust in your business with The Trust Factor, a weekly newsletter examining what leaders need to succeed. Sign up here.

After SEC Chair Gary Gensler threatened crypto companies that the runway is getting shorter for firms to register with his agency, the latest action increases his influence over the industry by penalizing Kraken, one of the largest global crypto firms. The move will also likely further accusations that Gensler is taking an approach of regulation by enforcement, rather than creating new rules to govern the crypto ecosystem.  

Staking has emerged as a key element of the crypto ecosystem, with users locking up their crypto tokens as part of the blockchain data validation process and receiving new tokens as a reward. Ethereum, the second-largest blockchain, moved to a proof of stake model in September.  

Because of its complexity, many companies in the space like Kraken and its competitor Coinbase offer staking as a service, where customers can custody assets with the exchanges, which in turn pool the assets and stake them on the investors behalf.  

On Wednesday, Bloomberg reported that the SEC was investigating whether Krakens staking services broke U.S. securities rules. Under a stipulation called the Howey Test from a 1946 U.S. Supreme Court ruling, a transaction qualifies as a security if there is an investment of money in a common enterprise with the expectation of profits derives from the efforts of others.  

In September, as Ethereum prepared to move to a proof of stake model, Gensler said that the updated blockchain validation system may pass the Howey Test. Thursdays SEC settlement is the first indication that the agency will begin to enforce staking services as securities.  

Todays action should make clear to the marketplace that staking-as-a-service providers must register and provide full, fair, and truthful disclosure and investor protection, Gensler said in a statement.  

As part of the settlement, Kraken has neither admitted nor denied the SECs allegations, said a Kraken spokesperson, pointing to a company blog post laying out the agreement.

The SECs charges, along with Krakens willingness to settle and end its staking program, will threaten a key offering of many crypto companies, as well as the Ethereum ecosystem. Prices for the decentralized Lido token, which is used for staking and could fall out of the SECs remit, surged on the news.

In seeming anticipation of the announcement, Coinbase founder and CEO Brian Armstrong tweeted on Wednesday that the SEC ending crypto staking for retail customers would be a terrible path for the U.S. 

Regulation by enforcement doesnt work, he wrote. It encourages companies to operate offshore, which is what happened with FTX.  

After CoinDesk reported the settlement before it was officially announced, Kraken founder Jesse Powell took to Twitter to offer a clarification: Kraken would continue to offer staking outside of the U.S. 

While Kraken has largely adhered to regulation in an industry known for rogue companies, this is not the exchanges first brush with regulators. In November 2022, the company agreed to pay a fine to the U.S. Treasury Departments Office of Foreign Assets Control related to Iran sanctions violations.  

A Wyoming banking subsidiary of Kraken also has an open application with the Federal Reserve to receive a master account, which would provide it access to Fed payment services. After the Federal Reserve denied crypto bank Custodias application to become a member in late January, the fate of Krakens petition is in flux.  

Learn how to navigate and strengthen trust in your business with The Trust Factor, a weekly newsletter examining what leaders need to succeed. Sign up here.

After years of slow and steady research, the A.I. wars are heating up as tech giants and startups alike rush their products to market. OpenAI opened the doors in November with the launch of its wildly popular ChatGPT, and established tech firms including Google, Microsoft, and Chinese search engine giant Baidu plan to launch their own advanced chatbots soon.

While intelligent chatbots like ChatGPT still make mistakes and are not quite as world-changing as believers like OpenAI founder Sam Altman eventually aspire them to be, it might be the first step towards A.I.s commercialization and its mainstream integration into our lives. As Jeremy Kahn put it in Fortunes most recent magazine cover story, ChatGPTs debut last year could be artificial intelligences Netscape Navigator moment, a product release that instills a technology in the zeitgeist and predicates the arrival of a massive industry.

If A.I. is going to play a role in more aspects of our lives, it will be critical to ensure it doesnt reach a runaway state, a hypothetical scenario in which A.I. gains above-human level intelligence and dominates its creators. Its a risk CEOs like Microsofts Satya Nadella are well-aware of.

Runaway A.I., if it happens, is a real problem, Nadella said in an interview with CBS Mornings published Wednesday, echoing similar words of caution from OpenAIs Altman and Elon Musk. But Nadella is still optimistic about A.I.s chances to deliver on its promise, and humans may not even lose their jobsas some fear will happento the increasingly intelligent technology, since a big part of ensuring that A.I. remains under control is for people to carefully guide it.

The way to sort of deal with [runaway A.I.] is to make sure it never runs away, Nadella said.

Lights-out or utopia?

As far as Nadella is concerned, the path A.I. and humanity are currently on points towards a better future for society. Its utopia, he told CBS when asked whether A.I. is taking us to a better future or a bleaker one.

Its a more certain and optimistic view than OpenAIs Altman, who despite his companys progress over the past few monthsincluding a $10 billion investment from Microsoftis measured when asked about his vision for A.I.s future.

I think the good case [for A.I.] is just so unbelievably good that you sound like a crazy person talking about it, Altman said during an event for venture capitalists in San Francisco last month, but added: I think the worst case is lights-out for all of us.

If A.I. were to become a danger to us, it would be because humans let it happen, Nadella suggested during his interview with CBS. A.I. products should only be implemented in areas humans already have a solid grasp on and that humans can take over if things start going wrong, he said. Basically, we shouldnt trust A.I. to do things we wouldnt do ourselves.

Before we even talk about alignment and safety and all these things that one should do with A.I., lets talk about the context in which A.I. is used, Nadella said. The first set of categories in which we should use these powerful models are where humans unambiguously, unquestionably, are in charge.

While A.I. can churn out detailed texts and information, Nadella insisted not only are our livelihoods safe, but some jobs could become less tedious because of new models like ChatGPT and those being developed at Microsoft.

What this does really is create the draft. But the draft has to be read by somebody, has to be edited by somebody, approved by somebody, he said. I believe it creates more, Ill call it both satisfaction in current jobs and net new jobs.

Microsoft this week unveiled new versions of its Bing search engine and Edge browser, both of which have long failed to gain traction against rival Google. But the newest iteration of Microsofts products will incorporate an A.I. assistant language model similar to ChatGPT that will be incorporated into Bing. 

The new model is not yet available publicly; there is a waitlist for it. But Nadella is impatient for a wide release, despite the risks that come along with releasing a largely untested product.

The only way for any new technology to be really perfected is to be in the market with real human feedback, particularly with A.I., he said.

Learn how to navigate and strengthen trust in your business with The Trust Factor, a weekly newsletter examining what leaders need to succeed. Sign up here.

Guetta added that he would obviously not distribute the track commercially. He did not address the legality of using an A.I.-generated version of the rappers voice singing A.I.-generated lyrics (This is the future rave sound. Im getting awesome and underground), in this case in a concert setting that he was presumably paid for. Vocalists and other artists feeling anxiety over such capabilities can be forgiven.

What appears certain is that such tools are only just getting started, that both Big Tech and startups are racing to offer them, and that the legal ramifications have yet to be sorted out. Depending on your perspective, the possibilities are either exciting or worrisomeor perhaps a mix of both. 

While Guetta did not specify which tools he used, he made clear that A.I. tools were behind Eminem appearing in the track.   

Eminem bro, theres something that I made as a joke and it works so goodI could not believe it, Guetta said. I discovered those websites that are about A.I. Basically you can write lyrics in the style of any artist you like, so I typed: Write a verse in the style of Eminem about future rave, and I went to another A.I. website that can recreate the voice. I put the text in that and I played the record and people went nuts.

Guettas stunt comes amid the rise of ChatGPT, the A.I. chatbot from OpenAI that has helped to popularize generative A.I., which refers to tools that can, among other things, deliver answers, images, or even music within seconds based on simple text prompts. Microsoft has invested billions in OpenAI and is weaving its technology into a wide range of its products. This week for example it released a new version of its search engine Bing enhanced with ChatGPT.

Google is responding to worries that its falling behind Microsoft by planning or releasing a raft of its own A.I. tools. This week it launched a test version of a ChatGPT rival called Bard, and last week it announced an $300 million investment in the startup Anthropic, which makes another challenger called Claude. Last month, Google showed off a tool called MusicLM, not yet released to the public, that can transform hums and text into actual music in a variety of styles.

In a TED talk five months ago, multidisciplinary artist Holly Herndon discussed the ability to create music using any musicians voice. She also introduced Holly+, an A.I. tool that lets others sing in her voice, including in other languages. 

If I can allow people to play with my IP, my digital identity, my intellectual property, what might they come up with? she said. Could someone else go on tour as me, with my permission? Could I be in a thousand different bands in multiple languages?

Or in the case of Eminem, could he appear in random DJ sets rapping lyrics he never actually penned or performed? And what if those appearances were awful, in his mind?

Herndon foresees opportunities for artists who consent to such arrangements. But she also sees downsides to anyone being able to make tracks featuring a vocalist who never agreed to it. 

The legal site Nolo notes, If you use samples of other peoples music in your own music, you should first obtain written permission, so as to avoid allegations of copyright infringement. This is particularly true if you intend to release your music commercially and profit from the salesFailure to obtain the proper permission could lead to serious consequences, including lawsuits for money damages.

Its easy to imagine talented but non-famous vocalists earning extra income by allowing others to use their voice in A.I.-enhanced tracks or performances. On the other hand, A-list musiciansnot to mention their labels and lawyersmight be less receptive to the idea.

A.I. systems can produce clones of someones voice with even small samples to train on. Microsoft recently showcased a tool called VALL-E that, after being fed just three seconds of somebodys voice, can synthesize audio of them appearing to say anything, as Ars Technica reported last month.

Up-and-coming musicians might want to be careful about the contracts they sign today, suggests Herndon. Presumably it would be a bad idea to give others free use of their likeness or voices forever.

I could see people signing away contracts right now that could have really detrimental impacts on their future ability to make work as themselves, Herndon told Wired in November. I do want people to understand how powerful these systems are and how having sovereignty over training data is really important. The thorny questions that are being asked right nowits really important that we get them right.

For Herndon, the key is permission. She and colleagues at an organization called Spawning offer the website haveibeentrained.com, where artists can check to see if their art or likeness is being used in popular A.I. training sets. If it is, the thinking goes, artists should be able to opt out. One company agreeing to honor opt-out requests from the website is Stability AI, which uses generative A.I. to create images from text prompts. 

Yet artists, vocalists, and others who take a permissive approach to their intellectual property, or IP, could profit from doing so, if the right systems are set up, Spawning suggests on its website: Some may choose to take the permissive IP approach to AI models we pioneered with Holly+, where Holly offered her voice model for others to use in return for a share of profits in officially approved derivative works.

Learn how to navigate and strengthen trust in your business with The Trust Factor, a weekly newsletter examining what leaders need to succeed. Sign up here.