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Phil Murphy to Discuss New Jersey's Leadership in AI in 2024 State of NJ Address
Gov. Phil Murphy spoke about leading the nation in artificial intelligence during his 2024 State of the State address.
The new center, run by the nonprofit Choose New Jersey, will market New Jersey to California companies, specifically Hollywood film and television and Silicon Valley artificial intelligence.
The center will be the fifth office run by Choose New Jersey, which is funded by some of New Jersey's largest corporations and public utilities and has funded several of the state's economic support efforts, including by paying for Gov. Phil Murphy's travels on economic and trade missions, with the organization saying its mission is to attract businesses to New Jersey.
The new center will officially open on July 15th in San Francisco, the heart of Silicon Valley, long known as a high-tech hub.
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“The West Coast has long been thought of as home to the technology and film industries, but a whole new world of opportunity is emerging right here in the Garden State,” Gov. Phil Murphy said in a Wednesday announcement.
Murphy and his entourage have been touring the West Coast this spring promoting New Jersey to companies in Hollywood and Silicon Valley.
The centre will be staffed solely by Tim Crouch, a former senior British Foreign Office official who served primarily in North America and who is chief strategy officer at Choice in New Jersey.
According to the announcement, Crouch “will be making frequent visits to Southern California and the Pacific Northwest, meeting with some of the world's most innovative companies that are expanding beyond their home markets of California, Oregon, Washington and British Columbia.”
“They're looking to explore new markets, new ideas, new talent, so my job is to make sure they know about the great things happening in New Jersey,” Crouch said.
What does the Choose NJ Center do?
Choo's New Jersey spokeswoman Ingrid Austin said the company has seen an explosion of business interest in New Jersey, with centers already open in Germany, Israel, India and Ireland.
He did not provide data on which businesses have actually relocated to New Jersey or partnered with New Jersey businesses.
“It's very hard to prove one way or the other” about the effectiveness of such centers, said Joseph Foudy, a professor at New York University's Stern School of Business.
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Fowdy said these types of centers are increasingly being used in countries, states and cities around the world.
“It just increases the visibility of your place for people who don't know about the area,” Fowdy continued.
As state officials frequently tout, New Jersey is located between the job markets of New York City and Philadelphia, along Interstate 95 and the Northeast Corridor rail line, and boasts two leading research universities, Rutgers and Princeton, and their supply of top talent.
Additionally, the state has a variety of tax incentive programs that businesses may want to take advantage of, Fowdy said.
These programs are aimed at weeding out large corporations, start-ups, film and television projects, and redevelopment projects.
“All it takes is one or two companies to come to New Jersey and you can more than recoup the cost of an office there,” said Robert Scott, an economist at Monmouth University in West Long Branch.
What is AI and what is it used for?
AI, or more specifically generative AI, is a technology that processes data from the internet like the human brain does and creates content such as text, images, videos, and music based on user instructions.
Its arrival enabled people who weren't computer scientists or even knew how to write code to respond to emails, write marketing brochures, design magazine covers, and do things on their computers in seconds that previously took minutes, hours, or even days.
Generative AI can also be used for mundane tasks that would normally take hours or days, making data easier to search.
At the forefront of this was OpenAi, a San Francisco-based company founded in 2015 to create a publicly available generative AI platform.
The company's backers include Elon Musk, Amazon and Microsoft. The company has deployed ChatGPT, which generates text, and DALL-E, which generates digital images, with new versions providing increasingly human-like responses.
It's what Murphy calls a “moonshot” industry in the Garden State.
“It's like the Wild West,” said Aaron Price, CEO of Tech United, a trade group representing New Jersey's high-tech industry.
What are the drawbacks of AI?
This technology has significant drawbacks.
The federal Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency has warned ahead of the 2024 elections that generative AI could be used by foreign adversaries, cybercriminals and private citizens to cast politicians in a negative light or make them appear to make controversial statements they did not make.
USA TODAY reported that AI-generated nude images of celebrities and unknowns are becoming widespread, with graphic images of Taylor Swift being a notable example. Meanwhile, ChatGPT has been used by students to generate academic papers, which is essentially a form of cheating.
“There needs to be some guardrails,” Teik Lim, president of the Newark-based New Jersey Institute of Technology, said in an interview this spring.
New Jersey Film Project
New Jersey officials have approved more than $720 million in tax incentives for film, television and “digital media” production since 2018, according to public records.
These include support for Audible in Newark, Steven Spielberg's “West Side Story,” which filmed in Paterson, Zack Snyder's “Army of the Dead,” which shot in Atlantic City, and “The Sopranos” prequel “Newark Saints,” as well as World Wrestling Entertainment at the Meadowlands.
This does not include major film studios coming to New Jersey (such as Netflix in Fort Monmouth, Lionsgate in Newark, 1888 Studios in Bayonne and another studio in West Orange) or studios already in New Jersey, such as Cinerys Studios in Jersey City.
“They must be thinking that by opening a major studio in Old Fort Monmouth, Netflix will be able to attract similar or complementary businesses to the state and leverage that decision,” said Scott, the Monmouth University economist.
State officials estimate that more than $2 billion has been spent on film projects and the ancillary economy in New Jersey since 2018.
Many state officials and film industry figures say New Jersey's extensive film and television tax credit program has boosted the Garden State's film and television industry.
“The math is hard to work out,” Murphy said of the tax cuts in an interview with NorthJersey.com. “It's the bare minimum we need.”
Daniel Munoz covers business, consumer affairs, labor and the economy for NorthJersey.com and The Record.
Email: email address; twitter:Daniel Munoz and Facebook
