Entrepreneur and tennis legend Maria Sharapova took to Centre Stage at Collision in Toronto to share insights on the transformative impact of AI on tennis. Speaking alongside IBM senior VP of software and chief commercial officer Rob Thomas, Maria discussed how technological advancements are reshaping the sport and enhancing fan engagement.



The former Grand Slam winner (<a href="https://www.flickr.com/photos/collisionconf/53803179320/">pictured above</a>) expressed enthusiasm for AI’s role in modern tennis, reflecting on the transition from human line judges to automated systems.



“I think the acceptance of AI is really important,” Maria remarked. “I look back to when the line calls were made by humans, and when the challenge system came into place, we were all extremely hesitant.“



“Did we necessarily believe in the system right off the bat? I don’t think anyone would agree with that. It took a lot of time to build trust, and now, you know, you’re at the US Open, and there are no line judges, which I actually miss.”



Highlighting IBM’s latest innovation, Rob introduced the company’s new Catch Me Up feature, which will debut at Wimbledon this year.



“We love working with Wimbledon [and] the new feature this year is something called Catch Me Up. If you haven’t been watching the tennis, you’re a day or two behind, you find your favourite athlete, and you’re instantly caught up on the mobile app.



“You get an AI summarization of everything they’ve been doing, media coverage, statistics, and predictions for their next match. It’s a great way to improve the fan experience and keep people up to speed,“ added the VP.



Maria went on to talk about how AI can enrich the fan experience by providing in-depth information about the players. “As a player, you walk on the court, knowing that a fan is informed about your game and results, it makes for a better experience as an athlete. It’s more engaging.



“Most of the time, when you go to a sporting event, I’d say 80 percent of the time, people don’t really know the underdogs. So I think the experience becomes so much richer when they are engaged and know exactly about this young player across the net, who might be number one in the world.”



Maria’s comments were made as part of a wider discussion on sport at Collision, which is returning to Toronto for its sixth year. Global founders, CEOs, investors and members of the media have come to the city to make deals and experience North America’s thriving tech ecosystem.



More than&nbsp;1,600 startups&nbsp;are taking part in Collision 2024 – the highest number of startups ever at a Collision event.&nbsp;45 percent of these are women-founded, and startups have travelled to Toronto from countries including Nigeria, the Republic of Korea, Uruguay, Japan, Italy, Ghana, Pakistan and beyond.



In total, more than&nbsp;37,800 attendees&nbsp;have gathered at the event, as well as&nbsp;570 speakers and 1,003 members of the media, to explore business opportunities with an international audience.



739 investors&nbsp;are attending Collision, including Vinod Khosla, founder of Khosla Ventures; Wesley Chan, co-founder and managing partner of FPV Ventures; and Nigel Morris, co-founder and managing partner of QED Investors, as well as nine companies on the Forbes Midas List, and 12 investors from those firms.



Top speakers at Collision include:



<ul class="wp-block-list">
<li>Geoffrey Hinton, Godfather of AI</li>



<li>Maria Sharapova, entrepreneur and tennis legend</li>



<li>Aidan Gomez, founder and CEO of Cohere (an AI for enterprise and large language model company, which raised US$450 million at a US$5 billion valuation in June 2024)</li>



<li>Raquel Urtasun, founder and CEO of Waabi (a Canadian autonomous trucking company)</li>



<li>Jeff Shiner, CEO of 1Password</li>



<li>Dali Rajic, president and COO of Wiz (a cloud security platform)</li>



<li>Alex Israel, co-founder and CEO of Metropolis (an AI and computer vision platform)</li>



<li>Jonathan Ross, founder and CEO of Groq (an AI chip startup)</li>



<li>Keily Blair, CEO of OnlyFans</li>



<li>Autumn Peltier, Indigenous rights activist</li>
</ul>



About Web Summit:&nbsp;



Web Summit runs the world’s largest technology events, connecting people and ideas that change the world. Half a million people have attended Web Summit events – Web Summit in Europe, Web Summit Rio in South America,&nbsp;Collision in North America, Web Summit Qatar in the Middle East, and RISE in Asia – since the company’s beginnings as a 150-person conference in Dublin in 2009. This year alone, Web Summit has hosted sold-out events in Qatar, which welcomed more than 15,000 attendees, and in Rio, where more than 34,000 people took part. Our events have been supported by partners including the Qatar Investment Authority, Snap, Deloitte, TikTok, Huawei, Microsoft, Shell, Palo Alto Networks, EY, Builder.ai and Qatar Airways.&nbsp;



Web Summit’s mission is to enable the meaningful connections that change the world. Web Summit also undertakes a range of initiatives to support diversity, equality and inclusion across the tech worlds, including Impact, women in tech, Amplify, our scholarship program, and our community partnerships.



Useful links



<ul class="wp-block-list">
<li>Collision website:&nbsp;<a href="https://collisionconf.com/">https://collisionconf.com/</a>&nbsp;</li>



<li>Collision media kit:&nbsp;<a href="https://collisionconf.com/media/media-kit">https://collisionconf.com/media/media-kit</a>&nbsp;&nbsp;</li>



<li>Collision images:&nbsp;<a href="https://flickr.com/photos/collisionconf">https://flickr.com/photos/collisionconf</a>&nbsp;</li>



<li>About Web Summit:&nbsp;<a href="http://www.about.websummit.com/">about.websummit.com</a></li>
</ul>

19 June 2024; Maria Sharapova, Entrepreneur & Tennis Legend; at the IBM table tennis activation booth on day two of Collision 2024 at the Enercare Centre in Toronto, Canada. Photo by David Fitzgerald/Collision via Sportsfile

‘I think the acceptance of AI [in tennis] is really important’ – Maria Sharapova

“We&#8217;re  in the wild, wild west phase of AI right now’ Jack Conte, the co-founder and CEO of Patreon, claimed as he revealed online creators are now using short-form content as a tool to gain new viewers. 
 
Speaking at Web Summit, Conte said: “It&#8217;s much harder nowadays on the platforms, which I think is why we see creators using short-form basically as a discovery layer.” 
 
Conte’s comments come after the rapid growth of short-form platforms such as TikTok and social media&#8217;s new short-form formats, such as YouTube Shorts or Instagram Reels.  
 
The chief of Patreon comments were made as part of a discussion of fuelling the future of online creativity at Web Summit in Lisbon, where more than 70,000 people have gathered to discuss the most pressing questions around technology. 
 
Speaking at Web Summit 2024 in Lisbon, Conte was asked about how AI will impact the creator economy and replied: “We&#8217;re really like in the wild, wild west phase of AI right now, and it&#8217;s similar to, I mean, I remember this phase of technology. Whenever a new medium, whenever a new technology emerges, there&#8217;s always a period of time where humanity is trying to figure out, ‘Oh, my God, what do we do about this?’” 
 
“We&#8217;re seeing the lawsuits, you know, against the music generation companies. We&#8217;re seeing the New York Times lawsuit against open AI, like we&#8217;re going to see more of that over the next couple years, and I think we&#8217;re going to come to a resolution where creators are paid for their work and they have to be the ones giving permission to have their work be used.” 
 
On the future of Patreon,  a membership platform that allows creators to receive ongoing funding from their fans, or patrons, in exchange for exclusive content and benefits, Conte said: &#8220;The future of Patreon is around those three categories, media tools, community tools and then the business tools for creators to get paid around their work.&#8221;
He described his dream creator economy as: &#8220;Being a creator is going to be celebrated as a reliable, respected profession, just like any other value-creating profession in the world.&#8221;
The discussion was one of hundreds at this year’s sold-out Web Summit. As well as 70,000 attendees, Web Summit 2024 is welcoming an unprecedented 3,000 startups &#8211; the largest startup turnout in Web Summit’s history. Among these startups, over 1,000 are founded by women. These startups will join more than 70,000 attendees, 1,000 investors and 2,000 media.
For any questions about this or any other Web Summit Lisbon content, please contact Sebastian Hamilton, Head of Public Affairs, on <a href="mailto:summaries@websummit.com">summaries@websummit.com</a>
About Web Summit: 
<ul>
<li style="font-weight: 400;" aria-level="1">Web Summit is where the future goes to be born. In just over a decade, Web Summit has grown into the world&#8217;s premier technology events business, with gatherings in Doha, Rio de Janeiro and Vancouver as well as Lisbon. These gatherings of entrepreneurs connect the next generation of innovators with world-changing ideas.</li>
</ul>
<ul>
<li style="font-weight: 400;" aria-level="1">Top speakers at Web Summit 2024 include Microsoft President Brad Smith, Signal President Meredith Whittaker, Qualcomm CEO and President Cristiano Amon, President of Alibaba.com Kuo Zhang, and many more. Hundreds of partners from across the globe will exhibit on the now sold out event show floor including global tech companies such as IBM, Adobe, Meta, Huawei, SAP, DELL, Qualcomm and Boehringer Ingelheim, and financial giants such as Visa and American Express. Other notable partners include Niantic, Pitchbook, EDP, and KPMG. Impact partners include UN Global Compact, Earthed, Re:Wild and Beam.</li>
</ul>
&nbsp;
Useful links 
Web Summit website: <a href="https://websummit.com/newsmakers">https://websummit.com/</a>
Web Summit media kit: <a href="https://websummit.com/media-kit">https://websummit.com/media-kit </a> 
Web Summit images: <a href="http://www.flickr.com/websummit">www.flickr.com/websummit</a>  
About Web Summit: <a href="http://www.about.websummit.com">www.about.websummit.com</a>

Jack Conte, Co-founder and CEO, Patreon; left, and Nekesa Mumbi Moody, Co-Editor-in-Chief, The Hollywood Reporter; on New Media Summit Stage during day one of Web Summit 2024 at the MEO Arena in Lisbon, Portugal.

“We are in the Wild, Wild West phase of AI right now” –  Jack Conte, co-founder and CEO of Patreon claimed as he explained that it is much harder nowadays on the platforms for online creators

Max Tegmark, President of the Future of Life Institute, has described the rapid development of Artificial General Intelligence (AGI) as a “suicide race” in which “whoever gets AGI first is going to lose control to this future machine species.” 
 
However speaking at Web Summit’s flagship event at the MEO Arena in Lisbon, Tegmark &#8211; whose institute works to steer transformative technologies away from extreme, large-scale risks &#8211; said he believed the US and China would ensure safety standards so that their governments would not lose power or control. 
 
Tegmark predicted a mutual programme of safety standards for AGI to be implemented by the governments US and China &#8211; and then enforced on the world &#8211; to make sure they retained their authority.
“I think what will happen is, once they&#8217;ve done that independently of each other &#8211; just put in national safety standards, just like they did for medicines and airplanes &#8211; then they&#8217;ll talk to each other and [say] ‘like hey, wait a minute. How can we make sure North Korea doesn&#8217;t build AGI, or some other country?’. Then they&#8217;ll push the rest of the world to sign an AGI moratorium treaty where no one does it until the control problem has been solved.”
Tegmark was joined by Hugging Face CSO Thomas Wolf and CEO of The Atlantic Nicholas Thompson who discussed the ethical implications of AI’s breakneck development in a world where technology is gaining a greater foothold in the world of automated industry. 

Tegmark’s remarks came after he was asked by moderator Thompson about what America’s most appropriate response should be to the rapid development of AI vis à vis China. Tegmark said: “It&#8217;s not an arms race between the US and China. It&#8217;s a suicide race where whoever gets AGI first is going to lose control to this future machine species and ruin it for everyone.”
According to the Information Technology and Innovation Foundation, China is accelerating its research into AI to the extent where US dominance in this sector is being directly challenged in the areas of academia, methodology and foreign investment.
However, Tegmark conceded that he believes that China will not propel itself into employing AGI en masse because of the potential loss of control by its government if safety standards are not implemented first.
“This is not a game that the Chinese government has any incentive to play. They like their power. Why would they let some Chinese AI company build AGI and so they would lose control?”
He continued: “Similarly, the US wants to keep its power. I think the US and China both will realise that they just need to make sure that none of their own companies lose control over AGI.” 
Thompson then asked Wolf about Hugging Face’s efforts to restrict the use of its AI tools by autocratic countries around the world.
Wolf said: “We are actually rather hard to access from China, because we didn&#8217;t spend really the time investing. I think generally we are like a European/US-based company. But it&#8217;s also true, China is growing the best open source model. So it&#8217;s also hard to ignore that.”
He continued: “The question is how long can we hold this position? If there are political races, for now, we&#8217;ve been able to hold this position.”
The trio also touched on the existential discussion pervading AI and its effect on the world, with Wolf decrying the negative outlook on its usage when compared with exaggerated dystopian predictions which, he believes, can only limit us.
“I think in many ways, when we describe the AI world, we have this fake vision of how it&#8217;s going to be. We either go in the apocalyptic direction, which is robots are gonna kill us, or we go in this utopian direction where we all love each other and our machines are helping us.
“We need to imagine, actually, how AI is going to integrate in society. And my deep belief is it&#8217;s gonna be a lot like the internet. It&#8217;s gonna be everywhere.”
Wolf also offered his optimistic prediction surrounding robotics development in 2025: “My prediction for next year is it&#8217;s going to be the year of robotics and open-source robotics. This is starting to work in the past few months. As every development in AI, we see it&#8217;s, again, exponential.
He added: “There&#8217;s a little bit of price [of robots], but this is also decreasing, and because we can use neural network to compensate for some limitations of hardware, I think it&#8217;s gonna go to a really low price.”
Tegmark provided another more upbeat projection at the end of the discussion, declaring: “If we can use ever more powerful AI tools that do what we want, to amplify human intelligence, there&#8217;s basically no limit to how amazing a future we can build together. So let&#8217;s stay away from geopolitical pissing contests nobody wins, and build a great future together.”
&nbsp;
Notable speakers throughout this week’s event include:
<ul>
<li style="font-weight: 400;" aria-level="1">Brad Smith, President of Microsoft</li>
<li style="font-weight: 400;" aria-level="1">Lidiane Jones, CEO of Bumble</li>
<li style="font-weight: 400;" aria-level="1">Timothy Young, CEO of Jasper</li>
<li style="font-weight: 400;" aria-level="1">Patrick Kluivert, former Barcelona and Netherlands striker</li>
<li style="font-weight: 400;" aria-level="1">Yulia Navalnya, Chair of the Advisory Board of the Anti-CorruptionFoundation, Russia</li>
<li style="font-weight: 400;" aria-level="1">Mitchell Baker, Co-Founder and Executive Chair of Mozilla</li>
<li style="font-weight: 400;" aria-level="1">Jack Conte, Co-Founder and CEO of Patreon</li>
<li style="font-weight: 400;" aria-level="1">Mo Farah, 4x Olympic Gold Medallist</li>
<li style="font-weight: 400;" aria-level="1">Oliver Steil, CEO of TeamViewer</li>
<li style="font-weight: 400;" aria-level="1">Steven Knight, Screenwriter, Director, PRoducer and Creator of Peaky Blinders</li>
<li style="font-weight: 400;" aria-level="1">Thomas Zimmermann, CEO of FREENOW</li>
<li style="font-weight: 400;" aria-level="1">Pharrell Williams, singer, producer and entrepreneur</li>
</ul>
For any questions about this or any other Web Summit content, please contact the Web Summit Newsroom at <a href="mailto:newsroom@websummit.com">newsroom@websummit.com</a>.
About Web Summit: 
Web Summit runs the world’s largest technology events, connecting people and ideas that change the world. Half a million people have attended Web Summit events &#8211; Web Summit in Europe, Web Summit Rio in South America, Collision in North America, Web Summit Qatar in the Middle East and RISE in Asia &#8211; since the company’s beginnings as a 150-person conference in Dublin in 2009. 
 
In February, Web Summit held its hugely successful inaugural event in the Middle East. Web Summit Qatar welcomed more than 15,000 attendees and was supported by over 100 partners including the Qatar Investment Authority, Snap, Deloitte, TikTok, Huawei, Microsoft, Shell, Palo Alto Networks, EY, Builder.ai and Qatar Airways. Web Summit Qatar showcased the work of more than 1,000 startups from around the world, and helped introduce them to a network of more than 300 investors in Doha.

Web Summit’s mission is to enable the meaningful connections that change the world. Web Summit also undertakes a range of initiatives to support Diversity, Equality and Inclusion across the tech worlds: this includes IMPACT; Women in Tech; AMPLIFY; the Web Summit/Qatar Foundation Scholarship Programme; and our Community Partnerships.
&nbsp;
Useful links 
Web Summit website: <a href="https://websummit.com/newsmakers">https://websummit.com/</a>
Web Summit media kit: <a href="https://websummit.com/media-kit">https://websummit.com/media-kit </a> 
Web Summit images: <a href="http://www.flickr.com/websummit">www.flickr.com/websummit</a>  
About Web Summit: <a href="http://www.about.websummit.com">www.about.websummit.com</a>

Max Tegmark, President, Future of Life Institute, on Centre Stage during the opening night of Web Summit 2024 at the MEO Arena in Lisbon, Portugal.

US and China will intervene to halt ‘suicide race’ of AGI – Max Tegmark, President of Future of Life Institute

Carlos Moedas, the Mayor of the City of Lisbon, has said that investing in social welfare is a key aspect to fostering innovation. 
Speaking at the opening night of Web Summit, Moedas said: “You cannot have a city that does not invest in social welfare and is good at innovation, because if you have social friction, then you destroy innovation.” 
 
Moedas’s comments come after Lisbon’s successful transformation into a hub for tech startups and innovation. Lisbon is now home to 14 unicorn companies, with a total of 14,000 jobs created in the past three years across the capital. 
 
The Mayor’s comments were made as part of the welcome speech at Web Summit in Lisbon, where more than 70,000 people have gathered to discuss the most pressing questions around technology. 
 
Speaking on Web Summit’s Centre Stage MEO Arena, Moedas said about innovation:
“How do you keep innovation at the top? I think there&#8217;s just one solution to be at the top: that you invest in social welfare. You cannot have a city that does not invest in social welfare and is good at innovation, because if you have social friction, then you destroy innovation. And so that&#8217;s why we focus on that, because innovation has to be sustainable.”
“That&#8217;s why today, 12% of [Lisbon’s] population lives in municipal housing at affordable prices, and we are investing more [than] €560 million for more units and more housing for people. That&#8217;s why the elderly people in Lisbon have a pension health plan that gives them access to doctors 24 hours a day. And that&#8217;s the real secret sauce of innovation, my friends: that if you keep the balance in between people like you, and protecting people that are vulnerable every day, then you have innovation that is sustainable. That&#8217;s the story of Lisbon.” 
 
Mr Moedas also talked about the beginning of his work to help make Lisbon a global tech capital. “At the time, [Portugal] started at around seven unicorn companies, and we wanted to dream bigger, and we were not afraid of dreaming bigger. We said to ourselves, ‘we can have more unicorns. We can have unicorns from all over the world. I don&#8217;t care if they&#8217;re Portuguese or not.’..and that&#8217;s what we did, with that audacity of not being afraid.”
“And so three years later, we have 14 unicorn companies that are based in offices in our city. They started… some with 10 people: now, they have 300 people! We have more than 70 companies that joined those companies and announced more than 14,000 jobs in Lisbon. That&#8217;s what happened in three years: [and] not just small or scale-ups&#8230; We had McKinsey and Co opening a center of talent with 700 people. We have Deloitte building a Tech campus with another 2500 people. We have that in Lisbon because we believed in tomorrow. Tomorrow I’m opening, I&#8217;m opening the unicorn factory for AI of Microsoft in Lisbon. Do you believe that? Yes, we are doing it, and we&#8217;re very happy &#8211; and it&#8217;s thanks to you!”
The discussion was one of hundreds at this year’s sold-out Web Summit. As well as 70,000 attendees, Web Summit 2024 is welcoming an unprecedented 3,000 startups &#8211; the largest startup turnout in Web Summit’s history. Among these startups, over 1,000 are founded by women. These startups will join more than 70,000 attendees, 1,000 investors and 2,000 media.
For any questions about this or any other Web Summit Lisbon content, please contact Sebastian Hamilton, Head of Public Affairs, on <a href="mailto:summaries@websummit.com">summaries@websummit.com</a>
&nbsp;
About Web Summit: 
<ul>
<li style="font-weight: 400;" aria-level="1">Web Summit is where the future goes to be born. In just over a decade, Web Summit has grown into the world&#8217;s premier technology events business, with gatherings in Doha, Rio de Janeiro and Vancouver as well as Lisbon. These gatherings of entrepreneurs connect the next generation of innovators with world-changing ideas.</li>
</ul>
<ul>
<li style="font-weight: 400;" aria-level="1">Top speakers at Web Summit 2024 include Microsoft President Brad Smith, Signal President Meredith Whittaker, Qualcomm CEO and President Cristiano Amon, President of Alibaba.com Kuo Zhang, and many more. Hundreds of partners from across the globe will exhibit on the now sold out event show floor including global tech companies such as IBM, Adobe, Meta, Huawei, SAP, DELL, Qualcomm and Boehringer Ingelheim, and financial giants such as Visa and American Express. Other notable partners include Niantic, Pitchbook, EDP, and KPMG. Impact partners include UN Global Compact, Earthed, Re:Wild and Beam.</li>
</ul>
&nbsp;
Useful links 
Web Summit website: <a href="https://websummit.com/newsmakers">https://websummit.com/</a>
Web Summit media kit: <a href="https://websummit.com/media-kit">https://websummit.com/media-kit </a> 
Web Summit images: <a href="http://www.flickr.com/websummit">www.flickr.com/websummit</a>  
About Web Summit: <a href="http://www.about.websummit.com">www.about.websummit.com</a>

11 November 2024; Carlos Moedas, Mayor, City of Lisbon on Centre Stage during the opening night of Web Summit 2024 at the MEO Arena in Lisbon, Portugal. Photo by David Fitzgerald/Web Summit via Sportsfile