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Welcome to Tech News briefing.

It's Monday, October 28th.

I'm Zoe Thomas for the Wall Street Journal.

A handful of scientists and engineers

are working to give electric motors a major upgrade, using a technology pioneered by Benjamin Franklin.

We'll tell you about the efforts to develop modern electrostatic motors. And then, Martin Cassato, general partner at venture capital firm Andreeson-Poroitz, says

concrete risks from the artificial intelligence boom haven't materialized, many US officials are calling for a slowdown

in AI development at W.S.J. Tech Live he shared his thoughts on US tech policy and the outlook for venture investing.

We'll have highlights from his conversation with our global tech editor, Jason Dean.

But first, Benjamin Franklin is credited with inventing many tools we still use today.

Bifocals, the lightning rod, even swim fins, according to the Franklin Institute.

Now a handful of scientists and engineers are creating modern versions of Franklin's

electrostatic motor with the help of materials and techniques

unimaginable in the 1700s. Here to tell us about these efforts is our tech

columnist Christopher Mims. So Christopher, let's start with the basics. What is an electrostatic motor?

So a regular motor uses something called the Lorenz force and it transforms the continuous

flow of electricity through a tight coil of typically

copper wire into the rotation of the axle of a motor and if you run it in reverse that's a generator

and an electrostatic motor uses a totally different type of force it's the

...