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[1/2] Sam Altman, CEO of ChatGPT maker OpenAI, arrives for a bipartisan Artificial Intelligence (AI) Insight Forum for all U.S. senators hosted by Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer (D-NY) at the U.S. Capitol in Washington, U.S., September 13, 2023. The previously unreported letter and AI algorithm were key developments before the board's ouster of Altman, the poster child of generative AI, the two sources said. This could be applied to novel scientific research, for instance, AI researchers believe. In their letter to the board, researchers flagged AI’s prowess and potential danger, the sources said without specifying the exact safety concerns noted in the letter. Researchers have also flagged work by an "AI scientist" team, the existence of which multiple sources confirmed.

Persons: Sam Altman, OpenAI, Chuck Schumer, Julia Nikhinson, Sam Altman’s, Altman, Mira Murati, I've, Anna Tong, Jeffrey Dastin, Krystal Hu, Kenneth Li, Lisa Shumaker Organizations: Intelligence, Senate, U.S, Capitol, REUTERS, Reuters, Microsoft, Economic Cooperation, Thomson Locations: Washington , U.S, OpenAI, San Francisco, Asia, New York

Bret Taylor, formerly co-CEO of Salesforce, and Larry Summers, former U.S. Treasury Secretary, will join Quora CEO and current director Adam D'Angelo, OpenAI said. Altman said in a post on X, "i'm looking forward to returning to openai." In a statement on X, Microsoft CEO Satya Nadella welcomed the changes to OpenAI's board. In a post on X, Shear celebrated the late-night outcome Tuesday, which he said followed "~72 very intense hours of work." Following this show of solidarity, Altman wrote on X: "we have more unity and commitment and focus than ever before."

Persons: Sam Altman, Bret Taylor, Larry Summers, Adam D'Angelo, OpenAI, Altman, Satya Nadella, Altman's, OpenAI's, Emmett Shear, Sam Altman's, Susannah Streeter, Hargreaves Lansdown, Shear, Greg Brockman, Brockman, Jeffrey Dastin, Tanna, Bansari, Dhanya Ann Thoppil, Nivedita Bhattacharjee, Sam Holmes Organizations: Microsoft, U.S . Treasury, Quora, Hargreaves, Reuters, Thomson Locations: openai, San Francisco, Bengaluru

[1/2] Sam Altman, CEO of ChatGPT maker OpenAI, arrives for a bipartisan Artificial Intelligence (AI) Insight Forum for all U.S. senators hosted by Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer (D-NY) at the U.S. Capitol in Washington, U.S., September 13, 2023. The previously unreported letter and AI algorithm was a catalyst that caused the board to oust Altman, the poster child of generative AI, the two sources said. The sources cited the letter as one factor among a longer list of grievances by the board that led to Altman’s firing. According to one of the sources, long-time executive Mira Murati told employees on Wednesday that a letter about the AI breakthrough called Q* (pronounced Q-Star), precipitated the board's actions. OpenAI defines AGI as AI systems that are smarter than humans.

Persons: Sam Altman, OpenAI, Chuck Schumer, Julia Nikhinson, Sam Altman’s, Altman, Mira Murati, ChatGPT, Anna Tong, Jeffrey Dastin, Krystal Hu, Kenneth Li, Lisa Shumaker Organizations: Intelligence, Senate, U.S, Capitol, REUTERS, Reuters, Microsoft, Thomson Locations: Washington , U.S, San Francisco, New York

The previously unreported letter and AI algorithm were key developments before the board's ouster of Altman, the poster child of generative AI, the two sources said. An OpenAI spokesperson said that the message, sent by long-time executive Mira Murati, alerted staff to certain media stories without commenting on their accuracy. This could be applied to novel scientific research, for instance, AI researchers believe. In their letter to the board, researchers flagged AI’s prowess and potential danger, the sources said without specifying the exact safety concerns noted in the letter. Researchers have also flagged work by an "AI scientist" team, the existence of which multiple sources confirmed.

Persons: Sam Altman’s, Altman, Mira Murati, Sam Altman, OpenAI, Chuck Schumer, Julia Nikhinson, I've, Anna Tong, Jeffrey Dastin, Krystal Hu, Kenneth Li, Lisa Shumaker Organizations: Reuters, Microsoft, Intelligence, Senate, U.S, Capitol, REUTERS, Economic Cooperation, Thomson Locations: OpenAI, Washington , U.S, San Francisco, Asia, New York

"i'm looking forward to returning to openai," Altman said in a post on the X social media platform late on Tuesday. Sam Altman attends the Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation (APEC) CEO Summit in San Francisco, California, U.S. November 16, 2023. OpenAI's previous board consisted of Tasha McCauley, Helen Toner and OpenAI chief scientist Ilya Sutskever and Quora CEO D'Angelo, who is part of the revamped board. In a post on X on Tuesday, Shear said he worked "~72 very intense hours" to bring stability - and ultimately Altman - back to OpenAI. When he was out of a job, CEO Nadella said Altman could head a new research team alongside Brockman and other colleagues departing from OpenAI.

Persons: Bret Taylor, Brockman, FRANCISCO, Sam Altman, OpenAI, Larry Summers, Adam D'Angelo, D'Angelo, Altman, Danni Hewson, AJ Bell's, Satya Nadella, Kyle Rodda, Carlos Barria, Tasha McCauley, Helen Toner, Ilya Sutskever, Steve Jobs, Greg Brockman, Sunday Altman, Emmett Shear, Shear, Nadella, Jeffrey Dastin, Aditya Soni, Shivani Tanna, Bansari, Dhanya Ann Thoppil, Nivedita Bhattacharjee, Sam Holmes, Jane Merriman Organizations: U.S . Treasury, Microsoft, Economic Cooperation, REUTERS, Reuters, U.S, Thomson Locations: openai, U.S, OpenAI, Asia, San Francisco , California, Valley, San Francisco, Bengaluru

REUTERS/Dado Ruvic/Illustration Acquire Licensing RightsNov 20 (Reuters) - OpenAI's board of directors approached rival Anthropic's CEO about replacing chief Sam Altman and potentially merging the two AI startups, according to two people briefed on the matter. The news, reported earlier by The Information on Monday, follows various reported calls to find Altman's successor days after OpenAI's board ousted him. OpenAI declined to comment and board member Adam D'Angelo did not immediately respond to a request for comment. On Sunday the board offered ex-Twitch CEO Emmett Shear to be its interim chief, who accepted. By Monday, nearly all of the startup's more than 700 employees threatened to quit, including one of its executives on OpenAI's now four-person board.

Persons: Dado Ruvic, Sam Altman, Dario Amodei, OpenAI's, OpenAI, Adam D'Angelo, Emmett Shear, Altman, Anthropic, Claude, Jeffrey Dastin, Urvi, Nivedita Bhattacharjee, Sam Holmes Organizations: REUTERS, Sunday, Microsoft, OpenAI, Google, Thomson Locations: San Francisco, Bengaluru

The startup's newly appointed interim head moved quickly to dismiss speculation that OpenAI's board ousted Altman due to a spat over the safety of powerful AI models. It was not clear why Murati had stepped down as interim CEO. [1/4]Sam Altman, CEO of OpenAI, attends the Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation (APEC) CEO Summit in San Francisco, California, U.S. November 16, 2023. Some of those joining Altman at Microsoft include senior researchers Szymon Sidor and Jakub Pachocki, according to Brockman. Microsoft had supported a return by Altman to the startup, according to sources, a move that seemed likely only hours prior to Monday's announcements.

Persons: OpenAI, Emmett Shear, Sam Altman, Greg Brockman, OpenAI's, Altman, Shear, Ilya Sutskever, we've, Sutskever, Mira Murati, reinstates Altman, Brockman, Bret Taylor, Will Hurd, Murati, Carlos Barria, Richard Windsor, Satya Nadella, Szymon Sidor, Jakub Pachocki, Russ Mould, AJ Bell, Nadella, Jeffry Dastin, Anna Tong, Krystal Hu, Akash Sriram, Aditya Soni, Urvi, Shubham, Stephanie Kelly, Nivedita Bhattacharjee, Miyoung Kim, Sam Holmes, Susan Fenton, Chizu Nomiyama, Anil D'Silva Organizations: Microsoft, FRANCISCO, Google, OpenAI, Reuters, Economic Cooperation, REUTERS, Radio Free Mobile, Thomson Locations: OpenAI, Texas, Asia, San Francisco , California, U.S, San Franciso, New York, Bengaluru

In a statement on the social media platform X, Shear dismissed speculation that OpenAI's board ousted Altman because of a spat over the safety of powerful AI models. OpenAI dismissed Altman on Friday following a "breakdown of communications," according to an internal memo seen by Reuters. [1/4]Sam Altman, CEO of OpenAI, attends the Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation (APEC) CEO Summit in San Francisco, California, U.S. November 16, 2023. In a separate post on X, Altman shared Nadella's message with the words, "the mission continues". loadingThe decision not to reinstate Altman as OpenAI's chief confounded efforts by investors and employees to steady the startup's path.

Persons: OpenAI, Emmett Shear, Sam Altman, Shear, OpenAI's, Altman, Satya Nadella, Greg Brockman, Carlos Barria, Nadella, Szymon Sidor, Brockman, Richard Windsor, Ilya Sutskever, Jeffry Dastin, Anna Tong, Urvi, Stephanie Kelly, Nivedita Bhattacharjee, Miyoung Kim, Sam Holmes, Susan Fenton Organizations: Microsoft, OpenAI, Reuters, Economic Cooperation, REUTERS, The, Radio Free Mobile, Thomson Locations: Asia, San Francisco , California, U.S, San Francisco, OpenAI, San Franciso, Bengaluru, New York

Nov 17 (Reuters) - The board of the company behind ChatGPT late on Friday fired OpenAI CEO Sam Altman - to many, the human face of generative AI - sending shock waves across the tech industry. Backed by billions of dollars from Microsoft (MSFT.O), OpenAI kicked off the generative AI craze last November by releasing its ChatGPT chatbot, which became one of the world's fastest-growing software applications. He was the face of OpenAI and the wildly popular generative AI technology as he toured the world this year. Altman posted on X shortly after OpenAI published its blog: "i loved my time at openai. "That said, we believe Microsoft and Nadella will exert more control at OpenAI going forward with Altman gone."

Persons: Sam Altman, Mira Murati, OpenAI, Altman, what’s, Murati, Tesla, Satya Nadella, Mira, Nadella, Eric Schmidt, Daniel Ives, Thomas Hayes, Davidson, Gil Luria, Samrhitha, Jeffrey Dastin, Anna Tong, Krystal Hu, Shounak Dasgupta, Kenneth Li, Richard Chang Organizations: Microsoft, Union, U.S, Reuters, OpenAI, Wedbush Securities, Economic Cooperation, Thomson Locations: openai, Asia, San Francisco, Oakland , California, Bengaluru, New York

A sign is pictured outside a Google office near the company's headquarters in Mountain View, California, U.S., May 8, 2019. Among the opportunities is the company's plan to liven its timer-setting, command-fulfilling Google Assistant with Bard's human-directed suggestions. Connecting these products, first via mobile devices in the coming months, will introduce AI to more people, said Krawczyk. Google Search traffic fell 0.4%, the analysts' note said. The surge reminded Krawczyk of what Google Search faced upon news of pop star Michael Jackson's death in 2009, he said.

Persons: Paresh Dave, Bard, Jack Krawczyk, OpenAI, ChatGPT, Krawczyk, Michael Jackson's, Jeffrey Dastin, Daniel Wallis Organizations: REUTERS, Reuters NEXT, Google, YouTube, Bank of America, Gmail, Thomson Locations: Mountain View , California, U.S, New York, ChatGPT

Amazon's employees and cloud customers will gain early access to technology from Anthropic as part of the deal, which they can infuse into their businesses. They declined to state how much Amazon now would own of Anthropic or the startup's updated valuation, last estimated at more than $4 billion. The deal also shows ongoing maneuvering by the cloud companies to secure ties with AI startups reshaping their industry. Yet with Monday's deal, Anthropic is giving a boost to Amazon Bedrock, a service that has attracted thousands of users to start building AI applications. Asked if Amazon would invest in additional AI startups beyond Anthropic, Selipsky said, "I honestly don't know what the future will hold."

Persons: Anthropic, OpenAI, Adam Selipsky, Dario Amodei, Selipsky, Claude, Amodei, Jeffrey Dastin, Kenneth Li Organizations: FRANCISCO, Amazon, Microsoft, Google, Amazon's, GOOGLE, LexisNexis, Bridgewater Associates, Thomson Locations: Anthropic, San Francisco

They declined to state how much Amazon now would own of Anthropic or the startup's updated valuation, last estimated at more than $4 billion. The deal also shows ongoing maneuvering by the cloud companies to secure ties with AI startups reshaping their industry. Yet with Monday's deal, Anthropic is giving a boost to Amazon Bedrock, a service that has attracted thousands of users to start building AI applications. LexisNexis, a data analytics company, is working with Anthropic and Amazon to make its own legal search capabilities more "intelligent," Amodei said. Asked if Amazon would invest in additional AI startups beyond Anthropic, Selipsky said, "I honestly don't know what the future will hold."

Persons: Anthropic, OpenAI, Adam Selipsky, Dario Amodei, Pascal, Selipsky, Claude, Amodei, Jeffrey Dastin, Kenneth Li Organizations: FRANCISCO, Amazon, Microsoft, Google, Amazon's, REUTERS, LexisNexis, Bridgewater Associates, Thomson Locations: Anthropic, San Francisco

For the second quarter, Amazon's revenue grew 11% to $134.4 billion, beating estimates of $131.5 billion from analysts polled by Refinitiv. In recent months, Amazon Web Services (AWS) saw its sales growth slow as wary businesses scrutinized their cloud bills. The unit beat estimates of around $21.7 billion in second-quarter cloud sales, increasing them 12% to $22.1 billion. Its rivals posted bigger jumps off smaller bases: 28% growth in Alphabet's June-quarter cloud revenue and a 26% quarterly increase for Microsoft's Azure. Longer-term, Amazon aims to turn one unit, its $35 billion in yearly gross business-to-business e-commerce sales, into $100 billion, Jassy told analysts.

Persons: Pascal Rossignol, Brian Olsavsky, Olsavsky, Andy Jassy, Arun Sundaram, Sundaram, Jassy, Thomas Monteiro, Investing.com, Monteiro, Refinitiv, Chavi Mehta, Jeffrey Dastin, Noel Randewich, Arun Koyyur, Aurora Ellis, Chris Reese Organizations: REUTERS, Amazon.com Inc, Amazon, Google, Microsoft, Refinitiv, Amazon Web Services, CFRA Research, Reuters, Thomson Locations: Lauwin, France, Alphabet's, Bengaluru, Jeffrey Dastin San Francisco

☆ Exclusive: Amazon has drawn thousands to try its AI service competing with Microsoft, Google
▼ + stars: | 2023-07-26 | by ( Jeffrey Dastin | Thomson Reuters | Jeffrey Dastin Is A Correspondent For Reuters Based In San Francisco | ) www.reuters.com time to read: +3 min

REUTERS/Gonzalo Fuentes/File PhotoJuly 26 (Reuters) - Amazon.com’s (AMZN.O) cloud division has drawn thousands of customers to try out its service vying with Microsoft (MSFT.O) and Google (GOOGL.O) in a key area of artificial intelligence, an executive told Reuters. "Our mission is to make every company an AI company," said Sivasubramanian, in an interview pegged to a summit the cloud provider hosted in New York. Amazon Bedrock is the company's answer to services announced by Google and Microsoft, cloud rivals that have developed or marketed AI garnering significant public attention. Microsoft has invested in OpenAI, the startup that created ChatGPT and the AI model known as GPT-4. The cloud provider announced Agents for Amazon Bedrock, which lets businesses create chatbots that execute tasks and give more personalized answers drawing from their proprietary data.

Persons: Gonzalo Fuentes, Swami Sivasubramanian, Sivasubramanian, Jeffrey Dastin, Stephen Nellis, Chizu Nomiyama, Daniel Wallis Organizations: Viva Technology, Porte de, REUTERS, Microsoft, Google, Reuters, Sony, Ryanair, Sun, Thomson Locations: Porte, Paris, France, New York, OpenAI, Silicon

The company also said it would make a more secure version of its Bing search engine available immediately to businesses, aiming to address their data-protection concerns, grow their interest in AI and compete more with Google. The voluntary upgrade is on top of publicly listed, monthly plans ranging from $12.50 per user to $57, meaning the copilot could triple costs for some Microsoft customers. Unlike the public Bing that millions of web surfers have accessed in recent months, the enterprise version will not allow any viewing or saving of user data to train underlying technology. Asked if Bing users were unprotected until now, Spataro said Microsoft had made its privacy policies clear and was eager to bring AI to consumers. It may also draw customers to Microsoft 365 Copilot, an AI upgrade giving access to business data and compliance controls.

Persons: Jared Spataro, Spataro, Bing, Jeffrey Dastin, Stephen Coates Organizations: Microsoft, Google, Bing Chat, Thomson Locations: copilot, Palo Alto, Calif

"High level, we want this to become something like your personal AI friend," said developer Div Garg, whose company MultiOn is beta-testing an AI agent. The race towards increasingly autonomous AI agents has been supercharged by the March release of GPT-4 by developer OpenAI, a powerful upgrade of the model behind ChatGPT - the chatbot that became a sensation when released last November. GPT-4 facilitates the type of strategic and adaptable thinking required to navigate the unpredictable real world, said Vivian Cheng, an investor at venture capital firm CRV who has a focus on AI agents. OpenAI itself is very interested in AI agent technology, according to four people briefed on its plans. There are at least 100 serious projects working to commercialize agents, said Matt Schlicht, who writes a newsletter on AI.

Persons: Siri, Alexa, Tony Stark's, Kanjun Qiu, Reid Hoffman, Mustafa Suleyman, Qiu, OpenAI, Vivian Cheng, CRV, Aravind Srinivas, Jarvis, Yoshua Bengio, Satya Nadella, Apple's Siri, it's, Google, Edward Grefenstette, Jason Franklin, WVV Capital, Hesam Motlagh, Matt Schlicht, Anna Tong, Jeffrey Dastin, Kenneth Li Organizations: Microsoft, Google, U.S . Federal Trade Commission, Reuters, FTC, OpenAI's, Financial Times, Amazon, Alexa, Investors, WVV, Google Ventures, Entrepreneurs, Thomson Locations: Silicon, Jarvis, GPT, Cognosys, San Francisco, Palo Alto

The AI models behind a viral chatbot like ChatGPT require immense computing power to train and operate, the kinds of costs Amazon Web Services (AWS) is good at lowering, said Dilip Kumar, vice president overseeing its applications group. A potential boost is that the company, like Google (GOOGL.O), has proprietary chips for AI. Rivals Microsoft (MSFT.O) and Google have marketed higher profile, proprietary technology, capturing mindshare and some business in the sector's potentially lucrative AI contest. Like Google, Amazon is marketing the technology of other prominent startups to give customers choice. The promise of AI aside, Amazon has faced uncertain economic conditions and slowing cloud revenue growth in the near term.

Persons: Dilip Kumar, Jeffrey Dastin, Nuri Vallbona AUSTIN, Kumar, Jamie Freed Organizations: Amazon, REUTERS, Amazon Web Services, Google, Rivals Microsoft, Microsoft, Thomson Locations: Austin , Texas, U.S, Austin

One unit ran a "hackathon," or collaborative engineering event, of so-called generative AI, technology that produces text, images or other new content based on past data. The division, Verafin, was exploring how to imbue such AI into its product for fighting financial crime, he said, adding the technology could create investigative reports. Still, despite using other forms of AI for years, Nasdaq's latest work remains experimental; no code has been published yet drafted by AI, Peterson said. Nasdaq has accessed a preview of Amazon's answer to the generative AI race, namely Amazon Bedrock, a pick-your-preferred technology approach that includes Claude AI from the startup Anthropic. On the longer-term horizon for Nasdaq is integrating the Thoma Bravo-owned software firm Adenza, subject to closure of the $10.5 billion-deal Nasdaq announced last month.

Persons: AUSTIN, Brad Peterson, Verafin, Peterson, We're, Nasdaq's, OpenAI, Claude AI, Thoma, Jeffrey Dastin, Kenneth Li, Deepa Babington Organizations: Nasdaq, Computer, Amazon Web Services, Microsoft, Thoma Bravo, Thomson Locations: Austin

July 11 (Reuters) - Anthropic, an artificial intelligence startup backed by Google, on Tuesday widened consumer access to its chat program Claude and upgraded underlying technology that the company says makes "Claude 2" better at tasks such computer coding and arithmetic. Businesses can launch products drawing on the model, and consumers in the U.S. and UK can chat with it online. Anthropic said in its upgrade of Claude it had doubled the model's performance on a safety evaluation. Unlike Claude, its recent GPT-4 model is "multimodal," meaning it can respond not just to text but to images that humans give it. Anthropic, founded by former OpenAI executives, said Claude 2 now scores 76.5% on the multiple-choice section of the Bar, up from 73% for its earlier model.

Persons: Claude, Anthropic, ChatGPT, Sandy Banerjee, Banerjee, Jeffrey Dastin, Stephen Nellis, David Gregorio Our Organizations: Google, Microsoft, Thomson Locations: San Francisco, Silicon Valley, U.S

The Google parent has advised employees not to enter its confidential materials into AI chatbots, the people said and the company confirmed, citing long-standing policy on safeguarding information. Alphabet also alerted its engineers to avoid direct use of computer code that chatbots can generate, some of the people said. A growing number of businesses around the world have set up guardrails on AI chatbots, among them Samsung (005930.KS), Amazon.com (AMZN.O) and Deutsche Bank (DBKGn.DE), the companies told Reuters. By February, Google told staff testing Bard before its launch not to give it internal information, Insider reported. A Google privacy notice updated on June 1 also states: "Don’t include confidential or sensitive information in your Bard conversations."

Persons: Bard, ChatGPT, OpenAI, Harry Potter, Yusuf Mehdi, Mehdi, Bing, Matthew Prince, Jeffrey Dastin, Anna Tong, Kenneth Li, Nick Zieminski Organizations: FRANCISCO, Reuters, Google, ChatGPT, Microsoft Corp, Samsung, Deutsche Bank, Apple, Data Protection, Politico, EU, cyberattacks, Microsoft, Thomson Locations: Bard, San Francisco

Look no further than artificial intelligence from Google (GOOGL.O) at Priceline as early as this summer, the companies told Reuters. New tools from Google's cloud division give Priceline access to generative AI, like the technology behind ChatGPT that can draft text as if a human wrote it. For Priceline, the embrace of novel technology may give it an edge over myriad sites that market travel options, Google among them. Among other uses, Google's AI will be generating coding suggestions for hundreds of software developers at Priceline, said Brodbeck. And Google's AI will speed up marketing for trending destinations.

Persons: Martin Brodbeck, there's, Brodbeck, Thomas Kurian, Kurian, Priceline, intranets, Jeffrey Dastin, Sonali Paul Organizations: Google, Reuters, Booking Holdings, Amazon, Microsoft, Thomson Locations: New York, Priceline, Bryant, Palo Alto, Calif

[1/3] Alphabet CEO Sundar Pichai speaks at the Google I/O 2023 conference, in Mountain View, California, U.S., May 10, 2023. Called the Search Generative Experience, the revamped Google can craft responses to open-ended queries while retaining its recognizable list of links to the Web. "We are reimagining all of our core products, including search," Sundar Pichai, Alphabet's CEO, said after he took the stage at the event. Generative AI can, using past data, create brand new content like fully formed text, images and software code. WHAT OUTFIT TO WEARWith the embedded AI, Google still looks and acts like its familiar empty search bar.

May 10 (Reuters) - Alphabet Inc's (GOOGL.O) Google on Wednesday began unveiling more artificial intelligence in its products to answer the latest competition from Microsoft Corp (MSFT.O), which has threatened its perch atop the nearly $300 billion search advertising market. He said Google is integrating generative AI into search. For years the top portal to the internet, Google has found its position in question since rivals began exploiting generative AI as an alternative way to present content from the web. That has represented a technological affront and a business one: Microsoft said every percentage point of share it gained in search advertising could draw another $2 billion in revenue. Pichai said earlier this year that generative AI to distill complex queries would come to Google Search, as would more perspectives, "like blogs from people who play both piano and guitar."

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