DIRS.INFO The most relevant business & tech news

☆ 'These are not normal;' A new type of dealmaking for AI startups is rattling Silicon Valley
▼ + stars: | 2024-08-10 | by ( Ben Bergman | Sri Muppidi | ) www.businessinsider.com time to read: +7 min

Google unnerved Silicon Valley last week when it agreed to pay $2.5 billion to license Character.AI's technology, hire its two superstar cofounders and 20 percent of employees. The deal came after AI developers Adept and Inflection both effectively sold themselves to Amazon and Microsoft, respectively, in recent months. It was only last year Character.AI raised $150 million in venture funding, which valued the company at $850 million. Its appeal as a chatbot that uses AI to make virtual characters that interact with users seems decidedly niche. Related storiesMost of the founders and investors Business Insider spoke to for this story say Google has little interest in Character.AI's actual product.

Persons: cofounders, Brent Queener, Kyle Sanford, Character.AI, Iris Sun, Noam Shazeer, Daniel De Freitas, Jack Selby, Peter Thiel's, Steve Brotman, Shazeer, De Freitas, PitchBook's Sanford, they're, Roy Bahat, Arvind Jain, Cameron Lester, Lester Organizations: Service, Microsoft, Bonfire Ventures, Business, Apple, Big Tech, AZ, Biden Administration, Federal Trade Commission, Department of Justice, Alpha Partners, FTC, DOJ, New York Times, Google, Madrona Venture, Bloomberg Beta, Jefferies

☆ The New A.I. Deal: Buy Everything but the Company
▼ + stars: | 2024-08-08 | by ( Erin Griffith | Cade Metz | ) www.nytimes.com time to read: +1 min

Last week, Mr. Shazeer and Mr. De Freitas announced that they were returning to Google. research arm, along with roughly 20 percent of Character.AI’s employees, and provide their start-up’s technology, they said. Instead, Google agreed to pay $3 billion to license the technology, two people with knowledge of the deal said. About $2.5 billion of that sum will then be used to buy out Character.AI’s shareholders, including Mr. Shazeer, who owns 30 percent to 40 percent of the company and stands to net $750 million to $1 billion, the people said. While big tech companies typically buy start-ups outright, they have turned to a more complicated deal structure for young A.I.

Persons: Noam Shazeer, Daniel De Freitas, Shazeer, De Freitas, Character.AI Organizations: Google Locations: Silicon Valley

☆ Ex-Google engineers who founded Character.AI rejoin company with new AI partnership
▼ + stars: | 2024-08-02 | by ( Jennifer Elias | ) www.cnbc.com time to read: +3 min

"I am super excited to return to Google and work as part of the Google DeepMind team," Shazeer said in a statement on Friday. I am confident that the funds from the non-exclusive Google licensing agreement together with the incredible Character.AI team positions Character.AI for continued success in the future." The move also comes amid a competitive talent and AI landscape, leading companies to form partnerships against a tough regulatory landscape that has placed scrutiny on mergers and acquisitions. Britain's competition watchdog said earlier this week it is looking into Google's partnership with AI startup Anthropic, for example. In March, Microsoft hired Mustafa Suleyman, a co-founder of AI startup DeepMind that Google acquired in 2014, and much of its staff to lead AI initiatives.

Persons: Noam Shazeer, Daniel De Freitas, Character.AI, Freitas, Axios, OpenAI's ChatGPT, Shazeer, We're, Noam, Mustafa Suleyman, Suleyman, Satya Nadella Organizations: Google, Character.AI, CNBC, Microsoft Locations: Character.AI

☆ Where inflation is the highest and lowest in America
▼ + stars: | 2024-07-28 | by ( Bryan Mena | ) edition.cnn.com time to read: +8 min

The Honolulu metro area in Hawaii, meanwhile, saw the nation’s highest annual inflation rate in May, at 5.2%. Housing costs have therefore eased over the past year, tugging inflation overall much lower. Tight housing-market conditions are also plaguing New York, which at one point boasted the lowest inflation rate in the country. Housing costs make up about a third of the Labor Department’s CPI, a closely watched inflation gauge. Inflation is down substantially from the 40-year highs of two years ago, but housing costs have remained stubbornly elevated.

Persons: ”, Barbara Denham, Brian Adcock, Willy Nunn, homebuilding, Adcock, “, Jane Castor, it’s, homebuilders, Carl Bonham, Mengshin Lin, Roseann Freitas, ” Freitas, Freitas, Josh Green Organizations: Washington CNN, Consumer, Nationwide, Aloha State, Oxford, Labor Department’s CPI, Federal, Boomers, Tampa Bay Chamber, Miami, Tampa, Homes, CNN, ” Tampa, Urban, University of Hawaii, Washington Post, Building Industry Association of Hawaii Locations: The Tampa, St, Petersburg, Clearwater, Florida, Honolulu, Hawaii, Tampa Bay, homebuilding, Houston , Minneapolis, Denver, Central Florida, New York, Tampa The Tampa, Tampa, Hillsborough County, Pasco County, Miami, ”, Urban Hawaii, Lahaina , Hawaii, Lahaina

☆ An Instagram influencer who partied with Leonardo DiCaprio got 8 years in prison for human trafficking: report
▼ + stars: | 2024-07-15 | by ( Joshua Nelken-Zitser | ) www.businessinsider.com time to read: +6 min

Read previewKat Torres, an Instagram influencer, was sentenced to eight years in a Brazilian prison for the human trafficking and slavery of a woman, according to the BBC. According to the BBC, Torres had gone from living in a Brazillian favela to partying with Leonardo DiCaprio and other A-listers. But according to the BBC, Ana and other followers said taking Torres' advice led to them becoming increasingly isolated from family and friends. Freitas told the BBC that Torres later tried to persuade her to become a sex worker. According to the BBC, Ana saw the news stories and contacted law enforcement agencies, including the FBI.

Persons: —, Kat Torres, Torres, Leonardo DiCaprio, Ana, Letícia Maia, Desirrê Freitas, Freitas, Maia, @searchingDesirrê, Jesus Organizations: Service, BBC, BBC Eye, BBC News Brasil, FBI, Business, Globo Locations: Brazilian, New York, Brazil, Germany

☆ An Instagram influencer who partied with Leonardo DiCaprio was jailed for trafficking and slavery: report
▼ + stars: | 2024-07-15 | by ( Joshua Nelken-Zitser | ) www.businessinsider.com time to read: +6 min

☆ Why 4 new bird flu developments have experts worried about the virus
▼ + stars: | 2024-06-12 | by ( Morgan Mcfall-Johnsen | ) www.businessinsider.com time to read: +9 min

Read previewBird flu is flying wild, and it has many infectious disease experts more worried now than ever. The H5N1 avian influenza virus has killed tens of millions of birds across the planet and more than 40,000 sea lions and seals. Most people seem to have very little chance, if any, of catching H5N1 avian influenza right now. Jim Vondruska/ReutersBut infectious disease experts are increasingly concerned that the H5N1 virus could make a sustained jump into humans and start spreading among us. This virus is a leading candidate for the next pandemic, and four developments in the past month have experts worried.

Persons: —, Jim Vondruska, That's, Dr, Monica Gandhi, Bird, WHO —, Christopher Dye, Dye, David L, Ryan, Gandhi, Tayfun, Rick Bright, Cynthia Goldsmith, Jackie Katz, Richard Webby, Jude, Talita, Lima Freitas, Amanda Perobelli, Marko Geber, Terry Chea, they've Organizations: Service, CDC, Business, Global Medicine, University of California, Health Organization, WHO, University of Oxford, Boston Globe, Getty, US Department of Agriculture, Anadolu Agency, The Telegraph, Biomedical, Research, Development Authority, AP, Centre, Studies, Reference Laboratory, World Organization for Animal Health, Vaccines, University of Pennsylvania Locations: Luz, Monee , Illinois, San Francisco, Australia, Kolkata, India, New Mexico, New York, St, Michigan, Campinas, Brazil

CNN —Florida A&M University is putting a purported $237.75 million donation “on pause,” after media reports and college board leaders raised concerns about the actual value of the stock gift—and the details surrounding the donor’s previous donations. South Carolina’s Coastal Carolina University had announced a $95 million donation from an anonymous donor, who then backed out months later. At an emergency board meeting on Thursday, FAMU board of trustee and foundation members expressed their concerns and frustration about the school’s vetting process involving Gerami’s donation. He referred questions to the university and agreed to answer CNN’s questions on the following day, but he couldn’t be reached. FAMU’s Special Board of Trustees, which oversees the full school and the foundation, has scheduled a meeting for May 15 to discuss the donation.

Persons: ”, Larry Robinson, It’s, Gregory Gerami, Robinson, Gerami, Deveron Gibbons, ” Gibbons, “, Gibbons, Kristin Harper, ” Harper, FAMU, Stroud, Terry Arnold Organizations: CNN, Florida, M University, Batterson Farms Corp, Politico, Carolina’s Coastal Carolina University, Myrtle Beach Sun News, FAMU Foundation, university’s, Trustees, Foundation Board, University Advancement Shawnta, FAMU Locations: Texas, Carolina’s, Florida

STOCKTON, Calif. (AP) — A California judge on Friday ordered Tesla Inc. to pay $1.5 million as part of a settlement of a civil case alleging the company mishandled hazardous waste at its car service centers, energy centers and a factory, multiple county district attorneys announced. The complaint filed in San Joaquin County alleged illegal disposal of hazardous waste and violation of laws involving storage and management of the waste, according to statements from several of 25 district attorneys offices in California involved in the case. The district attorneys' statements said Tesla cooperated with the investigation and acted to improve compliance with laws that were brought to its attention by the prosecutors. “Electric vehicles play a role in environmental betterment, yet it’s imperative to recognize that their production and maintenance yield detrimental waste," said San Joaquin County District Attorney Ron Freitas. Tesla owns and operates approximately 57 car service centers and 18 solar energy facilities in California, and manufactures electric vehicles in the San Francisco Bay Area city of Fremont.

Persons: Tesla, Ron Freitas Organizations: Tesla Inc, Associated Press, “ Locations: STOCKTON, Calif, California, San Joaquin County, Joaquin, San Francisco Bay Area, Fremont

Google and Character AI did not respond to requests for comment. The demographic is helping the company position itself as the purveyor of more fun personal AI companions, compared to other AI chatbots from OpenAI's ChatGPT and Google's Bard. Character.AI is also in talks to raise equity funding from venture capital investors, which could value the company at over $5 billion, sources said. The talks with Google are ongoing and terms of the deal could change, said the sources, who requested anonymity as the discussions are private. Anthropic uses Google's cloud services as well as its latest version of TPUs.

Persons: Character.AI, Noam Shazeer, Daniel De Freitas, Billie Eilish, Character.AI's, Google's Bard, Andreessen Horowitz, Lina Khan, Krystal Hu, Anna Tong, Jeffrey Dastin, Bill Berkrot Organizations: Google, Reuters, Microsoft, . Federal Trade Commission, Thomson Locations: OpenAI, ., San Francisco, New York

☆ Pan Am Games show jumping ends in chaos after Canadian protest
▼ + stars: | 2023-11-03 | by ( Steve Keating | ) www.reuters.com time to read: +3 min

QUILLOTA, Chile, Nov 3 (Reuters) - The Pan American Games show jumping competition ended in chaos on Friday, with Canada arguing a judging error had denied Amy Millar a place on the podium, triggering protests and appeals. Video showed that the barrier did drop but the Canadian protest argued it did so after Millar had crossed the finish line and completed her round. The U.S. later filed a counter appeal and could be seen engaged in an animated conversation with the Canadian team outside of the judges' meeting. "We just went all together, including the Canadian team, to watch the video, the video clearly shows she touched the fence," Ward, a five-time Olympian and double gold medallist told Reuters. Ward had no problem with Canada filing a protest but was happy officials made the decision they did.

Persons: Amy Millar, Millar, Ian Millar, Brazil's Stephan de Freitas Barcha, Kent Farrington, McLain Ward, McLain, Ward, Steve Keating, Toby Davis Organizations: Pan American, Reuters, U.S, Canadian, Thomson Locations: QUILLOTA, Chile, Canada, U.S, Quillota

☆ Vilaseca proud of Uruguay performance despite France defeat
▼ + stars: | 2023-09-14 | by ( ) www.reuters.com time to read: +2 min

LILLE, France, Sept 14 (Reuters) - Uruguay captain Andres Vilaseca hailed his team’s fighting spirit in their 27-12 World Cup loss to hosts France on Thursday and believes his side will grow in confidence following their eye-catching performance. France led by eight points going into the final 10 minutes as Uruguay pushed them all the way. In the end their inaccuracy let France off the hook, but it was still a performance to savour for Vilaseca. Uruguay coach Esteban Meneses said the key was not to build on this performance and not make it a one-off. France top Pool A with eight points from their two games while Uruguay have a second fixture against Italy in Nice next Wednesday.

Persons: Andres Vilaseca, Esteban Meneses, Meneses, Nicolas Freitas, Baltazar Amaya, Nick Said, Pritha Sarkar Organizations: LILLE, France, Italy, New, Thomson Locations: France, Uruguay, Nice, New Zealand, Namibia

☆ Brazil police violence reignites after deadly Rio, Sao Paulo raids
▼ + stars: | 2023-08-02 | by ( ) www.reuters.com time to read: +3 min

RIO DE JANEIRO, Aug 2 (Reuters) - Police in Rio de Janeiro killed at least nine people in a raid on Wednesday, in the latest example of deadly violence by Brazil's security officials after 16 people died at the hands of Sao Paulo state police earlier this week. Police in Rio said they were attacked by armed assailants during Wednesday's operation in the Penha neighborhood. Lopsided death tolls have become a common occurrence in Rio raids, leading critics to allege excessive force or even summary executions by the police. REUTERS/Pilar OlivaresSao Paulo, Brazil's wealthiest and most populous state, has been less blighted by police violence than neighboring Rio. Among those killed in the Rio operation were "Fiel" and "Du Leme," two alleged gang leaders in the impoverished Juramento and Chatuba neighborhoods, police said.

Persons: Jair Bolsonaro, Bolsonaro, Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva, Pilar Olivares Sao, Santos, Tarcisio de Freitas, Freitas, Du Leme, Marco Andrade, Rodrigo Viga Gaier, Eduardo Simoes, Steven Grattan, Gabriel Stargardter, Jonathan Oatis, Richard Chang, Alistair Bell Organizations: RIO DE, Police, REUTERS, Paulo, Thomson Locations: RIO DE JANEIRO, Rio de Janeiro, Sao Paulo, Brazil, Rio, Penha, Guaruja

☆ Sao Paulo governor turns heads on Brazil's right after Bolsonaro election ban
▼ + stars: | 2023-07-20 | by ( Ricardo Brito | ) www.reuters.com time to read: +5 min

Although the governor and his closest advisers insist he is focused on serving Sao Paulo state, many of Brazil's seasoned conservative power brokers are already calling the pro-business moderate a natural candidate for the presidency in three years. It also helped shore up three-quarters support among Sao Paulo lawmakers for the reform as it cleared one chamber of Congress. He is pushing to privatize the port of Santos on the Sao Paulo coast, a bid blocked for now by the federal government. And he has vowed to revive efforts to privatize state water utility Sabesp (SBSP3.SA), while Lula has decried recent privatizations under Bolsonaro. "He has to finish his mission in Sao Paulo with a second term," said one close aide, asking not to be named as he was not authorized to speak about the governor's plans.

Persons: Tarcisio de Freitas, Jair Bolsonaro, Freitas, Bolsonaro, Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva's, Marcos Pereira, of God, Arthur Lira, Ciro Nogueira, Bolsonaro's, Antonio Queiroz, Dilma Rousseff, Lula, Queiroz, Ricardo Brito, Anthony Boadle, Brad Haynes, Paul Simao Organizations: Paulo, Republicans, Universal Church of, Liberal Party, ARMY, Workers Party, Sao, Thomson Locations: BRASILIA, Sao Paulo, of, Brazilian, Santos

☆ Millions of users are flocking to an AI-powered chatbot that lets them chat with famous figures like Elon Musk and Mario
▼ + stars: | 2023-07-13 | by ( Beatrice Nolan | ) www.businessinsider.com time to read: +2 min

Character.AI lets users chat with and create bots based on famous figures throughout history. The app had been downloaded more than 5 million times, according to Bloomberg. Popular figures on the platform include Mario, Elon Musk, and Albert Einstein. One platform, Character.AI, says it's doing things differently from its competitors. For one thing, instead of delivering responses in a consistent voice or a set of pre-programmed personas, users can converse with and create chatbots based on famous figures throughout history.

Persons: Character.AI, Elon Musk, Albert Einstein, Daniel De Freitas, Noam Shazeer, Mario, Micheal Jackson, Tony Stark, Socrates Organizations: Bloomberg, Mario, ChatGPT, Google, Nintendo

☆ Google's top AI researchers, including all the authors behind a landmark paper, have left for competitors. Here's where they are now.
▼ + stars: | 2023-07-13 | by ( Thomas Maxwell | Hugh Langley | ) www.businessinsider.com time to read: +13 min

Top AI researchers have been leaving for startups where their work can have more impact. That frustration over Google's slow movement has been corroborated by other former Google researchers who spoke to Insider. Niki Parmar left Google Brain after five years to serve as a cofounder and CTO of Adept, though in November, she left to found a stealth startup. Lukasz Kaiser left Google Brain after working there for more than seven years to join OpenAI in 2021. Sharan Narang, another contributor to the T5 paper, left Google Brain in 2022 after four years there.

Persons: it's, Llion Jones, OpenAI's, ChatGPT, Sundar Pichai, Bard, Daniel De Freitas, Noam Shazeer, Ilya Sutskever, Sutskever, OpenAI, Ashish Vaswani, Niki Parmar, Jakob Uszkoreit, Aidan Gomez, Nick Frosst, Lukasz Kaiser, Kaiser, Illia Polosukhin, Meena, De Freitas, Romal Thoppilan, Character.AI, LaMDA, Elon Musk, Character.ai, Winni Wintermeyer, Thoppilan, Alicia Jin, BERT BERT, BERT, Jacob Devlin, Colin Raffel, Raffel, Sharan Narang, He's, Azalia Mirhoseini, Anna Goldie, Mirhoseini, Goldie, Claude, DeepMind Mustafa Suleyman, Mustafa Suleyman, DeepMind, Suleyman, Reid Hoffman Organizations: Google, Bloomberg, New York Times, Microsoft, Street Journal, Neural Networks, OpenAI, YouTube, Elon, UNC Chapel Hill, Meta, Anthropic, Society Locations: ChatGPT, Character.AI, DeepMind

☆ Google quietly ditched plans for an AI-powered chatbot app for Gen Z
▼ + stars: | 2023-07-11 | by ( Jennifer Elias | ) www.cnbc.com time to read: +2 min

Google was working on an AI-powered mobile chatbot app for Gen Z users that features interactive digital characters, CNBC has learned. However, the company recently "deprioritized" those efforts amid an internal reorganization, according to materials seen by CNBC. Typically, when a product is deprioritized at Google, work on it ceases. Called "Bubble Characters," the app featured a choice of a talking digital character that would interact in conversations with Gen Z users, according to internal documentation viewed by CNBC. The Gen Z chatbot was one among a range of AI-powered projects using Google's large language models in the last several months.

Persons: Gen, chatbot, Bard, Noam Shazeer, Daniel De Freitas, Andreessen Horowitz Organizations: Google, CNBC

☆ Bolsonaro eyes 2026 candidacy for his wife as his political future evaporates
▼ + stars: | 2023-06-30 | by ( Gabriel Stargardter | ) www.reuters.com time to read: +3 min

RIO DE JANEIRO, June 30 (Reuters) - Former Brazil President Jair Bolsonaro's hopes of reclaiming the presidency in 2026 may be all but dead. A majority of Brazil's federal electoral court (TSE) justices on Friday froze Bolsonaro's political career, barring the far-right nationalist from public office until 2030 for spreading baseless claims about the country's voting system in last year's election. The majority ruling represents a devastating setback for the 68-year-old career politician who was until recently Brazil's most powerful man. Speaking on Thursday shortly after landing in Rio de Janeiro, where he was greeted with shouts of "criminal" and "coup-monger," Bolsonaro backed his wife Michelle for 2026. Michelle Bolsonaro is a political newcomer.

Persons: Jair Bolsonaro's, Bolsonaro, Michelle, Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva, Tarcisio Freitas, Romeu Zema, Michelle Bolsonaro, Lula, William Douglas, Flavio Bolsonaro, Eduardo Bolsonaro, Steve Bannon, Gabriel Stargardter, Rosalba O'Brien Organizations: RIO DE, Sao Paulo, Liberal Party, Evangelical Christian, Thomson Locations: RIO DE JANEIRO, Brazil, Rio de Janeiro, Sao, Minas Gerais, Brasilia, Rio

☆ Brazil electoral court close to ending Bolsonaro's political career
▼ + stars: | 2023-06-29 | by ( Ricardo Brito | ) www.reuters.com time to read: +3 min

So far three judges have voted to convict the far-right nationalist for abuse of political power and misuse of the media, while one has not. The TSE trial is part of a broader reckoning in Brazil with the fallout from the country's most painful election in a generation. While the former president faces electoral court scrutiny, many of his one-time allies are being questioned by lawmakers in a congressional probe into the Jan. 8 riots. Bolsonaro's best hope at future relevance may lie with his family, including his wife and lawmaker sons, who could also harbor their own presidential ambitions. He told the Folha de S. Paulo that his wife Michelle could well be a presidential candidate in 2026, but said she lacked political experience.

Persons: Jair Bolsonaro, Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva, Donald Trump, Bolsonaro, Brazil's, Tarcisio Freitas, Romeu Zema, Paulo, Michelle, Ricardo Brito, Steven Grattan, Gabriel Stargardter, Angus MacSwan, Conor Humphries Organizations: Brasilia, TSE, Folha, Paulo, Sao Paulo, Thomson Locations: BRASILIA, Brasilia, Brazil, Rio de Janeiro, Minas Gerais

☆ Bolsonaro clings to his political future as electoral court case begins
▼ + stars: | 2023-06-22 | by ( ) www.reuters.com time to read: +3 min

The outlook appears bleak for Bolsonaro, a career politician who was until recently Brazil's most powerful man. Tarcisio Vieira, Bolsonaro's lawyer, told Reuters this week that his polarizing client faces an "unfavorable" climate from the country's media and the political and judicial classes. In an opening speech, Vieira said the case against Bolsonaro was "doomed to failure." If the TSE rules against Bolsonaro, the 68-year-old could find himself unable to run for public office until 2030. Much of Brazil appears eager to move on from the fire and brimstone of the Bolsonaro years.

Persons: Jair, Salgado, Diego Vara, Jair Bolsonaro's, Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva, Bolsonaro's, Tarcisio Vieira, Vieira, Bolsonaro, Lula, Tarcisio Freitas, Romeu Zema, Gabriel Stargardter, Brad Haynes, Chizu, Rosalba O'Brien Organizations: Electoral, REUTERS, Diego Vara RIO, Reuters, Bolsonaro, Sao Paulo, Thomson Locations: Porto Alegre, Rio Grande do Sul, Brazil, JANEIRO, Brasilia, Jan, Minas Gerais

☆ Dom Phillips and Bruno Pereira: Brazil names two more suspects in deaths of British journalist and indigenous expert
▼ + stars: | 2023-06-05 | by ( Sahar Akbarzai | ) edition.cnn.com time to read: +2 min

CNN —Two more suspects have been named in the alleged murders of British journalist Dom Phillips and indigenous expert Bruno Pereira, including the alleged mastermind of the crime, Brazilian police say. Phillips and Pereira were shot dead a year ago while they were returning from a reporting trip in the Amazon. Fisherman Janio Freitas de Souza has also been named as a suspect and has links to the illegal fishing criminal organization, the statement added. Both men have been imprisoned since July 2022, along with three other suspects and are awaiting trial, police told CNN. The deaths of Phillips and Pereira has drawn global attention to the perils often faced by journalists and environmental activists in Brazil.

Persons: Dom Phillips, Bruno Pereira, Phillips, Pereira, Ruben Villar, ”, Janio Freitas de Souza Organizations: CNN, Amazon, Brazil’s Federal Police, Indigenous Organization, Human Rights, Commission, Catholic Church Locations: British, Colombia, Javari, Brazil

☆ Google tells staff it plans to limit publishing AI research to 'compete and keep knowledge in house' as its rivalry with Microsoft's OpenAI heats up
▼ + stars: | 2023-05-04 | by ( Thomas Maxwell | Hugh Langley | ) www.businessinsider.com time to read: +7 min

Google told staff it will be more selective about the research it publishes. Recently, information like code and data has become accessible on a "much more on a need-to-know" basis, according to a Google AI staffer. LaMDA, a chatbot technology that forms the basis of Bard, was originally built as a 20 percent project within Google Brain. (The company has historically allowed employees to spend 20% of their working days exploring side projects that might turn into full-fledged Google products.) Google's AI division has faced other setbacks.

☆ Bolsonaro steals show at Brazil's biggest farm fair
▼ + stars: | 2023-05-01 | by ( Lais Morais | ) www.reuters.com time to read: +2 min

[1/5] Brazil's former President Jair Bolsonaro attends the Agrishow fair, in Ribeirao Preto, Brazil, May 1, 2023. REUTERS/Carla CarnielRIBERAO PRETO, Brazil, May 1 (Reuters) - Former right-wing President Jair Bolsonaro stole the show on Monday at Brazil's largest agribusiness fair where he was acclaimed by supporters from the country's strong farm sector. Bolsonaro criticized the decision by Lula to recognize new Indigenous reservations, a constant complaint by farmers in Brazil's expanding agricultural frontier. The deep-pocketed and powerful farm sector were major supporters of Bolsonaro's 2018 election. Bolsonaro faces legal risks that could ban him from running in the 2026 election.

☆ A former Google researcher behind a seminal AI paper describes how the company lost a top chatbot visionary
▼ + stars: | 2023-04-20 | by ( Thomas Maxwell | ) www.businessinsider.com time to read: +5 min

Character.ai CEO Noam Shazeer, a former Googler who worked in AI, spoke to the "No Priors" podcast. He says Google was afraid to launch a chatbot, fearing consequences of it saying something wrong. Like the chatbot ChatGPT, Character.ai's technology leans on a vast amount of text-based information scraped from the web for its knowledge. Shazeer was a lead author on Google's Transformer paper, which has been widely cited as key to today's chatbots. Google had also received pushback internally from AI researchers like Timnit Gebru who cautioned against releasing anything that might cause harm.

☆ Toyota to invest $338 mln in new hybrid, flex car in Brazil
▼ + stars: | 2023-04-19 | by ( ) www.reuters.com time to read: +1 min

SAO PAULO, April 19 (Reuters) - Toyota Motor Corp (7203.T) said on Wednesday it will invest 1.7 billion reais ($337.68 million) to manufacture a new hybrid, flex-fuel compact car in Brazil, which will run on both gasoline and ethanol in addition to its electric engine. Toyota's announcement came at an event attended by the firm's local head, Rafael Chang, and Sao Paulo Governor Tarcisio de Freitas. Part of the investment - roughly 1 billion reais - will come from tax credits Toyota had with the state. "Toyota believes in the Brazilian market and continues to invest in technology and innovation to meet consumer needs," Chang said. The car is set to be launched in Brazil in 2024 and sold in 22 Latin American countries, it added.

Search resuls for: "Freitas"

25 mentions found