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☆ 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.

☆ Novo Nordisk rivals see room to compete in $100 billion weight-loss drug market
▼ + stars: | 2023-05-04 | by ( Michael Erman | ) www.reuters.com time to read: +6 min

The company has two oral GLP-1 drugs in mid-stage trials, and aims to choose one for a late-stage trial this year. He forecasts GLP-1s or similar drugs topping $100 billion in annual sales early in the 2030s, with Lilly's product accounting for more than $50 billion in sales. Smaller biotechs are also vying for a piece of the obesity market and hope large pharmaceutical companies will pay up for partnerships. "I don't know if it's $90 billion or $80 billion or $50 billion. The current GLP-1 drugs can cause nausea and vomiting.

Google used the term 52 times on its first-quarter call on Tuesday, up from 45 in the fourth quarter. Both companies said AI was already juicing sales, but neither said when or if they would start breaking out any sales, costs, or profits from the technology. Bing has lagged Google search for decades but Nadella said that Bing downloads had jumped since the addition of AI features and now had 100 million daily users. Toyama said Google already used AI to monetize their search algorithms and he did not expect AI advances from its rivals to be as much of a threat as some thought. Meta, which has admitted it is playing catch-up in AI, has published an AI model that can pick out individual objects from within an image.

☆ Google to combine AI research units Google Research, DeepMind
▼ + stars: | 2023-04-20 | by ( ) www.reuters.com time to read: 1 min

April 20 (Reuters) - Alphabet Inc (GOOGL.O) said on Thursday it will combine two of its divisions working on artificial intelligence research, Google Research and DeepMind, into a new unit, Google DeepMind. Reporting by Yuvraj Malik in BengaluruOur Standards: The Thomson Reuters Trust Principles.

☆ Alphabet to combine AI research units Google Brain, DeepMind
▼ + stars: | 2023-04-20 | by ( ) www.reuters.com time to read: +1 min

April 20 (Reuters) - Alphabet Inc (GOOGL.O) is combining Google Brain and DeepMind, as it doubles down on artificial intelligence research in its race to compete with rival systems like OpenAI's ChatGPT chatbot. The new division will be led by DeepMind CEO Demis Hassabis and its setting up will ensure "bold and responsible development of general AI", Alphabet CEO Sundar Pichai said in a blog post on Thursday. Going forward, the Alphabet staff will work on "multimodal" AI, like OpenAI's latest model GPT-4, which can respond not only to text prompts but to image inputs as well to generate new content. Google has for decades dominated the search market, with a share of over 80%, but Wall Street fears that the Alphabet unit could fall behind Microsoft Corp (MSFT.O) in the fast-moving AI race. Technology from OpenAI, funded by Microsoft, powers the rival software maker's updated Bing search engine.

March 28 - Crude prices moved in a narrow range in early Asian trade on Tuesday after rallying in the previous session, with oil markets focused on developments in the banking crisis as well as on supply concerns and indications of strengthening demand. Brent crude futures fell 2 cents to $78.10 a barrel at 0018 GMT. Prices rose in the previous session after Turkey stopped pumping crude from Kurdistan via a pipeline following an arbitration decision that confirmed Baghdad's consent was needed to ship the oil. Oil prices also drew support from indications of strong Chinese demand. U.S. crude oil stockpiles were seen rising about 200,000 barrels last week, a preliminary Reuters poll showed on Monday.

☆ Oil prices soften; banking crisis and Chinese demand in focus
▼ + stars: | 2023-03-28 | by ( ) www.cnbc.com time to read: +2 min

Oil prices rose in early Asian trade on the prospect that a stalled Iran nuclear deal and Moscow's new mobilization campaign would restrict global supplies. Crude prices retreated on Tuesday after rallying the previous session, with markets focused on developments in the banking crisis and indications of strengthening demand in China. Oil prices were also likely to continue drawing support from indications of recovering Chinese demand. "China's manufacturing and services PMIs will be a major economic driver to oil prices as positive data is most likely to further improve the demand outlook," Teng said. U.S. crude oil stockpiles were seen rising about 200,000 barrels last week, a preliminary Reuters poll showed on Monday.

☆ Google's AI teams are experiencing a brain drain. Here's where its top researchers are now.
▼ + stars: | 2023-03-23 | by ( Thomas Maxwell | Hugh Langley | ) www.businessinsider.com time to read: +12 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 co-founder and CTO of Adept, though like Vaswani she recently left for a stealth startup. Lukasz Kaiser left Google Brain after over seven years to join OpenAI in 2021. Sharan Narang, another contributor to the T5 paper, left Google Brain in 2022 after four years.

☆ Two Google engineers built a ChatGPT-like AI chatbot years ago, but execs reportedly shut it down due to safety concerns
▼ + stars: | 2023-03-08 | by ( Aaron Mok | ) www.businessinsider.com time to read: +5 min

Ex-Google engineers developed a conversational AI chatbot years ago, per The Wall Street Journal. Google is now racing to catch up with Microsoft's AI and plans to release its AI chatbot this year. "It caused a bit of a stir inside of Google," Shazeer said in an interview with investors Aarthi Ramamurthy and Sriram Krishnan last month. But Google's AI plans may now finally see the light of day, even as discussions around whether its chatbot can be responsibly launched continue. Alphabet chairman John Hennessy agreed that Google's chatbot wasn't "really ready for a product yet."

☆ Meta VP tells staff to make the metaverse 'so obviously successful' that his dad stops calling every week to ask about it
▼ + stars: | 2023-03-03 | by ( Aaron Mok | ) www.businessinsider.com time to read: +4 min

A Meta VP told staff to "buckle down" and "build great products" for the metaverse, per The Verge. Only one in 10 users reportedly come back to its Horizon metaverse platform after a month. The VP reportedly said he wants the metaverse and VR to be "so obviously successful that my dad stops calling me every week to ask" about it. "And please, let's make the metaverse and VR so obviously successful that my dad stops calling me every week to ask me about it," he reportedly added. But only time will tell if Meta's products will keep users active in the metaverse.

☆ Eli Lilly recruits Black patients for Alzheimer trial as drugmakers seek more diversity in clinical studies
▼ + stars: | 2023-02-16 | by ( Bertha Coombs | ) www.cnbc.com time to read: +4 min

Eli Lilly drove two mobile labs to the Black women's gathering, to recruit older Black women for a new trial. The drug maker developed the labs on wheels in 2020, to keep its clinical trials going in the first year of the Covid pandemic. A study by the Alzheimer's Association found that 62% of African Americans think clinical research is biased against people of color. Decentralized trialsFinding and enrolling patients can be among the most costly and time-consuming part of clinical trials. By 2021, while advertising remained the top source, social media replaced doctors as the second most-likely way trial participants learned about clinical studies.

☆ Mark Zuckerberg's metaverse just keeps losing money, as Meta's Reality Labs division posts a loss of $13.7 billion for the year
▼ + stars: | 2023-02-01 | by ( Lakshmi Varanasi | ) www.businessinsider.com time to read: +3 min

Reality Labs is the business and research unit of Meta that focuses on the metaverse. It reported a loss of $4.28 billion for the fourth quarter, wider than $3.3 billion in the quarter prior. The company posted its fourth-quarter earnings report on Wednesday, with Reality Labs showing an operating loss of $4.28 billion for the fourth quarter, wider than $3.3 billion in the previous quarter. In the past 12 months, Reality Labs has sucked up more than $13.7 billion. However, in an internal email sent in late December, Bosworth reportedly told the 18,000 members of Reality Labs that the company has solved too many problems simply "by adding headcount."

☆ China's Shenghong Holdings to invest $4.5 bln in energy battery factory, research unit
▼ + stars: | 2023-01-31 | by ( ) www.reuters.com time to read: 1 min

BEIJING, Jan 31 (Reuters) - China's Shenghong Holdings Group signed a contract on Tuesday to invest 30.6 billion yuan ($4.5 billion) in an energy storage battery gigafactory and a new energy battery research facility in the eastern city of Zhangjiagang. The Suzhou city government announced the pact on its official social media account, adding that the completed project was expected to generate 56 billion yuan in annual revenue. ($1=6.7536 Chinese yuan renminbi)Reporting by Beijing newsroom; Editing by Clarence FernandezOur Standards: The Thomson Reuters Trust Principles.

☆ Google's big fear is AI running wild. After ChatGPT, it's too late.
▼ + stars: | 2023-01-19 | by ( Hasan Chowdhury | ) www.businessinsider.com time to read: +6 min

It's in Google's financial interest to present itself as a responsible custodian of AI. On Monday, some of Google's most senior executives, including CEO Sundar Pichai, senior vice president James Manyika, and the chief executive of its AI research unit DeepMind, Demis Hassabis, published an explainer on their approach to AI research, titled "Why we focus on AI (and to what end)." This is a "thinly veiled swipe at OpenAI and ChatGPT", according to a research note from Richard Windsor of Radio Free Mobile. In other words: If ChatGPT and its successors cause widespread havoc, it'll ruin AI adoption for everyone, including Google. There'll be more ChatGPT momentsThere is a flood of money pouring into generative AI startups promising real-world applications.

☆ Most armies ignore autistic people. Israel is calling them up.
▼ + stars: | 2023-01-12 | by ( Joshua Zitser | ) www.businessinsider.com time to read: +12 min

He signed up to serve through Ro'im Rachok, a first-of-its-kind program that places autistic people in the military to utilize their valuable skills. Ro'im Rachok, however, allows them to sign up as volunteers. Ro'im Rachok students sit in a circle during a class at Ono Academic College. Israel Defense Forces/ InsiderIt's November, and students of the Ro'im Rachok electronics course are approaching the final month of their training. But because Ro'im Rachok enlistees are volunteers, they can drop out after a year.

☆ 'I needed more in my life': Pandemic spurs women to choose flexibility, freedom over traditional office jobs
▼ + stars: | 2022-12-05 | by ( Korie Wilkins | ) www.businessinsider.com time to read: +5 min

Women are choosing freelance work over office jobs. They are all looking for flexible work, with many of them looking for contingent or freelance work." Photo provided by Kimberly HermannA friend told Hermann about Hay There Social Media's training program and she jumped in. Others have the freedom to pursue freelance work because they have a partner or spouse who has a job that includes benefits like healthcare. Cohen said these challenges and changes will likely continue to fuel the shift toward contract or freelance work for women.

☆ Ultraprocessed food may contribute to dementia, study says
▼ + stars: | 2022-12-05 | by ( Sandee Lamotte | ) edition.cnn.com time to read: +6 min

CNN —We all eat them — ultraprocessed foods such as frozen pizza and ready-to-eat meals make our busy lives much easier. If more than 20% of your daily calorie intake is ultraprocessed foods, however, you may be raising your risk for cognitive decline, a new study found. While short of proof, this is robust enough that we should conclude ultraprocessed foods are probably bad for our brains.”There was an interesting twist, however. “Ultraprocessed foods drag diet quality down, and thus their concentration in the diet is an indicator of poor diet quality in most cases,” Katz said. One easy way to ensure diet quality is to cook and prepare your food from scratch, Suemoto said.

☆ Ukraine says Russia 'distracting' air defences with dud nuclear-capable missiles
▼ + stars: | 2022-12-01 | by ( ) www.reuters.com time to read: +2 min

KYIV, Dec 1 (Reuters) - Ukraine's military said on Thursday it had found fragments of Russian-fired nuclear-capable missiles with dud warheads in west Ukraine, and that their apparent purpose was to distract air defences. It is primarily intended to carry nuclear warheads and to be launched from bomber aircraft. Danyliuk said the missiles were fitted with non-explosive warheads, one of which was exhibited on the stage of the briefing centre in Kyiv where he was speaking. "This is evidenced by... the impact of a Kh-55 missile into a residential building," he said. Danyliuk also said that all the Kh-55 missiles that had been discovered had their serial numbers scratched out.

☆ Google has a secret new project that is teaching artificial intelligence to write and fix code. It could reduce the need for human engineers in the future.
▼ + stars: | 2022-11-23 | by ( Hugh Langley | ) www.businessinsider.com time to read: +4 min

Google is working on a tool that teaches code to write and rewrite itself. The project was spun up at the company's moonshot unit X, and moved into Google Labs this year. Google is working on a secretive project that uses machine learning to train code to write, fix, and update itself. It could have profound implications for the company's future and developers who write code. Google Labs pursues long-term bets, including projects in virtual and augmented reality.

☆ SocGen’s BNP envy carries a cost
▼ + stars: | 2022-11-22 | by ( Liam Proud | ) www.reuters.com time to read: +3 min

It mimics BNP Paribas’s (BNPP.PA) deal with European peer Exane, which the French group took over last year. SocGen research analysts cover around 500 mostly European stocks, according to JPMorgan, compared with AllianceBernstein’s more international coverage of roughly 800 companies. Second, the venture makes the French bank’s equities business less reliant on derivatives and structured products, which led to heavy losses in 2020. Trading cash equities and selling research typically chews up much less capital and leads to fewer blow-ups. And the wider equities trading business is increasingly dominated by larger players, especially U.S. banks.

Rising salinity in the Delta has multiple causes, experts and farmers say, including overextraction of groundwater and excessive use of fertilizers and pesticides. "With time, with the sea level higher, that line of salinity will go down into the Delta. EVAPORATIONSea water intrusion and salinity also threaten the Mekong Delta in Vietnam and the Ganges-Brahmaputra Delta in Bangladesh. "You have to do much better job in a place like the Nile Delta because the water just evaporates quickly," she said. Rice cultivation helps wash the soil, but the government has imposed restrictions on the crop in parts of the Delta to conserve scarce water.

☆ Russia's top central banker warns of higher inflation as Putin's military draft tightens the labor market
▼ + stars: | 2022-11-01 | by ( Huileng Tan | ) www.businessinsider.com time to read: +2 min

Russia's top central banker Nabiullina has now warned of higher inflation, thanks to Putin's military draft. She said the draft could lead to structural changes in the labor market, leading to higher labor costs. The Russian central bank expects the country's inflation rate to hit 12% to 13% in 2022. Putin's partial mobilization order has wreaked havoc among Russians and sent many fleeing the draft. Despite the negative fallout from Putin's draft, Nabiullina hedged her bleak outlook on the economy and said the economy "has been adapting to the external restrictions more quickly," in part, due to record-high farm harvests this year.

☆ Putin called an additional 300,000 men into the military a month ago, and it's taking a toll on the economy
▼ + stars: | 2022-10-21 | by ( Huileng Tan | ) www.businessinsider.com time to read: +3 min

Putin's mobilization of men for the Ukraine war could hit the economy, the Russian central bank said. More than 300,000 Russian men and their families have fled the country since the mobilization order. "The recovery of economic activity stalled in September," the research department of the Central Bank of Russia said in a report on Wednesday. Russia's central bank did not reference those escaping from the call-up, but said the mobilization has created new challenges for production processes and output maintenance. "September's events will not necessarily push Russia into an immediate recession, but challenges are mounting," Morning Consult analysts said.

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