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July 24 (Reuters) - Worldcoin, a cryptocurrency project founded by OpenAI CEO Sam Altman, launched on Monday. Blockchains can store the World IDs in a way that preserves privacy and can't be controlled or shut down by any single entity, co-founder Alex Blania told Reuters. The project says World IDs will be necessary in the age of generative AI chatbots like ChatGPT, which produce remarkably humanlike language. Altman told Reuters Worldcoin also can help address how the economy will be reshaped by generative AI. Since only real people can have World IDs, it could be used to reduce fraud when deploying UBI.

Persons: Sam Altman, Alex Blania, Altman, Reuters Worldcoin, ”, UBI, Anna Tong, Juby Babu, Elizabeth Howcroft, Kenneth Li, Navaratnam, Philippa Fletcher Organizations: Humanity, Reuters, Thomson Locations: San Francisco, Berlin

"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

July 14 (Reuters) - Roblox Chief Business Officer Craig Donato is leaving gaming and metaverse company Roblox (RBLX.N), the company told Reuters on Friday. Donato has been at Roblox nearly seven years and will be departing at the end of the summer, the company said. The company said it promoted Christina Wootton to Chief Partnerships Officer, who will oversee all the company's business relationships, in the wake of Donato's imminent departure. Wootton has been at the company since 2014 and has worked with large brands and corporations including Gucci, Nike, Netflix and Disney to develop a presence in the Roblox metaverse, the company said. "We firmly believe that all brands will eventually have a presence on Roblox," Wootton said in a statement.

Persons: Craig Donato, Donato, Christina Wootton, Wootton, Arvind KC, Anna Tong, Edmund Klamann Organizations: Reuters, Gucci, Nike, Netflix, Disney, People, Systems, Thomson Locations: Roblox, San Francisco

Unlike past tech booms that have touched San Francisco, the generative AI craze brings fewer jobs, because AI firms excel at staying lean and automating work. "I think we should curb our optimism that San Francisco commercial real estate will bounce back because of AI," said Silicon Valley investor Jeremiah Owyang. Eleven of the country's top 20 AI companies are in San Francisco and have raised $15.7 billion collectively between 2008 and 2023. That amount is just 2.3% of the estimated 150,000 daily workers that downtown San Francisco lost during the pandemic. Reporting by Anna Tong in San Francisco; Editing by Sayantani Ghosh, Anna Driver and Matthew LewisOur Standards: The Thomson Reuters Trust Principles.

Persons: Carlos Barria, San, Jeremiah Owyang, Erin Price, Wright, OpenAI, Matt Schlicht, Mike Grabowski, Grabowski, Owyang, Lee Edwards, Daron Acemoglu, Anna Tong, Sayantani Ghosh, Anna Driver, Matthew Lewis Organizations: Intelligence, REUTERS, FRANCISCO, Reuters, Francisco, San Francisco Mayor London Breed's, San, Microsoft, Octane, Google, Nordstrom, Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Thomson Locations: San Francisco, California, U.S, Valley, NFX, Dubai

☆ The oldest craft brewery in the US is officially out of business, closing yet another chapter in San Francisco's vanishing history
▼ + stars: | 2023-07-13 | by ( Kai Xiang Teo | ) www.businessinsider.com time to read: +4 min

Anchor Brewing, a cornerstone of San Francisco history, is shutting down after 127 years. Anchor Brewing is the latest casualty of a city that is increasingly pricing out its businesses and residents. With its closure, Anchor joins a long list of historical businesses vanishing from San Francisco. The San Francisco Standard reported that at least 17 retailers — including Nordstrom, Office Depot, and Old Navy — exited the city's downtown area since 2020. dark, dark day for san francisco beer drinkers."

Persons: Anchor, —, Old Navy —, Reddit, Peter Hartlaub Organizations: Brewing, Service, CNN, Anchor Brewing, California Gold Rush, Brewer's Association, San Francisco Standard, Nordstrom, Old Navy, Twitter, San Francisco Locations: Francisco, Wall, Silicon, Westfield, United States, Sapporo, California, Vinepair, America, San Francisco, francisco

July 12 (Reuters) - Resemble AI, a San Francisco-based voice artificial intelligence startup, said on Wednesday it had raised $8 million in a funding round led by venture capital firm Javelin Ventures. Comcast Ventures (CMCSA.O) and existing investors Craft Ventures and Ubiquity Ventures also participated in the Series A round, it added. Resemble AI, which applies generative AI to clone voices, says that it has 1 million users, who use the company's product to clone their own voice. More than 200 business clients, ranging from music producers, game studios and voice actors use Resemble AI as well, CEO Zohaib Ahmed told Reuters. As voice cloning has been used for scams and other crimes, the company says it is focused on promoting safe and ethical use cases for voice cloning technology.

Persons: Zohaib Ahmed, Ahmed, Anna Tong, Jamie Freed Organizations: Javelin Ventures, Comcast Ventures, Craft Ventures, Ventures, Reuters, Wednesday, Thomson Locations: San Francisco

☆ OpenAI's mysterious new headquarters features nap rooms, a two-story library, and lounges for viewing both sunrise and sunset, according to planning documents
▼ + stars: | 2023-07-10 | by ( Darius Rafieyan | ) www.businessinsider.com time to read: +4 min

It's only fitting then that OpenAI should have a headquarters befitting its status as the vanguard of new AI revolution. But the company has kept details about its San Francisco headquarters a closely guarded secret. A reporter for Insider was even less successful, turned away by a security guard on an intercom who refused even to confirm or deny the existence of an OpenAI office at the location. But we may now have some hints about what it's like inside the offices of the world's most famous AI company, thanks to architectural plans and planning documents viewed by Insider. "It's an impressive space," said Peter Eisenbeiser, a city official who performed the final inspection of the 1960 Bryant Street space.

Persons: OpenAI, Peter Eisenbeiser, Travis Organizations: San Francisco's Mission, Microsoft, San, San Francisco, Florida Street, Bay, Eaton Hall, Architects, Boston Consulting Group Locations: San Francisco's, London, San Francisco, Florida, Seattle

"Currently, we don't have a solution for steering or controlling a potentially superintelligent AI, and preventing it from going rogue." Superintelligent AI - systems more intelligent than humans - could arrive this decade, the blog post's authors predicted. The team's goal is to create a "human-level" AI alignment researcher, and then scale it through vast amounts of compute power. OpenAI says that means they will train AI systems using human feedback, train AI systems to assistant human evaluation, and then finally train AI systems to actually do the alignment research. AI safety advocate Connor Leahy said the plan was fundamentally flawed because the initial human-level AI could run amok and wreak havoc before it could be compelled to solve AI safety problems.

Persons: OpenAI, Ilya Sutskever, Jan Leike, Connor Leahy, Anna Tong, Kenneth Li, Rosalba O'Brien Organizations: Microsoft, Reuters, Thomson Locations: San Francisco

☆ San Francisco mayor proposes tearing down Westfield Mall
▼ + stars: | 2023-06-23 | by ( Samantha Delouya | ) edition.cnn.com time to read: +3 min

CNN —San Francisco’s mayor Thursday proposed remaking the city’s struggling downtown by tearing down abandoned retail space, including the city’s Westfield mall, and building new structures to reshape the struggling city. A Westfield Mall could become something completely different than what it currently is,” she said. Earlier this month, Westfield said it planned to surrender its mall, the San Francisco Centre, back to its lender. The mall operator cited the “challenging operating conditions in downtown San Francisco, which have led to declines in sales, occupancy and foot traffic.”Shoppers walk through the Westfield San Francisco Centre on April 13, 2022 in San Francisco, California. So, let’s make some adjustments to do everything we can to reimagine what parts of San Francisco can be,” Breed said.

Persons: London Breed, Breed’s, it’s, Breed, ”, Justin Sullivan, ” Breed Organizations: CNN, Westfield, ”, London, Bloomberg’s Technology, San Francisco Centre, Westfield San Francisco Centre, Resorts, Hilton San Francisco, Square, San Francisco, San Locations: Francisco’s, San Francisco, San Francisco , California, city’s, ”

☆ United Airlines employees accused of years-long scheme selling weed stolen out of customers' checked baggage
▼ + stars: | 2023-06-17 | by ( Jordan Hart | ) www.businessinsider.com time to read: +3 min

Two United Airlines employees have been charged for their alleged roles in a drug-selling scheme. They were accused of making at least $10,000 a week stealing weed from checked bags and selling it. The Justice Department charged two United Airlines baggage handlers, alleging they participated in a years-long scheme to sell marijuana stolen out of passengers' bags. Neither SFO nor United Airlines immediately responded to Insider's request for comment. In 2017, SFO employees told SF Weekly that they didn't confiscate "a personal use amount" of marijuana from passengers.

Persons: Joel Lamont Dunn, Adrian Webb, Dunn, Webb Organizations: United Airlines, Morning, Justice Department, United, San Francisco International Airport, San Francisco Standard, Prosecutors, Federal, SFO, Weekly Locations: California

☆ Westfield is the latest business to depart San Francisco after giving up downtown mall
▼ + stars: | 2023-06-13 | by ( ) www.cnbc.com time to read: 1 min

In this videoShare Share Article via Facebook Share Article via Twitter Share Article via LinkedIn Share Article via EmailWestfield is the latest business to depart San Francisco after giving up downtown mallKevin Truong, The San Francisco Standard, joins 'Last Call' to discuss why businesses are leaving San Francisco amid a rise in property crimes.

Persons: Truong Organizations: San Francisco Locations: San Francisco

☆ Westfield giving up San Francisco mall amid falling foot traffic
▼ + stars: | 2023-06-12 | by ( Samantha Delouya | ) edition.cnn.com time to read: +2 min

CNN —Shopping mall operator Westfield said it plans to give up control of the San Francisco Centre mall after more than 20 years of operation in another sign of San Francisco’s economic struggles. Last month, a Westfield spokesperson attributed Nordstrom’s closing to “unsafe conditions for customers, retailers, and employees.”Once a bustling retail center in the heart of San Francisco, the San Francisco Centre has taken a significant hit in the past few years. Three years later, corporate America has yet to return in the same numbers: office vacancies in San Francisco have reached a 30-year high. According to a tally from the San Francisco Standard, twenty retailers near San Francisco’s Union Square have closed their doors since 2020. Westfield said it has already begun transferring management of the San Francisco Centre back to its lender, which will appoint a receiver to operate the property going forward.

Persons: Thomas Baltimore , Jr Organizations: CNN, Westfield, San Francisco Centre, Nordstrom, San Francisco, San, Resorts, Hilton San Francisco, Square Locations: San Francisco, Banana, Westfield, Westfield’s, America, San Francisco’s Union, Baltimore

June 8 - Legal AI company EvenUp has raised an additional $50.5 million in Series B funding from new investors including Bessemer Venture Partners and Bain Capital Ventures, the San Francisco-based company said Thursday, valuing the company at $325 million. EvenUp provides a product to personal injury law firms that automates the workflow for demand letters, using generative AI and a proprietary legal dataset. These have been boom times for the legal AI market, as legal firms have lined up to embrace generative AI. Law is an ideal use case for generative AI because what lawyers do – analyze content and then synthesize it in prose – is exactly what generative AI products like OpenAI’s ChatGPT, which was trained on reams of text, do best, said Bessemer partner Sameer Dholakia. He estimated there are about 300,000 personal injury attorneys and 20 million personal injury cases per year.

Persons: EvenUp, Rami Karabibar, Sameer Dholakia, Karabibar, Anna Tong, David Gregorio Our Organizations: Bessemer Venture Partners, Bain Capital Ventures, NFX, Reuters, Thomson Locations: San Francisco

☆ San Francisco Hilton investor will stop making loan payments
▼ + stars: | 2023-06-06 | by ( Jordan Valinsky | ) edition.cnn.com time to read: +3 min

New York CNN —Downtown San Francisco has been dealt another blow after an investor in one of its largest hotels said it would stop paying its loans. An investor presentation from Park reveals that San Francisco accounted for 16% of its business in 2019, then fell to just 3% over the past 12 months following the pandemic. The San Francisco Hotel Council told CNN affiliate KGO-TV that it’s “not uncommon for hotel ownership to change” and it expects the hotel will find new owners. Property crimes in San Francisco have garnered national attention because of several attention-grabbing videos of thieves in action. Meanwhile, violent crime statistics in San Francisco have remained relatively steady in recent years.

Persons: Thomas Baltimore , Jr, ”, It’s, Nordstrom Organizations: New, New York CNN, Downtown, Park, Resorts, Hilton San Francisco, Square, Marriott, Hyatt, San Francisco, San Francisco Hotel Council, CNN, KGO, San Francisco Police Department Locations: New York, Downtown San Francisco, Francisco, San Francisco

☆ A San Francisco builder converted a former garage into 3 tiny homes
▼ + stars: | 2023-06-04 | by ( Lauren Steussy | ) www.businessinsider.com time to read: +3 min

A San Francisco housing organization transformed a garage into three small apartments. The affordable housing units cost $600,000 and are seen as a victory in the city's housing crisis. But critics told San Francisco Standard the cost of the units is high considering the square footage. An organization in San Francisco has turned a six-car garage into three 550- to 600-square-foot units, each with a bedroom, bathroom, and small kitchen. According to The San Francisco Standard, the Mission Housing units raised eyebrows among architects and building professionals.

Persons: —, Sam Moss, Rebecca Möller, Möller, Moss, I'm Organizations: San Francisco, Service, Housing, London, Mission Housing, San Francisco Standard Locations: Francisco, California's, San Francisco, Mission District

☆ Store closures are hitting San Francisco as office vacancies and fears of crime are on the rise. Here's the full list of retailers pulling out of the city's downtown neighborhood.
▼ + stars: | 2023-05-27 | by ( Alex Bitter | Jordan Hart | ) www.businessinsider.com time to read: +3 min

Nineteen retailers have left San Francisco's Union Square area since 2020. The area has lost 17 retailers since 2020, The San Francisco Standard reported last month. Stores that have closed in downtown San Francisco over the last few years include:Most retailers haven't referenced crime specifically as their public rationale for closing. Unibail-Rodamco-Westfield, which owns the mall where Nordstrom is located, said that the department store's closure "underscores the deteriorating situation in downtown San Francisco," according to Bloomberg. Do you work in downtown San Francisco or have a story to share about store closures?

With the introduction of new AI features, corporate finance teams will have improved oversight, Ramp CEO Eric Glyman told Reuters. For instance, companies will be able to better detect unusual employee spending in real time, said Ramp investor Logan Bartlett of Redpoint Ventures. The new features also include an accounting co-pilot that makes doing manual tasks much faster. Generative AI has the ability to synthesize large amounts of data and interact using humanlike language. Ramp partnered with OpenAI, the AI behind the chatbot sensation ChatGPT, to build the AI enhancements.

May 17 (Reuters) - The swift growth of artificial intelligence technology could put the future of humanity at risk, according to most Americans surveyed in a Reuters/Ipsos poll published on Wednesday. More than two-thirds of Americans are concerned about the negative effects of AI and 61% believe it could threaten civilization. ChatGPT has kicked off an AI arms race, with tech heavyweights like Microsoft (MSFT.O) and Google (GOOGL.O) vying to outdo each other's AI accomplishments. The Reuters/Ipsos poll found that the number of Americans who foresee adverse outcomes from AI is triple the number of those who don't. Those who voted for Donald Trump in 2020 expressed higher levels of concern; 70% of Trump voters compared to 60% of Joe Biden voters agreed that AI could threaten humankind.

Google already has a Bard chatbot that competes with ChatGPT, the chatbot from OpenAI that has generated huge excitement among users with its humanlike responses. The company says that traditional Google search should still be used for finding and seeking information, such as locating something to purchase. WHAT ARE THE UPDATES TO GOOGLE SEARCH? With the enhanced search termed the Search Generative Experience, Google's home page still looks and acts like its familiar search bar. CAN I TRY THE NEW GOOGLE SEARCH NOW?

☆ Store closures are hitting Downtown San Francisco as office vacancies and fears of crime are on the rise. Here's the full list of retailers pulling out of the city's downtown neighborhood.
▼ + stars: | 2023-05-05 | by ( Alex Bitter | ) www.businessinsider.com time to read: +3 min

Nineteen retailers have left San Francisco's Union Square area since 2020. The latest departures include Nordstrom and Office Depot, The San Francisco Standard reported. Stores that have closed in downtown San Francisco over the last few years include:Most retailers haven't referenced crime specifically as their public rationale for closing. Unibail-Rodamco-Westfield, which owns the mall where Nordstrom is located, said that the department store's closure "underscores the deteriorating situation in downtown San Francisco," according to Bloomberg. Do you work in Downtown San Francisco or have a story to share about store closures?

May 4 (Reuters) - Two prominent former Google (GOOGL.O) researchers who authored the groundbreaking paper that paved the way for the generative AI boom, have raised $8 million for their new startup Essential AI, four sources told Reuters. Thrive Capital had led the round in Essential AI, founded by Ashish Vaswani and Niki Parmar. Thrive Capital, founded by Joshua Kushner, is also an investor in Microsoft-backed OpenAI. Essential AI aims to build software for enterprises to use large language models, the core software of a new artificial intelligence system that has powered generative AI applications such as ChatGPT, sources said. The raise came after Vaswani and Parmar left Adept AI, a company they also co-founded in 2021 with former Google director David Luan.

☆ Nordstrom is the latest retailer to leave San Francisco
▼ + stars: | 2023-05-03 | by ( Jordan Valinsky | ) edition.cnn.com time to read: +3 min

Nordstrom’s exit dealt another blow for San Francisco, as several well-known chains have closed in the city. Incidents of theft in San Francisco have gained national attention, though crime has generally fallen over the past six years. Property crimes in San Francisco have garnered national attention because of several attention-grabbing videos of thieves in action. In total, there were 56 homicides in San Francisco in 2022, which is the same number of homicides the city saw in 2021. For starters, remote work following the pandemic has caused a decrease in foot traffic in major US downtowns, including San Francisco.

Box customers testing the product have already experienced “revolutionary” productivity gains, Box CEO Aaron Levie told Reuters. He cited a Box customer whose employees were reviewing tens and thousands of files manually. The new AI features were able to do it automatically “within a matter of seconds.”Box partnered with OpenAI, the AI startup backed by Microsoft Corp (MSFT.O) behind the chatbot sensation ChatGPT, to build the AI enhancements. While Box is initially building its AI offering with OpenAI’s technology, the goal is to allow customers to select among different AI providers, he said. Box said the new AI features include the ability to summarize financial documents, surface insights from customer surveys and tailor onboarding documents to a specific customer's needs.

☆ An ex-fire commissioner is accused of spraying bear mace on homeless people minding their own business on San Francisco's streets
▼ + stars: | 2023-04-27 | by ( Matthew Loh | ) www.businessinsider.com time to read: +5 min

A former fire commissioner is accused of approaching homeless people and spraying them with bear mace. Don Carmignani initially said he was attacked by a homeless man, Garrett Doty, with a lead pipe. Doty was arrested in connection with the attack, and faces assault and battery charges brought by the San Francisco district attorney's office. Another video from November 2021 shows an unidentified person spraying bear mace at a homeless person sleeping on the street. Colla, the San Francisco Public Defender's Office, and the San Francisco district attorney's office did not immediately respond to Insider's requests for comment sent outside regular business hours.

When Thiel spoke at the 2016 Republican National Convention, he had more hope that the party would concentrate on economic issues, his business associate said. Four political sources also told Reuters that Thiel is taking a step back from U.S. politics. In 2012, Thiel backed libertarian lawmaker Ron Paul, and in 2016 he donated some $1.25 million to the campaign efforts of Trump, who is the frontrunner for the 2024 Republican nomination. In the 2022 election cycle, however, Thiel emerged as a potential Republican kingmaker, contributing more than $35 million to 16 federal-level Republican candidates, according to OpenSecrets. The business associate said he was not aware of any special proviso for former employees.

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