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☆ Baidu's PR boss, who threatened to destroy workers' careers, has reportedly left the company
▼ + stars: | 2024-05-09 | by ( Hasan Chowdhury | ) www.businessinsider.com time to read: +3 min

Qu Jing, executive at the Chinese firm, posted several videos online encouraging extreme work. In one video, she claimed she could destroy the careers of employees who failed to comply. In one video, reported by the FT, the Baidu PR executive said she expected employees to be prepared to travel for 50 consecutive days of business with her. In a post on WeChat, Baidu PR lead Qu acknowledged the criticism leveled at her, writing: "I deeply reflect on and humbly accept them." The system expected workers to put in toil from 9 a.m. to 9 p.m., six days a week.

Persons: Qu Jing, —, Qu, Jack Ma —, Elon Musk Organizations: Service, Baidu, FT, Weibo, Twitter, Economic, CNN Locations: Beijing, China

☆ Shopify warns on margins and posts big quarterly loss, sending shares plunging premarket
▼ + stars: | 2024-05-08 | by ( Hasan Chowdhury | ) www.businessinsider.com time to read: +2 min

Shopify stunned investors after reporting a surprise loss for the first three months of the year. The e-commerce platform posted a $273 million loss for the first quarter. Sign up to get the inside scoop on today’s biggest stories in markets, tech, and business — delivered daily. download the app Email address Sign up By clicking “Sign Up”, you accept our Terms of Service and Privacy Policy . AdvertisementShopify shares plunged almost 20% in premarket trading after the e-commerce giant sunk into the red for the first three months of the year.

Persons: Shopify, —, Harvey Finkelstein Organizations: Service, Shopify

☆ iPhone price cuts might have saved Apple from an even bigger China crisis
▼ + stars: | 2024-05-08 | by ( Hasan Chowdhury | ) www.businessinsider.com time to read: +1 min

Tim Cook might have helped Apple avert a wider crisis in China. iPhone sales rose 12% in China in March after months of decline. AdvertisementIt looks like Tim Cook can breathe a small sigh of relief about Apple's prospects in China — for now. After months of freefallling iPhone sales there, signs are emerging of a rebound in what is arguably Apple's most important international market. Official government data, first reported by Bloomberg, suggests iPhone sales rose 12% in China in March, with overall shipments of non-Chinese smartphones jumping to 3.75 million units.

Persons: Tim Cook, Apple, — Organizations: Apple, Service, Bloomberg, Business Locations: China

☆ OpenAI destroyed a trove of books used to train AI models. The employees who collected the data are gone.
▼ + stars: | 2024-05-07 | by ( Darius Rafieyan | Hasan Chowdhury | ) www.businessinsider.com time to read: +3 min

Lawyers for the Authors Guild said in court filings that the datasets likely contained "more than 100,000 published books" and are central to its allegations that OpenAI used copyrighted materials to train AI models. OpenAI and other companies used data from the internet, including many books, to build these models. The startup has since identified the employees to lawyers for the Authors Guild but has not publicly disclosed their names. The Authors Guild has opposed this, arguing for the public's right to know. Advertisement"The models powering ChatGPT and our API today were not developed using these datasets," OpenAI said in a statement on Tuesday.

Persons: OpenAI, King James Organizations: Service, OpenAI, Business, Tech, Guild

☆ Zuckerberg warned investors that Meta's AI investment will take 'several years' before it pays off. Meta's stock price tumbled.
▼ + stars: | 2024-04-24 | by ( Lloyd Lee | ) www.businessinsider.com time to read: +3 min

Meta's stock tumbled about 16% after trading hours despite posting better-than-expected Q1 results. AdvertisementDespite posting record revenue for the January-March quarter, Meta's stock is being bogged down on Wednesday by the company's increasing investments in AI. Meta's investment in AI is no different, Zuckerberg said, but the CEO cautioned that the returns for artificial intelligence will take some time. AdvertisementIn the lead up to the first-quarter results, Meta launched its latest version of its chatbot, Llama 3, which will power the company's new AI assistant, Meta AI. Zuckerberg said that the AI assistant will be integrated into many of Meta's products, including Instagram and Facebook.

Persons: Mark Zuckerberg, —, Meta, that's, Zuckerberg, we've, Insider's Hasan Chowdhury Organizations: Service, Meta, Facebook

☆ Now's the time for Elon Musk to reveal his Tesla rescue plan — if he has one
▼ + stars: | 2024-04-22 | by ( Hasan Chowdhury | ) www.businessinsider.com time to read: +1 min

We're about to find out if Elon Musk has a plan to save Tesla. The EV maker is expected to report a 40% profit drop on Tuesday after a bruising year. download the app Email address Sign up By clicking “Sign Up”, you accept our Terms of Service and Privacy Policy . AdvertisementIf Elon Musk has a secret rescue plan for Tesla hidden away, now would be a great time to show it to the world. Musk's own fortune has suffered a $61 billion drop too, though he's still the world's fourth-richest person.

Persons: Elon Musk, Tesla, —, he's Organizations: Service, Tesla

☆ Zuck's new AI drop is cool and all, but he's still playing catch-up with Sam Altman
▼ + stars: | 2024-04-19 | by ( Hasan Chowdhury | ) www.businessinsider.com time to read: +4 min

Mark Zuckerberg just dropped Meta's new AI models. Bt what Llama 3 does not do is beat OpenAI's GPT-4. AdvertisementPerhaps the most important detail was that Meta's open-source models will soon be on par with their closed-source counterparts. For open-source AI developers, that'll be a huge deal. The AI models they were working on looked pretty rudimentary as recently as last year as they struggled to complete sentences without repeating themselves.

Persons: Mark Zuckerberg, OpenAI's GPT, —, Meta, Nick Clegg, Claude, OpenAI's, that'll, Sharon Zhou, Sam Altman's, Sam Altman, Justin Sullivan, Google's, That's, Jim Fan, Altman, Zuckerberg, Gary Marcus Organizations: Service, Financial, Google, GPT, Nvidia, Facebook, New York University

☆ Huawei just gave Tim Cook a new headache in China
▼ + stars: | 2024-04-19 | by ( Hasan Chowdhury | ) www.businessinsider.com time to read: +4 min

AdvertisementTim Cook would like you to think everything is going swimmingly for Apple in China. It's already won over some consumers since launching the Mate 60 Pro series last year. The Huawei Mate 60 rivals the latest iPhone. They expect another decline in iPhone sales in the region in Apple's quarterly earnings on May 2. Cook might be putting on a brave face, but iPhone sales in China may keep sliding if Huawei has its way.

Persons: —, Tim Cook, Cook, there's, It's, They're, Wang Gang, Ivan Lam, Apple Organizations: Apple, Huawei, Service, Bund, Counterpoint Research, Publishing, Washington, Reuters Locations: China, Shanghai's Jing'an, Cook, iPhones, Greater China

☆ Satya Nadella just tried to show everyone who's boss in AI, again
▼ + stars: | 2024-04-18 | by ( Hasan Chowdhury | ) www.businessinsider.com time to read: +4 min

Satya Nadella is hoping to prove he's the shrewdest dealmaker in AI. Microsoft just put $1.5 billion in UAE firm G42 while getting it to divest its China ties. G42 has been linked to a chip venture led by Microsoft's other main AI bet, OpenAI. Last month, Nadella pulled off a big coup by hiring Mustafa Suleyman, a DeepMind cofounder and Inflection AI CEO, and several of his software engineers to head up a new AI division at Microsoft. InflectionThe move involved a $650 million payment to Inflection AI that would also allow Microsoft to license Inflection's AI models.

Persons: Satya Nadella, —, Redmond, Peng Xiao, hasn't, Sam Altman, Nadella, Brad Smith, who's, …, Altman, Mustafa Suleyman, Mistral Organizations: Microsoft, Service, OpenAI, Huawei Locations: UAE, China, Abu Dhabi, DarkMatter, Beijing, @G42ai, OpenAI, Paris

☆ Trying to win the AI war is going to be expensive. Really, really expensive.
▼ + stars: | 2024-04-17 | by ( Hasan Chowdhury | ) www.businessinsider.com time to read: +4 min

The AI war is going to be really, really, really expensive. Simply put, the more chips you have, the more computing power available to train AI models on greater volumes of data. Justin Sullivan/Getty ImagesThe general business of training models is getting more expensive, too. AdvertisementStanford University's annual AI index report, published this week, notes that the "training costs of state-of-the-art AI models have reached unprecedented levels." The original technology behind AI models cost about $900 to train in 2017.

Persons: Demis Hassabis, —, Demis, Hassabis, they're, Jensen Huang, Justin Sullivan, Google's Organizations: Google, Service, TED, Microsoft, Nvidia, Stanford Locations: Vancouver

☆ Apple believes that AI is the future
▼ + stars: | 2024-04-16 | by ( Hasan Chowdhury | ) www.businessinsider.com time to read: +3 min

Apple wanted all eyes to be on the Vision Pro when it launched. A report about AI chips coming to next-gen Macs helped boost Apple's stock by $112 billion. AdvertisementTwo months ago, Tim Cook was busy marking Apple's bold new vision of the future with the launch of expensive nerd goggles. Second, the future of the Vision Pro remains highly uncertain. Just don't expect the Vision Pro to steal the show in the same way a big AI reveal would.

Persons: —, Tim Cook, Bloomberg's Mark Gurman, Apple, Peter Kafka Organizations: Apple, Service, International Data Corporation, Publishing, Getty, Huawei, Apple's, Vision Locations: Cupertino, Shanghai, China

☆ Silicon Valley still has no idea what might kill the smartphone
▼ + stars: | 2024-04-12 | by ( Hasan Chowdhury | ) www.businessinsider.com time to read: +1 min

Humane, a startup founded in 2018, released an AI pin that aims to offer an alternative. NEW LOOK Sign up to get the inside scoop on today’s biggest stories in markets, tech, and business — delivered daily. download the app Email address Sign up By clicking “Sign Up”, you accept our Terms of Service and Privacy Policy . AdvertisementSilicon Valley is having a hard time figuring out what a post-smartphone future might look like. This story is available exclusively to Business Insider subscribers.

Persons: —, Steve Jobs Organizations: Service, Counterpoint Research, Business

☆ Sam Altman's plans for AI's next act keep getting more complex
▼ + stars: | 2024-04-12 | by ( Hasan Chowdhury | ) www.businessinsider.com time to read: +3 min

Sam Altman's plans for the next act of AI are getting more complex. The OpenAI CEO hopes to solve AI's chip shortage, energy demands and data needs. AdvertisementSam Altman's plans to bring the artificial intelligence industry into a new era are getting more complex by the day. That eye-watering sum gave a small insight into Altman's plans. Taken together, then, it looks like Altman is trying to mastermind a strategy to develop next-generation AI that involves the energy, chips and data sectors.

Persons: Sam Altman's, —, it's, Altman, Altman's, he's Organizations: Bloomberg, Service, United Arab Emirates, Energy Locations: Gulf, Davos, UAE, Washington

☆ This Chinese company may be emulating Elon Musk's Tesla playbook
▼ + stars: | 2024-04-09 | by ( Hasan Chowdhury | ) www.businessinsider.com time to read: +4 min

Read previewAt the start of the year, Elon Musk issued a clear warning about who he thought posed the biggest challenge to Tesla's electric vehicle ambitions: Chinese EV makers. Kyle Chan, a postdoctoral research associate at Princeton, recently drew attention to how Xiaomi's EVs have been made with machines similar to the "giga press" machines Tesla uses in its die-casting process. AdvertisementWhen Tesla entered China, it helped Chinese firm LK Group develop the world’s largest casting machines to make Tesla parts. Later, LK sold similar casting machines to 6 Chinese firms, likely automakers. However, LK's die-casting expertise was no longer limited to Tesla after 2022, as the company was reported to have struck deals with six other Chinese companies to supply casting machines to them.

Persons: —, Elon Musk, Tesla, Musk's, Lei Jun, Xiaomi, Kyle Chan, Chan, LK, pWQsy2KC7d — Kyle Chan, Liu Siong, Tesla's, LK's, there's Organizations: Service, Business, EV, Xiaomi, Princeton, Group, New York Times, Tesla, LK Group, giga Locations: Beijing, China

☆ Apple layoffs are a sign Tim Cook is getting a little more serious
▼ + stars: | 2024-04-05 | by ( Hasan Chowdhury | ) www.businessinsider.com time to read: +1 min

Things are getting a bit more serious this year over at Apple. download the app Email address Sign up By clicking “Sign Up”, you accept our Terms of Service and Privacy Policy . AdvertisementThings have been getting a little more serious over in Cupertino this year for Tim Cook. The latest sign of the mood change came Thursday after it emerged that Apple had laid off over 600 employees in California. That's especially so when considering that Apple had about 161,000 full-time employees at the end of its last fiscal year.

Persons: —, Tim Cook Organizations: Apple, Service, California Employment Development Department, Bloomberg, Apple's Big Tech Locations: Cupertino, California

☆ It looks like it could be the end of the AI hype cycle
▼ + stars: | 2024-04-03 | by ( Hasan Chowdhury | ) www.businessinsider.com time to read: +5 min

Read previewSome AI leaders are starting to ask themselves the question: should we be buying the hype? Almost a year and a half on from the launch of ChatGPT, the hype around the technology is seemingly everywhere. AI image generator Stability AI also lost its chief, Emad Mostaque, amid reports of financial pressure. Others though, like Google deep learning expert François Chollet, are keen to stress just how far off human intelligence today's AI models actually are. Until some real signs of money-making, human-level intelligence do emerge, expect more to call it all hype.

Persons: —, Bill Gates, Elon Musk, it's, Gary Marcus, Sam Altman, Marcus, GmjUDKhc6k — Gary Marcus, @GaryMarcus, Mustafa Suleyman, Emad Mostaque, Eric Schmidt, Demis Hassabis, Musk, François Organizations: Service, Business, Google, Invest, Investors, New York University, Nvidia, NVidia, Blackwell, Microsoft, Financial Locations: OpenAI, Sequoia

☆ Meet Sharon Zhou, the AI founder doing just fine without Nvidia's chips
▼ + stars: | 2024-04-01 | by ( Hasan Chowdhury | ) www.businessinsider.com time to read: +6 min

The Santa Clara giant's chips, known as GPUs, became the hottest property of the generative AI boom. In April last year, Zhou and her cofounder Greg Diamos, based in Palo Alto, brought their new startup, Lamini AI, out of stealth. It makes using AI models with GPUs like the H100 and Nvidia's new Blackwell chip, as simple as a plug-and-play system. Fortunately for them, after consulting with Diamos, according to Zhou, AMD was on its way to building a rival system that they would eventually test. it's indiscernible to customers to run Lamini on Nvidia and AMD GPUs," she explained.

Persons: —, giant's, Mark Zuckerberg, Sam Altman, hasn't, Jensen Huang, Sharon Zhou, Andrew Ng, Zhou, Greg Diamos, Lisa Su Organizations: Service, Nvidia, Business, Harvard, Stanford, Anthropic, Amazon, AMD Locations: Santa, Palo Alto, OpenAI

☆ Nvidia is about to face its first major threat as rivals target its special sauce
▼ + stars: | 2024-03-27 | by ( Hasan Chowdhury | ) www.businessinsider.com time to read: +1 min

Nvidia has felt invincible in the generative AI era. Google, Intel and Qualcomm are teaming up to create a rival to Nvidia's secret sauce, Reuters reported. NEW LOOK Sign up to get the inside scoop on today’s biggest stories in markets, tech, and business — delivered daily. download the app Email address Sign up By clicking “Sign Up”, you accept our Terms of Service and Privacy Policy . This story is available exclusively to Business Insider subscribers.

Persons: —, Jensen Huang, It's, Blackwell, Mark Zuckerberg, Sam Altman fiending Organizations: Nvidia, Google, Intel, Qualcomm, Reuters, Service, Business Locations: San Jose

☆ The next phase of AI is here — and it's not looking pretty
▼ + stars: | 2024-03-26 | by ( Hasan Chowdhury | ) www.businessinsider.com time to read: +5 min

AI companies run into hurdlesOne of the more eye-opening developments of this new phase came last week from a barely two-year-old OpenAI rival named Inflection AI. Related storiesIt has quickly become apparent that Inflection AI wasn't the only one struggling, however. Stability's Mostaque, meanwhile, seems to have conceded that Big Tech companies wield unassailable power in AI. In a post on X, he said that centralized AI was not going to be beaten with "more centralized AI". Not going to beat centralized AI with more centralized AI.

Persons: —, Bill Gates, Mustafa Suleyman, DeepMind, Suleyman, Reid Hoffman, Gates, Eric Schmidt, Emad Mostaque, Googlers —, Ali Barr, Pi, Cohere, Stability's Mostaque, ike C oatue Organizations: Service, Nasdaq, Business, Big Tech, Microsoft, Nvidia

☆ Welcome to Nvidia's super chip era
▼ + stars: | 2024-03-19 | by ( Hasan Chowdhury | ) www.businessinsider.com time to read: +5 min

Jensen Huang declared the start of the "super-chip" era on Monday. The Nvidia CEO ushered in a new phase for his sector by unveiling a new breed of chips to power AI. And promises to power AI models on the trillion-parameter scale instead of the multi-billion-parameter scale of models like Meta's Llama 2. — Pedro Domingos (@pmddomingos) March 18, 2024It indicates just how much more buzz Nvidia hopes to generate in its "super-chip" era. Huang is clear though that the "super-chip" era is here.

Persons: Jensen Huang, Mark Zuckerberg, Sam Altman, —, George Lucas, Trevor Noah, Kendrick Lamar, ChatGPT, Huang, Lisa Su, It's, Blackwell, Michael Dell, Satya Nadella, Elon Musk, Larry Ellison, Andy Jassy, Altman, Zuckerberg, Pedro Domingos, Jensen, — Pedro Domingos Organizations: Nvidia, Service, Woodstock, ChatGPT, AMD, Big Tech, University of Washington Locations: San Jose, Santa Clara, Silicon Valley, @pmddomingos

☆ Google and Apple's rumored partnership could upend the AI industry
▼ + stars: | 2024-03-19 | by ( Dan Defrancesco | ) www.businessinsider.com time to read: +7 min

In today's big story, we're looking at what a potential partnership between Google and Apple over AI features would mean for both companies and the wider industry. The big storyGoogle, Apple, AIRebecca Zisser/BITwo of the world's biggest tech companies are reportedly discussing a partnership that would upend the AI industry. Apple is considering integrating Google's AI model, Gemini, into the iPhone . The company has been noticeably quiet around its AI plans compared to peers like Google, Microsoft, Meta, and Amazon. So even if Apple and Google come to an agreement, they could still face some serious regulatory pushback.

Persons: —, hasn't, Rebecca Zisser, Mark Gurman, Sundar Pichai, Apple, it's, Tim Cook, Google's Gemini, Insider's Hasan Chowdhury, BI's Phil Rosen, Mike Coppola, Jerod Harris, Grzegorz Wajda, Chelsea Jia Feng, It's, OpenAI, Stephanie Cohen, Goldman Sach's, Goldman Sachs, Jenny Chang, Rodriguez, Goldman, Josh Edelson, Chip Somodevilla, TikTok, Jensen Huang, Blackwell, Alyssa Powell, elbowed, Manoj Bhargava, Steve Huffman, Dan DeFrancesco, Hallam Bullock, Jordan Parker Erb, George Glover Organizations: Service, Google, Apple, Business, Gemini, Microsoft, Meta, Google's, Getty, Vox Media, Getty Images, Department of, Big Tech, Wall, Cloudflare, Bank of Japan, SXSW, Nvidia, Sports Illustrated, Arena Group Locations: AFP, Woodstock, Arizona , Florida , Illinois , Kansas, Ohio, New York, London

☆ Apple's first AI move may be outsourcing the mess to Google
▼ + stars: | 2024-03-18 | by ( Hasan Chowdhury | ) www.businessinsider.com time to read: +4 min

Why handle the mess of AI by itself when it can pass it on to someone else? AdvertisementApple does, of course, want an AI strategy, despite all the mess the technology brings with it. Fresh AI features could help Apple boost falling iPhone sales in China. Fresh generative AI features could give iPhones the extra edge they need to boost sales again. In addition, Apple will have several new AI features based on its own, homegrown LLM models we expect to be unveiled at WWDC this June.

Persons: —, Tim Cook, they've, Apple, Perfectionism, Steve Jobs, Cook, OpenAI's GPT, Dan Ives Organizations: Service, Google, Bloomberg, Apple, Business, Publishing, Getty, Worldwide Locations: China, China —

☆ China keeps on finding ways to hurt USA Inc
▼ + stars: | 2024-03-18 | by ( Hasan Chowdhury | ) www.businessinsider.com time to read: +4 min

Beijing has asked domestic EV companies to ramp up spending with local chip makers, per Bloomberg. It has bruised Tesla too, as it battles for market share with domestic EV makers competing on price. AdvertisementApple, for instance, generated almost 20% of its revenue from sales in China last year. Nvidia reported $10.3 billion in revenue from China for its last fiscal year, up from $5.8 billion the year prior. Chinese EV makers like BYD are being asked to buy chips locally instead of from US firms.

Persons: —, Tesla, BYD, Orin, Fabrice Coffrini Organizations: Bloomberg, Service, China's Ministry of Industry, Information Technology, Huawei, Publishing, Getty, Nvidia Locations: China, Beijing, BYD, Hangzhou, chipmakers, Chinese, AFP

☆ Jensen Huang is about to give AI believers a glimpse of the future
▼ + stars: | 2024-03-17 | by ( Hasan Chowdhury | ) www.businessinsider.com time to read: +4 min

Read previewThere's a running gag that Jensen Huang is to AI fanboys what Taylor Swift is to Swifties. Nvidia's GTC event, starting on Monday, should answer that. AdvertisementMatt Bryson, an analyst at Wedbush, expects Nvidia to lift the lid on the B100, the next-generation version of its H100 GPU. Can AI models eventually reason? Of course, industry watchers will look for any sign that the Nvidia and AI mania might be about to slow down.

Persons: —, Jensen Huang, Taylor Swift, Sam Altman, Mark Zuckerberg, hasn't, Bojan Tunguz, Huang, Matt Bryson, Blackwell, It'll, Zuckerberg, he'll, JOSH EDELSON, Brad Lightcap, Arthur Mensch, Christian Szegedy, Elon Musk's, Aidan Gomez, Stanford's Fei, Fei Li, Wedbush's Bryson Organizations: Service, Nvidia, GPU Technology Conference, Business, Apple, Tech, Meta, Microsoft, Google, AMD Locations: San, Woodstock

☆ Software engineers are getting closer to finding out if AI really can make them jobless
▼ + stars: | 2024-03-14 | by ( Hasan Chowdhury | ) www.businessinsider.com time to read: +5 min

A startup backed by Peter Thiel has released the "first AI software engineer." A little-known startup called Cognition Labs stunned software engineers this week when its team of coding whizzes unveiled what it calls "the first AI software engineer." AdvertisementHowever, Cognition's AI software engineer appears to have an aptitude that's a notch above. Of course, the startup has been pretty careful with how it presents its AI software engineer. These reactions are understandable at a time when software engineers are feeling the heat.

Persons: Peter Thiel, Devin, —, Peter Thiel's, Scott Wu, Kyle Shevlin, Athagist, Keynes, Oliver Twist, kAKj7ZeBob — Kyle Shevlin, Evan You, Aravind Srinivas marveled, Mark Zuckerberg Organizations: Service, Software, Cognition Labs, Cognition, Informatics Locations: Singapore

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