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☆ Elon Musk's call to slow AI development is likely a ploy to let him catch up with the competition, veteran VC says
▼ + stars: | 2023-05-05 | by ( Pete Syme | ) www.businessinsider.com time to read: +2 min

Elon Musk has purchased 10,000 GPUs to build an AI model at Twitter, Insider reported. A VC founder said he suspects Musk just wants to catch up with the competition, per Bloomberg. Elon Musk's calls to slow down AI development could just be a ploy to help him catch up, the tech entrepreneur venture capitalist Vinod Khosla told Bloomberg. "I 80% suspect his call to slow down AI development was so he could catch up." In 2015, Musk cofounded OpenAI, the company behind ChatGPT which is largely considered to be leading the new boom in AI technology.

☆ AI pioneer says its threat to world may be 'more urgent' than climate change
▼ + stars: | 2023-05-05 | by ( Martin Coulter | ) www.reuters.com time to read: +3 min

LONDON, May 5 (Reuters) - Artificial intelligence could pose a "more urgent" threat to humanity than climate change, AI pioneer Geoffrey Hinton told Reuters in an interview on Friday. "I wouldn't like to devalue climate change. I wouldn't like to say, 'You shouldn't worry about climate change.' He added: "With climate change, it's very easy to recommend what you should do: you just stop burning carbon. Signatories included Stability AI CEO Emad Mostaque, researchers at Alphabet-owned DeepMind, and fellow AI pioneers Yoshua Bengio and Stuart Russell.

☆ ‘The Godfather of A.I.’ Quits and More: The Week in Reporter Reads
▼ + stars: | 2023-05-05 | by ( ) www.nytimes.com time to read: 1 min

Geoffrey Hinton was an artificial intelligence pioneer. In 2012, Dr. Hinton and two of his graduate students at the University of Toronto created technology that became the intellectual foundation for the A.I. systems that the tech industry’s biggest companies believe is a key to their future. On Monday, however, he officially joined a growing chorus of critics who say those companies are racing toward danger with their aggressive campaign to create products based on generative A.I., the technology that powers popular chatbots like ChatGPT. A part of him, he said, now regrets his life’s work.

☆ 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.

☆ Oregon Secretary of State Resigns Over Cannabis Consulting Job
▼ + stars: | 2023-05-03 | by ( Talal Ansari | ) www.wsj.com time to read: 1 min

Shemia Fagan’s salary as Oregon’s secretary of state was $77,000 in 2022, according to state records. Photo: Matthew Hinton/Associated PressOregon’s secretary of state is resigning after it was revealed that she worked on the side as a consultant for a cannabis company, earning $10,000 a month, while her office was overseeing an audit of the state’s marijuana regulator. Democrat Shemia Fagan announced her resignation Tuesday, as fallout and political pressure over the consulting job grew. Tina Kotek last week asked the Oregon Government Ethics Commission to investigate Ms. Fagan’s dealings. Kotek also asked the state’s Justice Department to look into a recent audit of the cannabis industry overseen by the secretary of state’s office.

☆ Google AI pioneer says he quit to speak freely about technology's 'dangers'
▼ + stars: | 2023-05-02 | by ( ) www.reuters.com time to read: +2 min

[1/2] Artificial intelligence pioneer Geoffrey Hinton speaks at the Thomson Reuters Financial and Risk Summit in Toronto, December 4, 2017. REUTERS/Mark BlinchMay 2 (Reuters) - A pioneer of artificial intelligence said he quit Google (GOOGL.O) to speak freely about the technology's dangers, after realising that computers could become smarter than people far sooner than he and other experts had expected. "I left so that I could talk about the dangers of AI without considering how this impacts Google," Geoffrey Hinton wrote on Twitter. “The idea that this stuff could actually get smarter than people — a few people believed that,” he told the New York Times. In his tweet, Hinton said Google itself had "acted very responsibly" and denied that he had quit so that he could criticise his former employer.

☆ 'Godfather of AI' warns that 'bad actors like Putin or DeSantis' could use AI to win wars or manipulate voters
▼ + stars: | 2023-05-02 | by ( Britney Nguyen | ) www.businessinsider.com time to read: +4 min

Geoffrey Hinton told MIT Tech Review he worries how AI tools he helped create will be used. He said "bad actors like Putin or DeSantis" could use AI tools in wars and elections. "Look, here's one way it could all go wrong," Geoffrey Hinton told the MIT Tech Review. "We know that a lot of the people who want to use these tools are bad actors like Putin or DeSantis. "I console myself with the normal excuse: If I hadn't done it, somebody else would have," Hinton told the Times.

☆ Apple co-founder Steve Wozniak voices concerns about AI and a need for regulation
▼ + stars: | 2023-05-02 | by ( Jennifer Korn | ) edition.cnn.com time to read: +3 min

“I’m just a scientist who suddenly realized that these things are getting smarter than us,” Hinton told CNN’s Jake Tapper in an interview on Tuesday. Apple co-founder Steve Wozniak, who was one of the signatories on the letter, appeared on “CNN This Morning” on Tuesday, echoing concerns about its potential to spread misinformation. “Tricking is going to be a lot easier for those who want to trick you,” Wozniak told CNN. Hinton, for his part, told CNN he did not sign the petition. “It’s not clear to me that we can solve this problem,” Hinton told Tapper.

☆ Kamala Harris to discuss A.I. in meeting with Google, Microsoft, OpenAI and Anthropic CEOs
▼ + stars: | 2023-05-02 | by ( Ashley Capoot | ) www.cnbc.com time to read: +2 min

Vice President Kamala Harris will meet with the chief executives of Google , Microsoft , OpenAI and Anthropic Thursday to discuss the responsible development of artificial intelligence, the White House confirmed to CNBC Tuesday. Harris will address the need for safeguards that can mitigate AI's potential risks and emphasize the importance of ethical and trustworthy innovation, the White House said. Generative AI has exploded into public consciousness after OpenAI released its viral new chatbot called ChatGPT late last year. In the months since, Microsoft has been integrating OpenAI's generative technology across many of its products as part of its multi-year, multi-billion-dollar investment in the company. While many experts are optimistic about the potential of generative AI, the technology has also inspired questions and concerns from regulators and tech industry giants.

☆ Elon Musk backs up the 'Godfather of AI' who quit Google to warn the tech could harm humanity
▼ + stars: | 2023-05-02 | by ( Beatrice Nolan | ) www.businessinsider.com time to read: +2 min

Elon Musk says Geoffrey Hinton "knows what he's talking about" after he voiced concerns about AI. Musk recently signed an open letter calling for a six-month pause on advanced AI development. Elon Musk has weighed in on comments about the dangers of advanced AI by Geoffrey Hinton, who is nicknamed the "Godfather of AI." Recently, he put his name to an open letter that called for a six-month pause on advanced AI development. Representatives for Elon Musk did not immediately respond to Insider's request for comment, made outside normal working hours.

☆ Who’s the next Chegg? A.I. could threaten the main revenue sources for these companies
▼ + stars: | 2023-05-02 | by ( Samantha Subin | ) www.cnbc.com time to read: +3 min

Tuesday's selloff in Chegg shares exposed some investors to the dark side of artificial intelligence, igniting concerns about how the latest technology craze may be putting some companies' revenue sources in danger. CHGG 1D mountain Chegg shares plummet on AI risks While Chegg may be the first shoe to drop, it's certainly not the last company set to showcase some of the risks posed by AI. Elsewhere, Deepwater Asset Management's Gene Munster sees potential risks ahead to some consulting companies known to outsource work for other businesses. Companies operating off of seat-based models, such as human resources companies, may face headwinds from declining headcount, but could benefit long term from optimizing AI, he added. To be sure, even the largest companies dominating the space and poised to prosper from AI face risks ahead.

☆ Microsoft's chief scientific officer says there's no need for a pause on AI — despite what Elon Musk says
▼ + stars: | 2023-05-02 | by ( Sarah Jackson | ) www.businessinsider.com time to read: +3 min

Microsoft's chief scientific officer says he disagrees with people calling for a pause on AI development, including Elon Musk. Eric Horvitz told Fortune it's "reasonable" for people to be concerned but that we need to "jump in, as opposed to pause." Microsoft's chief scientific officer has addressed an open letter signed by Elon Musk and thousands of others calling for a pause on AI development. We need to really just invest more in understanding and guiding and even regulating this technology—jump in, as opposed to pause." Musk cofounded OpenAI in 2015 alongside Altman and others but left the board in 2018.

☆ 10 Things in Tech: Free Apple AirTags, EV resistance, and ChatGPT Plus for all
▼ + stars: | 2023-05-02 | by ( Diamond Naga Siu | ) www.businessinsider.com time to read: +4 min

I attended my first rodeo, woke up early for a farmers' market, visited different pickleball venues, and tried other new things. Researchers examined 1,600 conversations (850 hours and 7 million words total) and measured how people reacted to the interactions. Firstly, IRL conversations involve a degree of back-and-forth that is hard to replicate digitally because of lag and missed cues. Elon Musk pays $10,000 to settle a defamation lawsuit. Elon Musk has cut around 90% of the company within half a year of taking over.

☆ Opinion | We Are Opening the Lids on Two Giant Pandora’s Boxes
▼ + stars: | 2023-05-02 | by ( Thomas L. Friedman | ) www.nytimes.com time to read: +2 min

Well, if you are most worried about China beating America in A.I., you want to turbocharge our A.I. If you want to truly democratize A.I., you might want to open-source its code. systems will compound discrimination, privacy violations and other divisive societal harms, the way social networks do, you want regulations now. That last danger is real enough that on Monday Geoffrey Hinton, one of the pioneering designers of A.I. “It is hard to see how you can prevent the bad actors from using it for bad things,” Hinton told The Times’s Cade Metz.

☆ The 'Godfather of AI' quit Google — and says he now regrets his role creating technology that poses a threat to humanity
▼ + stars: | 2023-05-01 | by ( Grace Mayer | ) www.businessinsider.com time to read: +4 min

Geoffrey Hinton quit his job at Google and told The New York Times he regrets his role in pioneering AI. Hinton said he quit so he could warn about the risks of AI without worrying about the impact to Google. After recently leaving behind his decade-long career at Google, Geoffrey Hinton, nicknamed "the Godfather of AI," told The New York Times he has regrets around the foundational role he played in developing the technology. After Google employees were tasked with testing the Bard chatbot, some employees said they thought the technology could be dangerous, as reported by Bloomberg. This is a concern that CEO of OpenAI Sam Altman, and other critics of the AI technology, have echoed.

☆ ‘The Godfather of A.I.’ Leaves Google and Warns of Danger Ahead
▼ + stars: | 2023-05-01 | by ( Cade Metz | ) www.nytimes.com time to read: +1 min

Geoffrey Hinton was an artificial intelligence pioneer. In 2012, Dr. Hinton and two of his graduate students at the University of Toronto created technology that became the intellectual foundation for the A.I. systems that the tech industry’s biggest companies believe is a key to their future. On Monday, however, he officially joined a growing chorus of critics who say those companies are racing toward danger with their aggressive campaign to create products based on generative artificial intelligence, the technology that powers popular chatbots like ChatGPT. Dr. Hinton said he has quit his job at Google, where he has worked for more than decade and became one of the most respected voices in the field, so he can freely speak out about the risks of A.I.

☆ 'Godfather of A.I.' leaves Google after a decade to warn society of technology he's touted
▼ + stars: | 2023-05-01 | by ( Jennifer Elias | ) www.cnbc.com time to read: +1 min

For the past decade Hinton worked part-time at Google , between the company's Silicon Valley headquarters and Toronto. "I thought it was 30 to 50 years or even longer away," Hinton told the Times, in a story published Monday. "Obviously, I no longer think that." "Biological agents cannot do this. So collections of identical digital agents can acquire hugely more knowledge than any individual biological agent.

☆ Will Harry's mission to purge press overshadow King Charles' coronation?
▼ + stars: | 2023-05-01 | by ( Michael Holden | ) www.reuters.com time to read: +5 min

"They have lied under oath, perjured themselves in the process and have proven they're above the law. "I don't think he's got that much to lose, given the vilification that he has suffered from the British press over the last 15 years." "Nevertheless, the dynamic duo of monarchy and media — although neither talk of their intertwined dependence — are hard at work to ensure the coronation is smash-hit entertainment. "It is clear to me that the tabloid press are the mothership of online trolling," he wrote. How much more blood will stain their typing fingers before someone can put a stop to this madness?"

☆ AI pioneer quits Google to warn about the technology’s ‘dangers’
▼ + stars: | 2023-05-01 | by ( Jennifer Korn | ) edition.cnn.com time to read: +4 min

He worked part-time at Google for a decade on the tech giant’s AI development efforts, but he has since come to have concerns about the technology and his role in advancing it. In a tweet Monday, Hinton said he left Google so he could speak freely about the risks of AI, rather than because of a desire to criticize Google specifically. “I left so that I could talk about the dangers of AI without considering how this impacts Google,” Hinton said in a tweet. OpenAI, Microsoft and Google are at the forefront of this trend, but IBM, Amazon, Baidu and Tencent are working on similar technologies. Obviously, I no longer think that.”Even before stepping aside from Google, Hinton had spoken publicly about AI’s potential to do harm as well as good.

☆ Leaked org chart shows the 15 most important leaders in Google's AI division as it races to catch Microsoft
▼ + stars: | 2023-03-30 | by ( Hugh Langley | ) www.businessinsider.com time to read: +4 min

Central to those efforts is its Research and AI group, led by senior vice president Jeff Dean. An internal org chart seen by Insider shows the 14 other leaders under Dean who drive Google's efforts to catch the sudden success of OpenAI. Jeff Dean, senior vice president, Google AI Thomas Samson/Getty ImagesReporting directly to Dean is Eli Collins, a VP leading work on Google's ChatGPT competitor, Bard. Collins also works on AI Test Kitchen, an app that gives select users access to some of Google's latest AI demos. Jay Yagnik, VP of research, oversees the biggest number of employees within Dean's organization.

☆ AI startup Cohere in talks to raise funding at $6 bln plus valuation -sources
▼ + stars: | 2023-02-06 | by ( Krystal Hu | ) www.reuters.com time to read: +4 min

Generative AI aims to make human-like creations through computer code that has processed vast amounts of data. FOCUS ON NLPFocusing on training natural language processing (NLP) models, Cohere competes with a group of foundation model providers such as OpenAI and Anthropic. Gomez said the company differentiates itself by focusing on serving enterprise users, and Cohere has been talking to companies from marketing, consulting and tech to help them incorporate generative AI. Cohere is powering some consumer applications including Hyperwrite, which helps people write faster and generate articles using AI. Other foundation model providers such as Anthropic is also in talks to raise funding at multi-billion valuations, investor sources said.

Jan 19 (Reuters) - David Crosby, one of the most influential rock singers of the 1960s and '70s with the Byrds and Crosby, Stills, Nash & Young (CSNY) has died at the age of 81, Variety reported on Thursday, citing a statement from Crosby's wife. "I don’t know what to say other than I’m heartbroken to hear about David Crosby. He fell "as low as a human being can go," Crosby told the Times. In the 2019 documentary "David Crosby: Remember My Name," he made clear he hoped they could work together again but conceded the others "really dislike me, strongly." After his release, Crosby told People magazine he had beaten his addictions.

☆ 25 top PR hires of 2022, as companies like Activision and McDonald's grabbed executive talent to message around M&A and economic volatility
▼ + stars: | 2022-12-28 | by ( Michael Kaminer | ) www.businessinsider.com time to read: +1 min

Public relations jobs were in hot demand as companies navigated an economic crises and M&A scrutiny. Top talent from places like the Biden administration, and the NFL became available in 2022.Insider tallied up the year's biggest executive hires in the public relations industry. The PR industry's talent wars raged on this year, agency owners and executives tell Insider, as firms push into content, production, and even management consulting. The right hires can affect business. A well-connected executive can reel in business from high-level contacts and leverage those connections on behalf of clients.

☆ A grandmother accidentally texted a stranger to make Thanksgiving plans. 7 years on, they’re still celebrating together.
▼ + stars: | 2022-11-23 | by ( Becca Wood | ) www.nbcnews.com time to read: +3 min

On Tuesday, Nov. 22, Jamal Hinton shared a photo standing beside Wanda Dench outside The Cheesecake Factory restaurant, revealing the two are carrying on their viral tradition. In 2016, Dench accidentally sent a text to Hinton, telling the then 17-year-old that Thanksgiving dinner was at her house on Nov. 24 at 3 p.m. When the teen asked who sent him the message, Dench replied, “Your grandma,” with an elderly woman emoji. Hinton wrote back, asking for a photo to prove that the number really belonged to his grandmother. However, that year was different as Dench’s husband, Lonnie, died earlier that spring due to complications from Covid-19.

☆ Female executives are leaving their companies at record rates. Here's what employers can do to limit the losses.
▼ + stars: | 2022-10-21 | by ( Rebecca Knight | ) www.businessinsider.com time to read: +5 min

A McKinsey report found that women leaders were leaving their companies in unprecedented numbers. In particular, companies need to prioritize flexible work, invest in career development, and foster diversity, equity, and inclusion, they said. Lareina Yee, McKinsey’s senior partner"Employers need to level the playing field for all workers," Thomas said. Employers also need to invest in professional-development programs for younger women — especially women of color. He said too many employers relied on their women leaders to foster inclusion and support employee well-being without acknowledgement.

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