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☆ A Hollywood movie mogul and campaign adviser to Joe Biden is telling the president to embrace his age like Harrison Ford and Mick Jagger
▼ + stars: | 2023-06-25 | by ( Katie Balevic | ) www.businessinsider.com time to read: +3 min

A Hollywood big shot is helping Joe Biden pitch his age to wary voters in the 2024 election. Jeffrey Katzenberg wants Biden to tout his age like Harrison Ford or Mick Jagger, per The Wall Street Journal. Katzenberg has told Biden to embrace his age like 80-year-old Harrison Ford, who is reprising his role in the "Indiana Jones" franchise, or Mick Jagger, who was still performing on tour last year at 79. "I've never, ever had the sense that Jeffrey does this for what the business people call ROI," Begala told the Journal. "He's very much committed to Biden, for Biden, and I think he may be one of the few people who can talk to him as a near peer."

Persons: Joe Biden, Jeffrey Katzenberg, Biden, Harrison Ford, Mick Jagger, —, Jeffrey Katzenberg —, Katzenberg, Indiana Jones, Jeffrey, there's, George Clooney, he's, doesn't, Clooney, Paul Begala, I've, Begala Organizations: Street Journal, Service, DreamWorks, Hollywood, Democratic

☆ Tech companies including Google gripe about unfair cloud practices
▼ + stars: | 2023-06-22 | by ( ) www.reuters.com time to read: +2 min

June 21 (Reuters) - Technology trade groups as well as Alphabet's (GOOGL.O) Google have griped to the Federal Trade Commission about allegedly unfair business practices in the cloud, including by the industry's No. 2 by market share Microsoft (MSFT.O). They also follow scrutiny worldwide, including a recent probe by Europe's antitrust authority into Microsoft's licensing agreements that allegedly discouraged rival cloud usage. In one example of the public comments Tuesday, trade group NetChoice took aim at Microsoft and Oracle (ORCL.N). Google echoed the sentiment in its own filing, saying that "licensing terms enforced by Microsoft, Oracle, and other legacy on-premises software providers distort competition in the cloud."

Persons: NetChoice, Urvi Dugar, Jeffrey Dastin, Jaspreet Singh, Krishna Chandra Eluri, Christopher Cushing Organizations: Technology, Google, Federal Trade Commission, Microsoft, U.S, Oracle, Thomson Locations: Bengaluru, Palo Alto, Calif

☆ Producer Ryan Murphy Is Expected to Move to Disney
▼ + stars: | 2023-06-20 | by ( John Koblin | Brooks Barnes | ) www.nytimes.com time to read: +1 min

The contract talks with Disney are not finished, according to three people briefed on the matter, who spoke on the condition of anonymity to discuss private negotiations. But the talks between Mr. Murphy and Disney are advanced, the people said. Mr. Murphy’s contract with Netflix expires at the end of the month. Representatives for Mr. Murphy, Disney and Netflix either declined to comment or did not return calls. Bloomberg reported Mr. Murphy’s likely move to Disney earlier on Tuesday.

Persons: Ryan Murphy, Jeffrey Dahmer, ”, decamping, ’, Murphy, Murphy’s Organizations: Walt Disney Company, Hollywood, Netflix, Disney, Bloomberg Locations: Hollywood

☆ 'Dahmer' producer Ryan Murphy plans to leave Netflix for Disney, Bloomberg reports
▼ + stars: | 2023-06-20 | by ( ) www.reuters.com time to read: +1 min

June 20 (Reuters) - Hit television writer and producer Ryan Murphy is planning to leave Netflix (NFLX.O) to join Walt Disney (DIS.N), Bloomberg News reported on Tuesday, citing people familiar with the matter. Murphy is known for his creation of hits from "Glee" to "9-1-1" and "American Horror Story" and serial-killer series "Dahmer - Monster: The Jeffrey Dahmer Story," which became one of Netflix's most-watched series of all time. He left Fox in 2018 to join Netflix in a five-year deal valued as high as $300 million to produce a new series and film exclusively for the online giant. The TV show creator has been negotiating a new deal with Disney over the past year. Disney and Netflix did not immediately respond to Reuters' requests for comment.

Persons: Ryan Murphy, Murphy, Dahmer, Jeffrey Dahmer, Carol Burnett, Burnett, Ellen DeGeneres, Norman Lear, Samrhitha, Maju Samuel Organizations: Netflix, Walt Disney, Bloomberg, Fox, Disney, Hollywood Foreign Press Association, Golden Globes, Thomson Locations: Bengaluru

☆ Mercedes drivers can soon turn to ChatGPT for voice control
▼ + stars: | 2023-06-15 | by ( ) www.reuters.com time to read: +2 min

Mercedes-Benz (MBGn.DE) on Thursday said U.S. drivers could power some of their luxury vehicles with ChatGPT in a test program starting June 16. Compatible with some 900,000 vehicles that have the automaker's "MBUX" systems, ChatGPT will download over the air after drivers opt in via a Mercedes app or by voice command, the company said. Mercedes said ChatGPT would make its car system's answers sound more natural and would let drivers ask for destination information or address other queries, like what to cook for dinner. The automaker had previously let drivers and passengers issue a range of requests by voice, such as turning on seat heaters. Findings from the test program will inform Mercedes' plans for adding such artificial intelligence to other countries and in other languages, the company said.

Persons: Yves Herman, ChatGPT, Mercedes, Alexa, Jeffrey Dastin, Jamie Freed Organizations: Mercedes, Benz, REUTERS, Microsoft, General, Thomson Locations: Brussels, Belgium, Palo Alto , California, Bengaluru

The Google parent has advised employees not to enter its confidential materials into AI chatbots, the people said and the company confirmed, citing long-standing policy on safeguarding information. Alphabet also alerted its engineers to avoid direct use of computer code that chatbots can generate, some of the people said. A growing number of businesses around the world have set up guardrails on AI chatbots, among them Samsung (005930.KS), Amazon.com (AMZN.O) and Deutsche Bank (DBKGn.DE), the companies told Reuters. By February, Google told staff testing Bard before its launch not to give it internal information, Insider reported. A Google privacy notice updated on June 1 also states: "Don’t include confidential or sensitive information in your Bard conversations."

Persons: Bard, ChatGPT, OpenAI, Harry Potter, Yusuf Mehdi, Mehdi, Bing, Matthew Prince, Jeffrey Dastin, Anna Tong, Kenneth Li, Nick Zieminski Organizations: FRANCISCO, Reuters, Google, ChatGPT, Microsoft Corp, Samsung, Deutsche Bank, Apple, Data Protection, Politico, EU, cyberattacks, Microsoft, Thomson Locations: Bard, San Francisco

☆ One of the government's biggest initiatives to make it easier to take out student loans for grad school backfired and made tuition more expensive
▼ + stars: | 2023-06-09 | by ( Noah Sheidlower | ) www.businessinsider.com time to read: +6 min

Graduate student debt now accounts for 47% of new student loans, according to the Congressional Budget Office. Federal graduate student loans have no effective cap unlike undergraduate loans, which are capped at $57,500 in Federal Student Aid. This has been the case since 2006, when federal graduate student loans were capped at $18,500. The average student debt for a master's degree for the 1999-2000 school year came in at $36,600, compared with $55,540 in 2016. The bipartisan debt-ceiling deal mandates student loan payments must resume by Aug. 30.

Persons: Biden's, —, Sandra Black, Lesley Turner, Jeffrey Dunning, Joe Biden's, Donald Trump, Trump, Biden Organizations: Street, Service, Research, Grad PLUS, Universities, Congressional, Federal, Federal Student Aid, Congress, CBO, Grad, Biden, Secretary, Republican, Street Journal, White, Politico, Department Locations: Texas

Look no further than artificial intelligence from Google (GOOGL.O) at Priceline as early as this summer, the companies told Reuters. New tools from Google's cloud division give Priceline access to generative AI, like the technology behind ChatGPT that can draft text as if a human wrote it. For Priceline, the embrace of novel technology may give it an edge over myriad sites that market travel options, Google among them. Among other uses, Google's AI will be generating coding suggestions for hundreds of software developers at Priceline, said Brodbeck. And Google's AI will speed up marketing for trending destinations.

Persons: Martin Brodbeck, there's, Brodbeck, Thomas Kurian, Kurian, Priceline, intranets, Jeffrey Dastin, Sonali Paul Organizations: Google, Reuters, Booking Holdings, Amazon, Microsoft, Thomson Locations: New York, Priceline, Bryant, Palo Alto, Calif

[1/3] Amazon workers participate in a walkout at Amazon Headquarters, in Seattle, Washington, U.S., May 31, 2023. REUTERS/Matt Mills McKnightSEATTLE, May 31 (Reuters) - Some Amazon.com Inc (AMZN.O) employees staged a walkout on Wednesday in protest of the e-commerce giant's changes to its climate policy, layoffs and a return-to-office mandate. More than 1,900 employees had pledged to protest globally, according to the organizers, an activist group known as Amazon Employees for Climate Justice (AECJ). In a statement, Amazon spokesperson Brad Glasser said the company is pushing hard to cut its carbon emissions. He added that Amazon listens to employee feedback and was happy with the collaboration that arose from its return-to-office policy.

Persons: Matt Mills McKnight, AECJ, Brad Glasser, Matt McKnight, Tiyashi Datta, Jeffrey Dastin, David Gregorio Our Organizations: Amazon Headquarters, REUTERS, Inc, Amazon Employees, Climate Justice, Amazon, Thomson Locations: Seattle , Washington , U.S, Matt Mills McKnight SEATTLE, Seattle, San Francisco, Bengaluru, Palo Alto , California

☆ Here’s why Shake Shack’s recent deal with Engaged Capital may have fallen short for shareholders
▼ + stars: | 2023-05-27 | by ( Kenneth Squire | ) www.cnbc.com time to read: +5 min

Business: Shake Shack owns, operates and licenses Shake Shack restaurants, which offer hamburgers, chicken, hot dogs, crinkle-cut fries, shakes, frozen custard, beer, wine and other products. Shake Shack entered a cooperation agreement with Engaged. Over the past 20 years, he and his team have developed one of the greatest casual hamburger chain restaurants in the country, Shake Shack. They took Shake Shack public in 2015 with 63 restaurants and have expanded to 436 restaurants in eight years. As a public company, Shake Shack has significantly underperformed both the market and its peers.

☆ Dollar Tree is considering locking up products to deter theft
▼ + stars: | 2023-05-25 | by ( Alex Bitter | ) www.businessinsider.com time to read: +3 min

Dollar Tree faced higher "shrink" during the company's first quarter, executives said Thursday. Like many retailers, Dollar Tree is considering "defensive merchandising" or restricting product access. One of the steps Dollar Tree is considering is "defensive merchandising," a retail industry term for locking up merchandise and requiring customers to retrieve it with an employee's help. The chain also said its customers bought more groceries and other consumable goods, which generally are less profitable than other things Dollar Tree sells. Do you work or shop at a dollar store and have a story to share?

☆ Dollar Tree shares plunge after company misses on earnings, slashes full-year profit outlook
▼ + stars: | 2023-05-25 | by ( Gabrielle Fonrouge | In Gabrielle-Fonrouge | ) www.cnbc.com time to read: +4 min

Shares of Dollar Tree plunged more than 16% in intraday trading Thursday after the company fell short of Wall Street's earnings expectations for the most recent quarter and slashed its profit outlook for the full year. On an adjusted basis, the company reported earnings of $1.47 per share, falling below Wall Street projections. Dollar Tree, which runs its namesake banner and Family Dollar, has been in the midst of a turnaround after shuffling up its executive leadership and raising prices. While other value-oriented retailers, such as TJ Maxx , have seen promising results this retail earnings season, Dollar Tree has fallen short. Even with the companies low prices, Dollar Tree shoppers have been focusing their spending on essential items, which carry lower margins, over discretionary purchases.

☆ Bill Gates says top AI agent will replace search, shopping sites
▼ + stars: | 2023-05-22 | by ( ) www.reuters.com time to read: +1 min

SAN FRANCISCO, May 22 (Reuters) - Bill Gates, Microsoft Corp's (MSFT.O) co-founder, on Monday said the technology race to win is the development of the top artificially intelligent agent, poised to disrupt search-engine, productivity and online shopping sites. "You’ll never go to a search site again," he said. Amazon.com Inc (AMZN.O), Alphabet Inc's (GOOGL.O) Google and Microsoft did not immediately respond to requests for comment. Gates said Inflection AI, co-founded by entrepreneur Reid Hoffman, impressed him. "Whoever wins the personal agent, that’s a big thing," Gates said.

☆ OpenAI is exploring collective decisions on AI, like Wikipedia entries
▼ + stars: | 2023-05-22 | by ( ) www.reuters.com time to read: 1 min

May 22 (Reuters) - ChatGPT's creator OpenAI is testing how to gather broad input on decisions impacting its artificial intelligence, its president Greg Brockman said on Monday. At AI Forward, an event in San Francisco hosted by Goldman Sachs Group Inc (GS.N) and SV Angel, Brockman discussed the broad contours of how the maker of the wildly popular chatbot is seeking regulation of AI globally. One announcement he previewed is akin to the model of Wikipedia, which he said requires people with diverse views to coalesce and agree on the encyclopedia's entries. "We’re not just sitting in Silicon Valley thinking we can write these rules for everyone," he said of AI policy. Reporting By Jeffrey Dastin in San FranciscoOur Standards: The Thomson Reuters Trust Principles.

☆ Sinn Fein sweep past unionist rivals again in Northern Ireland local elections
▼ + stars: | 2023-05-20 | by ( Amanda Ferguson | ) www.reuters.com time to read: +2 min

BELFAST, May 20 (Reuters) - Irish nationalists Sinn Fein followed up last year's historic Northern Ireland Assembly victory by overtaking their unionist rivals by a wide margin in council elections on Saturday to become the biggest party at local level for the first time. It is the latest political milestone for the former political wing of the Irish Republican Army (IRA) who want to leave the United Kingdom and form a united Ireland. The left-wing party also comfortably leads opinion polls in the Republic of Ireland ahead of national elections due in 2025. The Democratic Unionist Party (DUP), until last year the biggest party at local and regional level, had 118. The poll also marked the first time a Black person was elected to office in Northern Ireland, with Maasai woman Lilian Seenoi-Bar winning a seat for the nationalist SDLP.

☆ YouTube recommended videos about guns, school shootings, and serial killers to researchers simulating accounts of young boys
▼ + stars: | 2023-05-17 | by ( Aaron Mcdade | ) www.businessinsider.com time to read: +5 min

A new study on YouTube's recommendation algorithm found it pushed violent videos to children. Researchers from the Tech Transparency Project created four accounts for fictional nine and 14-year-olds. Accounts that watched recommended videos received hundreds more violent videos than the ones that didn't. For the following month, researchers tracked hundreds of videos recommended daily to the fictional children on YouTube's homepage. One of each pair of the accounts chose to watch at least 50 of the recommended videos, while the other accounts did not interact with the violent recommendations.

[1/4] OpenAI CEO Sam Altman testifies before a Senate Judiciary Privacy, Technology & the Law Subcommittee hearing titled 'Oversight of A.I. Some critics fear the technology will exacerbate societal harms, among them prejudice and misinformation, while others warn AI could end humanity itself. Globally, this is exploding," said Senator Cory Booker, one of many lawmakers with questions about how best to regulate AI. The White House has convened top technology CEOs including Altman to address AI. An OpenAI staffer recently proposed the creation of a U.S. licensing agency for AI, which could be called the Office for AI Safety and Infrastructure Security, or OASIS, Reuters has reported.

In his first appearance before a congressional panel, CEO Sam Altman is set to advocate licensing or registration requirements for AI with certain capabilities, his written testimony shows. That way, the U.S. can hold companies to safety standards, for instance testing systems before their release and publishing the results. "Regulation of AI is essential," Altman said in the prepared remarks which were seen by Reuters. An OpenAI staffer recently proposed the creation of a U.S. licensing agency for AI, which could be called the Office for AI Safety and Infrastructure Security, or OASIS, Reuters has reported. She is expected to urge Congress to focus regulation on areas with the potential to do the greatest societal harm.

☆ Kate Winslet, Ben Whishaw win at BAFTA Television Awards
▼ + stars: | 2023-05-15 | by ( ) www.reuters.com time to read: +2 min

LONDON, May 15 (Reuters) - Kate Winslet and Ben Whishaw were among the winners at the BAFTA Television Awards in London on Sunday night, with the Oscar-winning actress using her acceptance speech to call for action against harmful content on social media. To people in power and to people who can make change: please, criminalise harmful content. Please eradicate harmful content. Dublin-set "Bad Sisters" won the drama series categories as well as a supporting actress prize for Anne-Marie Duff. A sketch showing the late monarch having tea with Paddington Bear, voiced by Whishaw, won the memorable moment award, voted for by the public.

Interviews with a U.S. senator, congressional staffers, AI companies and interest groups show there are a number of options under discussion. Some proposals focus on AI that may put people's lives or livelihoods at risk, like in medicine and finance. Other possibilities include rules to ensure AI isn't used to discriminate or violate someone's civil rights. Another debate is whether to regulate the developer of AI or the company that uses it to interact with consumers. GOVERNMENT MICROMANAGEMENTThe risk-based approach means AI used to diagnose cancer, for example, would be scrutinized by the Food and Drug Administration, while AI for entertainment would not be regulated.

[1/3] Alphabet CEO Sundar Pichai speaks at the Google I/O 2023 conference, in Mountain View, California, U.S., May 10, 2023. Called the Search Generative Experience, the revamped Google can craft responses to open-ended queries while retaining its recognizable list of links to the Web. "We are reimagining all of our core products, including search," Sundar Pichai, Alphabet's CEO, said after he took the stage at the event. Generative AI can, using past data, create brand new content like fully formed text, images and software code. WHAT OUTFIT TO WEARWith the embedded AI, Google still looks and acts like its familiar empty search bar.

May 10 (Reuters) - Alphabet Inc's (GOOGL.O) Google on Wednesday began unveiling more artificial intelligence in its products to answer the latest competition from Microsoft Corp (MSFT.O), which has threatened its perch atop the nearly $300 billion search advertising market. He said Google is integrating generative AI into search. For years the top portal to the internet, Google has found its position in question since rivals began exploiting generative AI as an alternative way to present content from the web. That has represented a technological affront and a business one: Microsoft said every percentage point of share it gained in search advertising could draw another $2 billion in revenue. Pichai said earlier this year that generative AI to distill complex queries would come to Google Search, as would more perspectives, "like blogs from people who play both piano and guitar."

May 10 (Reuters) - Alphabet Inc's (GOOGL.O) Google on Wednesday is expected to unveil more artificial intelligence in its products to answer the latest competition from Microsoft Corp (MSFT.O), which has threatened its perch atop the nearly $300-billion search advertising market. For years the top portal to the internet, Google has found its position in question since rivals began exploiting generative AI as an alternative way to present content from the web. That has represented a technological affront and a business one: Microsoft said every percentage point of share it gained in search advertising could draw another $2 billion in revenue. Sundar Pichai, Alphabet's chief executive, this year said generative AI to distill complex queries would come to Google Search, as would more perspectives, "like blogs from people who play both piano and guitar." At Wednesday's conference, it is expected to announce a more powerful AI model known as PaLM 2, CNBC reported.

Customers are applying Google's technology in ways both expected, such as a customer-service chatbot for Uber, and unusual, including AI to handle drive-thru orders at a Wendy's Co (WEN.O) fast-food restaurant in Ohio. Its cloud division posted its first-ever operating profit last quarter, and the AI technology that Google pioneered may help it narrow the gap with bigger players Amazon.com Inc (AMZN.O) and Microsoft Corp (MSFT.O). And it is exploring if Google's AI can craft research drawing from economic data, market reports and other content, to give the bank's customers and staff, said Leukert. Other companies using the technology include Adore Me, the Victoria's Secret unit drafting ad copy with AI in Google Docs, Kurian said. Reporting by Jeffrey Dastin in Mountain View, California Editing by Matthew LewisOur Standards: The Thomson Reuters Trust Principles.

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?

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