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☆ Analysis: Nigeria's Tinubu faces daunting hurdles after reform sprint
▼ + stars: | 2023-06-27 | by ( Macdonald Dzirutwe | ) www.reuters.com time to read: +6 min

Nigeria today faces record debt, unemployment is worryingly high, and power shortages have contributed to years of anaemic growth. "The path to political power in Nigeria, over time, has always been through these vested interests," said Bismarck Rewane, CEO at Financial Derivatives Company in Lagos. ENTRENCHED NETWORKSTinubu's ambitions to build a $1 trillion economy in eight years could come unstuck in part due to chronic power shortages. Getting the lights on would be a major win, but to do so some say Tinubu must remove grid subsidies and cut red tape. Tinubu suspended the head of the financial and economic crimes agency, but has yet to outline an anti-graft plan.

Persons: Bola Tinubu, Jason Tuvey, Bismarck Rewane, Tinubu, Tunau Taiwo, Nnamdi Obasi, Prince Ojeabulu, Muhammadu Buhari, jihadists, beholden, Joe Bavier, Conor Humphries Organizations: New, Capital Economics, Financial Derivatives Company, International, Rensource Energy, Nigeria Delta, Observers, Thomson Locations: Nigeria, LAGOS, New Nigerian, Lagos

☆ Why investors pumped $100 million into a startup using microbial fungi to turn soil into a crucial tool in the fight against climate change
▼ + stars: | 2023-06-20 | by ( Tasmin Lockwood | ) www.businessinsider.com time to read: +8 min

The startup Loam Bio wants to use fungi to boost soil health and help keep carbon in the ground. But soil carbon is in a sorry state, in part due to current agricultural practices. There are different types of soil carbon; some decompose easily while others can take thousands of years to break down. The soil microbiome could also change to start breaking down the carbon that gets fixed in soil, Bailey added. "The most important thing is that we're really accurately measuring the carbon that we store in the soil," Hudson said.

Persons: Guy Hudson, Chris Sacca's, Hacking, It's, Hudson, Monique, Britt Koskella, Koskella, Andy Bailey, Bailey, we're, Chris Shafto, Dr Brooke Bruning, you've Organizations: Green Tech, Service, Australian, Lowercarbon Capital, Lowercarbon, UC Berkeley, University of Bristol Locations: Australia, Brazil

☆ EU lawmakers pass landmark artificial intelligence regulation
▼ + stars: | 2023-06-14 | by ( Ryan Browne | ) www.cnbc.com time to read: +3 min

The European Parliament has approved the bloc's landmark rules for artificial intelligence, known as the EU AI Act, clearing a major hurdle for the first formal regulation of AI in the West to become law. What generative AI is capable of, from producing music lyrics to generating code, has wowed academics, businesspeople and even school students. During a critical Wednesday vote, the Parliament adopted the AI Act with 499 votes in favor, 28 against and 93 abstentions. Generative AI developers will be required to submit their systems for review before releasing them commercially. The laws have huge implications for developers of generative AI models, such as the Microsoft -backed OpenAI's ChatGPT and Google 's Bard.

Persons: Bard, Jens, Henrik Jeppesen, Thomas Dohmke, Dohmke, CNBC's Arjun Kharpal, Rishi Sunak, Goldman Sachs Organizations: EU, European People's Party, Microsoft, Google, CNBC, European Union

Club holding Apple (AAPL) on Monday unveiled its long-awaited mixed-reality headset, known as Apple Vision Pro, expanding the technology giant's unrivaled hardware-and-software ecosystem into a new realm of computing. Of course, some investors may not be wowed by the Vision Pro. Vision Pro — Apple's first new major piece of hardware since the Apple Watch in 2014 — joins a fledgling field of mixed- and virtual-reality headsets. Bottom line More important than anything announced Monday, we're finally getting a glimpse of Apple's vision for this next-generation computing platform. It's too early to tell where Apple's headset business will be in five or 10 years.

Persons: Morgan Stanley, Steve Jobs, it's, Tim Cook, Cook, Apple, —, Bob Iger, we're, It's, Jim Cramer's, Jim Cramer, Jim, Brittany Hosea, BRITTANY HOSEA Organizations: Apple, Apple Vision, Developers Conference, Vision, Pro, Apple Watch, Meta, PlayStation, Club, Disney, Vision Pro, CNBC, Getty, Afp Locations: Cupertino , California, AFP

☆ I was scrolling Trulia on the couch with wine, and it turned into a 1,000-mile move to a place I'd never lived. I'm thrilled.
▼ + stars: | 2023-05-25 | by ( Jordan Pandy | ) www.businessinsider.com time to read: +6 min

Texas resident Vanessa Chaverri-Gratz was casually perusing real estate with her husband on a date. We didn't plan to move right away, we said, "Let's just look at real estate, because that's really fun." The house is located in Grosse Ile, Michigan, an island between Michigan and Canada. We were not going to offer over asking, and we weren't going to put ourselves in a bad situation with selling our home. We agreed that unless everything literally fell into perfect place, it wasn't going to happen — and a lot of things needed to fall into place.

☆ How the CEO behind ChatGPT won over Congress
▼ + stars: | 2023-05-17 | by ( Brian Fung | ) edition.cnn.com time to read: +9 min

It was a pivotal moment for the AI industry. He agreed that large-scale manipulation and deception using AI tools are among the technology’s biggest potential flaws. On Tuesday, they seemed ready — or even relieved — to be dealing with another area of the technology industry. The AI industry’s biggest players and aspirants include some of the same tech giants Congress has sharply criticized, including Google and Meta. Here too, Altman deftly seized an opportunity to curry favor with lawmakers by emphasizing distinctions between his industry and the social media industry.

☆ OpenAI CEO Sam Altman testifies before U.S. Senate: live
▼ + stars: | 2023-05-16 | by ( Rohan Goswami | In Rohangoswamicnbc | ) www.cnbc.com time to read: 1 min

OpenAI CEO Sam Altman is slated to testify on Tuesday before the U.S. Senate Judiciary Committee regarding AI oversight. Altman has become a highly visible face in the AI development races, leading OpenAI in its partnership with Microsoft and the development of its ChatGPT conversation bot. Regulators and business executives have been scrambling to understand, regulate and integrate large-language models like ChatGPT into their business and legislative frameworks. Earlier this month, Altman and a host of Silicon Valley executives traveled to the White House to meet with Vice President Kamala Harris. On Monday, Altman attended a closed-door dinner with around 60 lawmakers, where the CEO reportedly wowed them with his "forthcoming" speaking.

☆ Victor Wembanyama: How ‘Wembymania’ gripped France due to the most exciting draft prospect since LeBron James
▼ + stars: | 2023-05-16 | by ( Ben Morse | ) edition.cnn.com time to read: +10 min

There have been few players whose journey to the pinnacle of basketball have been as highly followed; in figures released by the NBA, Wembanyama is No. And I keep having to explain to them that having a sold-out, 15,000-people crowd for a regular French professional basketball game is not normal at all,” she said. His father was a high jumper, his mother was a former basketball player who is now a coach and his two siblings – older sister Eve and younger brother Oscar – are basketball players. And the French basketball system where he has been nurtured has helped develop his unique talent, says Krasnoff. “And it certainly has driven US interest in French basketball, at least as far as Wembanyama is concerned.

☆ 10 Things in Tech: Amazon Web Services salaries, Elon Musk returns to Tesla, and a ‘secret’ ChatGPT prompt library
▼ + stars: | 2023-05-16 | by ( Diamond Naga Siu | ) www.businessinsider.com time to read: +5 min

I'm Diamond Naga Siu, and I don't dream of labor (I do occasionally have dreams about writing the newsletter). And hiring managers told my colleague Aki Ito that it's currently incredibly difficult to find and hire enough qualified people. The country that wins the competition over the batteries of the future will not only control the electric vehicle market. Lopez gives us a front-seat look at the landscape of the critical EV battery market. A leaked email revealed that Musk now wants to approve all new hires — including contractors — at Tesla.

☆ Barbara Corcoran's $16 million 'Shark Tank' strategy: 'I'm always looking for the same No. 1 trait'
▼ + stars: | 2023-05-15 | by ( Megan Sauer | ) www.cnbc.com time to read: +3 min

Barbara Corcoran is often wowed by pitches on ABC's "Shark Tank, but impressive products or services aren't enough to get her to invest. Corcoran has offered "Shark Tank" contestants a lot of money using this approach: more than $16 million, according to one online estimate from November. Roughly one in 10 of Corcoran's investments on the show actually earn a profit, she said. "You make 10 investments, you get two to three huge hits, and it pays for the other seven [failed investments]," Corcoran's "Shark Tank" co-star Kevin O'Leary told CNBC Make It last year. "I'm good with that with my 'Shark Tank' companies," Cuban wrote on Twitter earlier that same year.

☆ Google employees reportedly joked about playing drinking games and made up a song to the tune of 'Old MacDonald' to mock how many times execs said AI at I/O developer conference
▼ + stars: | 2023-05-14 | by ( Aaron Mcdade | ) www.businessinsider.com time to read: +2 min

Google employees are reportedly happy with products revealed at the company's annual development conference, but are still making jokes. CNBC cited messages and memes from internal communications mocking how often AI was mentioned. Some employees said they should take a shot every time AI was mentioned by a Google executive. The internal messaging site is often used by Google employees to make jokes at the expense of the company and executives including CEO Sundar Pichai. Last month, Insider reported that a group of executives including Pichai and Mark Zuckerberg said "AI" at least 168 times on their recent first quarter earnings calls.

☆ Apple's AI strategies, especially for Siri, aren't very smart
▼ + stars: | 2023-05-14 | by ( Michael Gartenberg | ) www.businessinsider.com time to read: +7 min

But when it comes to artificial intelligence, particularly Siri, Apple has gone from leader to laggard. Siri was introduced to the world in 2011 – 12 years ago – and was lauded at the time as a breakthrough in AI technology. Open-source technology allows developers to collaborate and contribute to a project, leading to faster and more efficient development cycles. Still, Google, which has a long history of open-source involvement, publishes hundreds of AI research papers yearly. While that's helpful (especially for selling Macs to AI developers), it's not the kind of kumbaya sharing that the open-source community relies on.

☆ Sweden’s Loreen wins historic second Eurovision, after emotional show in Britain that celebrated Ukraine
▼ + stars: | 2023-05-13 | by ( Rob Picheta | ) edition.cnn.com time to read: +4 min

Liverpool, United Kingdom CNN —Sweden’s Loreen has won the Eurovision Song Contest for a second time, earning a historic triumph at an extravagant and crowd-pleasing show held in Liverpool, United Kingdom, on behalf of Ukraine. Loreen of Sweden celebrates with the trophy after winning the Grand Final of the Eurovision Song Contest in Liverpool. Ukraine entrant TVORCHI performing in the grand final for the Eurovision Song Contest final. Eurovision fans enjoy the party atmosphere as they gather in Liverpool to watch the Eurovision Song Contest final. Cameron Smith/Getty ImagesAround the host city of Liverpool, Eurovision fans without tickets rammed into venues to watch the show on big screens, many of them waving Ukrainian flags.

☆ Bowlero, the public company that reimagined bowling, faces dozens of discrimination claims that the feds want to settle for $60 million
▼ + stars: | 2023-05-11 | by ( Gabrielle Fonrouge | ) www.cnbc.com time to read: +19 min

The 73 EEOC claims brought by individual former employees against the company sparked the larger pattern or practice investigation into age discrimination. Only a fraction of EEOC age discrimination complaints — 2.8% in fiscal 2021 — resulted in reasonable cause determinations, EEOC data show. It went from running six bowling alleys to 272 overnight after it acquired AMF, which was then the largest bowling company in the world and was in bankruptcy. The following year, Shannon's company acquired the Brunswick Corporation, the second-largest bowling company in the world, and changed his company's name to Bowlero. Dowe said negotiations fell apart when Bowlero countered the EEOC's $60 million settlement proposal with a proposal of $500,000.

☆ Why ChatGPT developer OpenAI is the No. 1 company on the 2023 CNBC Disruptor 50 list
▼ + stars: | 2023-05-09 | by ( Julia Boorstin | ) www.cnbc.com time to read: +7 min

Microsoft unveiled new versions of its Bing internet-search engine and Edge browser powered by the newest technology from ChatGPT maker OpenAI. Of the 50 companies on this year's list, 21 told us that AI is critically important to more than 50% of their revenue. Half of the companies in the top 10 of the 2023 CNBC Disruptor 50 list feature key use of AI, and notably, they represent a diverse range of industries and use cases. OpenAI CEO Sam Altman speaks during a keynote address announcing ChatGPT integration for Bing at Microsoft in Redmond, Washington, Feb. 7, 2023. The call to slow down is, in fact, less safe than what they're proposing," he said, referring to OpenAI and Altman.

☆ ChatGPT is powered by these contractors making $15 an hour
▼ + stars: | 2023-05-08 | by ( David Ingram | ) www.cnbc.com time to read: +7 min

Out of the limelight, Savreux and other contractors have spent countless hours in the past few years teaching OpenAI's systems to give better responses in ChatGPT. So far, AI contract work hasn't inspired a similar movement in the U.S. among the Americans quietly building AI systems word-by-word. watch nowJob postings for AI contractors refer to both the allure of working in a cutting-edge industry as well as the sometimes-grinding nature of the work. There's no definitive tally of how many contractors work for AI companies, but it's an increasingly common form of work around the world. A spokesperson for OpenAI said no one was available to answer questions about its use of AI contractors.

☆ Surprises, snubs and a watershed moment that wasn’t.
▼ + stars: | 2023-05-02 | by ( Scott Heller | Alexis Soloski | ) www.nytimes.com time to read: +2 min

Not everyone can wake up to good news on Tony nominations morning. Then again, with a panel of voters often un-wowed by celebrity, the roster typically turns up left-field choices and anoints young talent. But the Tony committee gave the show’s team something to laugh about, lavishing six nominations, including two for Cooper himself: best play and best featured actor in a play. Cooper, who portrayed a saucy airline hostess named Peaches, gave it his all, onstage and off: When the show’s sudden closing was first announced, he took to Instagram to rally audiences. Yet Tony voters passed on nominating Oscar Isaac and Rachel Brosnahan for their sexy, impassioned portrayals of a fraying couple in 1960s Greenwich Village.

☆ Morning Bid: Wowed by tech, worried by banks
▼ + stars: | 2023-04-26 | by ( ) www.reuters.com time to read: +1 min

That makes investors wary of such provisions at the likes of HSBC (HSBA.L), Lloyds (LLOY.L) and NatWest Group (NWG.L), all of which are due to report earnings in the coming weeks. Across the Atlantic, First Republic Bank's (FRC.N) plunging deposits and tumbling shares are rippling through the U.S. regional banking sector. U.S. recession fears have also resurfaced after consumer confidence hit a nine-month low, alongside some weak earnings. In a week packed with tech sector earnings, the focus moves from artificial intelligence to advertising revenues as Facebook-parent Meta Platforms (META.O) and streaming device maker Roku Inc (ROKU.O) report. Key developments that could influence markets on Wednesday:U.S. durable goods orders, Germany and France consumer confidenceEarnings: Meta Platforms, Boeing, GSK, Deutsche Boerse, Roku IncEditing by Jacqueline WongOur Standards: The Thomson Reuters Trust Principles.

☆ Why Hooters Air, Pan Am, and the Concorde all disappeared from the skies
▼ + stars: | 2023-04-13 | by ( Noah Lewis | ) www.businessinsider.com time to read: +1 min

Pan Am was an icon of early travel that no longer exists, and even Hooters had its own airline. Meanwhile, the Concorde was an engineering marvel that wowed passengers, but it no longer flies. Did you know that the restaurant chain Hooters once had its own airline, where the wait staff got a chance to work at 32,000 feet? Getting a new airline off the ground can be the easy part, but many struggle to stay above the competition. America's premier airline boasted the first ever scheduled international flight and became an icon of early air travel.

☆ OpenAI to offer users up to $20,000 for reporting bugs
▼ + stars: | 2023-04-11 | by ( ) www.reuters.com time to read: +1 min

April 11 (Reuters) - OpenAI, the firm behind chatbot sensation ChatGPT, said on Tuesday that it would offer up to $20,000 to users reporting vulnerabilities in its artificial intelligence systems. OpenAI Bug Bounty program, which went live on Tuesday, will offer rewards to people based on the severity of the bugs they report, with rewards starting from $200 per vulnerability. Technology companies often use bug bounty programs to encourage programmers and ethical hackers to report bugs in their software systems. According to details on bug bounty platform Bugcrowd, OpenAI has invited researchers to review certain functionality of ChatGPT and the framework of how OpenAI systems communicate and share data with third-party applications. Reporting by Yuvraj Malik in Bengaluru; Editing by Anil D'SilvaOur Standards: The Thomson Reuters Trust Principles.

WASHINGTON, April 11 (Reuters) - The Biden administration said Tuesday it is seeking public comments on potential accountability measures for artificial intelligence (AI) systems as questions loom about its impact on national security and education. The agency wants to know if there are measures that could be put in place to provide assurance "that AI systems are legal, effective, ethical, safe, and otherwise trustworthy." “Responsible AI systems could bring enormous benefits, but only if we address their potential consequences and harms. President Joe Biden last week said it remained to be seen whether AI is dangerous. "Tech companies have a responsibility, in my view, to make sure their products are safe before making them public," he said.

☆ Biden to discuss risks of AI in Tuesday meeting with science advisers
▼ + stars: | 2023-04-04 | by ( Jeff Mason | ) www.reuters.com time to read: +2 min

WASHINGTON, April 4 (Reuters) - U.S. President Joe Biden will discuss the "risks and opportunities" that artificial intelligence poses for people, society and national security during a meeting with science and technology advisers at the White House on Tuesday, an official said. "The president will discuss the importance of protecting rights and safety to ensure responsible innovation and appropriate safeguards," a White House official said in a statement ahead of Biden's meeting. Artificial intelligence or AI is becoming a hot topic for policy makers. Senator Chris Murphy has urged society to pause as it considers the ramifications of AI. Last year the Biden administration released a blueprint "Bill of Rights" to help ensure users' rights are protected as technology companies design and develop AI systems.

☆ Apple's own execs are split on whether the company should make smart goggles. Experts say if Apple can't make smart glasses happen, no one can.
▼ + stars: | 2023-03-30 | by ( Asia Martin | ) www.businessinsider.com time to read: +5 min

Apple is reportedly introducing its Reality Pro smart goggles in June. Experts say the goggles may not be a smash success, but if anyone can make it work, it's Apple. Earlier this week, The New York Times reported that a rare wave of dissent made its way into the team behind Apple's mixed-reality smart goggles, called Apple Reality Pro. Apple Reality Pro will have a wow-factor to it because it's had time to improve upon the foundations laid by its competitors. The virtual reality headset market was worth $7.7 billion in 2022, according to a report by Grandview Research.

☆ U.S. advocacy group asks FTC to stop new OpenAI GPT releases
▼ + stars: | 2023-03-30 | by ( ) www.reuters.com time to read: +2 min

The group in its complaint said OpenAI's ChatGPT-4 fails to meet the FTC's standard of being "transparent, explainable, fair and empirically sound while fostering accountability." "The FTC has a clear responsibility to investigate and prohibit unfair and deceptive trade practices. We believe that the FTC should look closely at OpenAI and GPT-4," Marc Rotenberg, president of CAIDP and a veteran privacy advocate, said in a statement on the website. Rotenberg was one of the more than 1,000 signatories to the letter urging a pause in AI experiments. The group urged the FTC "to open an investigation into OpenAI, enjoin further commercial releases of GPT-4, and ensure the establishment of necessary guardrails to protect consumers, businesses, and the commercial marketplace."

March 29 (Reuters) - Elon Musk and a group of artificial intelligence experts and industry executives are calling for a six-month pause in developing systems more powerful than OpenAI's newly launched GPT-4, in an open letter citing potential risks to society and humanity. "Powerful AI systems should be developed only once we are confident that their effects will be positive and their risks will be manageable," the letter said. The letter detailed potential risks to society and civilization by human-competitive AI systems in the form of economic and political disruptions, and called on developers to work with policymakers on governance and regulatory authorities. Rather than pause research, she said, AI researchers should be subjected to greater transparency requirements. "If you do AI research, you should be very transparent about how you do it."

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