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☆ Reid Hoffman's new AI startup Inflection launches ChatGPT-like chatbot
▼ + stars: | 2023-05-02 | by ( Krystal Hu | ) www.reuters.com time to read: +2 min

May 2 (Reuters) - Inflection AI, the AI startup founded by LinkedIn co-founder Reid Hoffman and former Deepmind (GOOGL.O) researcher Mustafa Suleyman, has released its first AI chatbot product, the company said on Tuesday. Similar to the viral chatbot ChatGPT, Inflection's AI chatbot, named Pi, uses generative AI technology to interact with users through conversations, in which people can ask questions and share interests. Inflection AI said it developed the technology in-house and its Pi chatbot is built on prioritizing human conversations with a high level of emotional intelligence. Pi uses user data, including conversational content, to train its AI systems, according to its terms of service. Chatbot powered by generative AI technology has become a crowded field since OpenAI's ChatGPT burst into the scene last November.

That meant revenue growth rates were about 5 percentage points lower in April than in the first quarter, he said, referring to a period that saw a sequential drop. Its economy-wary customers aside, Amazon aimed to project confidence for its cloud longer-term. Jassy said the growing adoption of generative AI, which can create text, imagery and other content from past data, represented a huge opportunity for Amazon's cloud. Likewise, Olsavsky told reporters, Amazon had seen no shift in the competitive balance among cloud providers. AWS sales growth slowed to 15.8% in the first quarter.

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.

Generative AI gobbles up reams of computing power, amplifying the urgency of Meta's capacity scramble, said five of the sources. Executives also that spring set about reorganizing Meta's AI units, naming two new heads of engineering in the process, including Janardhan, the author of the September memo. According to four of the sources, Meta did not prioritize building generative AI products until after the launch of ChatGPT in November. Zuckerberg announced a new top-level generative AI team in February that he said would "turbocharge" the company's work in the area. Carvill, the Meta spokesperson, said the company has been building generative AI products on different teams for more than a year.

April 25 (Reuters) - OpenAI is introducing what one employee called an "incognito mode" for its hit chatbot ChatGPT that does not save users’ conversation history or use it to improve its artificial intelligence, the company said Tuesday. The San Francisco-based startup also said it planned a "ChatGPT Business" subscription with additional data controls. The move comes as scrutiny has grown over how ChatGPT and other chatbots it inspired manage hundreds of millions of users’ data, commonly used to improve, or "train", AI. Italy last month banned ChatGPT for possible privacy violations, saying OpenAI could resume the service if it met demands such as giving consumers tools to object to the processing of their data. Microsoft Corp (MSFT.O), which has invested in OpenAI, already offers ChatGPT to businesses.

☆ Data company Palantir to help Ukraine prosecute alleged Russian war crimes
▼ + stars: | 2023-04-22 | by ( Jeffrey Dastin | Thomson Reuters | Jeffrey Dastin Is A Technology Correspondent For Reuters Based In San Francisco | ) www.reuters.com time to read: +2 min

April 22 (Reuters) - Ukraine plans to deploy software from U.S. data analytics provider Palantir Technologies Inc (PLTR.N) to help it prosecute alleged war crimes committed by Russia, the company told Reuters. Palantir, which has supplied Ukraine with systems to help it target Russian tanks and support refugees, is now working with the prosecutor general's office to help investigators across Europe pool and process data, the company said. Moscow has denied attacking civilians or perpetrating war crimes. Any successful war crimes prosecution will require Ukraine to navigate overlapping court jurisdictions and furnish evidence despite often restricted access to suspects or crime scenes. A U.N.-mandated investigative body last month accused Russia of war crimes, though its chair said it had not found evidence of genocide, which is being investigated by Ukraine.

The release is poised to widen what pupils do with AI just as educators are grappling with its consequences. Rosensweig said Chegg focuses on math and the sciences, not the essay drafting that has challenged schools. Rosensweig said Chegg has structured and checked its answers to ensure accuracy. Asked if AI will prompt Chegg to shrink its pool of 150,000 experts contributing to its content, he said the company already balances humans with technology. Analysts in recent months have questioned whether Chegg can grow its base of 8 million subscribers as students embrace the largely free ChatGPT software, created by the startup OpenAI.

April 13 (Reuters) - Amazon.com Inc (AMZN.O) did not grant its Chief Executive Andy Jassy any new stock in 2022, shrinking the pay gap between the online retailer's top boss and rank-and-file employees, the company said Thursday in a securities filing. Amazon for months has grappled with inflation and recession fears that prompted its customers to tighten their budgets. Aiming to slash costs, the company said it would cut 27,000 jobs and trim some stock awards. The year prior, the ratio was 1 to 6,474, reflecting a stock grant Amazon said would take Jassy a decade to earn fully. Reflecting the company's stock drop, Jassy's award along with older grants lost nearly $148 million of their value in 2022.

☆ Biden plans to focus heavily on the economy in Belfast speech marking Good Friday Agreement anniversary
▼ + stars: | 2023-04-12 | by ( Kevin Liptak | ) edition.cnn.com time to read: +8 min

Biden’s optimistic speech did not paper over tensions that persist 25 years after the Good Friday Agreement was signed. “It doesn’t change the political dynamic in Northern Ireland,” said Jeffrey Donaldson, leader of the Democratic Unionist Party, which withdrew from the government in dispute of Brexit trade rules. Ahead of the speech, Biden sat for brief talks over coffee with Sunak, though won’t participate in any major public events with him while he’s here. That includes the former leader of the Democratic Unionist Party Arlene Foster, who previously served as the first minister of Northern Ireland. The region along the border with Northern Ireland was where Biden’s great-great-great-grandfather, Owen Finnegan, was born in 1818.

[1/2] Police deploy at the scene of a mass shooting outside an Old National Bank branch near Slugger Field baseball stadium in downtown Louisville, Kentucky, U.S. April, 10, 2023. Police identified the shooter in Louisville as Connor Sturgeon, who was employed at the Old National Bank's downtown branch at the time of the shooting. Monday's shooting brought the number of people killed by gun violence in Louisville to 40 in 2023 so far, Louisville Mayor Craig Greenberg said in his remarks at the vigil. The nonprofit group defines a mass shooting as four or more shot or killed, not including the shooter. While mass shootings have become commonplace in the U.S., the shooting stunned the Tennessee city and the country.

☆ Four dead in Louisville bank shooting were suspect's colleagues, governor's friends
▼ + stars: | 2023-04-11 | by ( Kanishka Singh | Thomson Reuters | Kanishka Singh Is A Breaking News Reporter For Reuters In Washington Dc | ) www.reuters.com time to read: +2 min

April 10 (Reuters) - The four people shot dead in a shooting on Monday in downtown Louisville, Kentucky, were all colleagues of the suspect who gunned them down, and two of them were close friends of Kentucky Governor Andy Beshear. Elliott was a senior vice president of Old National Bank whose downtown branch in Louisville was the site of Monday's assault. "He helped me become governor," Beshear said, while describing Elliott as "an incredible friend." Police deploy at the scene of a mass shooting outside an Old National Bank branch near Slugger Field baseball stadium in downtown Louisville, Kentucky, U.S. April, 10, 2023. Barrick's LinkedIn profile showed he was the senior vice president of commercial real estate banking at Old National Bank and had been with the firm for less than a year.

☆ Louisville shooter legally purchased rifle -police
▼ + stars: | 2023-04-11 | by ( ) www.reuters.com time to read: +2 min

[1/4] Community members attend a vigil at Crescent Hill Presbyterian Church following a mass shooting at Old National Bank in downtown Louisville, Kentucky, U.S. April, 10, 2023. REUTERS/Jeffrey DeanApril 11 (Reuters) - The 23-year-old bank employee who shot dead five colleagues and wounded nine other people at his workplace in Louisville on Monday legally purchased the rifle, Louisville Police Chief Jacquelyn Gwinn-Villaroel told reporters at a news conference on Tuesday. Louisville police responded within minutes to reports of an attacker on Monday morning at the bank office near Slugger Field baseball stadium. Sturgeon grew up in southern Indiana, just north of Louisville, according to his mother's Facebook page. Those statistics use the definition of four or more shot or killed, not including the shooter - according to the nonprofit Gun Violence Archive.

“VCs think this is the new internet,” a generative AI founder in the United States told Reuters. While the closure of Silicon Valley Bank may hamper debt financing, venture capitalists said interest in funding AI startups remains high, especially for top early-stage founders. Investors sense opportunity, even for a sale if not an initial public offering; some are betting that AI startups might outpace bigger rivals, encumbered by their size. You.com, a search engine company founded in 2020 and backed by Salesforce’s CEO Marc Benioff, has found new life from incorporating generative AI technology. It has attracted more attention from users and investors, handling millions of searches per day, the company told Reuters.

☆ Despite opposition, UK's Sunak wins post-Brexit trade vote in parliament
▼ + stars: | 2023-03-22 | by ( ) www.cnbc.com time to read: +3 min

British Prime Minister Rishi Sunak won the backing of parliament on Wednesday for a key element of a reworked post-Brexit deal on Northern Ireland. Despite the opposition, Sunak won the vote by 515 to 29, suggesting that several in his Conservative Party had abstained on the vote. "The Stormont brake is at the heart of the (Windsor) Framework," Northern Ireland minister Chris Heaton-Harris told parliament ahead of the vote. "It restores practical sovereignty for the United Kingdom as a whole and the people of northern Ireland in particular." Johnson, the face of the campaign to leave the EU, and his successor, Truss, both said they would vote against the brake.

☆ Amazon has rolled out contactless tech to 200 locations including Panera cafes
▼ + stars: | 2023-03-22 | by ( Jeffrey Dastin | ) www.reuters.com time to read: +2 min

The e-commerce and cloud-computing giant is widening deployment of its contactless technology with existing customers, Vice President Dilip Kumar said in an interview. Amazon declined to provide growth figures, but in June 2022 the company said more than 69 locations in the U.S. and UK had such technology. On Wednesday the U.S. cafe chain Panera Bread unveiled Amazon One devices, which let customers scan their palms to pay, for two locations in greater St. Louis. Nearly 150,000 employees at tech companies have faced cuts this year alone, according to industry tracker Layoffs.fyi. "It wasn't as bad" for tech companies in the 2008 financial crisis.

Sunak has tried to end years of wrangling over Brexit by revisiting one of the trickiest parts of the negotiations - to ensure smooth trade to Northern Ireland without creating a hard border with Britain or with European Union-member Ireland. "I welcome parliament voting today to support the Windsor Framework," Britain's Northern Ireland minister Chris Heaton-Harris said on Twitter. "This measure lies at the very heart of the Windsor Framework which offers the best deal for Northern Ireland, safeguarding its place in the Union and addressing the democratic deficit." Sunak hailed securing the deal last month as a "decisive breakthrough" but by alienating the DUP he has failed in restoring the power-sharing government in Northern Ireland. DUP leader Jeffrey Donaldson told parliament his party could not return to Northern Ireland's power-sharing government "at this stage".

☆ Google begins opening access to its ChatGPT competitor Bard
▼ + stars: | 2023-03-21 | by ( Jeffrey Dastin | ) www.reuters.com time to read: +3 min

Starting in the U.S. and UK, consumers can join a waiting list for English-language access to Bard, a program previously open to approved testers only. Google describes Bard as an experiment allowing collaboration with generative AI, technology that relies on past data to create rather than identify content. Asked whether competitive dynamics were behind Bard's rollout, Jack Krawczyk, a senior product director, said Google was focused on users. Unlike ChatGPT, Bard is not proficient in generating computer code, Google said on its website. "Bard will not always get it right," a Google pop-up notice warned during the demo.

[1/4] The Amazon.com logo and stock price information is seen on screens at the Nasdaq Market Site in New York City, New York, U.S., September 4, 2018. REUTERS/Mike Segar/File PhotoMarch 20 (Reuters) - Amazon.com Inc (AMZN.O) on Monday said it would axe another 9,000 roles, piling on to a wave of layoffs that has swept the technology sector as an uncertain economy forces companies to get leaner. The layoffs will affect Amazon's streaming unit Twitch as well, following cuts that began in November focused on the company's devices, e-commerce and human-resources organizations. Amazon's stock fell 2%. The company has scaled back or shut down entire services like its virtual primary care offering for employers in recent months.

☆ Explainer: What is Generative AI, the technology behind OpenAI's ChatGPT?
▼ + stars: | 2023-03-17 | by ( ) www.reuters.com time to read: +4 min

WHAT IS GENERATIVE AI? Like other forms of artificial intelligence, generative AI learns how to take actions from past data. The most famous generative AI application is ChatGPT, a chatbot that Microsoft-backed OpenAI released late last year. Generative AI likewise can take notes during a virtual meeting. Cybersecurity researchers have also expressed concern that generative AI could allow bad actors, even governments, to produce far more disinformation than before.

☆ Microsoft unveils AI for its office suite in increased competition with Google
▼ + stars: | 2023-03-16 | by ( Jeffrey Dastin | ) www.reuters.com time to read: +2 min

The company previewed a new AI "copilot" for Microsoft 365, its product suite that includes Word documents, Excel spreadsheets, PowerPoint presentations and Outlook emails. Microsoft said AI can offer a first draft in these applications, speeding up content creation and freeing up workers' time. "We believe this next generation of AI will unlock a new wave of productivity growth," Satya Nadella, Microsoft's chief executive, said in a livestreamed presentation. Such technology learns from past data how to create content anew, powering in part Microsoft's new copilot and evolving rapidly. Microsoft also showcased how its AI can summarize email threads and even virtual meetings as they occur live in its Teams collaboration software.

☆ Microsoft unveils AI office Copilot in fast-moving race with Google
▼ + stars: | 2023-03-16 | by ( Jeffrey Dastin | ) www.reuters.com time to read: +5 min

The technology company previewed a new AI "Copilot" for Microsoft 365, its product suite that includes Word documents, Excel spreadsheets, PowerPoint presentations and Outlook emails. This partly underpins Microsoft's Copilot features, along with an older GPT-3.5 model, business and application data, Microsoft said. Microsoft Word app is seen on the smartphone placed on the keyboard in this illustration taken, July 26, 2021. Similar to live notes that Google showed reporters this week, Microsoft said its Copilot can summarize virtual meetings as they happen in its Teams collaboration software. Friedman pointed to Microsoft's business chat experience as the biggest development on Thursday because it can handle tasks across applications.

☆ Microsoft-backed OpenAI starts release of powerful AI known as GPT-4
▼ + stars: | 2023-03-14 | by ( Jeffrey Dastin | ) www.reuters.com time to read: +2 min

March 14 (Reuters) - OpenAI, the creator of chatbot sensation ChatGPT, on Tuesday said it is beginning to release a powerful artificial intelligence model known as GPT-4, setting the stage for even more human-like technology to proliferate. The startup, funded by Microsoft Corp (MSFT.O), said in a blog post that its latest technology is "multimodal", meaning images as well as text prompts can spur it to generate content. The text-input features will first be available to ChatGPT Plus subscribers and to software developers, with a waitlist, while the image-input ability remains a preview of its research. The startup's latest technology in some cases represented a vast improvement on its prior version known as GPT-3.5, it said. Reporting By Jeffrey Dastin in Palo Alto, Calif.; Editing by Chris Reese and Sharon SingletonOur Standards: The Thomson Reuters Trust Principles.

☆ Northern Ireland's DUP hardens position against new Brexit deal
▼ + stars: | 2023-03-14 | by ( Amanda Ferguson | ) www.reuters.com time to read: +3 min

A key test of the deal reached by British Prime Minister Rishi Sunak with Brussels last month is its ability to convince the DUP to end a year-long boycott of Northern Ireland's power-sharing government over the original post-Brexit trade rules. As well as leaving Northern Ireland without a functioning executive, failure to win over the DUP could trigger a rebellion within Sunak's Conservative Party and dash his hopes of presenting the deal as a major diplomatic success. U.S. President Joe Biden has accepted an invitation to visit Northern Ireland to mark the anniversary in April. Clear protection "in UK law" was also needed to protect Northern Ireland's place within the United Kingdom's internal market, he said. Sunak's government has not set out in detail how it intends to implement the deal, known as the Windsor Framework, in law.

☆ Google unveils 'magic wand' to draft documents as AI race tightens
▼ + stars: | 2023-03-14 | by ( Jeffrey Dastin | ) www.reuters.com time to read: +4 min

"This next phase is where we're bringing human beings to be supported with an AI collaborator, who is working in real time," Thomas Kurian, Chief Executive of Google Cloud, said in a press briefing. Google said customers can fine-tune its AI model with their own data while keeping the information and benefits proprietary. Google aims for its AI to "transform" the work of marketers, lawyers, scientists and educators, according to the video. The Mountain View, California-based company announced a partnership with high-profile AI research lab Midjourney, with Google to provide cloud infrastructure including its custom "TPU" chips. Kurian said Google remains "deeply committed to responsible AI," giving controls to customers and reviewing proper use of its products.

[1/2] A sign for Silicon Valley Bank (SVB) headquarters is seen in Santa Clara, California, U.S. March 10, 2023. The bank's sudden shutdown sent a chill through Silicon Valley amid an otherwise gloomy period marked by tech layoffs and a pullback in spending as consumers tightened their wallets. Company executives, many of whom stashed all of their funds in Silicon Valley Bank, took to Twitter and other social media networks to beg for relief. A joint statement Sunday by U.S. government bodies including the Treasury Department and Federal Reserve indicated taxpayers would not bear any cost associated with the new plans around Silicon Valley Bank. Silicon Valley Bank until now had been a reliable source of funding for startups relative to other banks.

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