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☆ The way we search for information online is about to change
▼ + stars: | 2023-02-09 | by ( Samantha Murphy Kelly | ) edition.cnn.com time to read: +7 min

CNN Business —An entire generation of internet users has approached search engines the same way for decades: enter a few words into a search box and wait for a page of relevant results to emerge. Bing will not only provide a list of search results, but will also answer questions, chat with users and generate content in response to user queries. “We have even more exciting, AI-enabled innovations in the works that will change the way people search, work and play. These models are trained on vast troves of online data in order to generate compelling responses to user prompts. Microsoft and Google executives have acknowledged some of the potential issues with the new AI tools.

But unlike ICBC and its peers, Ant neither took deposits, nor piled risky loans onto its balance sheet. Free from the red tape that binds regular banks, the loans facilitated by Ant ballooned. Digital offerings accounted for half of overall consumer loans in China, Fitch Ratings calculated in 2021. Ant is set to become a licensed financial holding company, putting it under the close watch of China's main banking regulator. Beijing wants Chinese consumers to consume, so is likely to indulge controlled growth of consumer credit.

☆ Alibaba is launching an AI bot to rival ChatGPT, sending its shares up
▼ + stars: | 2023-02-08 | by ( Michelle Toh | ) edition.cnn.com time to read: +2 min

Hong Kong CNN —Alibaba says it will launch its own ChatGPT-style tool, becoming the latest tech giant to jump on the chatbot bandwagon. It did not share details of when it would launch or what the application would be called. This week, Google (GOOGL) and Chinese search engine giant Baidu (BIDU) both unveiled plans to launch similar services of their own. Bard suffered an embarrassing setback this week, however, after producing an incorrect response during a public demonstration. The company is also investing billions of dollars in OpenAI, the company behind ChatGPT.

☆ Google’s AI chatbot Bard had an inaccurate response in public demo
▼ + stars: | 2023-02-08 | by ( Catherine Thorbecke | ) edition.cnn.com time to read: +3 min

CNN —Google’s much-hyped new AI chatbot tool Bard, which has yet to be released to the public, is already being called out for an inaccurate response it produced in a demo this week. Bard’s blunder highlights the challenge for Google as it races to integrate the same AI technology that underpins Microsoft-backed ChatGPT into its core search engine. In trying to keep pace with what some think could be a radical change spurred by conversational AI in how people search online, Google now risks upending its search engine’s reputation for surfacing reliable information. Like ChatGPT, Bard is built on a large language model, which is trained on vast troves of data online in order to generate compelling responses to user prompts. The executive said AI technology would pave the way for the “next frontier of our information products.”

☆ Google details plans to use AI in search results
▼ + stars: | 2023-02-08 | by ( Catherine Thorbecke | ) edition.cnn.com time to read: +4 min

CNN —Google on Wednesday detailed plans to use artificial intelligence technology to radically change how people search for information online, one day after rival Microsoft announced a revamped version of Bing powered by AI. These tools are trained on vast troves of information online in order to generate compelling written responses to user prompts and queries. “As we look ahead, you could imagine how generative AI will enable people to interact with visual information in entirely new ways.”Phrabhakar Raghavan, an SVP at Google, details plans to bring the same technology that underpins Microsoft-backed ChatGPT directly into Google's search results. ChatGPT’s meteoric rise in popularity has reportedly prompted Google’s management to declare a “code red” situation for its core product: online search. The rise of AI-powered chatbots, and the incorporation of this technology into products like online search, could also carry risks.

☆ Resistance is futile. Welcome to the "generative AI" era
▼ + stars: | 2023-02-08 | by ( Allison Morrow | ) edition.cnn.com time to read: +5 min

This is going to be the year of “generative AI” the way 2012 was the year of Instagram. (Yes, Bing still exists and Microsoft hopes AI can make it relevant again for the first time ever.) Generative AI is the technology that underpins ChatGPT, the chatbot that’s gotten everyone in the content-generation biz (hello!) But Google, Microsoft and their rivals are still bullish. “We have even more exciting, AI-enabled innovations in the works that will change the way people search, work and play.”

☆ Baidu, the Chinese search engine giant, announces ChatGPT-style AI bot
▼ + stars: | 2023-02-06 | by ( Michelle Toh | ) edition.cnn.com time to read: +2 min

Hong Kong CNN —Chinese search engine giant Baidu says it will be launching its own ChatGPT-style service. It will launch a new artificial intelligence chatbot called “Wenxin Yiyan” in Chinese, or “Ernie Bot” in English, a spokesperson told CNN on Tuesday. Baidu (BIDU) is currently testing the project internally and will likely roll out the service to users in March, the person said. The company did not provide further details, such as how the tool would look or whether it would appear as a feature within its popular search engine. Baidu’s AI investments can be seen as “both an offensive and defensive strategic move in China,” Daniel Ives, managing director of Wedbush Securities, told CNN.

☆ Pickleball is tech’s hottest new club. Here’s why it’s gaining popularity in Silicon Valley.
▼ + stars: | 2023-01-30 | by ( Diamond Naga Siu | ) www.businessinsider.com time to read: +4 min

I miss my South Brooklyn pickleball community, but hope to find a consistent place to play in San Diego. Maybe that officially makes me a woman in tech, because right now, it's the hottest club in the industry. I used to play tennis competitively, but I have so much more fun with pickleball. So if you work in tech, let's stop meeting over coffee and chat while dinking instead. These low barriers of entry, plus its social nature, make pickleball perfect for networking.

☆ How Russia is molding the minds of schoolkids to support its brutal invasion of Ukraine
▼ + stars: | 2023-01-29 | by ( Elise Morton | ) www.businessinsider.com time to read: +7 min

Russia is running a campaign of propaganda lessons to rally support for its invasion of Ukraine. Russian President Vladimir Putin at a rally in Moscow held in March 2022, a few weeks after Russia invaded Ukraine. An image from the lesson materials showing Russian armored personnel carriers marked with the Z symbol from the invasion of Ukraine. But, the union said, "huge internal resistance" from Russia's teachers forced officials to edit out most references to the "special military operation" and achieve its aims less directly. It's the effect on young children, whose whole world is their school and family, that scares me."

☆ Salesforce employees demand answers from execs about layoffs
▼ + stars: | 2023-01-25 | by ( Diamond Naga Siu | ) www.businessinsider.com time to read: +5 min

Salesforce employees demand answers. More than 500 employees wrote a letter to execs, demanding answers about the layoffs. Amazon employees told not to share confidential info with ChatGPT. Current and former employees told Insider that the social media company is shedding employees. This is what employees told us.

☆ White House aides were reportedly blindsided by AG Garland's appointment of a special counsel to investigate Biden
▼ + stars: | 2023-01-19 | by ( Sonam Sheth | ) www.businessinsider.com time to read: +4 min

Many in the White House were blindsided when AG Garland appointed a special counsel to investigate Biden, WaPo reported. The GOP has accused the special counsel Robert Hur of being partisan, but a former Trump lawyer disagreed, saying he's "smart and experienced." That's why many in the White House were blindsided, according to The Washington Post, when Attorney General Merrick Garland appointed a special counsel to investigate Biden's mishandling of classified information. Republicans and Democrats alike have criticized the Biden White House for failing to disclose the existence of the DOJ's investigation for two months, despite having known about it since November. But Ty Cobb, who once served as Trump's White House counsel, dismissed those concerns.

☆ Kenyan data labelers were paid $2 an hour to label child sexual abuse, bestiality, and other horrific content for ChatGPT creator OpenAI, report says
▼ + stars: | 2023-01-18 | by ( Aaron Mok | ) www.businessinsider.com time to read: +5 min

Kenyan workers were reportedly paid up to $2 an hour to label explicit content used to train ChatGPT. OpenAI confirmed that it used Kenyan workers to help build out a tool that tags problematic content, according to a statement to Time. "Classifying and filtering harmful [text and images] is a necessary step in minimizing the amount of violent and sexual content included in training data and creating tools that can detect harmful content." Still, the nature of the work has caused severe distress for some data labelers, according to the report. Sama told Time that it provides one-on-one mental health counseling and wellness programs for employees to de-stress.

☆ There's a simple reason Biden didn't keep visitor logs at the Delaware home where he held classified documents — it's not an official residence
▼ + stars: | 2023-01-17 | by ( Tom Porter | ) www.businessinsider.com time to read: +3 min

The White House said there are no visitor logs for Joe Biden's Delaware home. Biden is facing criticism after classified documents from his time as VP were found there. It is not standard for visitor logs to be kept at a president's private residence, the WH said. The White house counsel office said that it is not standard for presidents to keep visitor logs at private residences. Visitor logs are kept at the White House.

☆ China acquires 'golden shares' in two Alibaba units
▼ + stars: | 2023-01-13 | by ( ) www.reuters.com time to read: +3 min

[1/3] The logo of Alibaba Group is seen at its office in Beijing, China Jan. 5, 2021. REUTERS/Thomas PeterBEIJING, China, Jan 13 (Reuters) - China has acquired minority stakes with special rights in two domestic units of tech giant Alibaba Group Holding Ltd (9988.HK), business registration records showed, as Beijing extends a campaign to strengthen control over online content. Beijing has been taking 'golden shares' in private online media and content companies for more than five years, and in recent years expanding such arrangements to companies with vast troves of data. These golden shares, typically equal to about 1% of a firm, are bought by government-backed funds or companies which gain board representation and/or veto rights for key business decisions. Having such golden shares can be helpful to firms when they try to secure licences to disseminate online news and to show online visual and audio programmes, sources have told Reuters.

Chesapeake Energy Corp. was one of the biggest stars of the fracking boom, riding high for years on its ability to tap vast troves of American natural gas. By the summer of 2020, the pandemic and lockdowns had caused revenue to dry up, and the company, after a big, ill-timed expansion, filed for bankruptcy protection.

☆ Tesla ≠ Apple. Elon Musk ≠ Steve Jobs. Cars ≠ iPhones.
▼ + stars: | 2023-01-06 | by ( Diamond Naga Siu | ) www.businessinsider.com time to read: +5 min

I'm Diamond Naga Siu, and today, we're looking at where tech workers are getting hired. Startups and Big Tech have major cultural differences, according to some startup founders. My colleague Rebecca Knight and I found that tech jobs remain abundant — they just aren't necessarily in the tech industry. Elon Musk ≠ Steve Jobs. Many industry experts are quick to compare Tesla to Apple and Musk to Jobs.

☆ Silicon Valley's job cuts are everybody else's gain as tech workers find exciting new opportunities outside Big Tech
▼ + stars: | 2022-12-21 | by ( Diamond Naga Siu | Rebecca Knight | ) www.businessinsider.com time to read: +7 min

Recruiters and other experts tell Insider that tech workers are in especially high demand in sectors including insurance, healthcare, retail, government, and banking. As you may expect, the traditional tech industry remains the largest employer of tech workers, the experts say. ZipRecruiter's Pollak said the turmoil in Big Tech was pushing "some tech workers to explore opportunities outside" the usual suspects for the first time. Tech job creation and hiring numbers remain strong, but layoffs keep coming, underscoring a tech labor market in flux. As for how laid-off tech workers ought to position themselves for these jobs, the Hired Guns recruiter Hemming has some advice.

☆ From ads in video games, retail media, and cookieless tracking — experts predict these surging areas will drive ad industry M&A in 2023
▼ + stars: | 2022-12-20 | by ( Lara O'Reilly | ) www.businessinsider.com time to read: +8 min

Despite an economic downturn, experts predict there will be plenty of advertising M&A in 2023. While that could include some and firesales, deals are expected in hot areas like retail media and CTV. Insider spoke to more than a dozen industry experts who dished on the trends that will drive advertising M&A next year. Companies in hot areas like performance marketing, retail media and CTV will buy others to build out their offeringsPerformance marketing, retail media, and the growth of connected TV advertising have been among the hottest trends for advertising companies and agencies in recent years. Areas like retail media and ad-supported streaming are on fire.

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☆ Julian Assange appeals to European court over U.S. extradition
▼ + stars: | 2022-12-02 | by ( Michael Holden | ) www.reuters.com time to read: +4 min

LONDON, Dec 2 (Reuters) - WikiLeaks' founder Julian Assange, who is battling extradition from Britain to the United States where he is wanted on criminal charges, has submitted an appeal to the European Court of Human Rights (ECHR), the court confirmed on Friday. Britain has given the go-ahead for his extradition, but he has launched an appeal at London's High Court, with the first hearing expected early next year. His legal team have also launched a case against Britain at the ECHR, which could potentially order the extradition to be blocked. Stella Assange, his wife, said she hoped the ECHR would not be needed to consider the case and that it could be resolved in Britain. However, he was dragged out and jailed in 2019 for breaching bail conditions, and has been held in prison in London ever since while his extradition case is decided.

☆ Here's how to download and store your Twitter archive, as the platform's future is uncertain after Elon Musk said bankruptcy wasn't out of the question
▼ + stars: | 2022-11-22 | by ( Samantha Delouya | ) www.businessinsider.com time to read: +2 min

Twitter's future existence could be threatened after Elon Musk said bankruptcy is possible. A recent report said losing Twitter would likely result in losing troves of records from modern history. Twitter users may want to download and store their own personal data as a backup. The article discusses the important role Twitter has played in collecting historical documents by becoming a "de facto public archive." With the threat of Twitter's failure a looming possibility, many Twitter users may want to download and store their data from Twitter outside of the platform.

☆ Historic NASA moon mission troubleshoots fuel leak ahead of launch
▼ + stars: | 2022-11-15 | by ( Jackie Wattles | ) edition.cnn.com time to read: +9 min

ET, intermittent leaks began to spring up that were occasionally above the threshold NASA officials hoped to see. Given all the issues that surfaced Tuesday evening, NASA could not move ahead with launch right at 1:04 a.m. The NASA Space Launch System rocket is seen at Kennedy Space Center on November 15, ahead of the Artemis I launch. After the most recent try in September, NASA did some troubleshooting and put the rocket through a fueling test. This a test mission, but NASA — and the corporate contractors that helped build the $4.1 billion SLS — have a lot riding on it.

☆ Investigators are looking for dozens of expensive gifts given to Trump and his family by foreign governments, report says
▼ + stars: | 2022-11-06 | by ( Alia Shoaib | ) www.businessinsider.com time to read: +3 min

Congressional investigators are looking for gifts given to Trump and his family by foreign governments. The House Oversight Committee has asked whether the gifts were transferred to the National Archives. The Oversight committee launched a probe this summer into whether Trump properly followed the Foreign Gifts and Decorations Act, which prevents government officials from keeping gifts from foreign governments with a value of over $415, unless they personally pay for them. Although there is no specific criminal penalty for improperly retaining the gifts, ethics experts say that it could be warranted depending on the circumstances, per The Post. The committee has also requested records from Trump's team about its record-keeping, a Trump adviser told the paper.

☆ If you use Snapchat, you could get a $117 check from a data privacy lawsuit—the deadline to apply is Saturday
▼ + stars: | 2022-11-04 | by ( Megan Sauer | ) www.cnbc.com time to read: +4 min

Snap Inc., the social media app's parent company, is set to pay out $35 million to current and former Illinois residents for allegedly storing their facial recognition data without their consent. You'll need to include your Snapchat username and at least one Illinois address where you lived. Facebook, TikTok, Google, Shutterfly and Pret A Manger have all settled similar cases in Illinois over the last 14 months, too. California residents already have some data protection under the California Consumer Privacy Act. Fennessy also notes that as our collective understanding of data privacy grows, future lawsuits will focus less on user consent and more on what companies do with biometric data once they have it.

☆ Inside TikTok's push to win over the global sports community, from setting up concerts for the NHL to sponsoring a women's rugby championship
▼ + stars: | 2022-11-01 | by ( Colin Salao | Dan Whateley | ) www.businessinsider.com time to read: +10 min

The company has leaned in, setting up sponsorship deals with teams and leagues. Tune into a professional rugby match in one of Europe's Six Nations leagues and it's impossible to miss TikTok's branding plastered all over the field. Twelve of the top 25 fastest growing brands on TikTok between March 2021 and March 2022 were sports teams or leagues. The company has even tested streaming live games that are shot vertically to match TikTok's video format. Enya Breen of Ireland kicks a late try conversion during a TikTok Women's Six Nations match on April 30, 2022.

☆ 'Political fix' needed for Wikileaks' Assange - lawyer
▼ + stars: | 2022-10-21 | by ( ) www.reuters.com time to read: +3 min

SYDNEY, Oct 21 (Reuters) - A lawyer for WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange said an "urgent political fix" is needed in his case because legal appeals against his extradition to the United States could continue for another decade and his health is declining. In June, Britain's Home Secretary approved Assange's extradition to the United States. "This case is political and needs an urgent political fix," she added. The saga began at the end of 2010 when Sweden sought Assange's extradition from Britain over allegations of sex crimes. Britain's Home Affairs office has said the courts had concluded Assange's extradition would not be incompatible with his human rights, and that he would be treated appropriately.

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