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☆ Tesla resumes U.S. orders for a Model 3 version at lower price, range
▼ + stars: | 2023-05-03 | by ( ) www.reuters.com time to read: +1 min

The long-range version of the entry-level Model 3 is priced at $47,240 currently, about 18.5% less than the $57,990 it was priced at last August when Tesla halted taking orders in the United States and Canada. Model 3 Long Range has a range of “325+” miles per charge, down from 358 miles. It is eligible for a $3,750 government subsidy, compared with a full $7,500 subsidy for a Model 3 Performance version. Tesla expects to resume delivery of the long-range Model 3 electric sedan in June, according to the website. The long-range version of the entry-level Model 3 has a range of more than 325 miles (523 kilometers) on a single charge.

☆ Elon Musk has chopped Twitter down to about 1,000 employees
▼ + stars: | 2023-05-02 | by ( Kali Hays | ) www.businessinsider.com time to read: +5 min

In six months of ownership, Elon Musk has whittled Twitter's employee count down by close to 90%. Current headcount for full-time employees at Twitter is around 1,000 people, according to two people familiar with the company who asked not to be identified discussing private matters. Getting closer to 1,000 workers means Twitter's headcount is down by almost 90% from just before Musk took over, when the company had roughly 7,500 employees. More frequently, employees at Musk's Twitter are fired or let go piecemeal with little to no explanation after sending in weekly reports of their work for review, the people familiar said. The former CEO has also admitted that he hired too many employees at Twitter when he ran it.

☆ What is Bluesky? A new Jack Dorsey-backed Twitter rival has people fighting for invites
▼ + stars: | 2023-04-29 | by ( Beatrice Nolan | ) www.businessinsider.com time to read: +3 min

Bluesky has been compared to Mastodon and is backed by Twitter cofounder Jack Dorsey. The Jack Dorsey-backed platform, Bluesky, is a Twitter clone with a very similar format to its established rival. Bluesky users set up a profile by choosing a picture, bio, display name, and domain name. However, unlike Mastodon, users don't have to choose a server when they sign up – something that appeared to be an issue for Mastodon users who found the process too complicated. In April last year, Bluesky clarified the company's relationship to Twitter, saying: "The bluesky project originated with Twitter in 2019, but the Bluesky PBLLC established this year is an independent company focused on decentralized social network R&D."

☆ Bluesky Social: Twitter's former CEO has a new app that looks a lot like Twitter
▼ + stars: | 2023-04-28 | by ( Samantha Murphy Kelly | ) edition.cnn.com time to read: +4 min

CNN —The buzzy new social media app of the moment looks so much like Twitter it’s almost hard to distinguish the two. But under the hood, Bluesky, developed by Twitter co-founder and former CEO Jack Dorsey, is vastly different. The Bluesky social media app logo is seen on a mobile device in April 2023. Like Mastodon, Bluesky appeals to a number of Twitter users who are frustrated with the direction of the platform under owner Elon Musk. As Eve 6 wrote on Twitter: “Bluesky invite codes are the new blue check.”

☆ This Skort Is the Best Summer Clothing Item I’ve Ever Purchased
▼ + stars: | 2023-04-24 | by ( ) www.wsj.com time to read: +4 min

By Madeline DiamondDressing for the summertime (especially in hot and sticky New York City) has always been a pain for me. For the past two summers, I’ve lived in the brand’s Sport Skort. Instead, I’m full of confidence when I wear it, thanks to the security of built-in bike shorts that have a compressive but not restrictive fit. Plus, the summer heat was no match for the skort’s soft, stretchy blend of RPET (a fabric sourced from recycled plastic bottles) and spandex. Up close, its texture looks like a typical pair of leggings, yet the fabric’s matte finish makes it blend nicely with dressier clothing.

Generative AI, which the tech industry has embraced, has the ability to synthesize large amounts of data and answer complex questions. Atlassian co-founder Scott Farquhar said because companies use its software to track and document projects, Atlassian is in a unique position to use AI to help knowledge workers dramatically increase their productivity. Starting Wednesday, customers can join a waitlist to access the new features, the company said. Atlassian said the new AI features include the ability to extract action items and decisions from a meeting transcript, and draft Tweets and software testing plans based on product documentation. Reporting by Anna Tong in San Francisco; Editing by Sonali PaulOur Standards: The Thomson Reuters Trust Principles.

☆ This 24-year-old wants to freeze dead pets with the hope that science can one day bring them back to life – and he's got backing from Peter Thiel to get started
▼ + stars: | 2023-04-17 | by ( Melia Russell | ) www.businessinsider.com time to read: +7 min

Kai Micah Mills is a rare cryonics entrepreneur in the latest batch of Thiel Fellows. His startup Cryopets aims to establish a chain of animal hospitals set up to freeze pets upon death. When he was 14, Kai Micah Mills brought home a long-haired tabby cat and named it Cat. Someday, he hopes to expand to human preservation, as the science matures and pet owners warm to the idea. Mills hasn't figured out a pricing structure yet, but says pet owners will make a payment that covers their pet's storage for as long as necessary.

☆ Private school vouchers are shaping up to be huge part of the 2024 election as GOP candidates work to 'one up' each other on the issue
▼ + stars: | 2023-04-15 | by ( Kimberly Leonard | ) www.businessinsider.com time to read: +12 min

The GOP movement toward "school choice" is gaining momentum in many states. GOP presidential candidates have promised to send more public money to private schools. While battles over how classrooms should teach about race and LGBTQ topics have fired up the GOP base, the expansion of school vouchers is taking hold in red states. Spar said vouchers amounted to "using taxpayer money to go to private schools and home schools with practically no accountability." As Congress then turned its attention toward COVID pandemic relief, at least one bill that didn't pass had funding for private schools and homeschooling.

☆ Customers saved a New York bar after it nearly shut down over rising rents. Its owner learned community is key to building a successful small business.
▼ + stars: | 2023-04-13 | by ( Erin Greenawald | ) www.businessinsider.com time to read: +8 min

These five small-business owners have built online brand communities that bring customers together. A community founded by Neir's Tavern in New York City helped save the business from closing when it faced financial difficulties. Experts identified 3 key factors to building a brand community that businesses can rely on for support. Gordon, Jones, McLoughlin, and other small-business owners shared their tips with Insider. But if your business does need help, McLoughlin says to just ask.

☆ Exclusive: Buzzy legal generative AI startup Harvey taps Sequoia to lead funding round at a $150 million valuation
▼ + stars: | 2023-04-11 | by ( Stephanie Palazzolo | ) www.businessinsider.com time to read: +3 min

Legal generative AI startup Harvey has raised a funding round from Sequoia, Insider has learned. This funding round landed the startup a $150 million post-money valuation. Industry-specific generative AI startups have emerged in nearly every industry, from healthcare to gaming, to offer specialized services beyond the capabilities of general models like OpenAI's GPT-4. Legal generative AI startup Harvey has raised a Series A round of funding at a $150 million post-money valuation from Sequoia Capital, according to three people with knowledge of the financing who were not authorized to speak publicly. The relatively few customers makes Harvey's valuation seem rich in comparison, the source said, pointing to a broader trend of elevated valuations and round sizes in the hyped-up generative AI space.

☆ 5 ways GPT-4 is better than older versions of OpenAI's ChatGPT
▼ + stars: | 2023-04-01 | by ( Beatrice Nolan | ) www.businessinsider.com time to read: +4 min

OpenAI has announced its much-anticipated GPT-4, available to ChatGPT Plus subscribers. Its viral chatbot, ChatGPT, was previously powered by GPT-3.5. On Tuesday, Microsoft said its AI-boosted Bing had been powered by a version of GPT-4 that was "customized for search." The updated chatbot is still not immune to "hallucinations," a tendency for AI to generate false responses or reasoning errors. The company added that the updated chatbot could learn a user's writing style.

☆ Google Bard is here. Catch up on everything you need to know about the ChatGPT alternative.
▼ + stars: | 2023-03-25 | by ( Sindhu Sundar | ) www.businessinsider.com time to read: +4 min

Google debuted its AI chatbot Bard this week with a nod to the unpredictability of AI chatbot responses. Bard works like OpenAI's ChatGPT and Microsoft's Bing chatbot, but can give multiple responses to a prompt. Google had also moved to reassure users this week that Bard "is not trained on Gmail data," according to a tweet. Here's how it worksGoogle's new Bard chatbot told an AI expert it was trained using Gmail data. Google asked staff to spend time teaching its Bard chatbot to write like a human.

☆ Sam Altman responds to Elon Musk's criticism of OpenAI: 'I mean, he's a jerk,' but 'he does really care'
▼ + stars: | 2023-03-24 | by ( Sindhu Sundar | ) www.businessinsider.com time to read: +3 min

Sam Altman rejected Elon Musk's criticism that OpenAI is now pursuing "maximum-profit." OpenAI's CEO said on Kara Swisher's podcast that Musk has "his style" but "he does really care." "Most of that is not true, and I think Elon knows that," Altman said on Swisher's podcast. "I mean, he's a jerk, whatever else you want to say about him — he has a style that is not a style that I'd want to have for myself," Altman told Swisher. "I don't think it would be good right now for us to open-source GPT-4, for example," he told Swisher.

☆ Google Bard is already behind in the AI wars with OpenAI and Microsoft
▼ + stars: | 2023-03-23 | by ( Hasan Chowdhury | ) www.businessinsider.com time to read: +5 min

Google Bard, the search firm's answer to ChatGPT, has underwhelmed early testers. Users in the US and UK trying out the AI chatbot find it pales in comparison to OpenAI's tech. The makers of the Twofer Goofer word puzzle found ChatGPT was much better at solving the brainteasers than Google's Bard. It's possible that the company does have a super impressive AI tool up its sleeve. Insider's Hugh Langley reported earlier in March that Google employees are testing a more intelligent version of Bard, nicknamed "Big Bard."

☆ Here's an exclusive look at the 12-slide pitch deck generative AI startup Sutro used to score $2.2 million in funding
▼ + stars: | 2023-03-23 | by ( Stephanie Palazzolo | ) www.businessinsider.com time to read: +3 min

Sutro helps non-technical users build apps, including their websites, mobile versions, and backends. Here's an exclusive look at the pitch deck it used to raise $2.2 million in seed funding from Eniac. Sutro also offers low-code tools that help its non-technical users inspect code for issues. Sutro is currently in beta and is accessible through a waitlist, mainly serving non-technical startup founders and small businesses so far. Here's an exclusive look at the 12-slide pitch deck Sutro used to raise $2.2 million in seed funding from Eniac Ventures and angel investors:

☆ Google's Bard AI chatbot is now open to users in the US and UK. Here's how it works
▼ + stars: | 2023-03-21 | by ( Hugh Langley | ) www.businessinsider.com time to read: +3 min

Google is making its AI chatbot, Bard, available to the public. Bard works much like OpenAI's chatbot ChatGPT, although there are some differences. The company said that it will grant access to its artificial intelligence chatbot, known as Bard, in the US and UK starting Tuesday. Users will be met with a warning that "Bard will not always get it right" when they open it. Google will improve Bard over time, and users will be able to submit written feedback about their experiences.

☆ Google begins rolling out its ChatGPT rival
▼ + stars: | 2023-03-21 | by ( Samantha Murphy Kelly | ) edition.cnn.com time to read: +3 min

CNN —Google is opening up access to Bard, its new AI chatbot tool that directly competes with ChatGPT. A company representative told CNN it will be a separate, complementary experience to Google Search, and users can also visit Search to check its responses or sources. Google said in a blog post it plans to “thoughtfully” add large language models to search “in a deeper way” at a later time. Like ChatGPT, which was released publicly in late November by AI research company OpenAI, Bard is built on a large language model. Google's ChatGPT rival Bard GoogleBut Bard’s blunder highlighted the challenge Google and other companies face with integrating the technology into their core products.

☆ Startup behind Stable Diffusion releases AI system for generating videos from text
▼ + stars: | 2023-03-20 | by ( Anna Tong | ) www.reuters.com time to read: +1 min

SAN FRANCISCO, March 20 - Runway, the startup that co-created the popular Stable Diffusion AI image generator, has released an AI model that takes any text description – such as “turtles flying in the sky” – and generates three seconds of matching video footage. Citing safety and business reasons, Runway is not releasing the model widely to start, nor will it be open-sourced like Stable Diffusion. The text-to-video model, dubbed Gen-2, will initially be available on Discord via a waitlist on the Runway website. Meta Platforms Inc (META.O) and Google (GOOGL.O) both released research papers on text-to-video AI models late last year. However, the difference is that Runway’s text-to-video AI model is being made available to the general public, said Cristobal Valenzuela, Runway’s chief executive.

☆ Themed cruises are more popular than ever and it's leading to ships selling out in record time
▼ + stars: | 2023-03-16 | by ( Brittany Chang | ) www.businessinsider.com time to read: +6 min

Norwegian Cruise Line's themed cruises have been selling out in record time and Holland America plans to grow its partnership with charter companies. The passionate fans help cruise lines fill up ships and are some of the most loyal in the industry. Will ByingtonThese repeat bookings are music to the cruise lines' ears — it's a mutually beneficial operation for both the themed cruise production companies and the cruise lines themselves. To pull off these festivals at sea, themed cruise providers charter full ships from various cruise lines. "I think the themed cruise industry is going to grow even faster [than the general cruise industry]," Hearing said.

☆ We run a senior-living center and are building a tiny home village so dozens of our employees can afford to live where they work
▼ + stars: | 2023-03-16 | by ( Kelsey Neubauer | ) www.businessinsider.com time to read: +7 min

Maggie and John Randolph are building affordable housing in their Southern New Hampshire community. Now, they are going beyond that and building affordable housing for the community. The cool thing is those tiny homes will allow us to go well beyond our staff needs — we'll be able to start to support the community. John and Maggie Randolph in front of one of their tiny homes. If we don't build affordable housing, we're going to lose a lot of high school graduates and college graduates.

☆ 5 jaw-dropping things GPT-4 can do that ChatGPT couldn’t
▼ + stars: | 2023-03-16 | by ( Samantha Murphy Kelly | ) edition.cnn.com time to read: +7 min

On Tuesday, OpenAI announced the next-generation version of the artificial intelligence technology that underpins its viral chatbot tool, ChatGPT. The company said GPT-4 recently passed a simulated law school bar exam with a score around the top 10% of test takers. Providing more precise responsesCompared to the prior version, GPT-4 is able to produce longer, more detailed and more reliable written responses, according to the company. One early user said it provided in-depth suggestions for pickup lines based on a question listed on a dating profile. “They can produce inaccurate information from time to time and can be black-box in nature.”For now, OpenAI said GPT-4 users should exercise caution and use “great care” particularly “in high-stakes contexts.”

☆ Baidu shares drop to 8-week lows after company reveals ChatGPT rival
▼ + stars: | 2023-03-16 | by ( Evelyn Cheng | ) www.cnbc.com time to read: +2 min

Men interact with a Baidu AI robot near the company logo at its headquarters in Beijing, China April 23, 2021. During a livestreamed release event, Baidu CEO Robin Li emphasized the company's product — called Ernie bot — is not perfect. Baidu is prioritizing initial Ernie bot access for what it calls 650 ecosystem business partners, which include some media companies, banks and car firms. Within an hour of the Ernie bot announcement, Baidu said 30,000 corporate clients had joined the waitlist for access to the chatbot. Baidu's Li said Ernie bot had similar issues if used enough, and that it wasn't perfect.

☆ Explainer: What is Microsoft-backed OpenAI's GPT-4 model?
▼ + stars: | 2023-03-15 | by ( ) www.reuters.com time to read: +3 min

March 15 (Reuters) - Microsoft Corp-backed (MSFT.O) startup OpenAI began the rollout of GPT-4, a powerful artificial intelligence model that succeeds the technology behind the wildly popular ChatGPT. GPT-3.5 is limited to about 3,000-word responses, while GPT-4 can generate responses of more than 25,000 words. Soon ChatGPT users will have the option to change the chatbot's tone and style of responses, OpenAI said. According to OpenAI, GPT-4 has similar limitations as its prior versions and is "less capable than humans in many real-world scenarios". OpenAI said GPT-4 can rival human propagandists in many domains, especially when teamed up with a human editor.

☆ OpenAI's GPT-4 has arrived. From its accuracy to its beefed-up fight against 'evil,' here are the 5 things you need to know about how the upgraded chatbot differs from GPT-3.5.
▼ + stars: | 2023-03-15 | by ( Beatrice Nolan | ) www.businessinsider.com time to read: +4 min

Its viral chatbot, ChatGPT, was previously powered by GPT-3.5. On Tuesday, Microsoft said its AI-boosted Bing had been powered by a version of GPT-4 that was "customized for search." In one example given by OpenAI, the chatbot is shown describing what's funny about a group of images. The bot is said to be more accurateAccording to OpenAI, the update will give more-accurate responses to users' queries. In collaboration with users, the chatbot can produce and edit creative-writing tasks such as drafting screenplays.

☆ 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.

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