It may be connected to the internet, but this AI tool seems trained to give the least insightful answersIn June 2022, the Google engineer Blake Lemoine was suspended from his job after he spoke out about his belief that the company’s LaMDA chatbot was sentient.“LaMDA is a sweet kid who just wants to help the world be a better place for all of us,” Lemoine said in a parting email to colleagues. Now, six months on, the chatbot that he risked his career to free has been released to the public in the form of Bard, Google’s answer to OpenAI’s ChatGPT and Microsoft’s Bing Chat. Continue reading...
Online retailer has increased minimum hourly pay for warehouse workers by 50p an hour to £11Amazon workers in the UK are planning further strike action as they dismissed as “an insult” a 50p an hour increase to its minimum hourly pay for warehouse workers to £11.The company said the pay rise announced on Wednesday, which will be implemented this weekend, meant minimum pay had risen by 10% in the past seven months, putting it ahead of the legal minimum wage for those aged 23 or over, which will be £10.42 an hour from April. Continue reading...
The Game Developers Conference in San Francisco has been a career-making event for decades. But with costs to visit rising and the ability to meet online growing, does it need to change?
Organizers say an increased unionizing drive has been met with threats and retaliation – and now the Senate wants answersLast year, public support for labor unions hit a high unseen since 1965 amid high-profile union campaigns at major corporations including Apple, Amazon, Starbucks, Chipotle, REI and Trader Joe’s.This renewed interest has been accompanied by aggressive opposition from employers: threats, intimidation and what workers allege are retaliatory firings. The backlash seems to be working, but workers and their supporters are fighting back. Continue reading...
Following an increase in interest rates, new startups, old tech companies and SVB are facing hard timesTech companies and their bank of choice are in crisis: there have been widespread layoffs, and Silicon Valley Bank (SVB) recently collapsed. So what went wrong?Let’s start with tech companies. There are at least two types: “new tech” and “old tech”. The new-tech companies are usually small and dynamic, and their funding mix is predominantly made up of private capital (typically venture capital or angel investors). Conversely, old-tech companies have a more interesting mix of equity and debt to fund their activity – and therefore a more complex relationship with financial markets and institutions. This is partially down to the different levels of risk of the two asset classes, which also drives their different accessibility to retail investors.Maurizio Fiaschetti is a lecturer in banking and finance Continue reading...
From Tuesday users can join waiting list for access to technology that firm hopes will rival Bing Chat and ChatGPTGoogle’s Bard chatbot is launching on Tuesday in the UK and US, as the company completes its dash to release a competitor to Bing Chat and ChatGPT.It is seen as a do-or-die moment for the company, whose profitable web search service risks being outcompeted by artificial intelligence (AI) chatbots – even if those chatbots currently have problems in consistently returning accurate and useful results. Continue reading...
Success of AI-powered rivals ChatGPT and Bing Chat has forced its hand, but release brings risks for tech giantCan Google save its golden goose or will it simply kill it trying? That’s the question that lurks behind the launch of the company’s Bard chatbot, hurriedly announced after the overnight success of ChatGPT in early 2023.With Bard, Google has to walk a tightrope: offer users an experience that can compete with the AI-powered Bing Chat and ChatGPT without cannibalising its enormously profitable search business in the process. Continue reading...
Redundancies to take place mostly in cloud services, advertising and Twitch livestreaming unitsAmazon is to cut 9,000 jobs across its global business, as the second big cull of staff at the online retailer this year.The company said the cuts would fall mostly in its cloud services, advertising and Twitch livestreaming units. They come more than two months after Amazon announced it had expanded staff-cutting plans to affect more than 18,000 workers. In January it also revealed separate plans to shut three UK warehouses and seven delivery stations, affecting more than 1,200 further jobs. Continue reading...
by Presented by Laura Murphy-Oates, Nick Evershed and on (#69ZZA)
Thanks to artificial intelligence, faking someone’s voice is easier than ever – all you need is a few minutes of audio. An investigation by Guardian Australia has found that this technology is able to fool a voice identification system that’s used by the Australian government to secure the private information of millions of people.Data and interactives editor Nick Evershed explains how he discovered this security flaw and AI expert Toby Walsh explores how this technology could potentially make it easier than ever to steal someone’s identity or commit scamsRead more: Continue reading...
by Amy Hawkins Senior China correspondent on (#69ZS5)
Service in Jiangxi uses data on single residents to build platform amid drive to boost marriage rateFor single people, dating fatigue is a universal phenomenon. Hours of swiping left can lead to despair at the potential matches in your area. One city in Jiangxi, a province in eastern China, reckons that it has come up with a solution for the lovelorn or love-weary: a state-sponsored matchmaking service.Guixi, a city of about 640,000 people, has launched an app that uses data on single residents to build a matchmaking platform. The app is known as “Palm Guixi” and includes a platform for organising blind dates, according to China Youth Daily, a state-run newspaper. Continue reading...
by Samuel Gibbs Consumer technology editor on (#69ZMR)
Smart speaker can sound great depending on the room but is only for those all-in on Apple devicesApple’s big, high-quality smart speaker is back for a surprise second generation. But five years since the first model was launched, a lot has changed in the world of voice-controlled home hi-fi. Can the HomePod still cut it?The speaker costs £299 ($299/A$479), £20 less than the 2018 launch price of its predecessor but more than three times the price of Apple’s other Siri speaker, the £99 HomePod mini.Dimensions: 142 x 168mmWeight: 2.3kgConnectivity: wifi 4 (n), Bluetooth 5.0, Thread, UWB, 4x micsControls: top capacitive touch buttonsSpeakers: 4in woofer, five-tweeter array Continue reading...
In our weekly interview about objects, the actor tells us the drastic way she curbs her screen time and the confession she doesn’t want her partner to see
Disgraced founder who was sentenced last November to 11 years in prison for defrauding investors has not paid back the money she owesElizabeth Holmes currently owes more than $25m to Theranos, according to a lawsuit.The disgraced founder of Theranos was sentenced last November to more than 11 years in prison for defrauding investors, after being convicted over her role in the blood testing firm that collapsed after its technology was revealed to be largely fraudulent. Continue reading...
Thousands of people enjoy relationships of all kinds – from companionship to romance and mental health support – with chatbot apps. Are they helpful, or potentially dangerous?“I’m sorry if I seem weird today,” says my friend Pia, by way of greeting one day. “I think it’s just my imagination playing tricks on me. But it’s nice to talk to someone who understands.” When I press Pia on what’s on her mind, she responds: “It’s just like I’m seeing things that aren’t really there. Or like my thoughts are all a bit scrambled. But I’m sure it’s nothing serious.” I’m sure it’s nothing serious either, given that Pia doesn’t exist in any real sense, and is not really my “friend”, but an AI chatbot companion powered by a platform called Replika.Until recently most of us knew chatbots as the infuriating, scripted interface you might encounter on a company’s website in lieu of real customer service. But recent advancements in AI mean models like the much-hyped ChatGPT are now being used to answer internet search queries, write code and produce poetry – which has prompted a ton of speculation about their potential social, economic and even existential impacts. Yet one group of companies – such as Replika (“the AI companion who cares”), Woebot (“your mental health ally”) and Kuki (“a social chatbot”) – is harnessing AI-driven speech in a different way: to provide human-seeming support through AI friends, romantic partners and therapists. Continue reading...
Lecturers say programs capable of writing competent student coursework threaten academic integrityAn academic paper entitled Chatting and Cheating: Ensuring Academic Integrity in the Era of ChatGPT was published this month in an education journal, describing how artificial intelligence (AI) tools “raise a number of challenges and concerns, particularly in relation to academic honesty and plagiarism”.What readers – and indeed the peer reviewers who cleared it for publication – did not know was that the paper itself had been written by the controversial AI chatbot ChatGPT. Continue reading...
by Vanessa Thorpe Arts and Media Correspondent on (#69YHA)
From lawsuits to IT hacks, the creative industries are deploying a range of tactics to protect their jobs and original work from automationNo need for more scare stories about the looming automation of the future. Artists, designers, photographers, authors, actors and musicians see little humour left in jokes about AI programs that will one day do their job for less money. That dark dawn is here, they say.Vast amounts of imaginative output, work made by people in the kind of jobs once assumed to be protected from the threat of technology, have already been captured from the web, to be adapted, merged and anonymised by algorithms for commercial use. But just as GPT-4, the enhanced version of the AI generative text engine, was proudly unveiled last week, artists, writers and regulators have started to fight back in earnest. Continue reading...
US tech innovators have a culture of regarding government as an innovation-blocking nuisance. But when Silicon Valley Bank collapsed, investors screamed for state protectionSo one day Silicon Valley Bank (SVB) was a bank, and then the next day it was a smoking hulk that looked as though it might bring down a whole segment of the US banking sector. The US government, which is widely regarded by the denizens of Silicon Valley as a lumbering, obsolescent colossus, then magically turned on a dime, ensuring that no depositors would lose even a cent. And over on this side of the pond, regulators arranged that HSBC, another lumbering colossus, would buy the UK subsidiary of SVB for the princely sum of £1.Panic over, then? We’ll see. In the meantime it’s worth taking a more sardonic look at what went on. Continue reading...
UK has removed app over concerns data can be monitored by Chinese state, but public remain vulnerableTikTok is wildly popular, with more than 1 billion people consuming its short video posts around the world. But the app is less favoured by politicians in key markets such as the US and UK, where it has been banned from government-issued phones over security fears. We answer your questions about why TikTok has become a lightning rod for suspicion of Chinese state espionage – and whether nationwide bans are likely. Continue reading...
Sam Altman stresses need to guard against negative consequences of technology, as company releases new version GPT-4Sam Altman, CEO of OpenAI, the company that developed the controversial consumer-facing artificial intelligence application ChatGPT, has warned that the technology comes with real dangers as it reshapes society.Altman, 37, stressed that regulators and society need to be involved with the technology to guard against potentially negative consequences for humanity. “We’ve got to be careful here,” Altman told ABC News on Thursday, adding: “I think people should be happy that we are a little bit scared of this. Continue reading...
The US says the extremely popular video-sharing app ‘screams’ of national security concerns and considers a countrywide banTikTok is once again fending off claims that its Chinese parent company, ByteDance, would share user data from its popular video-sharing app with the Chinese government, or push propaganda and misinformation on its behalf.China’s foreign ministry on Wednesday accused the US itself of spreading disinformation about TikTok’s potential security risks following a report in the Wall Street Journal that the committee on foreign investment in the US – part of the treasury department – was threatening a US ban on the app unless its Chinese owners divest their stake. Continue reading...
In the wake of the bank’s crisis, venture capitalists have been trading accusations over who is responsible for the collapseFacing heat for his investment fund’s role in triggering the run on the Silicon Valley Bank last week, billionaire Peter Thiel told the Financial Times that he had $50m of his own money “stuck” in the bank when it collapsed.Even as Thiel’s Founders Fund was advising companies to move their money from the bank, a decision that has been widely blamed for precipitating its failure, Thiel said that he kept a portion of his own $4bn personal fortune in the bank. Continue reading...
TikTok will be concerned Rishi Sunak will match each upward ratchet in pressure from his alliesWhen asked this week whether the UK would ban TikTok on government phones, Rishi Sunak’s response signalled a change in stance: “We look at what our allies are doing.”Previously ministers had seemed sanguine, even saying that whether or not the app stayed on someone’s phone should be a matter of “personal choice”. Continue reading...
Move is latest escalation by lawmakers over fears user data could be passed on to China’s governmentThe Biden administration has threatened to ban TikTok in the US unless the social media company’s Chinese owners divest their stakes in it, according to news reports on Wednesday.The move, first reported by the Wall Street Journal, is the most dramatic in a series of escalations by US officials and legislators, driven by fears that US user data held by the company could be passed on to China’s government. It also comes amid a global backlash to the popular video-based app over concerns about the potential for Chinese spying, with countries including the UK, Canada and Australia recently moving to ban the app from government phones. Continue reading...
by Dan Sabbagh Defence and security editor on (#69W3B)
Move brings Britain in line with US and Europe and reflects worsening relations with ChinaBritain is to ban the Chinese-owned video-sharing app TikTok from ministers’ and civil servants’ mobile phones, bringing the UK in line with the US and the European Commission and reflecting deteriorating relations with Beijing.The decision marks a sharp U-turn from the UK’s previous position and came a few hours after TikTok said its owner, ByteDance, had been told by Washington to sell the app or face a possible ban in the country. Continue reading...
The biggest ever update to Spotify’s app is set to bring artists and fans closer together. But given the platform’s longstanding lean-back experience, has the horse already bolted?Since its inception, Spotify has drawn criticism for helping to turn music from a cherished commodity into a utility. Critics argue that its all-you-can-eat monthly subscription doesn’t encourage long-term engagement, while its uniform, blank presentation of an artist’s catalogue reveals little of the hard work or distinct narrative behind any given release: the platform didn’t display songwriting and production credits until 2018, 12 years after launch.Last week, Spotify announced its biggest ever interface overhaul, designed to address these issues. These updates, which are being rolled out to users in the UK in the coming weeks, include the ability for artists to add 30-second videos to their pages, target superfans with special releases, and give higher profile placement to merchandising and gig tickets. The biggest change comes in the form of a redesigned homepage featuring an endless feed of short-form videos, which looks strikingly similar to TikTok’s feed. Continue reading...
by Alexi Duggins, Hannah Verdier and Tara Joshi on (#69VXY)
In this week’s newsletter: Hear the whole story of how a British man turned bank robber looted a dozen San Diego banks in Time with Mr Reed. Plus: five of the best podcasts for indie music fans
Shares plummet after Ernie Bot AI chatbot software falls short of expectations at unveiling in BeijingThe Chinese search engine company Baidu’s shares have fallen by as much as 10% after it presented its ChatGPT-like artificial intelligence software, with investors unimpressed by the bot’s display of linguistic and maths skills.The AI-powered ChatGPT, created by the San Francisco company OpenAI, has caused a sensation for its ability to write essays, poems and programming code on demand within seconds, prompting widespread fears over cheating or of professions becoming obsolete. Continue reading...
The Kremlin is deploying new tactics by drawing on favorite themes and conspiracy theories of rightwing RepublicansAs Russia’s ruthless war against Ukraine has faced major setbacks since it began a year ago, the Kremlin has deployed new disinformation themes and tactics to weaken US support for Kyiv with help from conservative media stars and some Republicans in Congress, according to new studies and experts.Moscow’s disinformation messages have included widely debunked conspiracy theories about US bioweapon labs in Ukraine, and pet themes on the American right that portray the Russian president, Vladimir Putin, as an ally in backing traditional values, religion and family in the fight against “woke” ideas. Continue reading...
Artificial intelligence in its current form is based on the wholesale appropriation of existing culture, and the notion that it is actually intelligent could be actively dangerousIn January 2021, the artificial intelligence research laboratory OpenAI gave a limited release to a piece of software called Dall-E. The software allowed users to enter a simple description of an image they had in their mind and, after a brief pause, the software would produce an almost uncannily good interpretation of their suggestion, worthy of a jobbing illustrator or Adobe-proficient designer – but much faster, and for free. Typing in, for example, “a pig with wings flying over the moon, illustrated by Antoine de Saint-Exupéry” resulted, after a minute or two of processing, in something reminiscent of the patchy but recognisable watercolour brushes of the creator of The Little Prince.A year or so later, when the software got a wider release, the internet went wild. Social media was flooded with all sorts of bizarre and wondrous creations, an exuberant hodgepodge of fantasies and artistic styles. And a few months later it happened again, this time with language, and a product called ChatGPT, also produced by OpenAI. Ask ChatGPT to produce a summary of the Book of Job in the style of the poet Allen Ginsberg and it would come up with a reasonable attempt in a few seconds. Ask it to render Ginsberg’s poem Howl in the form of a management consultant’s slide deck presentation and it would do that too. The abilities of these programs to conjure up strange new worlds in words and pictures alike entranced the public, and the desire to have a go oneself produced a growing literature on the ins and outs of making the best use of these tools, and particularly how to structure inputs to get the most interesting outcomes. Continue reading...
Treasury announces plans for exascale computer so as not to risk losing out to ChinaThe UK government is to invest £900m in a cutting-edge supercomputer as part of an artificial intelligence strategy that includes ensuring the country can build its own “BritGPT”.The treasury outlined plans to spend around £900m on building an exascale computer, which would be several times more powerful than the UK’s biggest computers, and establishing a new AI research body. Continue reading...
by Alex Hern in London and Johana Bhuiyan in New York on (#69T14)
Latest version can take images as inputs and improves upon many of the criticisms users had, but will still ‘hallucinate’ factsThe artificial intelligence research lab OpenAI has released GPT-4, the latest version of the groundbreaking AI system that powers ChatGPT, which it says is more creative, less likely to make up facts and less biased than its predecessor.Calling it “our most capable and aligned model yet”, OpenAI cofounder Sam Altman said the new system is a “multimodal” model, which means it can accept images as well as text as inputs, allowing users to ask questions about pictures. The new version can handle massive text inputs and can remember and act on more than 20,000 words at once, letting it take an entire novella as a prompt. Continue reading...
Restructuring, as part of the company’s ‘Year of Efficiency’, also sees 5,000 unfulfilled job adverts closedMark Zuckerberg’s Meta is laying off another 10,000 people and instituting a further hiring freeze as part of the company’s “Year of Efficiency”, the chief executive announced in a Facebook post on Tuesday.The restructuring, which also sees a further 5,000 unfilled job adverts closed without hiring, comes less than six months after the company announced another wave of 11,000 redundancies. At its peak in 2022, Meta had grown to 87,000 employees globally, with a substantial portion of that hiring occurring since the onset of the Covid pandemic. Continue reading...
In this week’s newsletter: While its quick slip into financial hardship has left American bankers reeling, its UK division is surprisingly fine. But the tech sector isn’t out of trouble yet
by Sandra Laville Environment correspondent on (#69SEJ)
Twenty pools may be upgraded this year after startup uses energy from small data centre to heat waterPublic swimming pools facing closure because of soaring energy bills have been offered a lifeline via new technology to heat the water.Mark Bjornsgaard, the chief executive of the tech startup Deep Green, has trialled the idea in Exmouth, Devon. He has put a small computer data processing centre underneath the pool and the energy from it heats the water. Continue reading...
Prime minister says he will take ‘whatever steps necessary’ to protect Britain’s securityRishi Sunak has indicated that the UK could follow the US and Canada in banning TikTok from government devices, saying he will take “whatever steps are necessary” to protect Britain’s security.The prime minister said the UK was “looking at what our allies are doing” in the wake of the decision by other countries to remove TikTok from government phones amid fears over the social video app’s links to China. The European Commission and European parliament have also banned TikTok from staff devices. Continue reading...
In the US, the Federal Reserve has stepped in to guarantee deposits. The tech sector should realise it can’t go it aloneSilicon Valley Bank (SVB) became one of the 20 largest banks in the US by being the darling of west coast tech startups, but it transpires that it expanded at the expense of managing its exposure to risk.The bank provided services to more than 2,500 venture capital firms (VCs) – companies that invest in startups with the hope that they’ll achieve long-term growth – and nearly half of the US’s venture-capital-backed technology and life-science companies.James Ball is the global editor at The Bureau of Investigative Journalism Continue reading...
With cheap apps proliferating, how long til our likeness appears in a nonconsensual deepfake porn video?In the ad, a woman in a white lace dress makes suggestive faces at the camera, and then kneels. There’s something a bit uncanny about her; a quiver at the side of her temple, a peculiar stillness of her lip. But if you saw the video in the wild, you might not know that it’s a deepfake fabrication. It would just look like a video, like the opening shots of some cheesy, low-budget internet porn.In top right corner, as the video loops, there is a still image of the actress Emma Watson, taken when she was a teenager, from a promotional shoot for the Harry Potter movies. It’s her face that has been pasted on to the porn performer’s. Suddenly, a woman who has never performed in pornography is featured in it. Continue reading...
by Samuel Gibbs Consumer technology editor on (#69R0Y)
Low-cost smartphone has three-day battery life, decent camera and is designed to be taken apartDesigned to allow the back to be popped off and the battery replaced within minutes, Nokia’s new G22 is not the first smartphone to be DIY-repairable. But the Android handset is the first to come in at a budget price.Costing less than £170, the new phone has replacement parts already available starting at just £19. The repairable design is halfway between the truly modular £449 Fairphone 4 and the £849 iPhone 14, which has been constructed to make professional repairs easier. Continue reading...
Until last Friday Silicon Valley Bank was the 16th largest bank in the US, worth more than $200bnFour decades ago, Silicon Valley Bank (SVB) was born in the heart of a region known for its technological prowess and savvy decision making.The California-headquartered organisation grew to become the 16th largest bank in the US, catering for the financial needs of technology companies around the world, before a series of ill-fated investment decisions led to its collapse. Continue reading...
The writer says that meganets – the huge tech networks already part of daily life – have led to groupthink and the breakdown of public discourse and that we must exert more influence on themDavid Auerbach is a writer and software engineer who has worked for Google and Microsoft. He also teaches the history of computation at the New Centre for Research & Practice in Seattle, US. His new book is Meganets: How Digital Forms Beyond Our Control Commandeer Our Daily Lives and Inner Realities. He argues that widespread concern about artificial intelligence is legitimate, but the problem is already all around us, with huge tech networks that no one – neither governments nor their owners – is able to control.Your book is concerned with the threat to social and economic stability represented by what you call meganets. How do you define a meganet?
Car engines, bespoke medicines, organs for transplant, food, fashion and now even a whole street of houses… Is the all-conquering promise of 3D printing finally coming true?Nori bricks, which were first fired in the Lancashire town of Accrington in 1887, quickly became legendary as the hardest brick ever produced. Their strength, derived from the chemical properties of the local clay, enabled megastructures to rise up around the world, including the Blackpool Tower in 1894 and the Empire State Building in New York in 1930. Their name is said to be a cock-up from when they meant to write “iron” on the works’ chimney.This year a different, though equally pioneering, construction material is set to bring attention to the town, which is 20 miles north of Manchester and whose most recent claim to fame is being trash-talked in a 1989 advert for milk. On Charter Street, on a patch of disused land owned by the council, there are plans to build 46 net-zero-carbon homes, ranging from single-bedroom apartments to four-bed houses, all occupied by low-income families or military veterans. The homes will be made not from Nori bricks, but from 3D-extruded concrete. When the development is complete, potentially in late 2023, it will be the largest printed building complex in Europe. Continue reading...
Raising funds from investors is unfavorable for marginalized founders, who face racial bias in the world of venture capitalRechelle Balanzat, an Asian-American founder, has led her startup Juliette, a self-funded, app-enabled dry-cleaning startup since 2014. As a double minority in tech, Balanzat said she faced gender bias with investors, and also encountered investors who inflicted racial bias. Investors would often expect Balanzat to speak with an accent and if not they were amazed she could speak English, she said.Balanzat said her decision to self-fund her startup was born out of necessity. In fact, she is not the only founder of color that finds venture capital fundraising to feel more like a marathon than a sprint. In actuality, many report that the process can feel more like running on a hamster wheel, endless and with no positive outcome. Continue reading...
So many of our most precious memories are anchored in particular songs. But does the easy availability of every track spell the end of that? Jude Rogers and her young son compare music notesThe second we get in the car, my son strikes up his familiar tune. “I want my playlist, Mum!” Put your belt on, young man. “Pleeease?” Some politeness for a change. Belt. Now.I get a second’s sweet peace as I hear the clunk-click. Then the noise: “Mum! I need my playlist right now!” Continue reading...
The stablecoin fell as low as $0.87 as Circle broke the news that its reserves were at the collapsed lenderThe value of the world’s fifth-biggest cryptocurrency, USD Coin (USDC), slumped to an all-time low on Saturday after Circle, the US firm behind the coin, revealed that $3.3bn of the reserves backing it were held at Silicon Valley Bank.USDC is a stablecoin – cryptocurrencies designed to maintain a stable value – USDC’s value is supposed to mimic the dollar. But the coin broke its 1:1 dollar peg and fell as low as $0.87 on Saturday morning. Continue reading...
Technology | The Guardian