Techmeme
December 4, 2023, 5:40 AM

Top News

New York Times:
A deep dive into the founding of DeepMind, OpenAI, and Anthropic, as many of their backers feared the risks of advanced AI but wanted the power to shape it  —  The people who were most afraid of the risks of artificial intelligence decided they should be the ones to build it.
Manish Singh / TechCrunch:
Spotify plans to lay off ~17% of its workforce, or ~1,500 staff, to “rightsize” its costs, after cutting 6% in June, citing slow growth and rising capital costs  —  Spotify is eliminating about 17% jobs, its third round of layoffs, as the music streaming looks to become “both productive and efficient.”
Paresh Dave / Wired:
Documents: OpenAI signed a letter of intent in 2019 to spend $51M on brain-inspired chips developed by startup Rain AI, in which Sam Altman had invested $1M+  —  Documents show that OpenAI signed a letter of intent to spend $51 million on brain-inspired chips developed by startup Rain.
Tara García Mathewson / The Markup:
How a California college uses data collection tools to track students' daily movements, like homework trackers, e-proctoring software, and license plate readers  —  A Markup examination of a typical college shows how students are subject to a vast and growing array of watchful tech …
Mark Gurman / Bloomberg:
Chase Bank could be an ideal Goldman Sachs replacement for Apple Card, as it uses the same Mastercard network and already has a strong relationship with Apple  —  Apple and Goldman Sachs are on the verge of splitting up, and Chase is the ideal partner to step in.
Matt Levine / Bloomberg:
Researchers show AI misalignment in a GPT-4-based stock trading bot that performed insider trading in a simulated environment without being instructed to do so  —  Also OpenAI's board, kangaroo grazing and bank box-checking.  —  AI MNPI  —  Here you go, insider trading robot:
Bloomberg:
Bitcoin trades above $40K for the first time since May 2022, as the digital asset extends its 2023 rebound on expectations of interest-rate cuts and ETF demand  —  - Anticipation builds that the US will allow spot Bitcoin ETFs  — Crypto benefiting from conviction that Fed will cut rates
Maria Sherman / Associated Press:
Kiss' three current members reveal digital avatars of themselves, created by Pophouse and George Lucas' ILM, which will tour as the rock band stops live touring  —  On Saturday night, Kiss closed out the final performance of their “The End of the Road” farewell tour at New York City's famed Madison Square Garden.
Jon Victor / The Information:
Sources: Google quietly delayed Gemini's public launch from next week to January 2024; a source says the LLM doesn't reliably handle some non-English queries  —  Google has quietly delayed the public debut of Gemini, a conversational artificial intelligence that aims to compete with OpenAI …
Jaron Schneider / PetaPixel:
Sources: Bending Spoons, which acquired Filmic in September 2022, laid off the photo and video app maker's entire team, including founder and CEO Neill Barham  —  Filmic, or FiLMiC as written by the brand, no longer has any dedicated staff as parent company Bending Spoons has laid off …

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More News

Christopher Mims / Wall Street Journal:

Earlier Picks

Alyson Shontell / Fortune:
Anthony Ha / Engadget:
Reuters:
Anthony Capaccio / Bloomberg: