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Techmeme
March 9, 2024, 2:40 AM

Top News

OpenAI:
OpenAI announces Sam Altman will rejoin its board of directors, alongside three new members: Sue Desmond-Hellmann, Nicole Seligman, and Fidji Simo  —  Dr. Sue Desmond-Hellmann, Nicole Seligman, Fidji Simo join; Sam Altman rejoins board  —  We're announcing three new members to our Board …
Alex Heath / The Verge:
An independent investigation commissioned by OpenAI has found that Sam Altman's conduct before his ouster “did not mandate removal”  —  An independent investigation found that the circumstances surrounding last fall's failed coup ‘did not mandate removal.’
The Information:
Source: Ilya Sutskever, who has been nearly absent from OpenAI's affairs since Altman's brief ouster, is still in talks about remaining at the company  —  OpenAI's board said an investigation into the circumstances surrounding CEO Sam Altman's short-lived firing last November had exonerated the executive …
Zac Hall / 9to5Mac:
Epic says Apple has reinstated its developer account, clearing the way for its Epic Games Store in the EU; Tim Sweeney says the move followed a swift EU inquiry  —  After a whirlwind of events, Epic Games says Apple has reinstated their App Store developer account.
Tom Warren / The Verge:
Microsoft says Russian state-sponsored hackers Midnight Blizzard accessed some of its “source code repositories and internal systems” following the January hack  —  Microsoft revealed earlier this year that Russian state-sponsored hackers had been spying on the email accounts of some members of its senior leadership team.
Simon Willison's Weblog:
The GPT-4 barrier has finally been broken, with Gemini 1.5, Mistral Large, Claude 3 Opus, and Inflection-2.5 benchmarking near or even above OpenAI's model  —  Four weeks ago, GPT-4 remained the undisputed champion: consistently at the top of every key benchmark, but more importantly the clear winner in terms of “vibes”.
Suzanne Smalley / The Record:
CISA confirms it took down two systems in February, after discovering signs of exploitation via vulnerabilities in Ivanti products that the agency used  —  Hackers breached the systems of the Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency (CISA) in February through vulnerabilities in Ivanti products, officials said.
Ash Parrish / The Verge:
Leo Schwartz / Fortune:
Wyoming passes the Decentralized Unincorporated Nonprofit Association Act, a framework to recognize DAOs as legal entities; a16z crypto supported the law  —  On Thursday, Wyoming's Republican governor, Mark Gordon, signed into law the Decentralized Unincorporated Nonprofit Association Act …
Cade Metz / New York Times:
Over 100 scientists sign an agreement that seeks to prevent their AI-aided research for designing new proteins from being used for the development of bioweapons  —  An agreement by more than 90 said, however, that artificial intelligence's benefit to the field of biology would exceed any potential harm.
Hayden Field / CNBC:
Microsoft makes changes to Copilot, including blocking requests to create images of teens playing with assault rifles, following a staffer's letter to the FTC  —  - Microsoft seems to have made changes to its artificial intelligence guardrails, after a staff AI engineer wrote …
More: Neowin, Engadget, and The Decoder
Threads: @haydenfield and @ethankMastodon: @GossiTheDog@cyberplace.socialBluesky: @marypcbuk.bsky.socialLinkedIn: Hayden Field
Kylie Robison / Fortune:
Source: X plans to launch a TV app, which looks “identical” to YouTube's TV app, for Amazon and Samsung smart TVs next week  —  In a bid to compete with YouTube and recast itself as a video platform, Elon Musk's X is launching a television app for Amazon and Samsung smart TVs, a source at the company told Fortune.

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Google:
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Tribe AI:
State of AI: Adoption, Challenges and Recommendations  —  Examining the current state of AI, the key challenges organizations face, and practical recommendations for utilizing AI integration alongside other best practices.
Zoho:
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More News

Stephanie Bodoni / Bloomberg:
Jason Schreier / Bloomberg:
Bruce Haring / Deadline:
Nilesh Christopher / Al Jazeera:

Earlier Picks

Rebecca Falconer / Axios:
John Tozzi / Bloomberg: