Big Tech keeps prioritizing AI as earnings approach

Big Tech keeps prioritizing AI as earnings approach

Sundar Pichai, chief executive officer of Alphabet Inc., during Stanford’s 2024 Business, Government, and Society forum in Stanford, California, US, on Wednesday, April 3, 2024. Justin Sullivan | Getty Images As tech’s behemoths get set to report earnings this week, they do so facing a mountain of drama. At Google, there have been protests and … Read more

Play artificial intelligence with semiconductor ETF: VanEck CEO

Play artificial intelligence with semiconductor ETF: VanEck CEO

Investing in semiconductors may be the most efficient way to play the artificial intelligence boom, according to VanEck’s CEO. “Semiconductors have become the heart of the AI trade,” Jan van Eck told CNBC’s “ETF Edge” this week. His firm’s VanEck Semiconductor ETF (SMH), which tracks 25 of the biggest chipmakers in the country, is up … Read more

Google terminates 28 employees after series of protests: Read the memo

Google terminates 28 employees after series of protests: Read the memo

Google terminated 28 employees Wednesday, according to an internal memo viewed by CNBC, after a series of protests against labor conditions and the company’s contract to provide the Israeli government and military with cloud computing and artificial intelligence services. The news comes one day after nine Google workers were arrested on trespassing charges Tuesday night … Read more

Google workers arrested after nine-hour protest in cloud CEO’s office

Google workers arrested after nine-hour protest in cloud CEO’s office

Nine Google workers were arrested on trespassing charges Tuesday night after staging a sit-in at the company’s offices in New York and Sunnyvale, California, including a protest in Google Cloud CEO Thomas Kurian’s office. The arrests, which were livestreamed on Twitch by participants, follow rallies outside Google offices in New York, Sunnyvale and Seattle, which … Read more

Dept. of Homeland Security embraces AI, other agencies to follow

Dept. of Homeland Security embraces AI, other agencies to follow

Homeland Security Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas speaks during the third annual Axios What’s Next Summit at the Planet Word Museum on March 19, 2024 in Washington, DC. With a focus on the future of the workspace and how artificial intelligence will play a role policy, news and other disciplines, the summit heard from members of Congress, … Read more

Microsoft invests $1.5 billion in AI firm G42, takes minority stake

Microsoft invests .5 billion in AI firm G42, takes minority stake

Microsoft President and Chief Legal Officer Brad Smith speaks during the annual Microsoft shareholders meeting in Bellevue, Washington on November 29, 2017. JASON REDMOND | AFP | Getty Images Microsoft will invest $1.5 billion into G42, an artificial intelligence firm based in the United Arab Emirates, as the U.S. giant looks to strengthen its position … Read more

Ad transparency tools ‘major disappointment’ ahead of election: study

Ad transparency tools ‘major disappointment’ ahead of election: study

Heading into the 2024 election in the U.S. and major political contests around the world, internet companies are unprepared for the onslaught of misinformation that’s coming. That’s according to research out Tuesday from Mozilla and CheckFirst, which concludes that leading tech platforms are lagging in their ad transparency tools. The study, conducted between December and … Read more

Green hydrogen tech boss warns of AI energy consumption risk

Green hydrogen tech boss warns of AI energy consumption risk

Vertigo3d | E+ | Getty Images The chief technology officer of Ceres Power has warned that as artificial intelligence tools become more widely used for efficiency, there is a risk that this could result in even higher energy consumption. “What scares me is the energy consumption if you’re using ChatGPT [for simple queries],” Caroline Hargrove … Read more

How Spotify AI plans to know what’s going on inside your head

How Spotify AI plans to know what’s going on inside your head

With about 100 million tracks available and over 600 million subscribers, helping listeners find the music they will love has become a navigational challenge for Spotify. It’s the promise of personalization and meaningful recommendations that will give the vast catalog more meaning, and that is central to Spotify’s mission. The streaming audio giant’s suite of … Read more

How the U.S. government is regulating AI

How the U.S. government is regulating AI

The U.S. government is considering laws to help society adapt to the introduction of artificial intelligence. Early users of the technology are already seeing labor productivity gains. For example, Klarna, a buy now, pay later financial services provider, estimates that its AI assistant tool will increase its profit outcome by $40 million by the end … Read more