Meta veers: Zuck’s latest approach has been a hit with investors

3/26/23 7:00PM

New year, new Meta

‍Mark Zuckerberg’s leaner, meaner version of Meta has been a hit with investors, as the company’s shares outperform everything but Nvidia on the S&P 500 so far this year. That resurgence has added ~$220bn to Meta’s market cap so far, undoing some of the $600bn+ the tech giant lost in 2022.

In a recent internal update, the Meta chief warned that the company is planning about 10,000 further cutbacks and that 5,000 open roles would be scrapped. The company's first round of cuts last year apparently taught Zuck that “leaner is better”, with the CEO also announcing intentions to streamline and cancel low-priority and duplicative projects.

‍Meta veers

‍This frugal new outlook is a rather dramatic shift for Zuckerberg's company. Meta grew its headcount 144% in 4 years and has been spending billions on “Reality Labs”, the company’s metaverse project that hasn’t exactly been a hit with investors. Indeed, even Zuck may now be reconsidering whether people actually want to strap on their headsets and live in his virtual world, with the strategy switch-up including a renewed focus on AI — perhaps a response to the current hype around tools like ChatGPT.

With everything going on, it’s easy to lose sight of what’s still at the company's core: social media apps, which are doing just fine (especially if TikTok gets banned). Indeed, just after its 19th birthday, Facebook still counts a staggering 2 billion daily active users.

Rani Molla6h

California AG launches probe into xAI and Grok over sexualized deepfakes of women and children

The California attorney general just opened an investigation into xAI, Elon Musk’s AI startup, over chatbot Grok’s apparent role in generating nonconsensual sexual images of women and children. The probe centers on reports that Grok has been used to facilitate the creation of sexually explicit images without consent, many of which have circulated on X.

“The avalanche of reports detailing the non-consensual, sexually explicit material that xAI has produced and posted online in recent weeks is shocking,” Attorney General Rob Bonta wrote in a press release. “As the top law enforcement official of California tasked with protecting our residents, I am deeply concerned with this development in AI and will use all the tools at my disposal to keep California’s residents safe.”

California’s move follows growing scrutiny from US lawmakers and the UK government over AI-generated sexual content and deepfakes.

xAI and Tesla CEO Musk earlier today wrote that he was “not aware of any naked underage images generated by Grok. Literally zero.”

Grok is currently No. 5 on Apple’s free App Store.

Attorney General Bonta Launches Investigation into xAI, Grok Over Undressed, Sexual AI Images of Women and Children

California’s move follows growing scrutiny from US lawmakers and the UK government over AI-generated sexual content and deepfakes.

xAI and Tesla CEO Musk earlier today wrote that he was “not aware of any naked underage images generated by Grok. Literally zero.”

Grok is currently No. 5 on Apple’s free App Store.

Jon Keegan9h

Report: Microsoft on track to spend $500 million per year on Anthropic AI

Last fall, Microsoft and OpenAI’s $13 billion partnership seemed to finally be on solid ground.

OpenAI’s restructuring was completed on time, and the companies hammered out an updated agreement that secured OpenAI’s status as Microsoft’s AI provider of choice, but also allowed for Microsoft to work with other companies.

Now Microsoft is doing exactly that. Microsoft has been increasing its spending on Anthropic’s AI, and is on track to spend $500 million per year on the startup’s services, according to a new report from The Information.

The increasingly cozy relationship between the companies includes the rare move of Microsoft offering incentives to its salespeople that allows Anthropic sales to count toward their quotas, per to the report. Microsoft invested $5 billion in Anthropic as part of a big deal in November that included Nvidia.

Microsoft has also been using Anthropic’s AI to power more and more of its own products, such as Github Copilot and 365 Copilot.

Microsoft’s Spending on Anthropic AI Is on Pace to Hit $500 Million

Microsoft has also been using Anthropic’s AI to power more and more of its own products, such as Github Copilot and 365 Copilot.

Rani Molla10h

Report: Apple staggers Siri AI rollout, with key features pushed to summer

Thanks to Apple’s new partnership with Google, the Gemini-backed version of Siri should begin rolling out this spring, but several key features Apple previewed in 2024 may not come until summer, The Information reports.

The new Siri is soon expected to answer general questions with ChatGPT-like answers — rather than quoting directly from websites or not answering at all. But more personalized, proactive features, like, for example, remembering past conversations and information from them to suggest you leave for a planned trip earlier to beat traffic, may not be unveiled until June at the company’s Worldwide Developers Conference.

The report also clarifies that while Apple’s partnership with Microsoft-backed OpenAI, wherein users could summon ChatGPT for complex questions, isn’t changing, the Google deal might reduce the need for people to do so because Siri will likely be able to answer those questions itself. The Information notes, citing a person familiar with the deal, that the ChatGPT option hadn’t driven much traffic to OpenAI before.