tech

Rani Molla5/13/24

OpenAI's real target isn't search engines; it's personal assistants

Today, OpenAI announced GPT-4o, a faster, freer model that "can reason across audio, vision, and text in real time.” In other words, you can talk to it and show it stuff and it will respond in kind. Supposedly!

While some text and image capabilities are launching today, the rest will be “rolled out iteratively.” Its demos are cool — it can describe what’s happening in a room, from what a person is wearing to the lighting or help you order a replacement iPhone — but limited.

There had been lots of speculation as to what exactly OpenAI was going to debut this week, including that the ChatGPT maker was going to launch a rival Google search engine. But this appears to be a play for a Google Assistant killer rather than a Google Search killer. (The Information had previously reported that OpenAI was developing a voice assistant.)

It’s what Meta’s Ray-Ban smart glasses and Rabbit r1 (which may basically just be an Android app) are going for but haven’t quite reached. As we’ve reported, voice assistants have seemingly stagnated as Big Tech companies try to transition them from natural language processing to generative AI capabilities.

It’s tempting to think this could be the holy grail when it comes to human interactions with computers — something that’s easy and intuitive. But that’s only if actually it works. We’ll see.

Hello GPT-4o

Hello GPT-4o

There had been lots of speculation as to what exactly OpenAI was going to debut this week, including that the ChatGPT maker was going to launch a rival Google search engine. But this appears to be a play for a Google Assistant killer rather than a Google Search killer. (The Information had previously reported that OpenAI was developing a voice assistant.)

It’s what Meta’s Ray-Ban smart glasses and Rabbit r1 (which may basically just be an Android app) are going for but haven’t quite reached. As we’ve reported, voice assistants have seemingly stagnated as Big Tech companies try to transition them from natural language processing to generative AI capabilities.

It’s tempting to think this could be the holy grail when it comes to human interactions with computers — something that’s easy and intuitive. But that’s only if actually it works. We’ll see.

More Tech

“governments around the world will not allow Apple junk fees to stand”

Epic Games has returned “Fortnite” to the Apple App Store globally, after the video game maker signaled confidence in its ongoing lawsuit with the iPhone maker. In a press release Tuesday, the company wrote:

“Fortnite is returning to the App Store now because we are confident that once Apple is forced to show its costs, governments around the world will not allow Apple junk fees to stand.

We will continue to challenge Apple’s anticompetitive App Store practices of banning alternative app stores and competition in payments.”

Late last year, an appeals court partly reversed sanctions against Apple but upheld the contempt finding and an injunction forcing Apple to permit outside payment options. “Fortnite” returned to the US App Store a year ago.

The suit began in 2020 over Apple’s mandatory 30% commission on in-app purchases and its refusal to allow third-party payment processors or alternative app stores on its mobile devices.

tech

Meta to lay off 8,000 employees, move 7,000 to new initiatives related to AI

On Wednesday, Reuters reported Meta plans to lay off about 8,000 employees in three batches and move another 7,000 employees to “new initiatives related to AI workflows.” The company also plans to “eliminate managerial roles,” though Reuters did not specify how many.

Reuters had previously reported the number and date of the layoffs, but details of the restructuring come from a new internal document from the company’s head of human resources. The cuts come as Meta tries to balance its enormous capex budget of $125 billion to $145 billion this year, as it builds out its AI infrastructure.

As of the company’s last earnings report, its headcount was 77,986.

Exclusive: Meta lays out plans for May 20 layoffs, restructuring, internal document says

Exclusive: Meta lays out plans for May 20 layoffs, restructuring, internal document says

Reuters had previously reported the number and date of the layoffs, but details of the restructuring come from a new internal document from the company’s head of human resources. The cuts come as Meta tries to balance its enormous capex budget of $125 billion to $145 billion this year, as it builds out its AI infrastructure.

As of the company’s last earnings report, its headcount was 77,986.

tech

Rani Molla5/18/26

Google employees are now competing with Anthropic and Meta for access to Google compute

Google built its reputation as a paradise for ambitious researchers: a place where smart people got massive resources and freedom to experiment.

But in the AI era, the physical infrastructure that powers those breakthroughs is maxed out, and even Google’s own employees are reportedly struggling to get enough computing power.

According to Bloomberg, the bottleneck comes down to hardware. Google’s custom-built AI chips — tensor processing units, or TPUs — are in such high demand that internal researchers say they’re effectively competing for rack space against massive, paying cloud customers like Anthropic and Meta. Frustrated by the bureaucracy of fighting for server time, top engineers are jumping ship to launch their own startups, arguing they can secure more reliable access to infrastructure on the open market than inside the company that actually builds it.

In other words: Google became so successful at selling AI infrastructure that its own researchers now have to justify experimental projects against revenue-generating workloads and a more than $460 billion backlog of paying tenants.

Google’s Own AI Researchers Jockey for Access to Its Computing

Google’s Own AI Researchers Jockey for Access to Its Computing

According to Bloomberg, the bottleneck comes down to hardware. Google’s custom-built AI chips — tensor processing units, or TPUs — are in such high demand that internal researchers say they’re effectively competing for rack space against massive, paying cloud customers like Anthropic and Meta. Frustrated by the bureaucracy of fighting for server time, top engineers are jumping ship to launch their own startups, arguing they can secure more reliable access to infrastructure on the open market than inside the company that actually builds it.

In other words: Google became so successful at selling AI infrastructure that its own researchers now have to justify experimental projects against revenue-generating workloads and a more than $460 billion backlog of paying tenants.

Rani Molla5/18/26

Elon Musk once promised to take Tesla private at $420. More recently, he’s been offering xAI employees $420 to hand over their private tax returns as training data for Grok, Bloomberg reports, citing internal chats. In an effort to boost the chatbot’s tax-prep capabilities, the company asked employees — as well as friends and family — to submit completed tax returns in exchange for cash that, two months later, still hasn’t materialized. xAI is owned by the soon-to-be-public SpaceX.

tech

Nate Becker5/18/26

EY retracts report with apparent AI hallucinations

Consulting firm EY has retracted a report on travel loyalty points that an AI watchdog had found was full of hallucinations.

AI-detection firm GPTZero alleged that the report was “riddled with hallucinations,” including citing numerous sources that didn’t appear to exist. Sherwood News exclusively reported on GPTZero’s findings about the report on Thursday. EY didn’t respond to multiple requests for comment.

The firm later told the Financial Times that it had retracted the report, saying it was “reviewing the circumstances that led to this article’s publication.” It said the study wasn’t connected to work for any of its clients.

“EY Canada takes the accuracy of all the content we publish seriously and we have an organization-wide commitment to the responsible use of AI,” EY said, according to the FT.

A link to the report on EY’s site now displays an error: “Oops! We couldn’t find the page you were looking for.”

AI hallucinations appear to be creeping into consulting reports

AI hallucinations appear to be creeping into consulting reports

The firm later told the Financial Times that it had retracted the report, saying it was “reviewing the circumstances that led to this article’s publication.” It said the study wasn’t connected to work for any of its clients.

“EY Canada takes the accuracy of all the content we publish seriously and we have an organization-wide commitment to the responsible use of AI,” EY said, according to the FT.

A link to the report on EY’s site now displays an error: “Oops! We couldn’t find the page you were looking for.”

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