Today’s Cache | Google, Amazon lay off hundreds; OpenAI launches GPT Store; AI-related misinformation is the biggest short-term threat – The Hindu
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January 11, 2024 03:45 pm | Updated 06:24 pm IST
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FILE PHOTO: A report stated today that Google is laying off “hundreds” of employees working on Google Assistant. | Photo Credit: Reuters
(This article is part of Today’s Cache, The Hindu’s newsletter on emerging themes at the intersection of technology, innovation and policy. To get it in your inbox, subscribe here.)
A Semafor report stated today that Google is laying off “hundreds” of employees working on Google Assistant. The tech giant’s knowledge and information product teams also faced the aftermath of the layoffs. Google had been using their AI chatbot Bard to develop its AI assistant’s features further. E-commerce company, Amazon is also laying off hundreds of people from their Prime Video and MGM Studios businesses citing company performance and product-related reasons, according to a report by The Information.
Earlier this week, Amazon’s live streaming platform Twitch also laid off 500 employees. Earlier Amazon had announced plans to push prices for Prime Video subscribers to stay ad-free while also generating revenue through advertisements. Both companies had fired thousands of employees each through 2022 and last year to tackle cost cutting during the post-pandemic slowdown. The two companies compete with each other in the cloud segment via AWS and Google Cloud while Google is currently in a heated race with Microsoft in the generative AI space.
OpenAI has launched its GPT Store, a marketplace to deploy AI applications, the company announced in a blog posted yesterday. The Store will be within the popular ChatGPT chatbot and is meant for users to discover and build GPTs or AI customised for tasks like teaching and designing. The AI company is trying to ride on the success of their AI chatbot ChatGPT which became one of the fastest growing apps since its release last year but is seeing stalling growth now.
The Store will be rolled out first to paid users. OpenAI also intends to make these apps monetisable for GPT creators to incentivise them. The app store was delayed since its announcement in November last year to “make improvements.” The firm also said that it is launching ChatGPT Team, a different version of the regular chatbot that enterprises can pay to use and employees can use safely at work. The tool will separate company data to ensure that information entered into the chatbot will stay secure with the company. The application is expected to cost between $25 and $30 per user every month.
Fake, misleading content generated by AI that is dangerous to democracy and the society is an immediate risk to the global economy, a report at the World Economic Forum stated yesterday. The new report by Global Risks also said that there are a host of environmental risks that are a huge threat for the future. The report based on a survey of nearly 1,500 experts, industry leaders and policymakers, has been released just ahead of the annual meeting of CEOs and world leaders that is held in the Swiss town of Davos.
The report stated that misinformation and disinformation will be the most serious risk over the next couple of years and underlined how the new technologies would serve to exacerbate issues already there and cause new ones. The ease with which these tools can be used means they could find themselves in the hands of anyone since no specialised knowledge was required. AI is expected to be the hottest topic next week at Davos and will be attended by tech leaders like OpenAI CEO Sam Altman, Microsoft CEO Satya Nadella and Meta AI’s Yann LeCun.
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