Category Archives: Computing

Australia politics live: ‘absolutely shocking’ for education department to give PwC contracts after tax leak scandal, Faruqi says; Ben Roberts-Smith verdict due today

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Department taken to task for its nine contracts with PwC, two of which were entered into in the past two months. Follow latest updates

Sally McManus responds to RBA governor’s commentary on housing market

Sally McManus spoke to ABC News Breakfast this morning and gave her thoughts on some of RBA governor Phil Lowe’s commentary around the housing market and what he thinks needs to happen.

I think we’re living in two worlds. We’ve got people living in very big houses that have multiple dwellings and they’re landlords. And what they’re doing is when the Reserve Bank governor puts up interest rates, they’re passing on that cost to renters and that’s part of the reason why we’re seeing rents increase.

And I think that that is just basically saying to everyone, look, ordinary people, move in with your parents and grandparents whilst we’re going to say nothing about those CEOs I talked about at companies that actually are the ones that could ease cost of living tomorrow on people but they’re choosing not to because in the end they want to see their bonuses.

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Nvidia: chipmaker’s strategic AI moves result in a tech position of power

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The company is now the fifth most valuable in the US after investing in artificial intelligence early on

Nvidia saw its valuation soar to $1tn on Tuesday, making it the fifth most valuable American company and one of the first major corporate beneficiaries of the hype around AI.

The chipmaker has been a major and in some cases dominant player in several industries for years. But no development has raised its profile – and its potential windfall – as much as the current excitement around generative AI.

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Nvidia gains $185bn in value after predicting AI-driven boom in chip demand

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Shares in US tech firm jump by 25% in early trading as quarterly revenue forecast excites investors

The value of the US tech company Nvidia has soared by a quarter after it predicted a boom in demand for its computer chips to meet the needs of artificial intelligence products such as ChatGPT.

Nvidia’s share price rose by 25% in early trading on the back of the announcement, and gave it a market valuation of more than $940bn (£760bn) after stock markets opened on Wall Street on Thursday, up from $755bn on Wednesday evening.

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UK will lead on ‘guard rails’ to limit dangers of AI, says Rishi Sunak

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PM sounds a more cautious note after calls from tech experts and business leaders for moratorium

The UK will lead on limiting the dangers of artificial intelligence, Rishi Sunak has said, after calls from some tech experts and business leaders for a moratorium.

Sunak said AI could bring benefits and prove transformative for society, but it had to be introduced “safely and securely with guard rails in place”.

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OpenAI CEO calls for laws to mitigate ‘risks of increasingly powerful’ AI

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Sam Altman says before Senate judiciary committee that he supports guardrails for technology to minimize harms

The CEO of OpenAI, the company responsible for creating artificial intelligence chatbot ChatGPT and image generator Dall-E 2, said “regulation of AI is essential” on Tuesday as he testified in front of a Senate judiciary committee panel.

In his first appearance in front of Congress, Sam Altman said he supported regulatory guardrails for the technology that would enable the benefits of artificial intelligence while minimizing the harms.

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EU urged to protect grassroots AI research or risk losing out to US

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Experts warn Brussels it cannot afford to leave artificial intelligence in the hands of foreign firms such as Google

The EU has been warned that it risks handing control of artificial intelligence to US tech firms if it does not act to protect grassroots research in its forthcoming AI bill.

In an open letter coordinated by the German research group Laion, or Large-scale AI Open Network, the European parliament was told that “one-size-fits-all” rules risked eliminating open research and development.

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UK competition watchdog launches review of AI market

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CMA to look at underlying systems of artificial intelligence tools amid concerns over false information

The UK competition watchdog has fired a shot across the bows of companies racing to commercialise artificial intelligence technology, announcing a review of the sector as fears grow over the spread of misinformation and major disruption in the jobs market.

As pressure builds on global regulators to increase their scrutiny of the technology, the Competition and Markets Authority said it would look at the underlying systems, or foundation models, behind AI tools such as ChatGPT. The initial review, described by one legal expert as a “pre-warning” to the sector, will publish its findings in September.

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AI has better ‘bedside manner’ than some doctors, study finds

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ChatGPT rated higher in quality and empathy of written advice, raising possibility of medical assistance role

ChatGPT appears to have a better ‘bedside manner’ than some doctors – at least when their written advice is rated for quality and empathy, a study has shown.

The findings highlight the potential for AI assistants to play a role in medicine, according to the authors of the work, who suggest such agents could help draft doctors’ communications with patients. “The opportunities for improving healthcare with AI are massive,” said Dr John Ayers, of the University of California San Diego.

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No 10 says UK ‘extremely attractive’ for business after Microsoft broadside

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Downing Street responds to stinging attack from US firm’s president over blocking of $69bn Activision deal

Downing Street has defended the UK as an “extremely attractive” place for tech startups after Microsoft’s president said Brexit Britain was worse for business than the EU, in a stinging attack on the UK’s decision to block a $69bn (£55bn) deal to take over Activision Blizzard.

Microsoft rounded on the Competition and Markets Authority (CMA) on Thursday after a surprise decision to block its planned takeover of the Call of Duty games developer, with its president, Brad Smith, describing it as the “darkest day in our four decades in Britain”.

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Microsoft shares up 8.3% as AI features give a boost to sales

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Redmond-based company exceeded analysts’ estimates, driven by its cloud computing and Office software businesses

Microsoft Corp beat Wall Street’s quarterly revenue and profit estimates on Tuesday, driven by growth in its cloud computing and Office productivity software businesses, and the company said artificial intelligence products were stimulating sales.

The company forecast that revenue in its main segments for the current quarter would match or top Wall Street targets.

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Major tech firms face hefty fines under new digital consumer bill

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Global companies like Google, Apple and Amazon could have to pay penalties of up to 10% of their global turnover as government gives competition watchdog more power

Major tech firms face the threat of multibillion-pound fines for breaching consumer protection rules under new legislation that will tackle issues including fake online reviews and subscriptions that are difficult to cancel.

The digital markets, competition and consumers bill will empower the UK’s competition watchdog to tackle the “excessive dominance” that a small number of tech firms hold over consumers and businesses.

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Calls for stricter UK oversight of workplace AI amid fears for staff rights

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Campaigners, unions and MPs raise concerns about surveillance and use of ‘management by algorithm’

Campaigners, trade unions and MPs are calling for stricter oversight of the use of artificial intelligence in the workplace, amid growing concerns about its effect on staff rights.

The Trades Union Congress (TUC) is holding a half-day conference on Tuesday to highlight the challenges of ensuring workers are treated fairly, as what it calls “management by algorithm” becomes increasingly prevalent.

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‘We have to move fast’: US looks to establish rules for artificial intelligence

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The commerce department has requested public comment on AI accountability measures to ensure privacy and transparency

The US government is taking its first tentative steps toward establishing rules for artificial intelligence tools, as the frenzy over generative AI and chatbots reach a fever pitch.

The US commerce department on Tuesday announced it is officially requesting public comment on how to create accountability measures for AI, seeking help on how to advise US policymakers to approach the technology.

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Profits at Apple’s subsidiary in Ireland rise to $69bn

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Main non-US division pays $7.7bn in corporation tax but $20.7bn in dividends to California parent

Apple’s main Irish subsidiary paid €7.7bn (£6.8bn ) in corporation tax last year, but paid out nearly triple that amount in dividends to its California parent company, after reporting more than $69bn (£56bn) in profits.

The latest financial filings for the subsidiary, which is facing legal challenges over its tax arrangements in Ireland, show the Irish division made the equivalent of nearly $190m a day over the year to September.

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Italy’s privacy watchdog bans ChatGPT over data breach concerns

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Measure is in place ‘until ChatGPT respects privacy’, says Italian Data Protection Authority

Italy’s privacy watchdog has banned ChatGPT, after raising concerns about a recent data breach and the legal basis for using personal data to train the popular chatbot.

The Italian Data Protection Authority described the move as atemporary measure “until ChatGPT respects privacy”. The watchdog said it was imposing an “immediate temporary limitation on the processing of Italian users’ data” by ChatGPT’s owner, the San Francisco-based OpenAI.

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Gordon Moore, Intel co-founder who predicted rise of the PC, dies at 94

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Engineer, whose microchip forecast became known as ‘Moore’s Law’, foresaw mobile phones and home computers decades before they existed

Intel Corp co-founder Gordon Moore, a pioneer in the semiconductor industry whose “Moore’s Law” predicted a steady rise in computing power for decades, has died at the age of 94, the company announced.

Intel and Moore’s family philanthropic foundation said he died on Friday surrounded by family at his home in Hawaii.

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Chinese ChatGPT rival from search engine firm Baidu fails to impress

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Shares plummet after Ernie Bot AI chatbot software falls short of expectations at unveiling in Beijing

The Chinese search engine company Baidu’s shares have fallen by as much as 10% after it presented its ChatGPT-like artificial intelligence software, with investors unimpressed by the bot’s display of linguistic and maths skills.

The AI-powered ChatGPT, created by the San Francisco company OpenAI, has caused a sensation for its ability to write essays, poems and programming code on demand within seconds, prompting widespread fears over cheating or of professions becoming obsolete.

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Contest launched to decipher Herculaneum scrolls using 3D X-ray software

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Global research teams who can improve AI and accelerate decoding could win $250,000 in prizes

The eruption of Mount Vesuvius in AD79 laid waste to Pompeii and nearby Herculaneum where the intense blast of hot gas carbonised hundreds of ancient scrolls in the library of an enormous luxury villa.

Now, researchers are launching a global contest to read the charred papyri after demonstrating that an artificial intelligence programme can extract letters and symbols from high-resolution X-ray images of the fragile, unrolled documents.

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OpenAI says new model GPT-4 is more creative and less likely to invent facts

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Latest version can take images as inputs and improves upon many of the criticisms users had, but will still ‘hallucinate’ facts

The artificial intelligence research lab OpenAI has released GPT-4, the latest version of the groundbreaking AI system that powers ChatGPT, which it says is more creative, less likely to make up facts and less biased than its predecessor.

Calling it “our most capable and aligned model yet”, OpenAI cofounder Sam Altman said the new system is a “multimodal” model, which means it can accept images as well as text as inputs, allowing users to ask questions about pictures. The new version can handle massive text inputs and can remember and act on more than 20,000 words at once, letting it take an entire novella as a prompt.

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Romania PM unveils AI ‘adviser’ to tell him what people think in real time

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Nicolae Ciuca says bot named Ion is a world first and that using artificial intelligence is ‘an obligation’ to make better decisions

Romania’s prime minister has presented his “new honorary adviser” – an artificial intelligence assistant named “Ion” that Nicolae Ciuca hailed as the first of its type.

Developed by Romanian researchers, Ion’s main task will be to scan social networks to inform the government “in real time of Romanians’ proposals and wishes”, Ciuca said on Wednesday.

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