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AI

AI Seen Cutting Worker Numbers, Survey By Staffing Company Shows (reuters.com) 89

AI will lead to many companies employing fewer people in the next five years, staffing provider Adecco Group said on Friday, in a new survey highlighting the upheaval AI will bring to the workplace. From a report: Some 41% of senior executives expect to have smaller workforces because of AI technology, Adecco said in a report based on a survey of executives at 2,000 large companies worldwide. Generative AI, which can create text, photos and videos in response to open-ended prompts, has spurred both hope it could eliminate repetitive tasks and fear it will make some jobs obsolete. [...] The Adecco survey is one of the largest into the AI topic, and follows a 2023 World Economic Forum study which said 25% of companies expected AI to trigger job losses, while 50% expected the technology to create new roles.
The Almighty Buck

Traders Are Betting Millions That Trump Media 'Meme Stock' Will Tumble (nytimes.com) 151

Many investors are lining up to bet on the collapse of former President Donald J. Trump's social media company, Trump Media & Technology Group Corp., which made its stock market debut last week under the ticker "DJT." The stock has been called the "mother of all meme stocks" since it is highly volatile and there are no fundamental underpinnings. It's being valued at roughly 1,600 times its annual revenue, at Wednesday's closing price. "By comparison, the stock of Facebook's owner trades at about eight times revenues, and Google's owner trades at six times," notes Fast Company. The New York Times reports: Trump Media is the most "shorted" special purpose acquisition vehicle in the country, according to the financial data company S3 Partners. Short-sellers bet that the price of a stock will fall. They do that by borrowing shares of a company and selling them into the market, hoping to buy them back later at a lower price, before returning the shares to the lender and pocketing the difference as profit. The demand to short Trump Media, the parent company of the social media platform Truth Social, is so great that stock lenders can charge enormous fees, making it hard for short-sellers to turn a profit unless the shares fall significantly. Still, there is a lot of interest in taking the bet. "They are looking for this stock to crater and crater very quickly," said Ihor Dusaniwsky, managing director of predictive analytics at S3. Last month, traders lost $126 million betting against Trump Media, according to S3.

On Monday, Trump Media published updated financial information, revealing little revenue, large losses and a statement from the company's independent auditor expressing "substantial doubt" about its financial viability. This appeared to galvanize investors betting against the company, as the stock slipped from its highs. But short-sellers are finding it difficult and costly to trade in Trump Media. There are roughly 137 million shares in the company, and only around five million of those are available to short-sellers. Mr. Trump owns about 60 percent of shares, and company executives also hold a chunk of the stock. Company insiders tend not to lend their shares to short-sellers. Big asset managers like BlackRock, Vanguard and State Street, which regularly lend out shares, are not major holders of Trump Media, further crimping the supply.

According to S3, 4.9 million of the roughly five million available shares are already on loan. As with any loan, when share owners lend their stock to a short-seller, they charge a fee, usually expressed as an annual interest rate on the stock's current value. Typically, the fee for borrowing stock is a fraction of a percentage point. For Trump Media, it has risen to 550 percent, Mr. Dusaniwsky said. Trump Media's stock currently trades at around $50. That means that shorting it for a month would cost more than $20 per share. For a short-seller to break even, the stock price would have to fall by almost half by early May.

There is another wrinkle, too. One large broker said much of the short trading was not an outright bet against Trump Media. Since the advent of meme-stock trading and the vilification of short-sellers that win only if popular companies lose, large investors are wary of making such trades. Instead, the current trade driving demand is designed to capture the difference between DJT's stock price and outstanding "warrants," which will give the owners the right to new stock at a fixed price as long as regulators approve the new shares. Partly because of that uncertainty, those warrants currently trade below $19, with a list of hedge funds as recent holders. Even after the high cost to borrow stock is accounted for, they are still able to profit from the $30 difference between existing stock and what the warrants are worth, assuming the warrants become registered as shares.

Movies

Disney Will Crack Down on Password Sharing in June (wsj.com) 38

Disney said Thursday it planned to crack down on password sharing [non-paywalled link] for its streaming services starting with a few countries in June before implementing a wider rollout in September. From a report: Disney Chief Executive Bob Iger unveiled the timeline to limit password sharing in a CNBC interview Thursday morning, a day after the company defeated activist Nelson Peltz in a bruising proxy fight. Iger didn't say which countries would be first.

The company for months has said a crackdown was coming as it looks to cut costs and make Disney+ and Hulu profitable. Since Iger returned as CEO in 2022, the company has trimmed its streaming losses. Iger said the company is on track to have a profitable streaming business by the fourth quarter this year. "That's a huge, huge improvement," he said on CNBC. "Now what we have to do is turn it not just into a profitable business, into a growth business."

Businesses

Amazon Sellers Plagued by Surge in Scam Returns (wsj.com) 107

An anonymous reader shares a report: Amazon has built one of the world's most efficient delivery systems. Yet people regularly ship junk back to sellers and claim they are returns, often with little to no penalty, merchants say. Amazon has long believed in a system based on pleasing customers above all, including easy returns, but that ethos has hurt the merchants who make up most of its online sales.

Return theft represents one sore point in what has become an often contentious relationship between Amazon and its independent sellers. The Federal Trade Commission's continuing lawsuit against the retail giant deals in part with how the company treats its sellers. Amazon is also facing new competition for its merchants from other e-commerce firms.

The National Retail Federation says return fraud has become a "major issue for our industry." About 13.7% of returns in 2023 were fraudulent, accounting for $101 billion in overall losses for retailers, the federation said. As more consumers have adopted online shopping, return theft has become prevalent and Amazon hasn't done enough to stop it, sellers said.

AI

Google Considers Charging For AI-Powered Search 46

An anonymous reader quotes a report from the Financial Times: Google is considering charging for new "premium" features powered by generative artificial intelligence, in what would be the biggest ever shake-up of its search business. The proposed revamp to its cash cow search engine would mark the first time the company has put any of its core product behind a paywall, and shows it is still grappling with a technology that threatens its advertising business, almost a year and a half after the debut of ChatGPT. Google is looking at options including adding certain AI-powered search features to its premium subscription services, which already offer access to its new Gemini AI assistant in Gmail and Docs, according to three people with knowledge of its plans. Engineers are developing the technology needed to deploy the service but executives have not yet made a final decision on whether or when to launch it, one of the people said. Google's traditional search engine would remain free of charge, while ads would continue to appear alongside search results even for subscribers. But charging would represent the first time that Google -- which for many years offered free consumer services funded entirely by advertising -- has made people pay for enhancements to its core search product. "For years, we've been reinventing Search to help people access information in the way that's most natural to them," said Google. "With our generative AI experiments in Search, we've already served billions of queries, and we're seeing positive Search query growth in all of our major markets. We're continuing to rapidly improve the product to serve new user needs."

It added: "We don't have anything to announce right now."
Businesses

Stability AI Reportedly Ran Out of Cash To Pay Its Bills For Rented Cloud GPUs (theregister.com) 45

An anonymous reader writes: The massive GPU clusters needed to train Stability AI's popular text-to-image generation model Stable Diffusion are apparently also at least partially responsible for former CEO Emad Mostaque's downfall -- because he couldn't find a way to pay for them. According to an extensive expose citing company documents and dozens of persons familiar with the matter, it's indicated that the British model builder's extreme infrastructure costs drained its coffers, leaving the biz with just $4 million in reserve by last October. Stability rented its infrastructure from Amazon Web Services, Google Cloud Platform, and GPU-centric cloud operator CoreWeave, at a reported cost of around $99 million a year. That's on top of the $54 million in wages and operating expenses required to keep the AI upstart afloat.

What's more, it appears that a sizable portion of the cloudy resources Stability AI paid for were being given away to anyone outside the startup interested in experimenting with Stability's models. One external researcher cited in the report estimated that a now-cancelled project was provided with at least $2.5 million worth of compute over the span of four months. Stability AI's infrastructure spending was not matched by revenue or fresh funding. The startup was projected to make just $11 million in sales for the 2023 calendar year. Its financials were apparently so bad that it allegedly underpaid its July 2023 bills to AWS by $1 million and had no intention of paying its August bill for $7 million. Google Cloud and CoreWeave were also not paid in full, with debts to the pair reaching $1.6 million as of October, it's reported.

It's not clear whether those bills were ultimately paid, but it's reported that the company -- once valued at a billion dollars -- weighed delaying tax payments to the UK government rather than skimping on its American payroll and risking legal penalties. The failing was pinned on Mostaque's inability to devise and execute a viable business plan. The company also failed to land deals with clients including Canva, NightCafe, Tome, and the Singaporean government, which contemplated a custom model, the report asserts. Stability's financial predicament spiraled, eroding trust among investors, making it difficult for the generative AI darling to raise additional capital, it is claimed. According to the report, Mostaque hoped to bring in a $95 million lifeline at the end of last year, but only managed to bring in $50 million from Intel. Only $20 million of that sum was disbursed, a significant shortfall given that the processor titan has a vested interest in Stability, with the AI biz slated to be a key customer for a supercomputer powered by 4,000 of its Gaudi2 accelerators.
The report goes on to mention further fundraising challenges, issues retaining employees, and copyright infringement lawsuits challenging the company's future prospects. The full expose can be read via Forbes (paywalled).
Robotics

Apple Reportedly Exploring Personal Home Robots (cnbc.com) 71

As reported by Bloomberg (paywalled), Apple is exploring the development of personal home robots following the shut down of its electric vehicle project. CNBC reports: Engineers at Apple have been looking into a robot that can follow users around their homes and a tabletop device that uses robotics to adjust a display screen, Bloomberg reported, citing people familiar with the research team. [...] Apple's hardware engineering division and its artificial intelligence and machine learning group are overseeing the work on personal robotics, Bloomberg reported. The home robot project is still in the early research and development phase, according to the report.
AI

Business Schools Are Going All In on AI (wsj.com) 39

Top business schools are integrating AI into their curricula to prepare students for the changing job market. Schools like the Wharton School, American University's Kogod School of Business, Columbia Business School, and Duke University's Fuqua School of Business are emphasizing AI skills across various courses, WSJ reported Wednesday. Professors are encouraging students to use AI as a tool for generating ideas, preparing for negotiations, and pressure-testing business concepts. However, they stress that human judgment remains crucial in directing AI and making sound decisions. An excerpt from the story: Before, engineers had an edge against business graduates because of their technical expertise, but now M.B.A.s can use AI to compete in that zone, said Robert Bray, who teaches operations management at Northwestern's Kellogg School of Management. He encourages his students to offload as much work as possible to AI, treating it like "a really proficient intern." Ben Morton, one of Bray's students, is bullish on AI but knows he needs to be able to work without it. He did some coding with ChatGPT for class and wondered: If ChatGPT were down for a week, could he still get work done?

Learning to code with the help of generative AI sped up his development. "I know so much more about programming than I did six months ago," said Morton, 27. "Everyone's capabilities are exponentially increasing." Several professors said they can teach more material with AI's assistance. One said that because AI could solve his lab assignments, he no longer needed much of the class time for those activities. With the extra hours he has students present to their peers on AI innovations. Campus is where students should think through how to use AI responsibly, said Bill Boulding, dean of Duke's Fuqua School. "How do we embrace it? That is the right way to approach this -- we can't stop this," he said. "It has eaten our world. It will eat everyone else's world."

Businesses

JPMorgan Chase is About To Let Advertisers Target Customers Based on Their Spending (qz.com) 60

smooth wombat writes: Chase bank announced a new program that will allow brands to target Chase customers based on the customer's purchases. According to the press release, the new program is called Chase Media Solutions and "serves as a key conduit for brands, connecting them with consumers' personal passions and interests. In turn, Chase customers benefit from personalized offers and the ability to earn cash back with brands they love or are discovering for the first time."

The bank is hoping to combine insights from its large customer base and 6 million small business customers as part of its efforts to build out its own two-sided commerce platform and bring in benefits to both business clients and banking customers. Chase Media Solutions follows from the integration of card-linked marketing platform Figg, which JPMorgan Chase & Co. acquired in 2022, the bank said.

Intel

Intel Discloses $7 Billion Operating Loss For Chip-Making Unit (reuters.com) 82

Intel on Tuesday disclosed $7 billion in operating losses for its foundry business in 2023, "a steeper loss than the $5.2 billion in operating losses the year before," reports Reuters. "The unit had revenue of $18.9 billion for 2023, down 31% from $27.49 billion the year before." From the report: Intel shares were down 4.3% after the documents were filed with the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC). During a presentation for investors, Chief Executive Pat Gelsinger said that 2024 would be the year of worst operating losses for the company's chipmaking business and that it expects to break even on an operating basis by about 2027. Gelsinger said the foundry business was weighed down by bad decisions, including one years ago against using extreme ultraviolet (EUV) machines from Dutch firm ASML. While those machines can cost more than $150 million, they are more cost-effective than earlier chip making tools.

Partially as a result of the missteps, Intel has outsourced about 30% of the total number of wafers to external contract manufacturers such as TSMC, Gelsinger said. It aims to bring that number down to roughly 20%. Intel has now switched over to using EUV tools, which will cover more and more production needs as older machines are phased out. "In the post EUV era, we see that we're very competitive now on price, performance (and) back to leadership," Gelsinger said. "And in the pre-EUV era we carried a lot of costs and (were) uncompetitive."
Editor's note: This story has been corrected to change the 2022 revenue figure for Intel Foundry to $27.49 billion, as reflected in the source article. We apologize for the math error.
Businesses

VMware By Broadcom Plots Pair of Cloud Foundation Releases (theregister.com) 23

An anonymous reader quotes a report from The Register: VMware by Broadcom will deliver a significant update to its flagship Cloud Foundation bundle in the middle of this year and follow it up with a major update early in 2025. Both releases will show off Broadcom's plan to make the package easier to implement and operate, and hopefully assuage customer concerns about price rises. More on that later. First, the updates. One release is currently scheduled to debut in July, according to Paul Turner, vice-president of product management and the leader of the VMware Cloud Foundation (VCF) team. The release will allow use of a single license key for all the components of Cloud Foundation, improve OAuth support as a step towards single sign-on across the VMware range, and add an NSX overlay that will allow implementation of software-defined networks without requiring IP address changes.

Turner explained those features as exemplifying the sort of simplification VMware by Broadcom thinks is needed to make Cloud Foundation easier to implement. A bigger release Turner hopes will debut in early 2025 -- though he would commit to only a H1 launch -- will be a "unified" release in which more of VCF is better integrated. Today, Turner admitted, VMware customers may have implemented vSphere and the Aria management suite, but might still need or choose discrete storage for each. Future VCF releases will increasingly unify the products so that silos aren't needed. Prashanth Shenoy, vice president for VMware by Broadcom's cloud platform, infrastructure, and solutions marketing, told The Register the release will be called VCF 9 and will represent "the fullest expression of Broadcom's vision for product integration." "When customers deploy VCF there are seams -- when they deploy networking and storage, they feel like they do not have a unified developer or operator experience," Shenoy admitted. VCF 9 will tidy that sort of thing up and make the process "seamless." Buyers can also expect improved log file analysis, the ability to acquire templates from a marketplace and adopt them as PaaS, and plenty more.

Turner and Shenoy told The Register that the two releases are hoped to make VCF adoption easier, and by doing so demonstrate the value of the bundle. Today, they argue, would-be hybrid cloud adopters using VCF are in reality integrating siloed products -- which doesn't prove the value of the vStack well. VCF 9's planned integrations, they argue, should demonstrate the power of the stack and the wisdom of Broadcom's decision to create a VMware unit dedicated to VCF. That team, they explained, means developers for each of the bundle's components work together on a unified experience, rather than to create their own product. It may also demonstrate the value of VMware by Broadcom's new licenses – which some users have complained are considerably more expensive now that subscriptions are required, and products are only sold in bundles.
Sylvain Cazard, president of Broadcom Software for Asia-Pacific, told The Register that complaints about higher prices are unwarranted since customers using at least two components of VMware's flagship Cloud Foundation will end up paying less. He also noted that the new pricing includes support, which VMware didn't include previously.
Businesses

Amazon Ditches 'Just Walk Out' Checkouts at Its Grocery Stores (gizmodo.com) 161

Amazon is phasing out its checkout-less grocery stores with "Just Walk Out" technology. The company's senior vice president of grocery stores says they're moving away from Just Walk Out, which relied on cameras and sensors to track what people were leaving the store with. From a report: Just over half of Amazon Fresh stores are equipped with Just Walk Out. The technology allows customers to skip checkout altogether by scanning a QR code when they enter the store. Though it seemed completely automated, Just Walk Out relied on more than 1,000 people in India watching and labeling videos to ensure accurate checkouts. The cashiers were simply moved off-site, and they watched you as you shopped.

Instead, Amazon is moving towards Dash Carts, a scanner and screen are embedded in your shopping cart, allowing you to checkout as you shop. These offer a more reliable solution than Just Walk Out, whose impressive technology was truly ahead of its time. Amazon Fresh stores will also feature self check out counters from now on, for people who aren't Amazon members.

Power

India Hydropower Output Records Steepest Fall In Nearly Four Decades (reuters.com) 69

An anonymous reader quotes a report from Reuters: India's hydroelectricity output fell at the steepest pace in at least 38 years during the year ended March 31, a Reuters analysis of government data showed, as erratic rainfall forced further dependence on coal-fired power amid higher demand. The 16.3% drop in generation from the country's biggest clean energy source coincided with the share of renewables in power generation sliding for the first time since Prime Minister Narendra Modi made commitments to boost solar and wind capacity at the United Nations climate talks at Paris in 2015.

Renewables accounted for 11.7% of India's power output in the year that ended in March, down from 11.8% a year earlier, a Reuters analysis of daily load despatch data from the federal grid regulator Grid-India showed. India is the world's third-largest greenhouse gas emitter, and the government often points to lower per-capita emissions compared to developed nations to defend rising coal use. A five-year low in reservoir levels means hydro output will likely remain low during the hottest months of April-June, experts say, potentially boosting dependence on coal during a period of high demand before the monsoon starts in June. [...]

Globally, hydropower output fell for only the fourth time since 2000 due to lower rainfall and warmer temperature brought about by the El Nino weather pattern, according to energy think tank Ember. Hydro output in India, the sixth-biggest hydropower producer, fell nearly seven times faster than the global average, Ember data showed.

Businesses

Telegram Challenges Meta With the Launch of New 'Business' Features, Revenue-Sharing (techcrunch.com) 6

Telegram is enhancing its platform for businesses with the introduction of Telegram Business, offering specialized features like customizable start pages, business hours, and chat management tools, while also initiating an ad-revenue sharing model for public channels with at least 1,000 subscribers. "As a whole, the features could introduce competition into a market where Meta's apps like Messenger, Instagram and WhatsApp have a hold on business communication," reports TechCrunch. From the report: The features arrived just a couple of weeks after Telegram founder Pavel Durov told the Financial Times in an interview that he expected the app, which now has over 900 million users, to become profitable by 2025. Telegram Business is clearly part of that push, leading up to a future IPO, as it's an offering that requires users to subscribe to the paid Premium version to access. Telegram Premium is a bundle of upgraded features that cost $4.99 per month on iOS and Android and is also available as a three-month, six-month or one-year plan.

Telegram Business will likely give Premium another bump as it offers tools and features that can be used by business customers without needing to know how to code. For instance, businesses can choose to display their hours of operation and location on a map, and greet customers with a customized start page for empty chats where they can choose the text and sticker users see before beginning a conversation. Similar to features available on WhatsApp, Telegram Business will offer "quick replies," which are shortcuts to preset messages that support formatting, links, media, stickers and files.

Businesses can also set their own custom greeting messages for customers who engage with the company for the first time, and they can specify a period after which the greeting would be shown again. They can manage their availability using away messages while the business is closed or the owner is on vacation. Plus, the businesses can categorize their chats using colored labels based on what chat folders they're in, like delivery, claim, orders, VIP, feedback, or any others that make sense for them. In addition, businesses can create links to chat that will instantly open a Telegram chat with a request to take an action like tracking an order or reserving a table, among other things. Business customers can also add Telegram bots, including those from other tools or AI assistants, to answer messages on their behalf. The company said more features will roll out to Telegram Business in future updates.

Businesses

McKinsey is Offering Staff Pay, Career Coaching If They Leave Firm (businessinsider.com) 47

An anonymous reader shares a report: The management-consulting giant McKinsey is dangling career-coaching services and nine months' worth of pay to staffers keen on leaving the firm, the British newspaper The Times reported on Saturday. The Times reported that managers for McKinsey's UK offices could spend up to nine months searching for a job instead of working on client projects. Besides continuing to receive their salary, managers would have access to McKinsey's resources and career-coaching services, per The Times. But staffers would still have to leave McKinsey even if their job hunt proved unsuccessful.

The offer has been extended to managers working at McKinsey's US offices, though the pay duration could be different, The Times said, citing people familiar with the situation. A spokesperson for McKinsey did not confirm the specifics of The Times' reporting but told the outlet that the company's mission was to help staffers "grow into leaders, whether they stay at McKinsey or continue their careers elsewhere." "These actions are part of our ongoing effort to ensure our performance management and development approach is as effective as possible, and to do so in a caring and supportive way," the spokesperson continued.

IT

The FTC is Trying To Help Victims of Impersonation Scams Get Their Money Back (theverge.com) 8

The Federal Trade Commission (FTC) has a new way to combat the impersonation scams that it says cost people $1.1 billion last year alone. Effective today, the agency's rule "prohibits the impersonation of government, businesses, and their officials or agents in interstate commerce." The rule also lets the FTC directly file federal court complaints to force scammers to return money stolen by business or government impersonation. From a report: Impersonation scams are wide-ranging -- creators are on the lookout for fake podcast invites that turn into letting scammers take over their Facebook pages via a hidden "datasets" URL, while Verge reporters have been impersonated by criminals trying to steal cryptocurrency via fake Calendly meeting links.

Linus Media Group was victimized by a thief who pretended to be a potential sponsor and managed to take over three of the company's YouTube channels. Some scams can also be very intricate, as in The Cut financial columnist Charlotte Cowles' story of how she lost a shoebox holding $50,000 to an elaborate scam involving a fake Amazon business account, the FTC, and the CIA. (See also: gift card scams.) The agency is also taking public comment until April 30th on changes to the rule that would allow it to also target impersonation of individuals, such as through the use of video deepfakes or AI voice cloning. That would let it take action against, say, scams involving impersonations of Elon Musk on X or celebrities in YouTube ads. Others have used AI for more sinister fraud, such as voice clones of loved ones claiming to be kidnapped.

AI

OpenAI Removes Sam Altman's Ownership of Its Startup Fund (reuters.com) 6

According to a filing with the SEC, OpenAI has removed CEO Sam Altman's ownership and control of the company's venture capital fund that backs AI startups. Reuters reports: The change, documented in the March 29 filing, came after Altman's ownership of the OpenAI Startup Fund raised eyebrows for its unusual structure--while being marketed similar to a corporate venture arm, the fund was raised by Altman from outside limited partners and he made investment decisions. OpenAI has said Altman does not have financial interest in the fund despite the ownership.

Axios first reported on the ownership change on Monday. In a statement, a spokesperson for OpenAI said the fund's initial general partner (GP) structure was a temporary arrangement, and "this change provides further clarity." The OpenAI Startup Fund is investing $175 million raised from OpenAI partners such as Microsoft, although OpenAI itself is not an investor. Control of the fund has been moved over to Ian Hathaway, a partner at the fund since 2021, according to the filing. Altman will no longer be a general partner at the fund. OpenAI said Hathaway has overseen the fund's accelerator program and led investments in such companies as Harvey, Cursor and Ambience Healthcare.

Businesses

Perplexity, an AI Startup Attempting To Challenge Google, Plans To Sell Ads (adweek.com) 25

An anonymous reader shares a report: Generative AI search engine Perplexity, which claims to be a Google competitor and recently snagged a $73.6 million Series B funding from investors like Jeff Bezos, is going to start selling ads, the company told ADWEEK. Perplexity uses AI to answer users' questions, based on web sources. It incorporates videos and images in the response and even data from partners like Yelp. Perplexity also links sources in the response while suggesting related questions users might want to ask.

These related questions, which account for 40% of Perplexity's queries, are where the company will start introducing native ads, by letting brands influence these questions, said company chief business officer Dmitry Shevelenko. When a user delves deeper into a topic, the AI search engine might offer organic and brand-sponsored questions. Perplexity will launch this in the upcoming quarters, but Shevelenko declined to disclose more specifics. While Perplexity touts on its site that search should be "free from the influence of advertising-driven models," advertising was always in the cards for the company. "Advertising was always part of how we're going to build a great business," said Shevelenko.

AI

Huge AI Funding Leads To Hype and 'Grifting,' Warns DeepMind's Demis Hassabis (ft.com) 30

The surge of money flooding into AI has resulted in some crypto-like hype that is obscuring the incredible scientific progress in the field, according to Sir Demis Hassabis, co-founder of DeepMind. From a report: The chief executive of Google's AI research division told the Financial Times that the billions of dollars being poured into generative AI start-ups and products "brings with it a whole attendant bunch of hype and maybe some grifting and some other things that you see in other hyped-up areas, crypto or whatever."

"Some of that has now spilled over into AI, which I think is a bit unfortunate. And it clouds the science and the research, which is phenomenal," he added. "In a way, AI's not hyped enough but in some senses it's too hyped. We're talking about all sorts of things that are just not real." The launch of OpenAI's ChatGPT chatbot in November 2022 sparked an investor frenzy as start-ups raced to develop and deploy generative AI and attract venture capital funding. VC groups invested $42.5bn in 2,500 AI start-up equity rounds last year, according to market analysts CB Insights. Public market investors have also rushed into the so-called Magnificent Seven technology companies, including Microsoft, Alphabet and Nvidia, that are spearheading the AI revolution. Their rise has helped to propel global stock markets to their strongest first-quarter performance in five years.

Businesses

Reddit's Shares Plummet Almost 25% in Two Days, Dropping Below Its First Day's Close (cnbc.com) 96

Last Monday shares of Reddit's stock soared 30%, reports CNBC — and then another 8.8% on Tuesday.

But the moves happened "even after New Street Research issued a neutral rating on the company" — and by the end of the week, CNBC was reporting that "Reddit shares are plummeting..." Shares closed at $49.32, ending the week below their closing price on Reddit's first day of trading on the New York Stock Exchange [on March 21st, when they closed at $50.44 ]... Stock markets are closed on Good Friday.

Reddit shares began their downward spiral on Wednesday, when they sank about 11% to $57.75 at market close. That day, Hedgeye Risk Management described Reddit's stock as "grossly overvalued" in a report cited by Bloomberg News, adding the company was on the firm's "short bench."

The article notes Reddit's CEO sold 500,000 shares in the company — nearly 40% of his holdings — which Ben Silverman, vice president of research at Verity, told CNBC was expected — while Reddit's COO sold another 514,000 shares.

"There's always a bit of a disconnect," Silverman said in the interview, because bringing a company public "is not just to generate liquidity for the company itself so that it can expand and grow. In these situations, it often allows insiders to cash out to generate liquidity.

"And that's something investors have to consider here. If the prospects are so bright, why are insiders selling?"

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