• Gigi Sohn, the co-founder of technology policy organization Public Knowledge, withdrew her nomination to serve as a commissioner on the Federal Communications Commission, leaving the agency with an empty chair and a 2-2 deadlock among Democratic and Republican officials. Sohn was first nominated in October 2021 and went through three Senate confirmation hearings in 16 months before ultimately withdrawing due to personal attacks from lobbyists and industry interest groups. (The Washington Post)
• Sens. Mark Warner (D-Va.) and John Thune (R-S.D.) introduced the bipartisan RESTRICT Act, which would task federal agencies with reviewing potential national security threats posed by hardware, software, mobile apps and other technology originating from countries deemed adversarial including China. The bill, which would grant the White House and Commerce Department the ability to issue sanctions or ban an app like Chinese-owned TikTok, received an endorsement from White House security adviser Jake Sullivan, who is urging Congress to quickly pass the legislation. (Politico)
• The Federal Trade Commission has demanded documentation from Twitter Inc. including internal communications related to owner Elon Musk, detailed information about the company’s widespread layoffs and information about journalists granted access to internal company records as part of the Twitter Files, according to documents viewed by The Wall Street Journal. Excerpts from the requests, obtained and published by the Republican-led House Judiciary Committee, stem from an FTC investigation into whether decisions made by new ownership could compromise the company’s ability to protect users. (The Wall Street Journal)

Happening today: 

• The House Oversight Subcommittee on Cybersecurity, Information Technology and Government Innovation will hold a hearing titled “Advances in AI: Are We Ready For a Tech Revolution?” Witnesses at the hearing will include Aleksander Mądry, director of MIT’s Center for Deployable Machine Learning; Scott Crowder, vice president of IBM Corp.’s IBM Quantum; and Eric Schmidt, former CEO of Google and current chair of the Special Competitive Studies Project.
• The Senate Judiciary’ Subcommittee on Privacy, Technology and the Law will host a hearing titled “Platform Accountability: Gonzalez and Reform” that will focus on how Gonzalez v. Google LLC, a case recently heard by the Supreme Court, could affect online platforms. The hearing will feature testimony from Andrew Sullivan, president and chief executive of the Internet Society.
• The Senate Committee on Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs will host a hearing titled “Artificial Intelligence: Risks and Opportunities,” which will feature testimony from Alexandra Reeve Givens, president and CEO of Center for Democracy and Technology.
• Spotify will host its annual Stream On event that will focus on the company’s growing suite of creator tools, features, and programming.
• Tech Show London kicks off today and runs through Thursday, with speakers and events focusing on the future of the tech industry.

A Brand’s Guide to Gen Alpha

Morning Consult

Google I/O 2023 takes place May 10

Abner Li, 9to5Google

I/O 2023 will be similar with a “limited live audience.” It will kick off with a main keynote hosted by CEO Sundar Pichai at the Shoreline Amphitheater in Mountain View, California. This will be followed by the developer keynote and then “100+ on-demand technical sessions.”

China says it’s ‘puzzled’ after report Germany might ban Huawei from parts of 5G mobile network

Arjun Kharpal, CNBC

China’s embassy in Germany said it is “puzzled and strongly dissatisfied” after a report suggested Berlin is planning to ban some equipment from Chinese firms Huawei and ZTE

 in its 5G telecommunications networks on national security grounds.

Biden’s former antitrust guru issues a warning

Josh Sisco, Politico

Two months after leaving his job in the White House as Joe Biden’s czar for competition policy, Tim Wu has some words for backers of the national anti-monopoly movement that he has helped foster: Beware the blowback. And don’t count on Congress.

South Korea Says U.S. Chips Act Subsidies Have Too Many Requirements

Jiyoung Sohn, The Wall Street Journal

The U.S. Chips Act is dangling billions of dollars in subsidies in front of the world’s biggest semiconductor manufacturers, but South Korea says there are too many strings attached.

How Google Became Cautious of AI and Gave Microsoft an Opening 

Miles Kruppa and Sam Schechner, The Wall Street Journal

Researchers developed a powerful chatbot years before rival ChatGPT went viral. After management stalled its release, they quit.

Google’s PaLM-E is a generalist robot brain that takes commands

Benj Edwards, Ars Technica

A group of AI researchers from Google and the Technical University of Berlin unveiled PaLM-E, a multimodal embodied visual-language model (VLM) with 562 billion parameters that integrates vision and language for robotic control. They claim it is the largest VLM ever developed and that it can perform a variety of tasks without the need for retraining.

Google’s Plan to Catch ChatGPT Is to Stuff AI Into Everything

Julia Love and Davey Alba, Bloomberg Businessweek

A new internal directive requires “generative artificial intelligence” to be incorporated into all of its biggest products within months.

Facebook’s Powerful Large Language Model Leaks Online

Joseph Cox, Motherboard

The leaked language model was posted to 4chan. The model was previously only given to approved researchers, government organizations, and members of civil society.

Silicon Valley’s Obsession With Killer Rogue AI Helps Bury Bad Behavior

Ellen Huet, Bloomberg Businessweek

Sam Bankman-Fried made effective altruism a punchline, but the do-gooding philosophy is part of a powerful tech subculture full of opportunism, money, messiah complexes—and alleged abuse.

The Chatbots Are Here, and the Internet Industry Is in a Tizzy

Tripp Mickle et al., The New York Times

The new technology could upend many online businesses. But for companies that figure out how to work with it, A.I. could be a boon.

Salesforce follows Microsoft in launching A.I. tools for salespeople with help from OpenAI

Jordan Novet, CNBC

Salesforce clients will be able to exchange Slack messages with a ChatGPT chatbot that can show data from Salesforce.

Nvidia CEO Jensen Huang’s big bet on A.I. is paying off as his core technology powers ChatGPT

Katie Tarasov, CNBC

As the engine behind large language models (LLMs) like ChatGPT, Nvidia is finally reaping rewards for its early investment in AI. That’s helped to cushion the blow from broader semiconductor industry struggles tied to U.S.-China trade tensions and a global chip shortage. 

A New ‘M*A*S*H’ Scene: Written by ChatGPT, Read by Hawkeye and B.J.

Julia Jacobs, The New York Times

Alan Alda, the star of the long-running sitcom, asked the artificial intelligence software to create a script for him and his former co-star Mike Farrell to read.

Citadel Negotiating Enterprise-Wide ChatGPT License, Griffin Says

Katherine Doherty and Felipe Marques, Bloomberg

Ken Griffin said his firms are in the process of negotiating an enterprise-wide license to use OpenAI’s ChatGPT tool.

Microsoft, Google-Backed Group Wants to Boost AI Education in Low-Income Schools

Dina Bass, Bloomberg

The AI Education Project has developed curriculum to help teachers and students understand artificial intelligence.

Verizon CFO says Fios expansion chugging along

Diana Goovaerts, Fierce Telecom

For whatever reason, Verizon’s Fios build has been relegated to a footnote in the company’s larger broadband plans, but CFO Matt Ellis indicated the operator is aiming to open another 500,000 locations for sale in 2023 as its wired expansion effort continues apace.

Android March 2023 update fixes two critical code execution flaws

Bill Toulas, Bleeping Computer

Google has released March 2023 security updates for Android, fixing a total of 60 flaws, and among them, two critical-severity remote code execution (RCE) vulnerabilities impacting Android Systems running versions 11, 12, and 13.

Acer Confirms Breach After Hacker Offers to Sell Stolen Data

Eduard Kovacs, SecurityWeek

Electronics giant Acer has confirmed getting hacked after a hacker offered to sell 160 Gb of files allegedly stolen from the company’s systems.

The Fraud-Detection Business Has a Dirty Secret

Morgan Meaker, Wired

When systems designed to catch welfare cheats go wrong, people find themselves trapped between secretive governments and even more opaque private companies.

Ongoing malware campaign targeting small business routers

Sam Sabin, Axios

Researchers have uncovered an ongoing, monthslong malware campaign that’s targeting and stealing data from pharmaceutical, IT services and consulting firms through their internet routers.

EU tells Elon Musk to hire more staff to moderate Twitter

Javier Espinoza et al., Financial Times

Regulators are concerned that platform aims to use more volunteers and artificial intelligence to monitor content.

Privacy leader calls for government surveillance program reforms

Sam Sabin, Axios

A member of a key government oversight board is pushing lawmakers to make reforms to an instrumental intelligence community surveillance power before it’s potentially reauthorized this year.

LinkedIn turns 20: An oral history of an unlikely champion

Harry McCracken, Fast Company

Social media, for work? The world was skeptical. But 20 years and a few white-knuckle moments later, LinkedIn has become synonymous with networking—and it’s got more momentum than ever.

TikTok launches ‘Project Clover’ charm offensive to fend off European bans

Clothilde Goujard And Laura Kayali, Politico Pro

TikTok has launched its European counteroffensive to assuage politicians’ fears over Chinese surveillance. Two weeks after the European Union institutions introduced a ban on the app on officials’ devices over data security concerns, the social media platform on Wednesday announced a plan to safeguard Europeans’ data from the Chinese government’s reach.

Twitter just let its privacy- and security-protecting Tor service expire

Adi Robertson, The Verge

Twitter has allowed the certificate for its Tor onion site to expire, effectively killing off a privacy- and speech-protecting service that it introduced last year. 

Elon Musk spats with former Twitter employee with disability

Julia Mueller, The Hill

Twitter CEO Elon Musk on Tuesday criticized a former employee with a disability after the worker inquired about whether he’d been laid off by the social media giant. 

TikTok to allow creators to sell collections of long-format videos

Yuvraj Malik, Reuters

Chinese short-video sharing app TikTok said on Tuesday it will allow some creators to produce collections of longer videos and charge their audience a premium for access, opening up a new channel of monetization for its users.

Facebook tests bringing back in-app messaging features as it competes with TikTok

Clare Duffy, CNN

Nearly a decade after Facebook angered some users by splitting off messaging features from its flagship social networking application and forcing people to download a separate app to chat with friends, the company is now testing out reversing the move.

YouTube has created a multimillion-dollar dubbing economy

Nilesh Christopher and Andrew Deck, Rest of World

Unilingo, the dubbing provider for MrBeast and PewDiePie, is part of a new localization strategy for some of YouTube’s biggest stars.

How Reddit is getting simpler — and dealing with TikTok, with chief product officer Pali Bhat

Nilay Patel, The Verge

Reddit announces a scrolling video view for your timeline.

Twitch takes a harder stance against explicit deepfakes

John Fingas, Engadget

The livestreaming service is updating its policy on adult nudity to include a ban on synthetic NCEI (non-consensual exploitative images), even if it’s only shown briefly or to criticize its existence. It’s also revising ts sexual violence and exploitation policies to make clear that intentionally making and sharing non-consensual deepfakes can lead to a ban with the first offense.

Musk Says Twitter May Be Cash Flow Break-Even Soon

Edward Ludlow and Dana Hull, Bloomberg

Twitter Inc. may break even on a cash-flow basis in the second quarter and has a shot at even going positive, according to owner Elon Musk.

PayPal CFO Jorgensen to Step Down Following Leave of Absence

Sally Bakewell, Bloomberg

PayPal Holdings Inc. said Chief Financial Officer Blake Jorgensen will step down following a leave of absence for health reasons, amid a shuffle of upper management at the online-payments platform.

Amazon Beats Proposed Class Action Over Remote Work Expenses

Joel Rosenblatt, Bloomberg

Amazon.com Inc. defeated an attempt by employees to sue as a group as they tried to recoup internet expenses that they incurred while working from home during the pandemic.