• President Joe Biden met with the chief executives at top artificial intelligence firms including Microsoft Corp. and Alphabet Inc. and had a “frank and constructive discussion” on the need for more transparency around AI systems and the importance of evaluating the safety of the technology. Biden, who has used ChatGPT, told the industry chiefs they are responsible for mitigating current and potential risks that AI presents to individuals, society and national security. (Reuters)
• Apple Inc. saw its overall sales fall for the second quarter in a row but reported stronger-than-expected iPhone sales that led the company to $94.84 billion in total revenue for the second quarter of 2023. Apple did not provide formal guidance, though the company’s finance chief, Luca Maestri, said the company expects revenue to decline about 3% in the current quarter. (CNBC)
• Consulting firm SemiAnalysis published a document written by a senior software engineer at Google warning that the company and its chief rival in artificial intelligence research, OpenAI, are at risk of falling behind the open source community and its ability to make rapid and unexpected AI advances. The engineer, Luke Sernau, said in the report that open source engineers can build AI models that are cheaper, faster and more customizable than Google’s own. (Bloomberg)
• Lyft Inc. beat its revenue projections for the first quarter of 2023, reporting $1 billion in revenue and a net loss of $187.6 million for the first three months of the year. Despite that, the company saw its stock drop due to a worse-than-expected second-quarter forecast that follows a round of layoffs and changes in leadership at the company. (The Wall Street Journal)

How Silicon Valley’s Troubles Are Reshaping Venture Capital

Bloomberg

AMD jumps on report Microsoft is collaborating on A.I. chip push

Jordan Novet, CNBC

AMD shares reached a session high on Thursday after Bloomberg reported that the chipmaker was working with Microsoft on a new artificial-intelligence processor.

Virgin Islands issued subpoena to Google co-founder Larry Page in lawsuit against JPMorgan Chase over Jeffrey Epstein

Dan Mangan, CNBC

The government of the U.S. Virgin Islands has tried without success so far to serve a subpoena on Google co-founder Larry Page for documents for its civil lawsuit against JPMorgan Chase related to sex trafficking by the bank’s longtime customer Jeffrey Epstein, a court filing revealed Thursday.

At Musk’s brain-chip startup, animal-testing panel is rife with potential conflicts

Rachael Levy and Marisa Taylor, Reuters

Elon Musk’s brain-implant venture has filled an animal-research oversight board with company insiders who may stand to benefit financially as the firm reaches development goals, according to company documents and interviews with six current and former employees.

Dorsey’s Block Boosts Full-Year Outlook After Jump in Use of Its Cash App

Jennifer Surane, Bloomberg

Block Inc., the digital payments company run by Jack Dorsey, raised its outlook for a measure of full-year profit after use of its Cash App product jumped in the first three months of the year.

Apple says patent owner, law firm revealed settlement secrets in Google trial

Blake Brittain, Reuters

Apple Inc on Wednesday accused patent owner Arendi S.A.R.L. of revealing secret information about a settlement agreement between them, including how much Apple paid, during Arendi’s separate infringement trial against Alphabet’s Google LLC.

Top US spy says Chinese invasion halting Taiwan chip production would be ‘enormous’ global economic blow

Jonathan Landay, Reuters

A Chinese invasion of Taiwan could potentially halt production by the world’s largest advanced semiconductor chip maker, wiping out up to $1 trillion per year from the global economy per year in the first few years, the top U.S. intelligence official said on Thursday.

Chinese companies told to step up data checks on auditors

Cheng Leng and Edward White, Financial Times

Intervention is latest sign that regulators are increasingly concerned about security of corporate data.

Google, Sonos head to trial in contentious smart speaker patent fight

Blake Brittain, Reuters

Sonos Inc (SONO.O) and Alphabet’s Google LLC (GOOGL.O) will face off in a San Francisco federal trial on Monday over claims that Google copied Sonos’ patented smart-speaker technology in wireless audio devices like Google Home and Chromecast Audio.

Broadcom CEO seeks to convince EU on $61 billion VMware deal

Foo Yun Chee, Reuters

U.S. chipmaker Broadcom’s (AVGO.O) Chief Executive Hock Tan on Friday will try to convince EU antitrust enforcers that his proposed $61 billion bid for cloud computing firm VMware, which has triggered scrutiny on both sides of the Atlantic, is pro-competitive.

Apple’s Tim Cook Says AI Concerns Still Need to Be Sorted Out

Mark Gurman, Bloomberg

Apple Inc. Chief Executive Officer Tim Cook expressed cautious optimism about the flood of new artificial intelligence services, saying that while the technology has huge potential, there also are “a number of issues that need to be sorted.”

OpenAI’s Losses Doubled to $540 Million as It Developed ChatGPT

Erin Woo and Amir Efrati, The Information

OpenAI’s losses roughly doubled to around $540 million last year as it developed ChatGPT and hired key employees from Google, according to three people with knowledge of the startup’s financials. The previously unreported figure reflects the steep costs of training its machine-learning models during the period before it started selling access to the chatbot.

Khosla Warns Against Slowing US AI Research, Cites China Threat

Sarah McBride and Lizette Chapman, Bloomberg

The US is locked in a high-stakes race with China to develop artificial intelligence technology and can’t afford to slow down, venture capitalist Vinod Khosla said. He added that efforts to moderate the rate of progress, such as the hiatus in research advocated by leaders including Elon Musk, are misguided or even self-motivated. 

Hugging Face and ServiceNow release a free code-generating model

Kyle Wiggers, TechCrunch

AI startup Hugging Face and ServiceNow Research, ServiceNow’s R&D division, have released StarCoder, a free alternative to code-generating AI systems along the lines of GitHub’s Copilot.

VP Harris tells Microsoft, Google they have legal responsibility to ensure safety of AI products

Nandita Bose, Reuters

U.S. Vice President Kamala Harris on Thursday told the chief executives of tech companies including Microsoft and Google they have a “legal responsibility” to ensure the safety of their artificial intelligence products.

ChatGPT ‘portfolio’ outperforms leading UK funds

Alf Wilkinson, Financial Times

Theoretical fund of 38 stocks do better than 10 most popular funds on Interactive Investor, finds finder.com.

Waymo Plans to Expand Self-Driving Taxi Service in Arizona and San Francisco

Julia Love, Bloomberg

Waymo, Alphabet Inc.’s driverless-vehicle unit, plans to expand its autonomous taxi service in San Francisco and the greater Phoenix area, its two main markets.

Europe’s top court clarifies GDPR compensation and data access rights

Natasha Lomas, TechCrunch

The European Union’s top court has handed down a couple of notable rulings today in the arena of data protection. One (Case C-300/21) deals with compensation for breaches of the bloc’s General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR); and the second (Case C-487/21) clarifies the nature of information that individuals exercising GDPR rights to obtain a copy of data held on them should expect to receive.

Tech industry keeps outracing the government

Ryan Heath, Axios

While CEOs of the companies leading today’s AI wave met at the White House Thursday, the leaders of the Biden administration’s antitrust campaign against tech giants were also gathering for a stock-taking a few blocks away.

Gigi Sohn’s next battle: Fighting for municipal broadband rights as AAPB chief

Dana O’Shea, Fierce Wireless

Just weeks after ending what she described as an “enormously frustrating” 16-month battle to join the Federal Communications Commission (FCC) as President Joe Biden’s nominee for the pivotal fifth seat, Gigi Sohn announced at the Broadband Communities Summit this week that she is joining the American Association for Public Broadband (AAPB) as its first executive director.

Google announces the Pixel Fold

Richard Lawler, The Verge

The rumors are true: next week, Google will introduce its first foldable phone, the Pixel Fold, during the Google I/O 2023 event.

Ex-Uber security chief gets probation for concealing 2016 data breach

Sam Sabin, Axios

A judge sentenced Joe Sullivan, the former chief security officer at Uber, to three years’ probation and 200 hours of community service on Thursday for covering up a 2016 cyberattack from authorities and obstructing a federal investigation.

Dallas disrupted by hackers – courts closed, police and fire sites offline

Raphael Satter, Reuters

Hacker sabotage has disrupted several public services in Dallas, closing courts and knocking emergency services websites offline, officials said Thursday.

Discord is growing up, so everyone needs to pick a new username

Emma Roth, The Verge

Discord is getting rid of the four-digit suffixes appended to usernames and pushing users to grab new handles on the service.

TikTok advertisers stick by the app amid threat of U.S. ban

Sheila Dang, Reuters

Advertisers are committed to continue spending on TikTok due to its immense popularity with users despite threats of a potential ban in the U.S. over national security concerns, ad experts said.

Twitter’s Blue Check Marks Become Polarizing Symbol of Elon Musk’s Tenure

Alexa Coarse, The Wall Street Journal

Some users disavow Twitter’s paid check marks, while others say the subscription features are worth buying.

Shopify cuts 20% of its workforce; shares surge on earnings beat

Annie Palmer, CNBC

Shopify on Thursday announced it’s cutting 20% of its workforce. The news came as it reported first-quarter earnings that beat analyst estimates on both the top and bottom lines.

Google employees complain about CEO Sundar Pichai’s pay raise as cost cuts hit rest of the company

Jennifer Elias, CNBC

Google CEO Sundar Pichai received a hefty pay raise last year, making him one of the highest-paid CEOs in America. Last week, his company announced the authorization of a $70 billion stock buyback. Meanwhile, Google parent Alphabet has been aggressively cutting costs, including the elimination of 12,000 jobs, in response to slowing revenue growth.

CEO Tim Cook says layoffs are a ‘last resort’ and not something Apple is considering right now

Kif Leswing, CNBC

Apple doesn’t have plans for big layoffs, CEO Tim Cook told CNBC while discussing the company’s earnings on Thursday. “I view that as a last resort and, so, mass layoffs is not something that we’re talking about at this moment,” Cook told CNBC’s Steve Kovach.