• Google has opened Bard, its artificial intelligence-powered chatbot designed to rival ChatGPT, to a limited number of users in the United States and the United Kingdom. The generative AI tool, which is powered by Google’s LaMDA large language model, is designed to carry out natural language-style conversations, respond to text-based prompts from users and will offer a “Google it” button to see what the company’s traditional search engine yields when given the same input. (Axios)
• TikTok Chief Executive Shou Zi Chew will offer a series of promises designed to quell concerns about the app’s potential to be a national security threat — including a firewall for U.S. user data that will prevent foreign access to the information — when he speaks at a House Energy and Commerce Committee hearing on Thursday, according to his prepared testimony. “TikTok will remain a platform for free expression and will not be manipulated by any government,” Chew will say in his prepared remarks before being questioned by lawmakers over the app’s practices and parent company ByteDance Ltd.’s ties to the Chinese government. (The Wall Street Journal)
• The Department of Commerce proposed new rules for companies hoping to access the $52 billion in funding set aside to kickstart domestic semiconductor manufacturing and research, including restrictions to limit recipients from expanding manufacturing, research or licensing with foreign countries of concern including China and Russia. The proposal would also define some semiconductors as being critical to national security, creating tighter restrictions for manufacturers hoping to dip into the semiconductor subsidy program, which is set to start accepting applications in late June. (Reuters)

Happening today: 

• The two-day DevOps Conference, which will feature workshops and discussion on different aspects of the software development and operations business, kicks off with speakers including technologist and author Emily Freeman; GitHub Inc. vice president of developer relations Martin Woodward; and Angela Timofte, director of engineering at Trustpilot Group PLC.

TikTok bans spread globally

Axios

Senators Had Questions for the Maker of a Rent-Setting Algorithm. The Answers Were “Alarming.”

Heather Vogell, ProPublica

After a ProPublica investigation, RealPage answered questions from lawmakers about its product. In response, the senators sent a letter to the Justice Department.

Microsoft wins dismissal of gamers’ suit over $69 billion Activision deal

Mike Scarcella, Reuters

Microsoft Corp on Monday won dismissal of a private consumer antitrust lawsuit over its $69 billion proposed purchase of “Call of Duty” maker Activision Blizzard Inc (ATVI.O), but the plaintiffs were given 20 days to refine their legal challenge.

Ericsson Pleads Guilty to Breaching US Agreement in Bribery Case

Ava Benny-Morrison, Bloomberg

Ericsson AB pleaded guilty to breaching a 2019 settlement with the Justice Department after it failed to be transparent about bribery schemes it operated in China and East Africa. 

DeSantis Privately Called for Google to Be “Broken Up”

Andy Kroll and Nick Surgey, ProPublica

In previously unreported videos from a closed-door Teneo Network conference, Florida’s Republican governor takes his anti-big tech rhetoric beyond what he has said publicly.

Qualcomm must face shareholder class action over sales practices

Jody Godoy, Reuters

A federal judge has ruled that shareholders suing chip maker Qualcomm Inc for allegedly hiding anticompetitive sales and licensing practices may bring their claims as a class action.

US trade commission sides with iRobot, bans SharkNinja robot vacuum imports

Blake Brittain, Reuters

The U.S. International Trade Commission said on Tuesday it would ban imports of SharkNinja Operating LLC robot vacuums that infringe a patent owned by Roomba maker iRobot Corp.

Bill Gates Sees GPT’s AI as Revolutionary Tech Breakthrough

Dina Bass, Bloomberg

Microsoft Corp. co-founder Bill Gates said OpenAI’s language generation artificial intelligence tools are one of two revolutionary technologies he’s come across in his lifetime. 

Nvidia turns to AI cloud rental to spread new technology

Stephen Nellis, Reuters

Nvidia Corp Chief Executive Jensen Huang on Tuesday laid out the company’s plans to make the powerful and expensive supercomputers used to develop AI technologies like ChatGPT available for rent to nearly any business.

Critics say tech companies can’t be left to their own on AI

Ina Fried, Axios

Tristan Harris, the ex-Googler who has been calling out Big Tech for a variety of societal harms caused by social media, is now sounding the alarm over artificial intelligence.

As AI booms, EU lawmakers wrangle over new rules

Supantha Mukherjee and Martin Coulter, Reuters

Rapid technological advances such as the ChatGPT generative artificial intelligence (AI) app are complicating efforts by European Union lawmakers to agree on landmark AI laws, sources with direct knowledge of the matter have told Reuters.

A Psychologist Explains How AI and Algorithms Are Changing Our Lives

Danny Lewis, The Wall Street Journal

Behavioral scientist Gerd Gigerenzer has spent decades studying how people make choices. Here’s why he thinks too many of us are now letting AI make the decisions.

What Google Bard Can Do (and What It Can’t)

Cade Metz, The New York Times

Google has released a new chatbot to a limited number of people in the U.S. and Britain. How does it compare with what is already out there?

Adobe launches Firefly generative A.I., which lets users type to edit images

Rohan Goswami, CNBC

Adobe is entering the generative AI field, launching Firefly, which the company said it will integrate into its existing suite of products.

GPT-4 readily spouts misinformation, study finds

Sara Fischer, Axios

OpenAI’s newest generative AI tool GPT-4 is more likely to spread misinformation — when prompted — than its predecessor GPT-3.5, according to a new report shared exclusively with Axios by NewsGuard, a service that uses trained journalists to rate news and information sites.

Google CEO tells employees that 80,000 of them helped test Bard A.I., warns ‘things will go wrong’

Jennifer Elias, CNBC

Google and Alphabet CEO Sundar Pichai told employees that the success of its newly launched Bard A.I. program now hinges on public testing.

Microsoft Bing now uses OpenAI’s DALL-E A.I. to turn text into images

Natasha Piñon, CNBC

Microsoft on Tuesday added a new artificial intelligence-powered capability to its search slate: AI-generated visuals. The new tool, powered by OpenAI’s DALL-E, will allow users to generate images using their own words, such as asking for a picture of “an astronaut walking through a galaxy of sunflowers,” the company explained in a press release.

SpaceX tries to de-orbit Amazon’s request for a satellite broadband shortcut

Brandon Vigliarolo, The Register

SpaceX has tried to shoot down Amazon’s attempt to speed up approval of its rival satellite broadband constellation.

iOS 16.4 allows health authorities to end their support for Apple’s COVID-19 Exposure Notifications feature

Chance Miller, 9to5Mac

Back in 2020, Apple and Google teamed up to launch the Exposure Notifications API for COVID-19 contact tracing. The feature aimed to alert you to potential COVID-19 exposures, allowing you to get a test and isolate yourself if necessary. Three years later, Apple is now giving health agencies the ability to sunset their adoption of the Exposure Notifications API.

Inside OpenAI CEO’s eye-scanning plan to replace passwords

Sam Sabin, Axios

OpenAI CEO Sam Altman’s plan for identity verification is raising serious questions about biometric privacy and the options companies pursue to replace easy-to-guess passwords.

Breached hacking forum shuts down, fears it’s not ‘safe’ from FBI

Bill Toulas, Bleeping Computer

The notorious Breached hacking forum has shut down after the remaining administrator, Baphomet, disclosed that they believe law enforcement has access to the site’s servers.

Women in CyberSecurity conference gets pushback over Nashville summit

Sam Sabin, Axios

As the Tennessee state government continues to pass legislation targeting transgender and LGBTQ rights, members of the cybersecurity community are questioning a major industry conference’s decision to host next year’s event in Nashville.

Google asks London court to throw out lawsuit over medical records

Sam Tobin, Reuters

Google asked London’s High Court on Tuesday to throw out a lawsuit brought on behalf of 1.6 million people over medical records provided to the tech giant by a British hospital trust.

Windows 11 Snipping Tool vulnerability can reveal sensitive information in screenshots

João Carrasqueira, XDA Developers

After Pixel phones, it looks like Windows 11’s built-in screenshot tool also lets attackers reveal information you may have cropped out.

Pulling the Plug on TikTok Will Be Harder Than It Looks

David E. Sanger et al., The New York Times

The tensions over the Chinese-owned social media app will come to a head on Thursday, when the company’s chief executive testifies on Capitol Hill.

U.S. State-Government Websites Use TikTok Trackers, Review Finds

Byron Tau and Dustin Volz, The Wall Street Journal

More than two dozen state governments have placed web-tracking code made by TikTok parent ByteDance Ltd. on official websites, according to a new report from a cybersecurity company, illustrating the difficulties U.S. regulators face in curtailing data-collection efforts by the popular Chinese-owned app.

Zuckerberg, Meta are sued for failing to address sex trafficking, child exploitation

Jonathan Stempel, Reuters

A new lawsuit accuses Mark Zuckerberg and other Meta Platforms Inc executives and directors of failing to do enough to stop sex trafficking and child sexual exploitation on Facebook and Instagram.

TikTok CEO appears on TikTok to warn users about the TikTok ban

Adi Robertson, The Verge

TikTok is rolling out a charm offensive ahead of Thursday’s congressional hearing, putting CEO Shou Zi Chew in users’ feeds to warn them about a looming ban. Chew posted a minute-long video to the ByteDance subsidiary’s official TikTok account, rallying users to defend the app.

Former Trump official says TikTok ‘disguised as candy’ but is ‘cocaine’

Jared Gans, The Hill

A former Trump administration official said TikTok is “disguised as candy” but is actually “cocaine” as pressure has ramped up to ban the app in the country. 

India Banned TikTok In 2020. TikTok Still Has Access To Years Of Indians’ Data

Alexandra S. Levine, Forbes

India’s 150 million users were forced to stop using the Chinese-owned app in 2020. But an internal tool reviewed by Forbes showed that ByteDance and TikTok employees can still mine some of their most sensitive data. One employee called it “NSA-To-Go.”

Instagram is bringing ads to search results and launching ‘Reminder Ads’

Aisha Malik, TechCrunch

Meta is introducing two new tools on Instagram designed to open up additional avenues for advertising as the company grapples with weak advertising demand. The social network announced that it’s beginning to test ads in search results to reach people actively searching for businesses, products and content.

Departing Intel exec to focus on loosening Nvidia’s grip on AI for movies, games

Stephen Nellis, Reuters

Raja Koduri, the chief architect at Intel Corp, is leaving to start a company that aims to loosen longtime rival Nvidia Corp’s grip on the digital movie and video game markets.

Marvell to Cut 4% of Workforce in Response to Chip Slowdown

Mark Gurman, Bloomberg

Marvell Technology Inc., a maker of wireless, data processing and storage chips, is cutting about 320 jobs, or 4% of its workforce, in what it said was a response to an industry slowdown.