• U.S. officials are scrambling to determine the source of a leaked cache of classified documents that first appeared on Discord and 4chan within the last month, with some experts claiming an American may be responsible. The leak contains details about Ukraine’s air defenses and Israel’s Mossad spy agency and includes some documents labeled “Secret” and “Top Secret.” (Reuters)
• Democratic Sen. Elizabeth Warren (Mass.) and Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (N.Y.) sent letters to 14 of Silicon Valley Bank’s largest depositors including BlockFi Inc., Roblox Corp. and Roku Inc. asking for details about the nature of their relationship with the failed financial institution — including whether board members, executives or investors received special benefits like lines of credit. Warren told Bloomberg in a statement that Americans “deserve to know how these mutual backscratching arrangements developed, who benefitted from them, and what role they played in Silicon Valley Bank’s failure.” (Bloomberg)
• Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co. Ltd. said it is in communication with the U.S. government about concerns the company has regarding recently issued guidance for CHIPS and Science Act subsidies. At issue for TSMC, which is planning to invest $40 billion in a new manufacturing plant in Arizona, and other companies are conditions that require profit sharing with the U.S. government and concerns that the application process could expose confidential corporate strategy. (Reuters)
• The Commerce Department is considering taking an enforcement action against Russian cybersecurity company Kaspersky Lab under Information and Communications Technology and Services regulations, according to people familiar with the matter. While no decision has been made yet, one of the people familiar with the matter said any potential enforcement would likely be narrow, such as restricting use of the company’s products on computer networks that operate critical infrastructure. (The Wall Street Journal)

Happening today: 

• Federal Trade Commissioner Alvaro Bedoya (D) and Assistant Attorney General for Antitrust Jonathan Kanter will be the keynote speakers at a University of Utah S.J. Quinney College of Law event titled “Do Consumers Still Reign Supreme in the Antitrust Hierarchy? How Antitrust Can Promote the Interests of Workers and Other Stakeholders in the Economy.”

One chart shows how much generative A.I. valuations are soaring

Fortune

ByteDance posts record profit despite TikTok losses

Eleanor Olcott and Ryan McMorrow, Financial Times

Booming 2022 helps it overtake China’s long-reigning tech giants Tencent and Alibaba for first time.

The Real-World Costs of the Digital Race for Bitcoin

Gabriel J.X. Dance et al., The New York Times

Bitcoin mines cash in on electricity — by devouring it, selling it, even turning it off — and they cause immense pollution. In many cases, the public pays a price.

Apple’s 40% Plunge in PC Shipments Is Steepest Among Major Computer Makers

Vlad Savov, Bloomberg

Apple Inc.’s personal computer shipments declined by 40.5% in the first quarter, marking a tough start to the year for PC makers still grappling with a glut of unsold inventory.

TSMC Posts First Revenue Drop in Nearly Four Years

Kosaku Narioka, The Wall Street Journal

Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co. said Monday that its revenue fell 15% in March from a year earlier, marking the first drop in nearly four years.

Baidu sues Apple, app developers over fake Ernie bot apps

Jason Xue and Brenda Goh, Reuters

Chinese search engine giant Baidu, has filed lawsuits against “relevant” app developers and Apple Inc over fake copies of its Ernie bot app available on Apple’s app store.

Beijing chooses targets carefully as it goes on offensive in US chip wars

Eleanor Olcott and Richard Waters, Financial Times

Analysts see memory-chip maker Micron as obvious first choice but say China will tread cautiously on further retaliation.

Why Pope Francis Is the Star of A.I.-Generated Photos

Kalley Huang, The New York Times

Francis has become a recurring favorite to show in incongruous situations, such as riding a motorcycle and attending Burning Man, in A.I.-generated images.

Washington vows to tackle AI, as tech titans and critics descend

Cat Zakrzewski, The Washington Post

After years of inaction on Big Tech — and the explosive success of ChatGPT — lawmakers aim to avoid similar mistakes with artificial intelligence.

Microsoft’s $13 billion bet on OpenAI carries huge potential along with plenty of uncertainty

Jordan Novet, CNBC

When Microsoft first invested $1 billion in OpenAI in 2019, the deal received no more attention than your average corporate venture round. The startup market was blazing hot, and artificial intelligence was one of many areas attracting mega-valuations, alongside electric vehicles, advanced logistics and aerospace.

Jailbreaking AI Chatbots Is Tech’s New Pastime

Rachel Metz, Bloomberg

AI programs have safety restrictions built in to prevent them from saying offensive or dangerous things. It doesn’t always work.

The AI Will See You Now

Lee Hood and Nathan Price, The Wall Street Journal

As medical research produces ever more data on health and disease, doctors are turning to artificial intelligence to help them make the best decisions for patients.

Can We No Longer Believe Anything We See?

Tiffany Hsu and Steven Lee Myers, The New York Times

Seeing has not been believing for a very long time. Photos have been faked and manipulated for nearly as long as photography has existed. Now, not even reality is required for photographs to look authentic — just artificial intelligence responding to a prompt.

GM’s Cruise recalls 300 self-driving vehicles to update software after bus crash

David Shepardson, Reuters

General Motors’ robotaxi unit Cruise LLC is recalling the automated driving software in 300 vehicles after one of its driverless vehicles crashed into the back of a San Francisco bus.

Stability AI is on shaky ground as it burns through cash and looks at a management overhaul

Reed Albergotti, Semafor

Stability AI, one of the hottest companies in artificial intelligence, is burning through cash and has been slow to generate revenue, leading to an executive hunt to help ramp up sales, according to people familiar with the matter.

Samsung likes its chances for CBRS/C-band radio approval

Monica Alleven, Fierce Wireless

Samsung is feeling good about the chances the FCC will approve its new radio that’s designed to operate at both C-band 3.7 GHz and Citizens Broadband Radio Service (CBRS) at 3.5 GHz.

iPhone 15 Pro to Gain Two More Taptic Engines

Hartley Charlton, MacRumors

The iPhone 15 Pro models will feature two additional Taptic Engines to achieve a “buttonless design,” recent reports claim.

From Discord to 4chan: The Improbable Journey of a US Intelligence Leak

Aric Toler, Bellingcat

In recent days, the US Justice Department and Pentagon have begun investigating an apparent online leak of sensitive documents, including some that were marked “Top Secret”. 

Google will shut down Dropcam and Nest Secure in 2024

Nathan Edwards, The Verge

Google is giving one year’s notice as it ditches more products it can’t migrate to Google Home, but there’s still no official end-of-life for the Nest app.

MSI Confirms Breach as Ransomware Gang Claims Responsibility

Michael Kan, PCMag

The ransomware group is reportedly demanding $4 million or it will leak the stolen data, which includes company source code.

Company boards are bracing for new SEC cybersecurity regulations

Sam Sabin, Axios

Growing cooperation between corporate boards and chief information security officers has strengthened cyber defense as looming regulations could demand greater accountability, experts tell Axios.

Twitter is now marking Substack links as unsafe

Mitchell Clark and Jay Peters, The Verge

Twitter has started marking links to Substack as unsafe. If you click on a link on Twitter with substack.com in the URL, Twitter will show a separate notice warning you that “the link you are trying to access has been identified by Twitter or our partners as being potentially spammy or unsafe.”

Why Elon Musk Contends Twitter Can Disrupt the Media Business

Tim Higgins, The Wall Street Journal

Skeptics say he risks alienating a main constituency of the social-media platform.

Meta won’t say if politicians can post AI-made fakes without warnings

Isaac Stanley-Becker, The Washington Post

Facebook parent is reviewing AI-generated images under its fact-checking program, it recently confirmed to campaigns, meaning politicians may be exempt from the rules

BBC Seeks Swift Resolution After Elon Musk’s Twitter Tags It As “Government Funded Media”

Jake Kanter, Deadline

Elon Musk’s Twitter has labeled the BBC as being “government funded media.” The social media network made the change to the official @BBC account after stirring controversy by adding a similar tag to the NPR account in recent days.

Twitter stops throttling tweets with Substack links

Igor Bonifacic, Engadget

In a reversal of a limitation the platform put in place earlier in the week, Twitter is once again allowing users to interact with Substack links freely. At least for the time being, you can retweet, reply to and like posts that feature a link to a Substack newsletter.

Twitter Reverses NPR Label, Tweaks to ‘Government Funded Media’

Shelly Hagan, Bloomberg

Elon Musk’s Twitter Inc. has changed its description tag for National Public Radio to “government funded media” from “state-affiliated media” following criticism last week.

Is Big Tech’s R&D Spending Actually Hurting Innovation in the U.S.?

Christopher Mims, The Wall Street Journal

Big companies are hiring an ever-larger proportion of America’s inventors, who are less productive once they join.

Meta paid VR developers salaries of up to $1 million. Facebook’s owner is now in financial trouble.

Naomi Nix, The Washington Post

Programmers capable of building out virtual reality-powered games, apps and technology can earn total compensation from $600,000 to packages approaching $1 million, according to people familiar with the matter who spoke on the condition of anonymity to discuss internal matters.

‘War of attrition’: why union victories for US workers at Amazon have stalled

Michael Sainato, The Guardian

A year after a ‘historic’ victory in Staten Island, New York, hope for a wave of union victories is looking less momentous.

As Tech Jobs Disappear, Silicon Valley Veterans Reset Their Careers

Katherine Bindley, The Wall Street Journal

For engineers and other tech workers, landing a job with one of the industry’s best-known companies was long the ultimate professional achievement. Now, many Silicon Valley veterans are being driven to new paths far from the tech giants, prizing stability and personal values over prestige.