• Ahead of a meeting today with the executives of several companies involved in the development of artificial intelligence systems, the White House announced new initiatives that will aim to address the risks presented by AI technology, including the planned release of draft guidelines for government agencies to ensure safeguards are in place to protect the rights and safety of American citizens. Additionally, the National Science Foundation will spend $140 million on new research centers devoted to AI. (The New York Times)
• The United Kingdom’s Competition and Markets Authority has opened a probe into Adobe Inc.’s proposed $20 billion purchase of design software firm Figma Inc. over potential antitrust concerns. The initial inquiry is the first official challenge to the deal from a regulator, though similar actions are expected from the United States and European Union, and the CMA will decide if it will launch an in-depth investigation into the acquisition by June 30. (Financial Times)
• The Federal Trade Commission has proposed banning Facebook from monetizing the data collected from users under the age of 18 over accusations that the company misled parents about how much control they had over who could contact their children through the Messenger Kids app and how much data app developers collected. The agency claims Facebook’s actions are in breach of a 2019 privacy agreement, but Meta Platforms Inc. called the proposed penalty a “political stunt” and said it will “vigorously fight this action and expect to prevail.” (Reuters)

Happening today: 

• FTC Chair Lina Khan will speak at the American Economic Liberties Project’s Anti-Monopoly Summit in Washington, D.C. Assistant Attorney General Jonathan Kanter will also make an appearance at the event. 
• Vanderbilt University’s Summit on Modern Conflict and Emerging Threats will start today and will focus on how the military and intelligence communities are responding to new technologies like artificial intelligence and the ever-changing cyberthreat landscape. Speakers include Jen Easterly, director of the Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency; Gil Herrera, director of research at the National Security Agency; and Gen. Paul Nakasone, commander of U.S. Cyber Command.

States Are Ground Zero for Tech Regulation. Voters Back the Measures, but Also Seek Federal Action

Morning Consult

Qualcomm gives light forecast, phone chip sales fall 17%

Kif Leswing, CNBC

Qualcomm reported second-quarter earnings on Wednesday that were in line with analyst expectations but saw sales from handset chips, a core business for the company, decline 17% on an annual basis.

Etsy Rises as Revenue Beat, User Growth Buck E-commerce Slowdown

Redd Brown, Bloomberg

Etsy Inc. was among the best performing stocks in the S&P 500 Index during postmarket trading after it reported estimate-beating revenue, underscoring better buyer engagement following platform improvements made amid a broader slowdown in e-commerce spending.

Nvidia short sellers lose $5 billion as shares rise more than 90% in 2023

Caroline Valetkevitch, Reuters

Nvidia Corp short sellers have lost $5.09 billion so far this year as the stock has jumped more than 90%, according to financial data firm S3 Partners.

UK competition watchdog launches review of AI market

Kate Beioley and Madhumita Murgia, Financial Times

CMA chief Sarah Cardell says the regulator will examine technology behind software such as ChatGPT.

Amazon ‘Aggregators’ Who Raised $16 Billion Are Now Teetering

Spencer Soper, Bloomberg

Rising interest rates, higher costs and cooling online demand have pushed some of these upstarts to the edge, forcing them to seek debt relief or merge with one another, according to people familiar with the situation.

US Senator Rubio seeks probe of Ford’s Chinese partnership on nickel plant

David Shepardson, Reuters

U.S. Senator Marcio Rubio on Wednesday asked the Biden administration to investigate Ford Motor Co’s plan to partner with PT Vale Indonesia and China’s Zhejiang Huayou Cobalt in a $4.5 billion nickel processing plant in Indonesia.

US Chipmaker Says EU Green Subsidies Are Just as Good as at Home

Wilfried Eckl-Dorna, Bloomberg

Wolfspeed Inc. sees green-tech subsidies in the European Union as on par with what the US is offering to attract production of semiconductors important for electric cars.

Google wins US patent trial over data-retrieval technology

Blake Brittain, Reuters

Alphabet’s Google LLC won a jury trial on Tuesday in a long-running patent lawsuit in Delaware federal court over features in Google’s smartphones and apps.

TSMC Plans for First German Chip Fab With Cost Up to €10 Billion

Jillian Deutsch and Alberto Nardelli, Bloomberg

Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co. is in talks with partners to spend as much as €10 billion ($11 billion) to build a chip fabrication plant in Saxony, Germany, according to people familiar with the matter.

UK antitrust regulator refused permission to appeal Apple probe ruling

Sam Tobin, Reuters

Britain’s antitrust regulator was on Wednesday refused permission to appeal against a ruling that it had no power to open an investigation into Apple Inc’s mobile browser and cloud gaming services.

Tech VCs Resort to Party Crashing in Middle East During Downturn

Biz Carson et al., Bloomberg

Silicon Valley has taken investment from moneyed state-run funds in the Middle East for years. Now that the technology industry is mired in a downturn, those relationships are becoming more desirable, and more visible.

Microsoft’s Bing Chat AI is now open to everyone, with plug-ins coming soon

Tom Warren, The Verge

Microsoft is making its Bing GPT-4 chatbot available to everyone today, no more waitlist necessary. All you need to do is sign in to the new Bing or Edge with your Microsoft account, and you’ll now access the open preview version that’s powered by GPT-4.

Microsoft economist warns of A.I. election interference from ‘bad actors’

Rohan Goswami, CNBC

People should worry more about “AI being used by bad actors” than they should about AI productivity outpacing human productivity, Microsoft chief economist Michael Schwarz said at a World Economic Forum event Wednesday.

Google shared AI knowledge with the world — until ChatGPT caught up

Nitasha Tiku and Gerrit De Vynck, The Washington Post

For years the tech giant published scientific research that helped jump-start its competitors. But now it’s lurched into defensive mode.

Slack updates aim to put AI at the center of the user experience

Ron Miller, TechCrunch

Today’s announcement involves several new integrations including SlackGPT, the company’s own flavor of generative AI built on top of the Slack platform, which users and developers can tap into to build AI-driven experiences. The content in Slack provides a starting point for building models related to the platform.

‘We’re not at the moon yet’: Human-like A.I. is still some way off, early investor in Google’s DeepMind says

Ryan Browne, CNBC

“In terms of artificial general intelligence, OpenAI, ChatGPT stuff: it’s like saying we’re going to jump to the moon,” early DeepMind investor Humayun Sheikh told CNBC. “We took a big jump, but we’re not at the moon yet.”

Meta says ChatGPT-related malware is on the rise

Katie Paul, Reuters

Facebook owner Meta said on Wednesday it had uncovered malware purveyors leveraging public interest in ChatGPT to lure users into downloading malicious apps and browser extensions, likening the phenomenon to cryptocurrency scams.

A startup let users talk to ChatGPT through a female avatar. It went awry.

Reed Albergotti, Semafor

Bubbles, a San Francisco-based company that is sort of like Slack but with video messages, offered users a way to talk to ChatGPT by speaking with a human-looking avatar. There was just one problem with the free service: The real humans conversing with the blonde, female character tried to make it act inappropriately.

Colorado eliminates key hurdle for municipal broadband deployment

Masha Abarinova, Fierce Telecom

Colorado this week took a critical step in removing municipal broadband restrictions. Governor Jared Polis signed legislation allowing communities to provide broadband service, either alone or with a partner ISP, without holding a local election.

Airbnb Revamps Site to Ease Tensions Between Guests, Hosts

Diana Li, Bloomberg

Airbnb Inc. is revamping the home-rental platform in an effort to ease mounting tensions between guests and hosts ahead of what it expects to be a busy summer travel season.

Google is making it easier to log in to its services without a password

Todd Haselton, CNBC

Google on Wednesday rolled out technology called passkeys, which will let users access the company’s services without entering a password each time.

Google will remove secure website indicators in Chrome 117

Sergiu Gatlan, Bleeping Computer

Google announced today that the lock icon, long thought to be a sign of website security and trustworthiness, will soon be changed with a new icon that doesn’t imply that a site is secure or should be trusted.

Gmail is adding a blue checkmark to better verify senders

Abner Li, 9to5Google

After adding support for verified brand logos in 2021, Gmail is now going further by adding a blue checkmark to emails.

Jack Dorsey Has a Lot to Say, Including About Elon Musk and Twitter

Kate Conger, The New York Times

The Twitter co-founder has posted prolifically on two new social networks, Nostr and Bluesky, which he also backed financially.

Google, Meta executives push back against Canada online news bill

Sam Jabri-Pickett, Reuters

Google and Meta would withdraw access to news articles in Canada if legislation compelling internet companies to pay news publishers is passed, company executives told Canadian lawmakers on Wednesday.

Twitter Makes Second Interest Payment on Elon Musk’s Buyout Debt

Paula Seligson et al., Bloomberg

Twitter Inc. made its second interest payment on the $12.5 billion in debt that Elon Musk used to take the social media giant private last year.

Senators will look at legislation addressing TikTok in China proposal, Schumer says

David Shepardson, Reuters

Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer said senators will consider legislation to bolster the Biden administration’s ability to crackdown on popular video sharing app TikTok as they craft wide-ranging legislation to address Chinese threats.

TikTok Is Launching Ad Product for Publishers and Giving Them 50% Cut

Alexandra Bruell, The Wall Street Journal

TikTok said it is launching a new product that will make it possible for publishers to sell ads alongside their posts, a shift for the video-sharing app, which historically has focused on independent creators. The product, Pulse Premiere, is the evolution of TikTok’s Pulse program, which allows an elite group of creators to collect half the revenue from video ads that appear just after their TikTok posts.

Microsoft is forcing Outlook and Teams to open links in Edge, and IT admins are angry

Tom Warren, The Verge

Microsoft has now started notifying IT admins that it will force Outlook and Teams to ignore the default web browser on Windows and open links in Microsoft Edge instead.

Apple’s Unionized Store Workers Seek Tips and Higher Holiday Pay

Mark Gurman, Bloomberg

Workers at Apple Inc.’s unionized store in Maryland are asking for higher pay and additional time off, along with changes that could affect the company’s tightly controlled retail experience, such as letting customers tip employees. 

Pay Falls for Many Tech Workers as the Downturn Hits Home

Kalley Huang, The Information

Reduced profits and declining share prices hit many tech workers last year where it hurts—in their wallets. Median pay for employees declined in 2022 at at least 18 well-known tech companies, according to an analysis of securities filings by The Information.

Samsung Union Warns of Historic Walkout as Slump Persists

Heejin Kim and Shinhye Kang, Bloomberg

Samsung Electronics Co. faces its first-ever labor strike after an influential union threatened to stage a walkout to protest wages and the company’s alleged attempts to block labor organization.