80404 (@80404) • Hey
80404 (@80404) • Hey
Publications
- Two, seemingly contradictory, stories are told about the impact of artificial intelligence. The first is that the industry will be dominated by a handful of giant tech companies, which boast the data, compute power and expertise to transform our lives. These will make the most money.
- The publication this week of the Artificial Intelligence Index Report,
The publication this week of the Artificial Intelligence Index Report, a 500-page pulse check of the global industry from Stanford University, provides ammunition for both arguments. But most striking is the current omnipresence of the big US companies — including Google, Meta and Microsoft — in terms of research, investment and AI model development.
- **Delinquencies** in credit card and commercial real estate loans were on the rise, the FDIC said, and were now at the highest level in almost a decade.
- Such ebullient proclamations look premature. The deal
Such ebullient proclamations look premature. The deal is great for the new investors, highly dilutive for existing shareholders and will provide some temporary relief to NYCB’s capital needs after its acquisition of Signature Bank pushed its assets above the $ 100bn regulatory threshold.
- The increasing power of the latest artificial intelligence systems is stretching traditional evaluation methods to breaking point, posing a challenge to businesses and public bodies over how best to work with the fast-evolving technology.
- The accelerating technology race sparked by the 2022
The accelerating technology race sparked by the 2022 release of OpenAI’s chatbot ChatGPT and fed by tens of billions of dollars from venture capitalists and Big Tech groups such as Microsoft, Google and Amazon, has obliterated many older yardsticks for assessing AI’s progress.
- Putin thanked its ruler Sheikh Mohammed bin Zayed al-Nahyan for the “UAE’s stance”, saying this had allowed relations between the two countries to reach “an unprecedentedly high level”
- The company described “Gemini” as its “largest, most capable and most general” AI system, which can analyse information from images and audio and has sophisticated reasoning and “planning” capabilities. It will power Google’s Bard chatbot from Wednesday and will be launched more broadly into its search engine from next year.
- Junior doctors in England will go on strike for nine more days in December and January, after failing to reach an agreement with the government to secure a better pay offer.
- A former Goldman Sachs analyst accused of insider trading with his brother, an ex-Clifford Chance lawyer, claims that he neither knew nor believed that he was in possession of inside information, according to his defence at a London trial
- US job openings fell to their lowest level in more than two years in October, another sign of a cooling labour market that sparked a rally in government debt as traders bet on less aggressive monetary policy from the Federal Reserve.
- JPMorgan Chase chief executive Jamie Dimon hit out again at a variety of proposed new US bank regulations, telling lawmakers that the rules risked hurting low-income customers and would add more risks to the financial system.
- Qatar Holding, a subsidiary of the Qatar Investment Authority that
Qatar Holding, a subsidiary of the Qatar Investment Authority that helped bail out Barclays during the global financial crisis, launched the sale on Monday of almost 362mn shares, worth about £510mn.
- The deal, worth £6.7bn over four seasons including
Sky has acquired four of the five packages being sold through the auction, the maximum for any one broadcaster, with more than 200 games during the season including its key “Super Sunday” slots. The remaining package of games on Saturday lunchtime has been acquired by TNT, the broadcaster co-owned by BT and Warner Brothers Discovery.
- Israel’s top court has struck down a contentious law to overhaul the judiciary passed by Benjamin Netanyahu’s far right government, in a move that could reopen bitter divisions in the country over the changes.
- More than a billion dollars worth of Pfizer’s Covid-19 antiviral drugs procured in Europe have been wasted, according to health data, as tight controls over who can receive the medication left millions of doses unused before their expiry date.
- Japan’s military joined efforts to rescue survivors and provide emergency relief after a powerful earthquake on the west coast on New Year’s Day left at least 17 dead and dozens injured.
- Chinese group BYD has moved a step closer to unseating Tesla as the world’s top-selling electric-vehicle manufacturer after reporting bumper fourth-quarter sales.
- The Bank of England is struggling to bring inflation back to target because price rises are increasingly driven by people who are immune to the pressures of higher interest rates, a senior policymaker has said.
- Mitch McConnell, the longest-serving Senate leader in US history who has played a pivotal role in Washington for decades, will step down from his post as the Republican minority leader in November.
- TikTok has failed in its attempts to restart negotiations with Universal Music, according to people familiar with the matter, leaving two of the most powerful companies in entertainment deadlocked over money, copyright and how to treat songs created by artificial intelligence.
- Donald Trump’s allies in US politics and conservative media have aimed a conspiracy-fuelled rhetorical offensive at Taylor Swift, taking on the world’s most renowned pop star amid fears that she could sway the 2024 election in favour of Joe Biden.
- The eurozone economy was stagnant in the final three months of last year, held back by shrinking German output and stalled French growth that offset a stronger than expected rebound in Spain and Italy.
- For years, Arab and western officials have kept a watchful eye over an arid tract of land in a remote corner of the Middle East, where US troops, Iran-linked militias and the remnants of Isis all operate.
- France is increasing pressure on the European Commission to address complaints raised by protesting farmers, including about imports from Ukraine and a trade deal being negotiated with Latin American countries.
- Russian banks reported record profits last year fuelled by a rush to take out government-subsidised mortgages, as well as a boom in financing to purchase assets being sold by western companies exiting the country.
- Washington said it was “not looking for a war with Iran” on Monday, a day after it blamed Tehran-backed militants for a drone strike that killed three US soldiers and wounded dozens of others.
- Strong US growth looks set to boost Federal Reserve officials’ belief that they can afford to take their time on cutting rates, as they prepare to meet on Wednesday.
- UN chief António Guterres condemned “clear violations of international law” in Gaza as the US added to mounting pressure on the Israeli government to pause its bombardment of the besieged coastal enclave and allow in more aid.
- Resilient advertising revenues helped Google parent Alphabet surpass expectations for sales in the third quarter, though a weaker than expected performance in its cloud computing division disappointed investors.
- Yields on 10- and 30-year bonds reached their highest levels in 16 years last week, as investors **coalesced** around the view that US growth may be stronger than expected in the coming quarters, and that the Fed was likely to keep interest rates at high levels for longer.
- Qatar will supply up to 3.5mn tonnes of LNG to France a year from 2026 at an **undisclosed** price, with the deliveries expected to continue until 2053, making it the Gulf state’s largest and longest deal with Europe.
- Treasury yields jumped on Tuesday as stronger-than-expected US retail sales data breathed new life into a global bond rout.
- Bank of America reported an increase in third-quarter profits as the country’s second-largest bank continued to benefit from higher interest rates, and its traders delivered their best performance in a decade.
- Plates and bowls of yakitori, sushi and tempura; queues of people waiting for a table under skyscrapers in Otemachi; ranks of salarymen heading to the myriad izakayas and karaoke bars of Shinbashi.
- Brussels is negotiating a new Covid-19 vaccine procurement deal with US drugmaker Moderna as EU health authorities grow concerned about a rise in coronavirus infections.
- Sterling fell to a six-month low against the dollar on Tuesday, putting it on track for its worst month since last year’s “mini” Budget, amid fears high interest rates will tip the UK into recession.
- The EU must finalise a long-delayed trade treaty with the Mercosur bloc of South American nations by December 6 or the Latin Americans will walk away and negotiate with Asian countries instead, Paraguay’s president Santiago Peña has said.
- Russia has succeeded in avoiding G7 sanctions on most of its oil exports, a shift in trade flows that will boost the Kremlin’s revenues as crude rises towards $100 a barrel.
- The German government has suspended a voluntary agreement with Italy to take in migrants, accusing Rome of failing to live up to its obligations under the EU’s Dublin rules on asylum.
- The allegations that prompted Bernard Looney’s resignation from BP were made as recently as last week, showing the rapid unravelling of the chief executive’s position at the company, according to two people familiar the situation.
- At a minimum, he added, that should mean agreeing to abide by the same undertakings that some of the leading US AI companies made to the White House in July, such as allowing external tests before releasing a new AI system.
- Mustafa Suleyman, chief executive of Inflection and a co-founder of DeepMind, told the Financial Times in an interview that Washington should restrict sales of the Nvidia chips that play a dominant role in training advanced AI systems to buyers who agree to safe and ethical uses of the technology.
- Home secretary Suella Braverman is expected to announce the designation imminently in line with powers under the Terrorism Act 2000, following months spent by officials building up a detailed legal case.
- The UK will proscribe the Wagner group as a terrorist organisation “within weeks” as part of a fresh crackdown on the Russian mercenary network, according to British government insiders.
- Uniforms designed for the Chinese delegation at the Hangzhou Asian Games were revealed on Tuesday.
Named "shining star," the uniforms were designed with blue and white colors. Classic Chinese symbols like peony flowers and patterns often seen on China's blue and white porcelain have all been incorporated into the uniform's design.
Athletes will wear the uniform to attend major occasions such as the opening ceremony of the Games.
- Three men were sentenced to prison after illegally crossing the border into Myanmar, including one who was returning after being rejected by a telecom fraud group due to his lack of typing skills. According to a notice released by the official WeChat account for the intermediate people's court of Qiandongnan Miao and Dong autonomous prefecture, Guizhou province on Monday, they were caught by Yunnan police in February before being sentenced to between four and six months in prison and a fine of 6800 to 7000 yuan for illegally crossing a national border. All three people had prior criminal histories.
- The typhoon-induced heavy rains have kept pushing the water level of dozens of rivers in Heilongjiang above the warning mark over the recent days. In Heilongjiang Province, 12 rivers have exceeded warning level, and 26 reservoirs are operating over the limit by 0.03 to 1.95 meters, Heilongjiang authorities said on Monday.
- Fourteen people had been killed and one remained missing as of 10 pm Sunday after heavy rain battered the city of Shulan in northeast China's Jilin province, local authorities said. Shulan had experienced continuous rainy weather since Tuesday night.
Three officials in Shulan, including the executive deputy mayor Luo Xudong, died while fighting the flood. Three officials died when fighting the flood on the front lines of rescue and disaster relief in the province.
- The crunch in places at the research-intensive Russell Group of universities — including Cambridge, Oxford, Bristol and the London School of Economics — shows the severity of the funding crisis in higher education.