Top Trending news from the world of technology. News that all tech enthusiast should keep a tab on.
1)
AI is as risky as Nuclear Weapon, top Tech Companies claim
The CEOs of the world’s leading tech companies including OpenAI and DeepMind, alongside the scores of leading thinkers and scientist in the AI community, have signed an open letter claiming that artificial intelligence or AI poses an existential threat to humanity and its threat is on par with the nuclear war. Geoffrey Hinton, who recently resigned from Google and is acknowledged as the godfather of AI, is also signatory to this open letter. This is the second open letter during the last three months from the tech industry urging caution while carrying out the AI experiments. Tech billionaire Elon Musk was signatory to the first open letter that came out in March.
2)
U.S Judge orders ‘no ChatGPT content allowed in the Court’
A U.S. federal judge in Texas has issued a decree stating that any attorney appearing in the court that no content or portion in the court filing has been drafted by generative AI platforms or if this is the case, the content needs to be double checked by humans. This decree comes barely days after a U.S. lawyer Steven Schwartz faced a massive backlash for using ChatGPT for sourcing legal citations and resources for one of his client’s cases. Later, most of these citations and research were found to be bogus and fictitious, raising concerns about the ChatGPT’s misinformation problem.
3)
Chipmaker Nvidia Briefly joins $1 Trillion club
Chip manufacturer Nvidia on Tuesday saw its market capitalization surpassing $1 Trillion, joining the elite trillion-dollar club that includes the likes of Microsoft, Google and Apple. However, Nvidia’s stock could not hold on to their gains in the latter half of the Tuesday’s trading. As a result, its market capitalization fell below $1 trillion and touched nearly $990 Bn. Nvidia has become the darling of the investors as company has been posting good quarterly results and has projected that its sales and revenue will continue to remain bullish in the subsequent quarters. Cashing on the AI boom, Nvidia has forecasted $11 Bn in sales for the second quarter of fiscal 2024 alone.
4)
Amazon Workers planning a Protest over Recent Layoffs
A group of Amazon workers working in company’s main headquarter Seattle have planned a lunchtime walkout protest on Wednesday. These workers have complained about the recent layoffs, return-to-office mandate and range of other issues. According to media reports, nearly 900 employees working in Seattle headquarter have agreed to participate in the walk out protest. Another 1,800 employees working in other campuses have also pledge their support. Commenting over the issue, Amazon said in an official statement that “we respect our employees rights of expressing their opinion.”
5)
BlackRock Downgrades Byju’s Valuation
Byju’s investor BlackRock has once again slashed Byju’s market valuation by as much as 62%, putting the valuation of the Bengaluru based edtech firm at $8.4 Bn. This development comes barely weeks after Byju’s raised $250 Mn at a valuation of $22 Bn, which proves other investors continue to value the company much higher. BlackRock’s valuation downgrade may not affect Byju’s much since it owns only 1% stake in the company. That said, it spells yet another bad news for the beleaguered edtech giant that continues to face sever crisis on multiple fronts.