1)
Google’s monopoly in Online search is unfair & illegal, rules US court
In a huge setback for Google, the company has lost a massive anti-trust case in the US district court, which can potentially have a major ramification for Google and can even alter the way people conduct online search. The court ruled that notwithstanding the other anti-competitive behavior Google primarily abused its monopoly by paying billions of dollars to Apple and Samsung to present its search engine as a default search engine to the viewers. According to New York Times report, the search engine giant paid nearly $23 Bn to become a default across different platforms, out of which $18 went to Apple alone. Google is now very likely to appeal against this ruling. With Google facing unprecedented threat to its search business following the rise of ChatGPT, it is unlikely to leave any stone unturned to win this anti-trust case.
2)
OpenAI’s Cofounder John Schulman departs, joins Google backed Anthropic
John Schulman, one of the co-founders of OpenAI, has announced that he would be leaving the company to start a new chapter in his career. His new chapter will take him to OpenAI’s rival ‘Anthropic,’ which is backed by search giant Google. In a long post published on his X handle, Schulman said that his decision stems from his desire to focus on AI alignment and navigate his career to a new path. He expressed his gratitude to Sam Altman and other top executives of the company for allowing him to express his talent and potential at OpenAI. Schulman specifically looked into post-training activities of ChatGPT and APIs. His departure is unlikely to have any major impact on OpenAI’s operations.
3)
Nvidia accused of scrapping YouTube and Netflix videos without consent
Plagiarism and data scrapping has emerged as a major headache for the AI industry as Nvidia becomes the latest company to face this allegation. The chip maker, whose chips are currently powering some of the biggest AI projects in the world, has been accused of lifting troves of YouTube and Netflix videos for training its AI models. This news has been revealed by 404 Media’s Samantha Cole. According to Cole’s report, Nvidia blatantly asked its employees to download videos from YouTube and Netflix. Resback ponding to news portal Engadget, Nvidia denied the allegation while YouTube called it yet another example of illegal data scrapping.
4)
Elon Musk sues OpenAI and Sam Altman (again)
Elon Musk has filed a fresh lawsuit against OpenAI and Sam Altman, reopening the legal battle against the company that Musk had co-founded along with Altman back in 2015. The latest lawsuit filed in federal court in North California repeats pretty much the same allegations that were repeated in the earlier lawsuit that was suddenly withdrawn by Musk earlier this year. It accuses OpenAI of sacrificing its mission to pursue open-source AI and moving to proprietary AI with the sole aim of earning profit. In his lawsuit, Musk described the deceit to be of Shakespearian proportion. He also targeted OpenAI’s partnership with Microsoft, claiming the partnership to be unholy that further compelled the company to deviate from its open source path.