Tech Digest daily roundup: Google not rushing forward with AI chatbots
The success this year of powerful new generative artificial intelligence models like Open AI’s ChatGPT and Stability AI’s Stable Diffusion, have laid the groundwork for a new era of AI tech set to explode even further in 2023. Google, though equipped with its own powerful (but definitely not sentient) LaMDA AI chatbot, says it doesn’t plan rushing its models out to the public. Executives at the company clarified their comparatively cautious approach during an all-hand meeting according to CNBC where employees asked if they were potentially losing a complete-edge to less cautious upstarts. Gizmodo
Elon Musk says he is taking legal action against the holder of a Twitter account that tracks his private jet, arguing it put his son at risk. The @ElonJet account, which has more than half a million followers, was suspended on Wednesday. Its owner Jack Sweeney, 20, used publicly available flight-tracking information to tweet every time Mr Musk’s jet took off and landed. Mr Musk says legal action is now being taken against Mr Sweeney and others. BBC
A study into TikTok’s video recommendation algorithm has found it suggests eating disorder and self-harm content to some new teen accounts within minutes. Research from the Centre for Countering Digital Hate (CCDH) saw one account shown suicide content within 2.6 minutes, and another suggested eating disorder content within eight minutes. Further investigation by Sky News also found evidence of harmful eating disorder content being recommended through TikTok’s suggested searches function, despite not searching for explicitly harmful content. Sky News
Elon Musk has sold a further $3.6bn worth of shares in Tesla, in the same week that he lost the title of world’s richest man to France’s Bernard Arnault. The disposal, revealed in a regulatory filing, takes the total amount raised by Musk from sales of his stock in the electric carmaker this year to more than $20bn. The Tesla CEO has been raising funds to pay for his $44bn acquisition of Twitter, although the filing did not give a purpose for the sale of 22m shares between Monday and Wednesday this week. The Guardian
Qualcomm on Tuesday unveiled its Wi-Fi 7 Immersive Home Platform. That’s a fun marketing name for two new processors that are designed and optimized for home mesh Wi-Fi systems. The new platforms leverage 5GHz and 6GHz bands with support for 240MHz and 320Mhz channels, which translates into more spectrum available for Wi-Fi 7 devices. Qualcomm claims its Wi-Fi 7 platforms will have a total capacity of 20 Gbps. ZD Net
Sam Bankman-Fried had secret VIP access to trading systems that gave him a speed advantage over rivals, the US regulator has said. Alameda Research, a trading company founded by Mr Bankman-Fried, was allowed early access to trades and could borrow almost unlimited amounts against customer deposits, according to a legal filing from the US Commodity Futures Trading Commission. The filing said that Alameda had a “significant speed advantage” over rivals thanks to its close ties to FTX, a digital trading house where investors bought and sold cryptocurrencies. Telegraph
