Techmeme
December 26, 2024, 11:00 PM

Top News

Stephanie Palazzolo / The Information:
An undisclosed 2023 agreement between Microsoft and OpenAI defines achieving AGI as the point when OpenAI develops AI systems that generate $100B+ in profits  —  Finally, a verifiable, numbers-based description of artificial general intelligence has arrived!
The Information:
Source: Microsoft and OpenAI wrangle over Microsoft's stake in the for-profit entity, use of OpenAI's IP, continued collection of 20% of OpenAI's revenue, more  —  OpenAI CEO Sam Altman wants to convert the artificial intelligence developer, which is governed by a nonprofit, into a for-profit corporation.
Noah Smith / Noahpinion:
How H-1B workers from India and other countries help the US remain dominant in tech, as some on the new “Tech Right” discover MAGA's racial-nationalist bigotry  —  This isn't ambiguous.  —  The new MAGA coalition has officially had its first internal debate, and it's over H-1b visas.
More: Newsweek, Israpundit, Mashable India, and The National Pulse
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Brendan Bordelon / Politico:
Tech lobbyists see new opportunities to expand access to high-skilled H-1B visas and green cards by leveraging the sway of Elon Musk over the GOP  —  A holiday blowup over immigration between Trump's tech advisers and the GOP base suggests the road may be littered with obstacles.
Shubham Sharma / VentureBeat:
DeepSeek releases DeepSeek-V3, an open-source MoE model of 671B total parameters, with 37B activated per token, claiming it outperforms top models like GPT-4o  —  Chinese AI startup DeepSeek, known for challenging leading AI vendors with its innovative open-source technologies, today released a new ultra-large model: DeepSeek-V3.
Tom Dotan / Wall Street Journal:
Microsoft adds Copilot to Microsoft 365 in Australia and Southeast Asia and raises 365's price, a sign of how it aims to turn a profit from its AI investments  —  The tech company has made Copilot part of its 365 subscription service in several markets and raised prices
Richard Milne / Financial Times:
Finland says it suspects an oil tanker in Russia's shadow fleet of damaging three undersea internet cables on December 25, the latest Baltic Sea cable damaged  —  Helsinki opens investigation into damaged power line in latest suspected sabotage attack on Baltic Sea infrastructure
Ivan Mehta / TechCrunch:
Bluesky launches Trending Topics in beta on its desktop and mobile apps in English; a user's muted words and phrases won't appear in their trending topics  —  Social network Bluesky said on Christmas that it is testing a trending topics view.  The trending topics are visible both on the desktop …
Ruth Reader / Politico:
US federal lobbying disclosure forms reveal how Meta, with a team of 14 directly employed lobbyists, led efforts to block the passage of KOSA in Congress  —  The billionaire and his company needed Speaker Mike Johnson's help to stop legislation that would have regulated social media for the first time.
New York Times:
Japan Airlines temporarily halted ticket sales and delayed more than 40 flights on Thursday after a cyberattack, and says there was no impact on flight safety  —  The airline also temporarily stopped selling tickets for flights departing Thursday, but said that there was no impact on flight safety.

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