Techmeme
December 23, 2023, 10:20 AM

Top News

New York Times:
Sources: Apple discussed multiyear $50M+ deals with NBC News, Condé Nast, IAC, and other media organizations to train its generative AI systems on news articles  —  The company has discussed multiyear deals worth at least $50 million to train its generative A.I. systems on publishers' news articles.
Bloomberg:
Sources: OpenAI is in early talks to raise funding at a $100B+ valuation, and discussed raising between $8B and $10B from Abu Dhabi-based G42 for a chip venture  —  OpenAI is in early discussions to raise a fresh round of funding at a valuation at or above $100 billion …
Ken White / The Popehat Report:
Substack brands itself as avoiding value judgments, but its justification for allowing certain offensive speech is full of value judgments, chosen to make money  —  Dealing With Nazis, Or Not, Can Be A Brand.  Substack's Monetizing It.  —  Substack has Nazis, because of course it does.
Steven Levy / Wired:
An interview with Meta Chief AI Scientist Yann LeCun on open source AI, why AI danger is overhyped, whether AI could produce artistic work that has soul, more  —  It'll take over the world.  It won't subjugate humans.  For Meta's chief AI scientist, both things are true.  —  Do not preach doom to Yann LeCun.
Jay Peters / The Verge:
Bluesky releases a public web view, allowing users to view posts on the platform without being logged in, and unveils a new logo with a butterfly  —  Bluesky remains an invite-only decentralized Twitter alternative, but now, you don't need to have an account and log in to be able to see posts …
Mishaal Rahman / Android Authority:
A Google Play Services update suggests Google's file-sharing feature Nearby Share could be rebranded to Quick Share, the name Samsung uses for a similar tool  —  - Nearby Share is Google's peer-to-peer file sharing service available on all Android devices with Google apps.
Michael Gennaro / Courthouse News Service:
A US federal judge rules that Twitter breached its contracts with its employees by failing to pay bonuses in 2022, despite promising to pay 50% of the amounts  —  Current and former Twitter employees said they never received bonuses they were promised during Elon Musk's buyout of the social media platform.
Wall Street Journal:
Bots registered as 13-year-old users on TikTok were shown highly polarized content about the Israel-Hamas war in the For You feed, within hours after signing up  —  Imagine your 13-year-old signs up for TikTok and, while scrolling through videos, lingers on footage of explosions …
Washington Post:
How Sam Altman, the dealing-making prodigy full of contradictions, became one of the best-known tech CEOs, including by cultivating close ties with Peter Thiel  —  Investing in everything from speakeasys to nuclear fusion, the Silicon Valley wunderkind, dealing-making prodigy is full of contradictions
New York Times:
Sources: the US DOJ, which has an ongoing four-year-old probe into Apple's alleged anticompetitive behavior, has taken interest in Apple blocking Beeper Mini  —  Beeper Mini, which offers iPhone messaging on Android phones, has grown fast and its duel with the tech giant has gotten the attention of antitrust regulators.
Josh Sisco / Politico:
A profile of FTC Chair Lina Khan, who on a trip to Silicon Valley in November aimed to convince a skeptical tech sector that the government was there to help  —  FTC Chair Lina Khan's vast ambitions to cut back on corporate power could be a huge part of Biden's legacy — if they come to fruition.

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More News

Jay Peters / The Verge:

Earlier Picks

Leo Schwartz / Fortune:
Erin Nolan / New York Times: