Jeff Bezos and Sam Altman get paid, Elon Musk feuds, and Google benches Gemini: AI news roundup
It’s a good time to invest in AI — or just be an AI executive who invested in Reddit before it IPOs. Just ask Jeff Bezos and Sam Altman.
It’s not a good time to share your secrets with AI chatbots.
Check out the slideshow above for those and more highlights from this week in AI news.
Jeff Bezos made an AI investment that doubled in just a few months
Jeff Bezos’ investment in an AI search-engine startup aiming to take on Google is expected to double after just a few months. Perplexity AI, which calls itself “an alternative to traditional search engines,” is finalizing a new funding round that would see its valuation double to about $1 billion, just two months after its latest funding deal.
OpenAI’s Sam Altman is about to make a ton of money from the Reddit IPO
Sam Altman’s status as Reddit’s third-largest shareholder is poised to pay off big time when the social media site makes goes public later this month. Reddit and its shareholders are looking to sell almost $748 million worth of stock in its IPO, which could lead to a valuation of $6.5 billion.
Elon Musk says his ChatGPT rival Grok will be open-source as OpenAI feud continues
After suing his former company OpenAI, Elon Musk said his new AI company xAI will open-source its ChatGPT rival Grok. Musk made the announcement in a brief one-sentence post on social media. “This week @xAI will open source Grok,” Musk wrote on X.
Google won’t let its Gemini AI answer some election questions
Google said it has restricted the types of election-related questions the company’s Gemini chatbot will answer for users in the U.S. and India. The restrictions are part of a number of steps the company has taken to safeguard its services from misinformation as millions of Indian citizens are set to vote in a general election this spring.
Walmart is selling its AI-powered delivery software
Walmart is getting into artificial intelligence. Well, it’s at least planning to sell the software tied to it. The software, which the the big box retailer said it’s been building and testing in-house for the past two and a half years, will reduce the time it takes the companies it partners with to deliver its goods.
Samsung is turning to the same AI chipmaking technology as its rival
As it runs to keep up in the race to develop advanced AI chips, Samsung Electronics is reportedly turning to the chipmaking technology championed by its rival. Samsung is reversing course on its current chipmaking tech to adopt that used by competitor SK Hynix.
Cyber attackers are using AI to get better, Microsoft executive says
While AI can drive productivity in the workplace, it can also pose a threat to companies fending off cyber attackers. Like business teams, cyber attackers are using large language models (LLMs) to become more productive, said Vasu Jakkal, corporate vice president of security, compliance, identity, and management at Microsoft. That “productivity” includes doing reconnaissance on people and companies to find vulnerabilities, as well as learning how to code.
The many ways AI has been used to spill secrets — and still can be
As AI continues its ascent to world domination — albeit with some high-profile Chatbot stumbles along the way — it hasn’t had the best reputation for being secure. It has even been caught in the middle of the U.S. trade war with China.