Benj Edwards and Ashley Belanger reports via Ars Technica: On Wednesday, Axios broke the news that OpenAI had signed deals with The Atlantic and Vox Media that will allow the ChatGPT maker to license their editorial content to further train its language models. But some of the publications' writers -- and the unions that represent them -- were surprised by the announcements and aren't happy about it. Already, two unions have released statements expressing "alarm" and "concern." "The unionized members of The Atlantic Editorial and Business and Technology units are deeply troubled by the opaque agreement The Atlantic has made with OpenAI," reads a statement from the Atlantic union. "And especially by management's complete lack of transparency about what the agreement entails and how it will affect our work."

The Vox Union -- which represents The Verge, SB Nation, and Vulture, among other publications -- reacted in similar fashion, writing in a statement, "Today, members of the Vox Media Union ... were informed without warning that Vox Media entered into a 'strategic content and product partnership' with OpenAI. As both journalists and workers, we have serious concerns about this partnership, which we believe could adversely impact members of our union, not to mention the well-documented ethical and environmental concerns surrounding the use of generative AI." [...] News of the deals took both journalists and unions by surprise. On X, Vox reporter Kelsey Piper, who recently penned an expose about OpenAI's restrictive non-disclosure agreements that prompted a change in policy from the company, wrote, "I'm very frustrated they announced this without consulting their writers, but I have very strong assurances in writing from our editor in chief that they want more coverage like the last two weeks and will never interfere in it. If that's false I'll quit.."

Journalists also reacted to news of the deals through the publications themselves. On Wednesday, The Atlantic Senior Editor Damon Beres wrote a piece titled "A Devil's Bargain With OpenAI," in which he expressed skepticism about the partnership, likening it to making a deal with the devil that may backfire. He highlighted concerns about AI's use of copyrighted material without permission and its potential to spread disinformation at a time when publications have seen a recent string of layoffs. He drew parallels to the pursuit of audiences on social media leading to clickbait and SEO tactics that degraded media quality. While acknowledging the financial benefits and potential reach, Beres cautioned against relying on inaccurate, opaque AI models and questioned the implications of journalism companies being complicit in potentially destroying the internet as we know it, even as they try to be part of the solution by partnering with OpenAI.

Similarly, over at Vox, Editorial Director Bryan Walsh penned a piece titled, "This article is OpenAI training data," in which he expresses apprehension about the licensing deal, drawing parallels between the relentless pursuit of data by AI companies and the classic AI thought experiment of Bostrom's "paperclip maximizer," cautioning that the single-minded focus on market share and profits could ultimately destroy the ecosystem AI companies rely on for training data. He worries that the growth of AI chatbots and generative AI search products might lead to a significant decline in search engine traffic to publishers, potentially threatening the livelihoods of content creators and the richness of the Internet itself.

London's famed Evening Standard newspaper has announced plans to end its daily outlet, "bringing an end to almost 200 years of publication in the capital," reports The Guardian. Going forward, the company plans to launch "a brand new weekly newspaper later this year and consider options for retaining ES Magazine with reduced frequency," while also working to increase traffic to its website. "In its 197-year history the Evening Standard has altered its format, price, content and distribution models," notes The Guardian. "But giving up on producing a daily print newspaper is the biggest change yet." From the report: The newspaper said it has been hit hard by the introduction of wifi on the London Underground, a shortage of commuters owing to the growth of working from home and changing consumer habits. The Standard lost 84.5 million pounds in the past six years, according to its accounts, and is reliant on funding from its part-owner Evgeny Lebedev. Its other shareholders include a bank with close links to the Saudi government. Industry sources suggested Lebedev had been willing to consider selling the outlet in recent years but no buyer was found.

Paul Kanareck, the newspaper's chair, told staff on Wednesday morning: "The substantial losses accruing from the current operations are not sustainable. Therefore, we plan to consult with our staff and external stakeholders to reshape the business, return to profitability and secure the long-term future of the number one news brand in London." Kanareck said there would be an "impact on staffing," with journalists bracing themselves for further job losses on top of years of redundancies, while design staff on the print edition are expected to be hit hard. Distributors who hand out the newspaper across London are also likely to be out of work, and billboards outside railway stations advertising the day's headline will stand empty on most days.

He suggested there would be a change in focus for the weekly outlet: "A proposed new weekly newspaper would replace the daily publication, allowing for more in-depth analysis of the issues that matter to Londoners, and serve them in a new and relevant way by celebrating the best London has to offer, from entertainment guides to lifestyle, sports, culture and news and the drumbeat of life in the world's greatest city." Closing the Evening Standard will mean that for the first time in centuries, Londoners will have no general-interest daily print newspaper. The finance-focused City AM, which was recently saved by the billionaire Matthew Moulding, will continue to publish four days a week and has recently increased its distribution. Further reading: So it's goodbye to London's Standard, my old paper -- and to the heart of democracy, local news (Opinion; The Guardian)

An anonymous reader shares a report: The sound of the 1990s still resonates in the German capital. Like techno music, the fax machine remains on trend. According to the latest figures from Germany's digital industry association, four out of five companies in Europe's largest economy continue to use fax machines and a third do so frequently or very frequently. Much as Germany's reputation for efficiency is regularly undermined by slow internet connections and a reliance on paper and rubber stamps, fax machines are at odds with a world embracing artificial intelligence.

But progress is on the horizon in the Bundestag -- the lower house of parliament -- where lawmakers have been instructed by the parliamentary budget committee to ditch their trusty fax machines by the end of June, and rely on email instead for official communication. Torsten Herbst, parliamentary whip of the pro-business Free Democrats, points out one fax machine after the other as he walks through the Bundestag. He says the public sector is particularly fond of faxing and that joining parliament was like going back in time.

Long before people develop dementia, they often begin falling behind on mortgage payments, credit card bills and other financial obligations, new research shows. The New York Times: A team of economists and medical experts at the Federal Reserve Bank of New York and Georgetown University combined Medicare records with data from Equifax, the credit bureau, to study how people's borrowing behavior changed [PDF] in the years before and after a diagnosis of Alzheimer's or a similar disorder. What they found was striking: Credit scores among people who later develop dementia begin falling sharply long before their disease is formally identified. A year before diagnosis, these people were 17.2 percent more likely to be delinquent on their mortgage payments than before the onset of the disease, and 34.3 percent more likely to be delinquent on their credit card bills. The issues start even earlier: The study finds evidence of people falling behind on their debts five years before diagnosis.

"The results are striking in both their clarity and their consistency," said Carole Roan Gresenz, a Georgetown University economist who was one of the study's authors. Credit scores and delinquencies, she said, "consistently worsen over time as diagnosis approaches, and so it literally mirrors the changes in cognitive decline that we're observing." The research adds to a growing body of work documenting what many Alzheimer's patients and their families already know: Decision-making, including on financial matters, can begin to deteriorate long before a diagnosis is made or even suspected. People who are starting to experience cognitive decline may miss payments, make impulsive purchases or put money into risky investments they would not have considered before the disease.

Private-equity investors have poured billions into healthcare but often game the system, hurting both doctors and patients. From a report: Consolidation is as American as apple pie. When a business gets bigger, it forces mom-and-pop players out of the market, but it can boost profits and bring down costs, too. Think about the pros and cons of Walmart and "Every Day Low Prices." In a complex, multitrillion-dollar system like America's healthcare market, though, that principle has turned into a harmful arms race that has helped drive prices increasingly higher without improving care. Years of dealmaking has led to sprawling hospital systems, vertically integrated health insurance companies, and highly concentrated private equity-owned practices resulting in diminished competition and even the closure of vital health facilities. As this three-part Heard on the Street series will show, the rich rewards and lax oversight ultimately create pain for both patients and the doctors who treat them. Belatedly, state and federal regulators and lawmakers are zeroing in on consolidation, creating uncertainty for the investors who have long profited from the healthcare merger boom.

Consider the impact of massive private-equity investment in medical practices. When a patient with employer-based insurance goes under for surgery, the anesthesiologist's fee is supposed to be determined by market forces. But what happens if one firm quietly buys out several anesthesiologists in the same city and then hikes the price of the procedure? Such a scheme was allegedly implemented by the private-equity firm Welsh, Carson, Anderson & Stowe and the company it created in 2012, U.S. Anesthesia Partners, according to a Federal Trade Commission lawsuit filed last year. It started by buying the largest practice in Houston and then making three further acquisitions, eventually expanding into other cities throughout the state of Texas. In each location, the lawsuit alleges, USAP pursued an aggressive strategy of eliminating competitors by either acquiring them or conspiring with them to weaken competition. As one insurance executive put it in the FTC lawsuit, USAP and Welsh Carson used acquisitions to "take the highest rate of all ... and then peanut butter spread that across the entire state of Texas." In May, U.S. District Judge Kenneth Hoyt dismissed the FTC's unusual step of charging the private-equity investor, Welsh Carson, but allowed the case against USAP to proceed.

Vista Equity Partners has written off the entire equity value of its investment in tech learning platform Pluralsight, three years after taking it private for $3.5 billion, Axios reported Friday. From the report: One source says that the Utah-based company's financials have improved, with around 26% EBITDA growth in 2023, but not enough to service nearly $1.3 billion of debt that was issued when interest rates were lower. It's also a company whose future could be dimmed by advances in artificial intelligence, since some of the developer skills it teaches are becoming automated. Vista agreed to buy the company in late 2020 for $20.26 per share, representing a 25% premium to its 30-day trading average, despite a lack of profits.

An anonymous reader quotes a report from Reuters: Best Buy is set to post its tenth consecutive quarter of sales decline on Thursday when the U.S. electronics retailer reports quarterly results, as spending on big-ticket electronics remains pressured despite easing inflation. Although results from big-box retailers Walmart and Target indicate that consumers have resumed spending on less-expensive discretionary items such as apparel and accessories, they are still hesitant to go for TVs and washing machines. UPDATE 5/30/24: Best Buy's quarterly profit exceeded Wall Street estimates due to improved demand in its computing category, cost-saving efforts, and a successful membership program, leading to a 10% rise in shares. "Demand for artificial intelligence-enabled laptops as well as higher-end televisions is helping Best Buy regain lost ground on sales in the country as consumers look to upgrade or replace their gadgets after more than two years of restraint on spending on electronics," reports Reuters. "The company is also banking on the launch of Microsoft's AI-powered Copilot+ PCs, which are expected to go on sale on June 18."

"Best Buy CEO Corie Barry said on a post-earnings call that the company expects to have more than 40% of the product assortment at launch exclusive to the company. The company has also benefited from people signing up for its two-tiered membership program, which it refreshed last year, helping the top electronics retailer in the United States retain shoppers and drive better margins."

Now included in Amazon Prime is free delivery via Grubhub. According to The Verge, "Amazon is now embedding Grubhub into Amazon.com and the Amazon Shopping app, and Amazon Prime customers paying $139 per year for Amazon Prime will now pay $0 for food delivery fees on orders of $12 or more, among other benefits." From the report: Amazon had previously offered Prime customers a free one-year subscription to GrubHub Plus, but that one auto-renewed at $129 per year. Now, it's a permanent part of the Amazon Prime subscription. Amazon says the ordering experience is "identical" to ordering from Grubhub's website or app and is accessible to all customers, even without Prime. Amazon and Grubhub say they'll continue collaborating on other promotions, including food pairings and promotions like the limited Nuka burger for the Fallout series premiere. Prime members can also get $5 off their Grubhub meal of $25 or more made through Amazon with code PRIME5 (valid through June 2nd). What will likely not be included in Amazon's Prime subscription is Alexa's upcoming AI overhaul. "Amazon is upgrading its decade-old Alexa voice assistant with generative AI and plans to charge a monthly subscription fee to offset the cost of the technology," CNBC reported earlier this month. Unfortunately, sources said it will not be included in the $139-per-year Prime offering.

Microsoft seems to be concerned about some of OpenAI's business dealings. From a report: Satya Nadella recently met with Sam Altman to discuss an apparent deal between OpenAI and Apple, The Information reported [hard-paywalled]. According to the outlet, the OpenAI CEO recently reached an agreement with the iPhone maker to incorporate some OpenAI services into Apple products. Nadella was reportedly concerned about the potential impact of a deal on Microsoft's product ambitions, per the report. Apple was said to be considering both Google and OpenAI for the deal, which could be worth billions.

If OpenAI has indeed reached an agreement with Apple, it would be a much-needed win for Altman. The tech boss has faced heightened scrutiny after former employees and board members publicly criticized him. Helen Toner, a former OpenAI director, recently accused Altman of lying to the board "multiple" times and "withholding information."

An anonymous reader quotes a report from Ars Technica: Yesterday, Amazon failed to convince a US district court to dismiss the Federal Trade Commission's lawsuit targeting the tech giant's alleged history of tricking people into signing up for Prime. The FTC has alleged that Amazon "tricked, coerced, and manipulated consumers into subscribing to Amazon Prime," a court order said, failing to get informed consent by designing a murky sign-up process. And to keep subscriptions high, Amazon also "did not provide simple mechanisms for these subscribers to cancel their Prime memberships," the FTC alleged. Instead, Amazon forced "consumers intending to cancel to navigate a four-page, six-click, fifteen-option cancellation process." In their motion to dismiss, Amazon outright disputed these characterizations of its business, insisting its enrollment process was clear, its cancellation process was simple, and none of its executives could be held responsible for failing to fix these processes when "accidental" sign-ups became widespread. Amazon defended its current practices, arguing that some of its Prime disclosures "align with practices that the FTC encourages in its guidance documents." But the judge apparently did not find Amazon's denials completely persuasive. Viewing the FTC's complaint "in the light most favorable to the FTC," Judge John Chun concluded that "the allegations sufficiently indicate that Amazon had actual or constructive knowledge that its Prime sign-up and cancellation flows were misleading consumers."

In his order (PDF), Chun also denied individual motions to dismiss from Amazon executives Russell Grandinetti, Neil Lindsay, and Jamil Ghani, who oversaw Prime operations. Executives had urged the court to dismiss the FTC's claims against them. They argued that the FTC "singled them out 'for an 'unprecedented sanction'" when the agency had "only recently started prosecuting companies for using 'dark patterns'" under Restore Online Shoppers' Confidence Act (ROSCA) and the FTC Act. They claimed that the FTC never alerted them to any wrongdoing before filing the lawsuit, so how could they have known they were violating the law? According to Chun, however, the FTC sufficiently alleged that each of these executives knew they were violating consumer protection laws when prioritizing profits over eliminating dark patterns triggering "accidental" or "nonconsensual" Prime sign-ups. Chun explained that executives may be "personally liable for corporate violations of the FTC Act if the individual 'participated directly in, or had the authority to control, the unlawful acts or practices at issue.'"

For example, when Lindsay -- who in 2016 had the "most responsibility for the Prime subscription program" -- was "asked about Amazon's use of dark patterns during the Prime enrollment process," Lindsay justified the dark patterns. "Lindsay explained that once consumers become Prime members -- even unknowingly -- they will see what a great program it is and remain members, so Amazon is 'okay' with the situation," Chun's order said. And when Grandinetti, who "oversaw the Prime subscription program" in 2018, was told that the sign-up process and auto-renew feature frustrated customers, he "vetoed any changes that would reduce enrollment." Because executives seemingly prioritized profits over reducing customer friction, the FTC alleged that reasonable customers got sucked into Prime without their consent. Sometimes customers understandably got confused by the "discrepancy in size, location, and color" of Amazon's disclosures, Chun suggested. Other times, confusion struck when Amazon tried to upsell customers on Prime at checkout -- pairing their enrollment with their other shopping experience.

An anonymous reader quotes an op-ed from The Globe and Mail, written by Kate Robertson and Ron Deibert. Robertson is a senior research associate and Deibert is director at the University of Toronto's Citizen Lab. From the piece: A federal cybersecurity bill, slated to advance through Parliament soon, contains secretive, encryption-breaking powers that the government has been loath to talk about. And they threaten the online security of everyone in Canada. Bill C-26 empowers government officials to secretly order telecommunications companies to install backdoors inside encrypted elements in Canada's networks. This could include requiring telcos to alter the 5G encryption standards that protect mobile communications to facilitate government surveillance. The government's decision to push the proposed law forward without amending it to remove this encryption-breaking capability has set off alarm bells that these new powers are a feature, not a bug.

There are already many insecurities in today's networks, reaching down to the infrastructure layers of communication technology. The Signalling System No. 7, developed in 1975 to route phone calls, has become a major source of insecurity for cellphones. In 2017, the CBC demonstrated how hackers only needed a Canadian MP's cell number to intercept his movements, text messages and phone calls. Little has changed since: A 2023 Citizen Lab report details pervasive vulnerabilities at the heart of the world's mobile networks. So it makes no sense that the Canadian government would itself seek the ability to create more holes, rather than patching them. Yet it is pushing for potential new powers that would infect next-generation cybersecurity tools with old diseases.

It's not as if the government wasn't warned. Citizen Lab researchers presented the 2023 report's findings in parliamentary hearings on Bill C-26, and leaders and experts in civil society and in Canada's telecommunications industry warned that the bill must be narrowed to prevent its broad powers to compel technical changes from being used to compromise the "confidentiality, integrity, or availability" of telecommunication services. And yet, while government MPs maintained that their intent is not to expand surveillance capabilities, MPs pushed the bill out of committee without this critical amendment last month. In doing so, the government has set itself up to be the sole arbiter of when, and on what conditions, Canadians deserve security for their most confidential communications -- personal, business, religious, or otherwise. The new powers would only make people in Canada more vulnerable to malicious threats to the privacy and security of all network users, including Canada's most senior officials. [...] "Now, more than ever, there is no such thing as a safe backdoor," the authors write in closing. "A shortcut that provides a narrow advantage for the few at the expense of us all is no way to secure our complex digital ecosystem."

"Against this threat landscape, a pivot is crucial. Canada needs cybersecurity laws that explicitly recognize that uncompromised encryption is the backbone of cybersecurity, and it must be mandated and protected by all means possible."

Salesforce shares dropped as much as 17% in extended trading due to weaker-than-expected revenue and guidance that fell short of Wall Street expectations. "Revenue in the fiscal first quarter, which ended April 30, increased 11% from $8.25 billion a year earlier," reports CNBC. "It's the first time since 2006 that Salesforce fell short on revenue, according to LSEG data." From the report: Salesforce called for adjusted earnings per share in the current quarter of $2.34 to $2.36 on $9.2 billion to $9.25 billion in revenue. Analysts surveyed by LSEG had expected $2.40 in adjusted earnings per share on $9.37 billion in revenue. [...] Salesforce saw budget scrutiny and longer deal cycles than usual during the quarter, president and operating chief Brian Millham told analysts on a conference call. Management implemented go-to-market changes that cut into bookings, Millham said.

All five of Salesforce's product areas contributed to the growth. But revenue from the Professional Services and Other category, at $548 million, was down 9% and under the StreetAccount consensus of $572.9 million. Net income jumped to $1.53 billion, or $1.56 per share, from $199 million, or 20 cents per share a year ago.

An anonymous reader quotes a report from KrebsOnSecurity: The U.S. Department of the Treasury today unveiled sanctions against three Chinese nationals for allegedly operating 911 S5, an online anonymity service that for many years was the easiest and cheapest way to route one's Web traffic through malware-infected computers around the globe. KrebsOnSecurity identified one of the three men in a July 2022 investigation into 911 S5, which was massively hacked and then closed ten days later.

From 2015 to July 2022, 911 S5 sold access to hundreds of thousands of Microsoft Windows computers daily, as "proxies" that allowed customers to route their Internet traffic through PCs in virtually any country or city around the globe -- but predominantly in the United States. 911 built its proxy network mainly by offering "free" virtual private networking (VPN) services. 911's VPN performed largely as advertised for the user -- allowing them to surf the web anonymously -- but it also quietly turned the user's computer into a traffic relay for paying 911 S5 customers. 911 S5's reliability and extremely low prices quickly made it one of the most popular services among denizens of the cybercrime underground, and the service became almost shorthand for connecting to that "last mile" of cybercrime. Namely, the ability to route one's malicious traffic through a computer that is geographically close to the consumer whose stolen credit card is about to be used, or whose bank account is about to be emptied.

In July 2022, KrebsOnSecurity published a deep dive into 911 S5, which found the people operating this business had a history of encouraging the installation of their proxy malware by any means available. That included paying affiliates to distribute their proxy software by secretly bundling it with other software. That story named Yunhe Wang from Beijing as the apparent owner or manager of the 911 S5 proxy service. In today's Treasury action, Mr. Wang was named as the primary administrator of the botnet that powered 911 S5. Update, May 29, 12:26 p.m. ET: The U.S. Department of Justice (DOJ) just announced they have arrested Wang in connection with the 911 S5 botnet. The DOJ says 911 S5 customers have stolen billions of dollars from financial institutions, credit card issuers, and federal lending programs. [...] The third man sanctioned is Yanni Zheng, a Chinese national the U.S. Treasury says acted as an attorney for Wang and his firm -- Spicy Code Company Limited -- and helped to launder proceeds from the business into real estate holdings. Spicy Code Company was also sanctioned, as well as Wang-controlled properties Tulip Biz Pattaya Group Company Limited, and Lily Suites Company Limited. "911 S5 customers allegedly targeted certain pandemic relief programs," a DOJ statement on the arrest reads. "For example, the United States estimates that 560,000 fraudulent unemployment insurance claims originated from compromised IP addresses, resulting in a confirmed fraudulent loss exceeding $5.9 billion. Additionally, in evaluating suspected fraud loss to the Economic Injury Disaster Loan (EIDL) program, the United States estimates that more than 47,000 EIDL applications originated from IP addresses compromised by 911 S5. Millions of dollars more were similarly identified by financial institutions in the United States as loss originating from IP addresses compromised by 911 S5."

"Jingping Liu assisted Yunhe Wang by laundering criminally derived proceeds through bank accounts held in her name that were then utilized to purchase luxury real estate properties for Yunhe Wang," the document continues. "These individuals leveraged their malicious botnet technology to compromise personal devices, enabling cybercriminals to fraudulently secure economic assistance intended for those in need and to terrorize our citizens with bomb threats."

American Lidar, a company registered in Michigan in December, is a subsidiary of China-based lidar maker Hesai Group, which the U.S. has labeled a security concern, WSJ reported Wednesday, citing policymakers and national-security experts. Chinese firms facing regulatory or reputational problems are rebranding and creating U.S.-domiciled businesses to sell their wares as the Biden administration expands the government entity lists that restrict Chinese companies' business dealings in the U.S., the report said.

These moves, while legal, irritate regulators who can't enforce laws when it isn't clear who is behind a company. Hesai became a target in the U.S.-China tech-trade war after allegations that its laser sensors could be used to collect sensitive American data, and was added to the Defense Department list that designates companies as Chinese military entities operating in the U.S. BGI Genomics and DJI are also facing similar challenges and are attempting to rebrand or license their technology to American startups to avoid sanctions.

An anonymous reader shares a report: Google is killing off a messaging service! This one is the odd "Google Business Messaging" service -- basically an instant messaging client that is built into Google Maps. If you looked up a participating business in Google Maps or Google Search on a phone, the main row of buttons in the place card would read something like "Call," "Chat," "Directions," and "Website." That "Chat" button is the service we're talking about. It would launch a full messaging interface inside the Google Maps app, and businesses were expected to use it for customer service purposes. Google's deeply dysfunctional messaging strategy might lead people to joke about a theoretical "Google Maps Messaging" service, but it already exists and has existed for years, and now it's being shut down.

An anonymous reader shares a report: At a two-hour drive from Riyadh, Saudi Arabia's capital, rows of solar panels extend to the horizon like waves on an ocean. Despite having almost limitless reserves of oil, the kingdom is embracing solar and wind power, partly in an effort to retain a leading position in the energy industry, which is vitally important to the country but fast changing. Looking out over 3.3 million panels, covering 14 square miles of desert, Faisal Al Omari, chief executive of a recently completed solar project called Sudair, said he would tell his children and grandchildren about contributing to Saudi Arabia's energy transition.

Although petroleum production retains a crucial role in the Saudi economy, the kingdom is putting its chips on other forms of energy. Sudair, which can light up 185,000 homes, is the first of what could be many giant projects intended to raise output from renewable energy sources like solar and wind to around 50 percent by 2030. Currently, renewable energy accounts for a negligible amount of Saudi electricity generation. Analysts say achieving that hugely ambitious goal is unlikely. "If they get 30 percent, I would be happy because that would be a good signal," said Karim Elgendy, a climate analyst at the Middle East Institute, a research organization in Washington. Still, the kingdom is planning to build solar farms at a rapid pace. "The volumes you see here, you don't see anywhere else, only in China," said Marco Arcelli, chief executive of Acwa Power, Sudair's Saudi developer and a growing force in the international electricity and water industries.

The Saudis not only have the money to expand rapidly, but are free of the long permit processes that inhibit such projects in the West. "They have a lot of investment capital, and they can move quickly and pull the trigger on project development," said Ben Cahill, a senior fellow at the Center for Strategic and International Studies, a research institution in Washington. Even Saudi Aramco, the crown jewel of the Saudi economy and the producer of nearly all its oil, sees a shifting energy landscape. To gain a foothold in solar, Aramco has taken a 30 percent stake in Sudair, which cost $920 million, the first step in a planned 40-gigawatt solar portfolio -- more than Britain's average power demand -- intended to meet the bulk of the government's ambitions for renewable energy. The company plans to set up a large business of storing greenhouse gases underground.

Mistral, the French AI startup backed by Microsoft and valued at $6 billion, has released its first generative AI model for coding, dubbed Codestral. From a report: Codestral, like other code-generating models, is designed to help developers write and interact with code. It was trained on over 80 programming languages, including Python, Java, C++ and JavaScript, explains Mistral in a blog post. Codestral can complete coding functions, write tests and "fill in" partial code, as well as answer questions about a codebase in English. Mistral describes the model as "open," but that's up for debate. The startup's license prohibits the use of Codestral and its outputs for any commercial activities. There's a carve-out for "development," but even that has caveats: the license goes on to explicitly ban "any internal usage by employees in the context of the company's business activities." The reason could be that Codestral was trained partly on copyrighted content. Codestral might not be worth the trouble, in any case. At 22 billion parameters, the model requires a beefy PC in order to run.

Data centers could use up to 9% of total electricity generated in the United States by the end of the decade, more than doubling their current consumption, as technology companies pour funds into expanding their computing hubs, the Electric Power Research Institute said on Wednesday. From a report: Depending on the adoption pace of technology such as generative artificial intelligence, which is fueling the expansion of data centers, and the energy efficiency of new centers, the estimated annual growth rate of electricity use by the industry ranges from 3.7% to 15% through 2030, the institute's analysis said. The institute is a U.S.-based research organization funded by energy and government organizations.

Data centers, along with expanding domestic manufacturing and electrification of transportation, are lifting the U.S. electricity industry out of two decades of flat growth. The centers require massive amounts of power for high-intensity computing and cooling systems, with a new large data center requiring the same amount of electricity needed to power 750,000 homes, according to numerous energy company earnings calls this year.

Helen Toner, a former OpenAI board member, said that the board didn't know about the company's 2022 launch of its chatbot ChatGPT until afterward -- and only found out about it on Twitter. From a report: In a podcast, Toner gave her fullest account to date of the events that prompted her and other board members to fire Sam Altman in November of last year. In the days that followed Chief Executive Officer Sam Altman's sudden ouster, employees threatened to quit, Altman was reinstated, and Toner and other directors left the board. "When ChatGPT came out in November 2022, the board was not informed in advance about that," Toner said on the podcast. "We learned about ChatGPT on Twitter."

In a statement provided to the TED podcast, OpenAI's current board chief, Bret Taylor said, "We are disappointed that Ms. Toner continues to revisit these issues." He also said that an independent review of Altman's firing "concluded that the prior board's decision was not based on concerns regarding product safety or security, the pace of development, OpenAI's finances, or its statements to investors, customers, or business partners." [...] In the podcast, Toner also said that Altman didn't disclose his involvement with OpenAI's startup fund. And she criticized his leadership on safety. "On multiple occasions, he gave us inaccurate information about the formal safety processes that the company did have in place," she said,"meaning that it was basically impossible for the board to know how well those safety processes were working or what might need to change."

Former FTX executive Ryan Salame has been sentenced to more than seven years in prison, "the first of the lieutenants of failed cryptocurrency mogul Sam Bankman-Fried to receive jail time for their roles in the 2022 collapse of the cryptocurrency exchange," reports the Associated Press. From the report: Salame, 30, was a high-ranking executive at FTX for most of the exchange's existence and, up until its collapse, was the co-CEO of FTX Digital Markets. He pleaded guilty last year to illegally making unlawful U.S. campaign contributions and to operating an unlicensed money-transmitting business. The sentence of 7 1/2 years in prison, plus three years of supervised release, was more than the five to seven years prosecutors had asked Judge Lewis A. Kaplan to impose on Salame in their pre-sentencing memo.

While Salame was a high-level executive at FTX, he was not a major part of the government's case against Bankman-Fried at his trial earlier this year and did not testify against him. In a bid for leniency, Salame said during the sentencing hearing that he cooperated and even provided documents that aided prosecutors in their cross examination of Bankman-Fried, as well as in his own prosecution. Along with helping Bankman-Fried hide the holes in FTX's balance sheet that ultimately led to the exchange's failure, Salame was used as a conduit for Bankman-Fried to make illegal campaign contributions to help shape U.S. policy on cryptocurrencies. On the surface, Bankman-Fried mostly gave political contributions to Democrats and liberal-leaning causes, while Salame gave contributions to Republicans and right-leaning causes. But ultimately the funds that Salame used for those contributions came from Bankman-Fried.

The judge also chastised Salame for pulling $5 million in cryptocurrencies out of FTX as the exchange was failing. "You tried to withdraw tens of millions more," Kaplan said. "It was me first. I'm getting in the lifeboat first. To heck with all those customers."