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  • The big bottleneck for AI: a shortage of powerful chips | CNN Business

    The big bottleneck for AI: a shortage of powerful chips | CNN Business

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    CNN
     — 

    The crushing demand for AI has also revealed the limits of the global supply chain for powerful chips used to develop and field AI models.

    The continuing chip crunch has affected businesses large and small, including some of the AI industry’s leading platforms and may not meaningfully improve for at least a year or more, according to industry analysts.

    The latest sign of a potentially extended shortage in AI chips came in Microsoft’s annual report recently. The report identifies, for the first time, the availability of graphics processing units (GPUs) as a possible risk factor for investors.

    GPUs are a critical type of hardware that helps run the countless calculations involved in training and deploying artificial intelligence algorithms.

    “We continue to identify and evaluate opportunities to expand our datacenter locations and increase our server capacity to meet the evolving needs of our customers, particularly given the growing demand for AI services,” Microsoft wrote. “Our datacenters depend on the availability of permitted and buildable land, predictable energy, networking supplies, and servers, including graphics processing units (‘GPUs’) and other components.”

    Microsoft’s nod to GPUs highlights how access to computing power serves as a critical bottleneck for AI. The issue directly affects companies that are building AI tools and products, and indirectly affects businesses and end-users who hope to apply the technology for their own purposes.

    OpenAI CEO Sam Altman, testifying before the US Senate in May, suggested that the company’s chatbot tool was struggling to keep up with the number of requests users were throwing at it.

    “We’re so short on GPUs, the less people that use the tool, the better,” Altman said. An OpenAI spokesperson later told CNN the company is committed to ensuring enough capacity for users.

    The problem may sound reminiscent of the pandemic-era shortages in popular consumer electronics that saw gaming enthusiasts paying substantially inflated prices for game consoles and PC graphics cards. At the time, manufacturing delays, a lack of labor, disruptions to global shipping and persistent competing demand from cryptocurrency miners contributed to the scarce supply of GPUs, spurring a cottage industry of deal-tracking tech to help ordinary consumers find what they needed.

    But the current shortage is much different in kind, industry experts say. Instead of a disruption to supplies of consumer-focused GPUs, the ongoing shortage reflects the sudden, exploding demand for ultra high-end GPUs meant for advanced work such as the training and use of AI models.

    Production of those GPUs is at capacity, but the rush of demand has overwhelmed what few sources of supply there are.

    There is a “huge sucking sound” coming from businesses representing the unrivaled demand for AI, said Raj Joshi, a senior vice president at Moody’s Investors Service who tracks the chips industry.

    “Nobody could’ve modeled how fast or how much this demand is going to increase,” Joshi said. “I don’t think the industry was ready for this kind of surge in demand.”

    One company in particular stands to benefit massively from the AI surge: Nvidia, the trillion-dollar chipmaker that according to industry estimates controls 84% of the market for discrete GPUs. In a research note published in May, Joshi estimated that Nvidia would experience “unparalleled” revenue growth in the coming quarters, with revenue from its data center business outstripping that of rivals Intel and AMD combined.

    In its May earnings call, Nvidia said it had “procured substantially higher supply for the second half of the year” to meet the rising demand for AI chips. The company declined to comment on Tuesday, citing its latest pre-earnings quiet period.

    AMD, meanwhile, said Tuesday it expects to unveil its answer to Nvidia’s AI GPUs closer to the end of the year.

    “There’s very strong customer interest across the board in our AI solutions,” said AMD CEO Lisa Su on the company’s earnings call. “There is a lot more to do, but I would say the progress that we’ve made has been significant.”

    Compounding the issue is that GPU-makers themselves cannot get enough of a key input from their own suppliers, said Sid Sheth, founder and CEO of AI startup d-Matrix. The technology, known as a silicon interposer, works by marrying standalone computing chips with high-bandwidth memory chips and is necessary for completing GPUs.

    The Biden administration has made increasing US chip manufacturing capacity a priority; the passage of the CHIPS Act last year is set to provide billions in funding for the domestic chip industry and for chip research and development. But those investments are aimed at a broad swath of chip technologies and not specifically targeted at boosting GPU production.

    The chip shortage is expected to ease as more manufacturing comes online and as competitors to Nvidia also expand their offerings. But that could take as long as two to three years, some industry experts say.

    In the meantime, the shortage could force companies to find creative ways around the problem. Companies that can’t get their hands on enough chips are now having to be more efficient, said Sheth.

    “Necessity is the mother of invention, right?” Sheth said. “So now that people don’t have access to unlimited amounts of computing power, they are finding resourceful ways of using whatever they have in a much smarter way.”

    That could include, for example, using smaller AI models that may be easier and less computationally intensive to train than a massive model, or developing new ways of doing computation that don’t rely as heavily on traditional CPUs and GPUs, Sheth said.

    “Net-net, this is going to be a blessing in disguise,” he added.

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  • Regulators give green light to driverless taxis in San Francisco | CNN Business

    Regulators give green light to driverless taxis in San Francisco | CNN Business

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    CNN
     — 

    California regulators gave approval Thursday to two rival robotaxi companies, Cruise and Waymo, to operate their driverless cars 24/7 across all of San Francisco and charge passengers for their services.

    The much-anticipated vote, which followed roughly six hours of public comment both for and against driverless taxis, came amid clashes between the robotaxi companies and some residents of the hilly city. San Francisco first responders, city transportation leaders and local activists are among those who shared concerns about the technology.

    The California Public Utilities Commission regulates self-driving cars in the state and voted 3-to-1 in favor of Waymo and Cruise expanding their operations.

    That means residents and visitors to San Francisco will be able to pay a fare to ride in a driverless taxi, ushering in new automated competition to cab and ridehail drivers.

    “Today’s permit marks the true beginning of our commercial operations in San Francisco,” said Tekedra Mawakana, co-CEO of Waymo, in a press release.

    Cruise spokesperson Drew Pusateri said in a statement to CNN that the 24/7 driverless service is a “historic industry milestone” that puts Cruise “in a position to compete with traditional ridehail, and challenge an unsafe, inaccessible transportation status quo.”

    Until Thursday’s vote, Cruise and Waymo could offer only limited service to San Francisco residents.

    Cruise – a subsidiary of General Motors – could charge a fare only for overnight rides occurring between 10 p.m. and 6 a.m. in select parts of the city. Waymo, owned by Google’s parent company Alphabet, could charge a fare only for rides with a human driver in the vehicle.

    Now, Cruise and Waymo can charge a fare for their driverless rides and 24/7 access to San Francisco streets as they do so.

    Cruise officials told state commissioners at a recent public hearing that it deploys about 300 vehicles at night and 100 during the day, while Waymo officials said that around 100 of its 250 vehicles are on the road at any given time.

    The autonomous ride-hailing service offered by Cruise and Waymo allows users to request a ride similar to Uber or Lyft. There is a difference, of course: The car has no driver.

    Members of the public packed the commission’s San Francisco headquarters to share their thoughts with state commissioners in one-minute increments during the meeting. Critics pointed to driverless cars freezing in traffic and blocking first responders, while advocates said they felt the cars drove more defensively than human drivers.

    Although the decision ultimately laid in the hands of state regulators, who delayed the vote twice, local officials also expressed their dissent.

    The San Francisco Police Officers Association, San Francisco Deputy Sheriffs’ Association and the San Francisco Fire Fighters Local 798 all wrote letters to the CPUC in the week leading up to the originally scheduled vote on June 29. Each expressed concerns that autonomous vehicles could impede emergency responders.

    “The time that it takes for an officer or any other public safety employee to try and interact with an autonomous vehicle is frustrating in the best-case scenario, but when they can not comprehend our demands to move to the side of the roadway and are stopped in the middle of the roadway blocking emergency response units, then it rises to another level of danger,” wrote Tracy McCray, president of the San Francisco Police Officers Association in June, “and that is unacceptable.”

    The San Francisco Fire Department has recorded 55 incidents of driverless vehicles interfering with their emergency responses in 2023 as of Wednesday, the department confirmed to CNN.

    In one incident reported by the department on Saturday, a Waymo car pulled up between a car on fire and the fire truck aiming to put it out.

    Other instances include robotaxis driving through yellow tape into the scene of a shooting, blocking firehouse driveways such that a fire truck farther away had to respond to the scene, and requiring firefighters to reroute, according to Fire Chief Jeanine Nicholson.

    “It should not be up to my people to have to move their vehicle out of the way when we’re responding to one of our 160,000 calls,” Nicholson told CNN in June.

    Robotaxi companies have often touted their safety records. Out of 3 million driverless miles, a Cruise car has not been involved in a single fatality or life-threatening injury, according to the company. In a February review of its first million driverless miles, Waymo said their cars caused no reported injuries and that 55% of all contact events were the result of a human driver hitting a stationary Waymo vehicle.

    2022 was the worst year on record for traffic fatalities in San Francisco since 2014, according to city data. Cruise said that when benchmarked against human drivers in comparable driving environments, its vehicles were involved in 54% fewer collisions overall.

    The San Francisco Municipal Transportation Agency said in a California Public Utilities Commission meeting on Monday that it had logged almost 600 incidents involving autonomous vehicles since the technology first launched in San Francisco. The agency said they believe this is “a fraction” of actual incidents due to what they allege is a lack of data transparency.

    Genevieve Shiroma, the dissenting commissioner in the 3-1 vote, recommended the commission delay the vote until they received a “better understanding of the safety impacts” of the vehicles.

    “First responders should not be prevented from doing their job. The fact that an injury or fatality has not occurred yet is not the end of the inquiry,” Shiroma said. “The commission needs a better explanation regarding why these events occur.”

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  • We’re going to need a bigger drone: The technology keeping swimmers safe at one New York beach | CNN Business

    We’re going to need a bigger drone: The technology keeping swimmers safe at one New York beach | CNN Business

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    New York
    CNN
     — 

    Warmer and cleaner waters off the coast of Long Island, New York, in recent years have brought growing numbers of bait fish to the area — and with them, the bigger fish that eat them, including sharks. In some ways, it’s a good sign for the environment. But it’s a different story for swimmers, surfers and beach goers.

    Safety officials at one New York beach are ramping up the use of drones to try to prevent potentially dangerous interactions between humans and sharks.

    Lifeguards and New York State Park Police officers at Jones Beach — a state park that stretches 6.5 miles along the Southern coast of Long Island and sees six million visitors a year — are using the technology to monitor the waters off the shore. When they spot sharks or unusual sea life activity, they can warn swimmers to stay on the beach.

    The tracking program began in 2017 but has taken on new urgency following a rash of shark attacks at New York beaches this summer. While the risk of being attacked by a shark remains low, just this week, a 65-year-old woman was hospitalized after being bitten by a shark at Rockaway Beach in Queens. The next day, lifeguards at Jones Beach closed the water three times after possible shark sightings, two of which were made with drones.

    “I can’t predict whether or not there’s going to be more bites or shark attacks, but what I can tell you is … the more drones that are flying in the air, there’s more of a chance of seeing these animals in their natural habitat,” Park Police Captain Rishi Basdeo told CNN last month, prior to the latest attack (which occurred at a different beach from where his team monitors). “Just by merely warning people, that in itself is [paying] dividends,” he said.

    With more sharks along the beach, police are using these drones to protect swimmers

    The New York State Park Police operates a fleet of 19 drones along Jones Beach, used by lifeguards with backup from officers who can do more enhanced monitoring via a mobile command center that travels up and down the beach if something unusual has been spotted in the water. Inside the command center van, officers can watch a livestream of the drone footage on a TV screen to determine if swimmers should be removed from the water.

    “You’re getting with the drone a real supreme aerial view of what’s going on in real time on the waterway,” Basdeo said, adding that if a shark is within 400 feet of the shore, officials consider closing the water. “If a shark is in close proximity to the bathing area — or even before we get schools [of fish] there — we are already making that decision … and the lifeguards will stop people from swimming and just safely guide people out of the water.”

    On the day last month that Park Police officers gave CNN a demonstration of the drone tracking program, the cameras picked up only a few skate fish just off the shore. But the drones — which have cameras powerful enough to see beneath the surface of the water even from about 25 feet in the air — have previously caught footage of sharks swimming solo and feeding on large schools of fish.

    Operating the program is not cheap — even the more low-tech drone kits used by lifeguards to do regular monitoring cost around $6,000 each and require operators trained in Federal Aviation Administration rules, according to Basdeo. But he says it’s worth it to avoid safety risks to people enjoying the beach. And, he added, “It’s actually cheaper than calling in a police helicopter.”

    New York State Park Police officers are using drones to monitor for sharks off the coast of Long Island, New York, like this one spotted in 2022.

    The technology has uses beyond searching for sharks, too. The drones can be augmented with an infrared camera, spotlights and speakers to help in search and rescue capacities, and could even carry a life preserver out to a distressed swimmer before a lifeguard could get to them.

    For example, “If we get a report that an individual is missing at night, we have an ability aside from calling in a police helicopter … we can send our drones up and put in the infrared capability in the camera and actually see in the dark,” Basdeo said. “Five years ago, we didn’t have this drone capability in our agency, but now it’s spreading and it’s catching on.”

    Basdeo also stressed that the drones are used for only limited, safety-related applications.

    “We’re on strict guidelines when we fly and operate these drones. It is not used to surveil the public. It is used to keep them safe,” Basdeo said. “We don’t fly, or we try not to fly, over large groups of people. There are designated emergency lanes on the beach … where it’s sparsely populated” that operators use to navigate the drones out to the water, he said.

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  • Justin Trudeau blasts Facebook for blocking news as Canada’s wildfires rage | CNN Business

    Justin Trudeau blasts Facebook for blocking news as Canada’s wildfires rage | CNN Business

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    CNN
     — 

    Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau blasted Facebook for “putting corporate profits ahead of people’s safety” as the social media platform continues to block news content while wildfires rage in Canada’s Northwest Territories and British Columbia.

    “It is so inconceivable that a company like Facebook is choosing to put corporate profits ahead of ensuring that local news organizations can get up-to-date information to Canadians, and reach them where Canadians spend a lot of their time; online, on social media, on Facebook,” Trudeau said during a news conference Monday.

    Some 60,000 people across the Northwest Territories and British Columbia have been placed under evacuation orders since this weekend, according to the most recent numbers from Canadian officials. Also on Monday, Trudeau described the devastation wrought by the wildfires as “apocalyptic” and praised Canadians for stepping up to support evacuees.

    Earlier this month, Facebook’s parent-company Meta began to block news links from Facebook and Instagram in Canada, in response to recently-passed legislation in the country that requires tech companies to negotiate payments to news organizations for hosting their content.

    A Meta spokesperson told CNN in a statement on Monday that Canadians “continue to use our technologies in large numbers to connect with their communities and access reputable information, including content from official government agencies, emergency services and non-governmental organizations.”

    The new legislation in Canada “forces us to end access to news content in order to comply with the legislation but we remain focused on making our technologies available,” the statement added, pointing to Meta’s Safety Check tool, which the company said more than 45,000 people had used as of Friday to mark themselves as safe.

    The Meta spokesperson added that 300,000 people have visited the Yellowknife and Kelowna Crisis Response pages on Facebook.

    The Canadian legislation, known as Bill C-18 or the Online News Act, was given final approval in June. It aims to support the sustainability of news organizations by regulating “digital news intermediaries with a view to enhancing fairness in the Canadian digital news marketplace.”

    Meta has previously stated, via a company blogpost, that the legislation “misrepresents the value news outlets receive when choosing to use our platforms.” The ongoing controversy in Canada comes amid a global debate over the relationship between news organizations and social media companies about the value of news content, and who gets to benefit from it.

    During his remarks Monday, Trudeau said Facebook’s move to block news content is “bad for democracy” in the long run. “But right now, in an emergency situation, where up-to-date local information is more important than ever, Facebook’s putting corporate profits ahead of people’s safety,” Trudeau said.

    CNN’s Brian Fung contributed to this report.

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  • Google to require disclosures of AI content in political ads | CNN Business

    Google to require disclosures of AI content in political ads | CNN Business

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    New York
    CNN
     — 

    Starting in November, Google will require political advertisements to prominently disclose when they feature synthetic content — such as images generated by artificial intelligence — the tech giant announced this week.

    Political ads that feature synthetic content that “inauthentically represents real or realistic-looking people or events” must include a “clear and conspicuous” disclosure for viewers who might see the ad, Google said Wednesday in a blog post. The rule, an addition to the company’s political content policy that covers Google and YouTube, will apply to image, video and audio content.

    The policy update comes as campaign season for the 2024 US presidential election ramps up and as a number of countries around the world prepare for their own major elections the same year. At the same time, artificial intelligence technology has advanced rapidly, allowing anyone to cheaply and easily create convincing AI-generated text and, increasingly, audio and video. Digital information integrity experts have raised alarms that these new AI tools could lead to a wave of election misinformation that social media platforms and regulators may be ill-prepared to handle.

    AI-generated images have already begun to crop up in political advertisements. In June, a video posted to X by Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis’ presidential campaign used images that appeared to be generated by artificial intelligence showing former President Donald Trump hugging Dr. Anthony Fauci. The images, which appeared designed to criticize Trump for not firing the nation’s then-top infectious disease specialist, were tricky to spot: They were shown alongside real images of the pair and with a text overlay saying, “real life Trump.”

    The Republican National Committee in April released a 30-second advertisement responding to President Joe Biden’s official campaign announcement that used AI images to imagine a dystopian United States after the reelection of the 46th president. The RNC ad included the small on-screen disclaimer, “Built entirely with AI imagery,” but some potential voters in Washington, DC, to whom CNN showed the video did not notice it on their first watch.

    In its policy update, Google said it will require disclosures on ads using synthetic content in a way that could mislead users. The company said, for example, that an “ad with synthetic content that makes it appear as if a person is saying or doing something they didn’t say or do” would need a label.

    Google said the policy will not apply to synthetic or altered content that is “inconsequential to the claims made in the ad,” including changes such as image resizing, color corrections or “background edits that do not create realistic depictions of actual events.”

    A group of top artificial intelligence companies, including Google, agreed in July to a set of voluntary commitments put forth by the Biden administration to help improve safety around their AI technologies. As part of that agreement, the companies said they would develop technical mechanisms, such as watermarks, to ensure users know when content was generated by AI.

    The Federal Election Commission has also been exploring how to regulate AI in political ads.

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  • Here’s why Apple’s charger switch is such a big deal | CNN Business

    Here’s why Apple’s charger switch is such a big deal | CNN Business

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    CNN
     — 

    Apple retired its Lightning charger on Tuesday exactly 11 years to the day it was first announced.

    The effort marks a milestone moment for the company by finally adopting USB-C, a universal charging system. That’s noteworthy not only because Apple has been resistant to do so for years but because it’s about to make charging that much easier for its customers.

    But, as with most things, there’s a catch: The switch to a universal standard means Apple is giving up control of its wired charging ecosystem, and identifying good chargers from bad ones won’t be obvious to many consumers.

    At its iPhone 15 event, the company announced all of its next-generation smartphones will launch with USB-C charging, and so will the latest iteration of its AirPods Pro. Although Apple has previously switched its iPads and MacBooks to USB-C charging, it has been resistant to making the change on the iPhone until now.

    The switch would come less than a year after the European Union voted to approve legislation to require smartphones, tablets, digital cameras, portable speakers and other small devices to support USB-C charging by 2024. The first-of-its-kind law aims to pare down the number of chargers and cables consumers must contend with when they purchase a new device, and to allow users to mix and match devices and chargers even if they were produced by different manufacturers.

    Now Apple customers can use the same USB-C chargers to power their iPhones, iPads and Mac computers — no more scrambling to find the right charger for each device. Charging can also occur between devices, such as connecting a low-battery iPhone to a fully-charged iPad, or similarly between different brands.

    “This is arguably the biggest disruption to iPhone design for several years, but in reality, it is hardly a dramatic move,” said Ben Wood, an analyst at CCS Insight.

    Last year, Apple’s senior vice president of worldwide marketing, Greg Joswiak, noted the value and ubiquity of the Lightning charger, which is designed for faster device charging, but noted “obviously we will have to comply” with the EU mandate.

    “We have no choice, like we do around the world, to comply with local laws, but we think the approach would have been better environmentally and better for our customers to not have a government [have] that perspective,” Joswiak said at the time.

    The EU’s decision is part of a greater effort to tackle e-waste overall, but could it generate more in the short term as people phase out their Lightning cables. Although Apple has voiced environmental concerns over what happens to old Lightning chargers, it has financial reasons for pushing back on the change, too.

    Apple introduced the Lightning charger alongside the iPhone 5 in 2012, replacing its existing 30-pin dock connector with one that enabled faster charging and had a reversible design. It also ignited a related accessories business, requiring users to buy a $30 Lightning adapter to connect the device to older docks, alarm clocks and speaker systems.

    “For Apple, it was all about being in control of its own ecosystem,” said David McQueen, a director at ABI Research. “Apple makes good money from selling Lightning cables and its many related accessories.”

    The new iPhone 15 is displayed during an Apple event at the Steve Jobs Theater at Apple Park on September 12, 2023 in Cupertino, California. Apple revealed its lineup of the latest iPhone 15 versions as well as other product upgrades during the event.

    It also takes a financial cut from the third-party accessories and cables that go through its Made For iPhone program. “Moving to USB Type C would take away this level of control as USB-C is a much more open ecosystem,” McQueen said.

    Apple is now selling a new $29 USB-C to Lightning adapter to allow people to connect their existing Lightning accessories to a USB-C-enabled iPhone or iPad to charge or share data. Similarly, Apple introduced a $29 dongle back in 2012 to connect the iPhone 5 – the first phone with its Lightning charger – to old docks, alarm clock radios and speaker systems.

    The new Apple iPhone 15 Pro, with EU ordered USB-C charger, is displayed amongst other new products during a launch event at Apple Park in Cupertino, California, on September 12, 2023.

    The move to USB-C won’t likely be an incentive for people to upgrade, but it could sway some consumers who have been resistant to the iPhone over its charging limitations, according to Thomas Husson, a vice president at Forrester Research.

    Considering many mobile devices already use USB-C, including Apple’s own iPads and MacBooks, access to charging wires shouldn’t be too hard or costly.

    But knockoffs abound, and some USB-C chargers are much safer than others. Some may provide too much power, and others not enough. Some can regulate the flow of electricity and data to your phone – and others can’t. Among CNN Underscored’s top recommendations for USB-C chargers are from big brands, including Anker, Belkin, Apple, Amazon and Google.

    “Given how widely USB-C has been used in other devices, it’s hard to imagine that customers will be totally caught out by this switch, and in the long term, it’s likely to benefit them, with a universal charging system having some very obvious upsides,” Wood said.

    Apple also said a dedicated USB-C controller will allow for transfer speeds of up to 20 times faster than with USB-2 technology for the iPhone 15 Pro.

    Retiring the Lightning cable could even generate, in the short term, a surge of e-waste as iPhone users toss their useless Lightning cables in a drawer. But Apple told CNN it has an existing “robust” recycling program where you can bring in used chargers and cables. It’s also possible to look for a local e-waste recycling center or Best Buy store for environmentally friendly options.

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  • YouTube unveils a slew of new AI-powered tools for creators | CNN Business

    YouTube unveils a slew of new AI-powered tools for creators | CNN Business

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    CNN
     — 

    YouTube on Thursday unveiled a slew of new artificial intelligence-powered tools to help creators produce videos and reach a wider audience on the platform, as companies race to incorporate buzzy generative AI technology directly into their core products.

    “We want to make it easier for everyone to feel like they can create, and we believe generative AI will make that possible,” Neal Mohan, YouTube’s CEO, told reporters Thursday during the company’s annual Made On YouTube product event.

    “AI will enable people to push the boundaries of creative expression by making the difficult things simple,” Mohan added. He said YouTube is trying to bring “these powerful tools” to the masses.

    The video platform, under the Alphabet-Google umbrella, teased a new generative AI feature dubbed Dream Screen specifically for its short-form video arm and TikTok competitor, YouTube Shorts. Dream Screen is an experimental feature that lets creators add AI-generated video or image backgrounds to their vertical videos.

    To use Dream Screen, creators can type their idea for a background as a prompt and the platform will do the rest. A user, for example, could create a background that makes it look like they are in outer space or on a beach where the sand is made out of jelly beans, per demos of the tool shared on Thursday.

    Dream Screen is being introduced to select creators and will be rolled out more broadly next year, the company said.

    YouTube also unveiled new AI-powered tools that creators can access to help brainstorm or draft outlines for videos or search for specific music using descriptive phrases. YouTube said it was bringing an AI-powered dubbing tool that will let users share their videos in different languages.

    AI-powered tools in YouTube Studio.

    Alan Chikin Chow, 26, a content creator based in Los Angeles who recently hit 30 million subscribers on YouTube, told CNN that he is most excited about using the new AI-powered dubbing tool for his comedy videos. Chikin Chow currently boasts the title of the most-watched YouTube Shorts creator in the world.

    “I think global content is the future,” Chikin Chow told CNN. “If you look at the trends of our recent generation, the things that have really impacted and moved culture are ones that are global,” he added, citing the Korean smash-hit TV series “Squid Game” as one example.

    Using the AI-powered dubbing features, he said he hopes to reach audiences in new corners of the world that might not otherwise be able to engage with his content.

    LOS ANGELES, CALIFORNIA - DECEMBER 04: Alan Chikin Chow attends the 2022 YouTube Streamy Awards at the Beverly Hilton on December 04, 2022 in Los Angeles, California. (Photo by Emma McIntyre/Getty Images for dick clark productions)

    Chikin Chow added that he’s also excited to use the new editing tools to help save time.

    The rise of generative AI has animated the tech sector and broader public — becoming the latest buzzword out of Silicon Valley since the launch of OpenAI’s ChatGPT service late last year.

    Some industry watchers and AI skeptics have argued that powerful new AI tools carry potential dangers, such as making it easier to spread misinformation via deepfake images, or perpetuate biases at a larger scale. Many creative professionals — whose works are often swept up into the datasets required to train and power AI tools — are also raising the alarm over potential intellectual property rights issues.

    And some prominent figures inside and outside the tech industry even say there’s a potential that AI can result in civilization “extinction” and compare its potential risk to that of “nuclear war.”

    Despite the frenzy AI has caused, Chikin Chow told CNN that he ultimately views it as a “collaborator” and a “supplement” to help propel his creative work forward.

    “I think that the people who are able to take change and move with it are the ones that are going to be successful long term,” Chikin Chow said.

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  • ChatGPT can now hear, see and speak as OpenAI gives the chatbot its most humanlike update | CNN Business

    ChatGPT can now hear, see and speak as OpenAI gives the chatbot its most humanlike update | CNN Business

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    CNN
     — 

    You can now speak aloud to ChatGPT and hear the artificial intelligence-powered chatbot talk back.

    OpenAI, the startup behind the wildly-popular chatbot, announced Monday that it is rolling out new features including the ability to let users engage in a back-and-forth voice conversation with ChatGPT.

    In a company blog post Monday, OpenAI teased how this new feature can be used to “request a bedtime story for your family, or settle a dinner table debate.”

    The new voice features from OpenAI carry similarities to those currently offered by Amazon’s Alexa or Apple’s Siri voice assistants.

    In a demo of the new update shared by OpenAI, a user asks ChatGPT to come up with a story about “the super-duper sunflower hedgehog named Larry.” The chatbot is able to narrate a story out loud with a human-sounding voice that can also respond to questions, such as, “What was his house like?” and “Who is his best friend?”

    ChatGPT’s voice capability is “powered by a new text-to-speech model, capable of generating human-like audio from just text and a few seconds of sample speech,” Open AI said in the blogpost. The company added that it collaborated with professional voice actors to create the five different voices that can be used to animate the chatbot.

    OpenAI also said on Monday that it’s rolling out a new feature that lets the bot respond to prompts featuring an image. For example, you can snap a picture of the contents of your fridge and ask ChatGPT to help you come up with a meal plan using the ingredients you have. Moreover, the company said you can ask the chatbot to focus on a specific part of an image with its “drawing tool” in the app.

    The new features roll out in the app within the next two weeks for paying subscribers of ChatGPT’s Plus and Enterprise services. (Subscriptions to the Plus service are $20 a month, and its Enterprise service is currently only offered to business clients).

    The updates from OpenAI come amid an ongoing AI arms race within the tech sector, initially spurred by the public launch of ChatGPT late last year. In recent weeks, tech giants have been racing to roll out new updates that incorporate more AI-powered tools directly into their core products. Google last week announced a series of updates to its ChatGPT competitor Bard. Also last week, Amazon said it was bringing a generative AI-powered update to its Alexa voice assistant.

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  • ‘Where is the phone?’ Huawei keeps quiet about Mate 60 Pro but takes aim at Tesla | CNN Business

    ‘Where is the phone?’ Huawei keeps quiet about Mate 60 Pro but takes aim at Tesla | CNN Business

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    Editor’s Note: Sign up for CNN’s Meanwhile in China newsletter which explores what you need to know about the country’s rise and how it impacts the world.


    Hong Kong
    CNN
     — 

    Huawei has disappointed legions of fans — and US officials — eager to know more about its Mate 60 Pro smartphone, which has quickly become a symbol of the tech rivalry between the United States and China since it went on sale last month.

    Huawei’s consumer chief, Richard Yu, showed off a slew of new products including a tablet, smartwatch, earphones and even a challenge to Tesla (TSLA) on Monday, without going into detail about its flagship device, which has provoked calls in Washington for more sanctions against the Chinese tech and mobile giant.

    The United States has spent years trying to hobble Huawei’s ability to access the most advanced semiconductors, and the unveiling of its 5G phone in August has taken Western observers by surprise.

    The launch event became the most discussed topic on Chinese social network Weibo, racking up six billion views and 1.6 million posts. Meanwhile, a hashtag titled “#HuaweiConferenceWithoutMentioningMobilePhones,” trended on Weibo, with 24.5 million views.

    “You’re telling me there will be no talk about the phone?” one user wrote on the social network.

    “Where is the phone?” said another.

    Huawei quietly started selling the Mate 60 Pro in August, without a formal launch event or sharing full technical specifications.

    Yu said onstage that the company was “working overtime” to urgently produce devices in the Mate 60 series “to allow more people to buy and use our products.”

    But “today, we will not introduce” those devices, he added.

    At one point, Huawei whetted viewers’ appetite by unveiling a new premium collection called Ultimate Design, introduced by Hong Kong singer and actor Andy Lau.

    The line consists of a luxury smartphone and smartwatch. Few details were released, though the company said the watch was made using bars of real gold — giving it a hefty price tag of 21,999 Chinese yuan ($3,009).

    Ben Sin, an independent tech reviewer, said he was “baffled” as to why Huawei did not discuss its smartphones.

    The company “knows everyone wants to know more about the chip [in the Mate 60 Pro], so them not talking about it is almost like defiance,” he said.

    Analysts who have examined the handset have said it includes a 5G chip, suggesting Huawei may have found a way to overcome American export controls.

    Huawei, formerly the world’s second largest maker of smartphones, has been attempting a comeback in China’s smartphone market after being hit by US export restrictions, which were first imposed in 2019.

    The company’s woes later forced it to sell off its budget mobile brand, Honor, leaving it in bad shape.

    But it is starting to find its way back.

    The firm’s smartphone sales grew in China by 58% in the second quarter of this year, compared to the same period last year, according to Counterpoint Research. Its share of the Chinese market rose from 6.9% to 11.3% over that period.

    Ivan Lam, a senior analyst at Counterpoint, said Huawei benefited from “its high brand exposure to” wealthy Chinese consumers. Because of this, Huawei’s market share in China is expected to further grow in 2024, he added.

    Huawei’s new phone is a boon for the company and may even pose a challenge to Apple’s (AAPL) market share in China, Lam said.

    The Shenzhen-based company has seen a recent “surge in sales” for its Mate 60 series, with weekly sales almost tripling to 225,000 units, according to Counterpoint.

    Yu demonstrated a number of other new products, starting with the latest version of its MatePad Pro, describing it as the lightest and thinnest tablet of its kind in the world. He said the device had been 10 years in the making.

    In addition, the company unveiled a new smart TV, wireless earphones and other gadgets.

    Huawei also took an aggressive swipe at Tesla, saying it would release its first sedan, the Luxeed S7, in November. The car will surpass Tesla’s Model S “in every specification,” said Yu.

    The company plans to release the Aito M9, an SUV, in December. Huawei has partnered with Chinese automakers to produce the two previously announced electric vehicles.

    Yu also announced Huawei was “ready to launch” an updated operating system, HarmonyOS NEXT.

    The system will include “native applications,” Yu said, without elaborating.

    Speculation has mounted that Huawei may be building an operating system that won’t be compatible with any Android apps.

    Huawei did not immediately respond to a request for comment on the matter.

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  • Microsoft Outlook will soon write emails for you | CNN Business

    Microsoft Outlook will soon write emails for you | CNN Business

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    New York
    CNN
     — 

    Artificial intelligence could soon be writing more company emails in Microsoft Outlook, as the company expands its rollout of AI tools for corporate users.

    The Microsoft 365 Copilot tool – “your everyday AI companion,” as the company bills it – will help users write their emails to “keep your sentences concise and error-free.” The tool also summarizes long email threads to quickly draft suggested replies.

    Users with Microsoft 365 Personal or Family subscriptions will get more advanced AI help through Microsoft Editor, an intelligent writing assistant. The update will include suggested edits for “clarity, conciseness, inclusive language and more” to help workers create more “polished and professional” emails, according to a blog post from the company in September.

    The company said the tool will be available to more corporate clients starting on November 1. It has already been in months-long testing with customers including Visa, General Motors, KPMG and Lumen Technologies.

    In March, Microsoft outlined its plans to bring artificial intelligence to its most recognizable productivity tools, including Outlook, PowerPoint, Excel and Word, with the promise of changing how millions do their work every day. The addition of its AI-powered “copilot” – which will help edit, summarize, create and compare documents – is built on the same technology that underpins ChatGPT.

    In addition to writing emails, Microsoft 365 users will be able to summarize meetings and create suggested follow-up action items, request to create a specific chart in Excel, and turn a Word document into a PowerPoint presentation in seconds.

    Corporate customers will also get to use Microsoft 365 Chat, previously called Business Chat, which can scan the internet and employee emails, meetings, chats and files, to behave as a sort of personalized secretary.

    The expansion will come less than a year after OpenAI publicly released viral AI chat tool ChatGPT, which stunned many users with its impressive ability to generate original essays, stories and song lyrics in response to user prompts. The initial wave of attention on the tool helped renew an arms race among tech companies to develop and deploy similar AI tools in their products.

    In the months since, many other companies have rolled out features underpinning or similar to the technology. Microsoft rival Google, for example, has also brought AI to its productivity tools, including Gmail, Sheets and Docs.

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  • iPhone sales in China shrink as US political tensions grow | CNN Business

    iPhone sales in China shrink as US political tensions grow | CNN Business

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    CNN
     — 

    Demand for Apple’s new iPhone 15 lineup is weaker in China than for last year’s models, according to analysts.

    Sales for the iPhone 15 are down 4.5% in China compared to iPhone 14 sales in the first two weeks after its launch, according to Counterpoint Research. Separately, Bloomberg reported on Monday financial firm Jefferies said iPhone 15 sales dropped by a double-digit percentage following strong customer demand for Huawei’s new Mate 60 smartphone line.

    Apple

    (AAPL)     shares fell 0.08% following the reports.

    The reports come amid a floundering Chinese economy, a struggling housing market, and more competition among higher-end vendors in China, particularly from Chinese device manufacturer Huawei.

    “We’re seeing a lot of nationalism right now as Chinese consumers who think they’ve been wronged by the US government and sanctions are gravitating toward the Mate 60 and that is edging into Apple volumes,” Jeff Fieldhack, research director at Counterpoint, told CNN.

    At the same time, China remains very important to Apple as it is the largest market behind the US. Fieldhack said he doesn’t believe Huawei will surpass Apple right now in terms of smartphone sales but expects continued interest in the Mate 60 will continue to “eek” into Apple’s numbers.

    “Apple made a lot of gains during its launch period last year, where it became number one in China,” he said. “Things looked strong but now, with the political tension and competition, that is a reason for concern.”

    However, the Phone 15 lineup is up about 10% year-over-year in the US, according to Counterpoint. That’s strong growth for Apple considering sales fell for the third consecutive quarter in August, ahead of the iPhone 15 launch.

    The latest iPhone 15 devices come with a slimmer design, a more-advanced main camera system and a customizable Action button, which gives the silence button additional controls, from starting a voice memo to writing a note. Perhaps the biggest change coming to the models is that they will now use a USB-C charging cord, ending an 11-year run with Apple’s proprietary Lightning charging cable.

    This isn’t the first time the Mate 60 has made headlines since its late August launch. In September, the US government sought more information about the Mate 60 Pro’s 5G Kirin 9000s processor reportedly developed specifically for the manufacturer. Its debut shocked industry experts who questioned how the company could make such a chip following sweeping efforts by the United States to restrict China’s access to foreign chip technology because of perceived national security concerns.

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  • Illinois Supreme Court upholds state’s assault-style weapons ban | CNN Politics

    Illinois Supreme Court upholds state’s assault-style weapons ban | CNN Politics

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    CNN
     — 

    The Illinois Supreme Court on Friday upheld the state’s assault-style weapons ban in a 4-3 ruling after months of legal challenges sought to dismantle the law.

    State lawmakers in January passed, and Democratic Gov. J.B. Pritzker signed into law, a measure to ban assault-style rifles and high-capacity magazines. Those who already own such rifles face limitations on their sale and transfer and must register them with the Illinois State Police by 2024.

    That law – which came about six months after the July 2022 Highland Park, Illinois, shooting – faced immediate lawsuits in state and federal court that argued it violated the Illinois and US constitutions.

    A Macon County Circuit Court judge found earlier this year that exemptions to the law, including for law enforcement officers and armed guards at federally supervised nuclear sites, violated the equal protection clause of the state’s constitution.

    The Illinois Supreme Court agreed to fast-track the state’s appeal, and in a 20-page opinion, reversed the circuit court’s judgment. The majority’s opinion claimed to focus on two core issues brought by the plaintiffs: Whether the law violated the plaintiffs’ right to equal protection and if it constituted special legislation that created laws for some firearms owners and not others. The majority opinion notably did not decide if the ban violated the Second Amendment, asserting that the plaintiffs had waived this issue.

    “We express no opinion on the potential viability of plaintiffs’ waived claim concerning the Second Amendment,” they wrote.

    However, one of the plaintiffs’ attorneys, Jerry Stocks, told CNN the majority justices misrepresented their arguments. Stocks said the Second Amendment is a fundamental right inextricably linked to their arguments and thus should have weighed heavily on scrutiny of the ban. Ignoring the issue altogether was improper, he said.

    “We have a circus in Illinois and the clowns are in charge right now,” Stocks said.

    Illinois Attorney General Kwame Raoul said the new law is a “critical part” of the state’s efforts to combat gun violence, and Pritzker’s office hailed the decision to uphold “a commonsense gun reform law to keep mass-killing machines off of our streets and out of our schools, malls, parks, and places of worship.”

    Nancy Rotering, the Democratic mayor of Highland Park, called on Congress to act on tougher federal restrictions and said Friday’s decision “sends a message to residents that saving lives takes precedence over thoughts and prayers and acknowledges the importance of sensible gun control measures.”

    Illinois has struggled to restrict the flow of illegal guns, particularly in Chicago, while officials in the state have faced legal hurdles to implementing new gun restrictions.

    Despite gun rights advocates challenging the assault-style weapons ban and asking the US Supreme Court to block the ban – along with a city ordinance passed last year by Naperville, Illinois, that bans the sale of assault rifles – the US Supreme Court in May refused to intervene.

    This story has been updated with additional details.

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  • YouTube to prohibit false claims about cancer treatments under its medical misinformation policy | CNN Business

    YouTube to prohibit false claims about cancer treatments under its medical misinformation policy | CNN Business

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    New York
    CNN
     — 

    YouTube announced Tuesday that it will start removing false claims about cancer treatments as part of an ongoing effort to build out its medical misinformation policy.

    Under the updated policy, YouTube will prohibit “content that promotes cancer treatments proven to be harmful or ineffective, or content that discourages viewers from seeking professional medical treatment,” Dr. Garth Graham, head of YouTube Health, said in a blog post Tuesday.

    “This includes content that promotes unproven treatments in place of approved care or as a guaranteed cure, and treatments that have been specifically deemed harmful by health authorities,” he said, such as the misleading claim that patients should “take vitamin C instead of radiation therapy.”

    The update is just one of several steps YouTube has made in recent years to build out its medical misinformation policy, which also prohibits false claims about vaccines and abortions, as well as content that promotes or glorifies eating disorders.

    As part of the announcement, YouTube is rolling out a broader updated medical misinformation policy framework that will consider content in three categories: prevention, treatment and denial.

    “To determine if a condition, treatment or substance is in scope of our medical misinformation policies, we’ll evaluate whether it’s associated with a high public health risk, publicly available guidance from health authorities around the world, and whether it’s generally prone to misinformation,” Graham said. He added that YouTube will take action on content that falls into that framework and “contradicts local health authorities or the World Health Organization.”

    Graham said the policy is designed to preserve “the important balance of removing egregiously harmful content while ensuring space for debate and discussion.”

    Cancer treatment fits YouTube’s updated medical misinformation framework because the disease poses a high public health risk and is a topic prone to frequent misinformation, and because there is “stable consensus about safe cancer treatments from local and global health authorities,” Graham said.

    As with many social media policies, however, the challenge often isn’t introducing it but enforcing it. YouTube says its restrictions on cancer treatment misinformation will go into effect on Tuesday and enforcement will ramp up in the coming weeks. The company has previously said it uses both human and automated moderation to review videos and their context.

    YouTube also plans to promote cancer-related content from the Mayo Clinic and other authoritative sources.

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  • Maui conspiracy theories are spreading on social media. Why this always happens after a disaster | CNN Business

    Maui conspiracy theories are spreading on social media. Why this always happens after a disaster | CNN Business

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    CNN
     — 

    A slew of viral conspiracy videos on social media have made baseless claims that the Maui wildfires were started intentionally as part of a land grab, highlighting how quickly misinformation spreads after a disaster.

    While the cause of the fires hasn’t been determined, Hawaiian Electric — the major power company on Maui — is under scrutiny for not shutting down power lines when high winds created dangerous fire conditions. (Hawaiian Electric previously said both the company and the state are conducting investigations into what happened). Maui experienced high winds from Hurricane Dora in the south while it was also grappling with a drought. Wildfires across the region have long been a concern.

    Still, conspiracy theories continue to circulate as nearly 400 people are still unaccounted for.

    It’s not uncommon for conspiracy theories to make the rounds after a national crisis. According to Renee DiResta, a research manager at Stanford University who studies misinformation, people often look for a way to make sense of the world when they are anxious or have a feeling of powerlessness.

    “Theories that attribute the cause of a crisis to a specific bad actor offer a villain to blame, someone to potentially hold responsible,” DiResta said. “The conspiracy theories that are the most effective and plausible are usually based on some grain of truth and connect to some existing set of beliefs about the world.”

    For example, someone who distrusts the government may be more inclined to believe someone who posts negatively about a government agency.

    Conspiracy theorists on varying platforms claim the fires, which killed at least 114 people earlier this month, were planned as part of a strategic effort to weed out less wealthy residents on Maui and make room for multi-million dollar developments.

    In one video, a user claims a friend sent him a video of a laser beam “coming out of the sky, directly targeting the city.” “This was a direct energy weapon assault,” he said. The video remains posted but now includes a label from Instagram listing it as “false information.” The imagery appears to be from a previous SpaceX launch in California.

    Related far-fetched theories say the alleged “laser beams” were programmed not to hit anything blue, explaining why so many blue beach umbrellas were left unscathed by the fires.

    Other social media users allege elite Maui residents were behind the fires so they could buy the destroyed land at a discounted price and rebuild potentially a “smart city.”

    “You’re telling me that these cheaper lower middle class houses burnt down directly across the street and all of the mansions are still standing?” one YouTube user posted, referencing aerial imagery taken of the destruction.

    One tweet about a celebrity purchasing hundreds of acres across Maui over the past few years has received more than 12 million views on X, the platform formerly known as Twitter.

    When a conspiracy theory gains traction online, others may chime in and offer explanations for details not discussed in the original post. Social media algorithms can amplify these theories based on user attention and interactions.

    “Social media is incredibly valuable in crisis events as people on the ground can report the facts directly, but that usefulness is tempered, and can be dangerous, if misleading claims proliferate particularly in the immediate aftermath,” DiResta said.

    Social media platforms like Instagram, TikTok and YouTube have taken steps to curb the spread of conspiracy theories and misinformation, but some videos can slip through the cracks. Many platforms use a mix of tech monitoring tools and human reviewers to enforce their community guidelines.

    Ahead of the publishing of this article, TikTok removed several conspiracy theory videos sent by CNN that were in violation of its community guidelines, which it characterizes as “inaccurate, misleading, or false content that may cause significant harm to individuals or society, regardless of intent” on the platform. A company spokesperson said more than 40,000 trust and safety professionals around the world review and moderate content at all hours of the day.

    Meanwhile, in a statement provided to CNN, YouTube spokesperson Elena Hernandez said the platform uses different sections, such as top news, developing news and a fact-check panel, to provide users with as much context and background information as possible on certain trending topics, and will remove content when necessary.

    “During major news events, such as the horrific fires in Hawaii, our systems are designed to raise up content from authoritative sources in search results and recommendations,” Hernandez said.

    Instagram also employs third-party fact-checkers to contact sources, check public data and work to verify images and videos on questionable content. They then rate and provide labels to the content in question, such as “false,” “altered” or “missing context,” to encourage viewers to think critically about what they’re about to see.

    As a result, those posts show up far less often in users’ feeds and repeat offenders can face varying risks, such as losing monetization on their pages.

    Social media platform X did not immediately respond to a request for comment.

    Michael Inouye, a principal analyst at market research firm ABI Research, said social media companies are in a challenging spot because they want to uphold freedom of speech, but do so in an environment where posts that receive the most shares and likes often rise to the top of user feeds. That means posts sharing conspiracy theories that spark fear and emotion may perform better in a crisis than those sharing straightforward, accurate information.

    “Ultimately, social media will have to decide if it wants to be a better news organization or remain this ‘open’ platform for expression that can run counter to the ethics and standards that is required by news reporting,” Inouye said. “The problem is, even if something isn’t labeled as ‘news,’ some will still interpret personal opinion as truth, which puts us back in the same position.”

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  • X will allow political ads again and hire for safety and election teams ahead of 2024 elections | CNN Business

    X will allow political ads again and hire for safety and election teams ahead of 2024 elections | CNN Business

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    CNN
     — 

    X, the platform formerly known as Twitter, is hiring for its safety and elections teams ahead of the 2024 US presidential election and will again allow political ads for the first time since 2019.

    “We’re currently expanding our safety and elections teams to focus on combating manipulation, surfacing inauthentic accounts and closely monitoring the platform for emerging threats,” the company said in a blog post Tuesday, in which it also laid out its approach to political discourse and preventing voter manipulation as campaign season ramps up.

    The announcement comes after months of changes to the platform and how it handles content moderation after Elon Musk took over the company last fall. Shortly after his takeover, Musk laid off huge swaths of the company’s staff, including many employees responsible for safety, platform manipulation and election policy. (Musk later boasted about having cut roughly 80% of the company’s staff.)

    It also follows criticism by Musk about how the platform’s previous leadership handled political discourse, including claims of censorship.

    According to X’s Tuesday blog post, the platform will continue to apply its civic integrity policy — which prohibits the use of the platform for “manipulating or interfering in elections,” including posting content that could mislead people about how, when or where to participate in civic processes such as voting — for a “limited period of time before and during an election.”

    “We’re updating this policy to make sure we strike the right balance between tackling the most harmful types of content—those that could intimidate or deceive people into surrendering their right to participate in a civic process—and not censoring political debate,” X said. The platform will add public labels to posts that violate the civic integrity policy and let users know when reach has been restricted on such content.

    The practices laid out in X’s Tuesday post are not all that different from how the platform handled misinformation related to elections under its previous leadership. Ahead of the 2022 midterms, the platform said it would label and demote, for example, false claims about how to cast a ballot or the outcomes of a race.

    X added that it is following through on a commitment to allow expanded political advertising. The company began taking steps in that direction in January, when it relaxed a ban on issue advertising and promised that further changes to political ads would be coming. Twitter initially implemented restrictions on political and issue advertising in 2019 amid concerns that politicians could seek to target users with false or misleading information.

    On Tuesday, X said promoted political posts would again be allowed and that the ads would be subject to certain policies.

    “This will include prohibiting the promotion of false or misleading content,” X said in the blog post, “including false or misleading information intended to undermine public confidence in an election, while seeking to preserve free and open political discourse.”

    The blog post added that X will create a “global advertising transparency center” that will allow users to review political ads — a capability that is required under Europe’s new Digital Services Act, a law that X and other very large tech platforms were expected to comply with as of last week.

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  • Elon Musk’s X Corp. sues California AG over content moderation law | CNN Business

    Elon Musk’s X Corp. sues California AG over content moderation law | CNN Business

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    New York
    CNN
     — 

    Elon Musk’s X Corp., the parent company of the platform formerly known as Twitter, on Friday sued California’s attorney general over the state’s new content moderation law.

    California Gov. Gavin Newsom signed bill AB 587 into law last September. The law requires social media companies to post their terms of service online and submit a semiannual report to the state attorney general outlining their content moderation policies and practices. Platforms must, among other things, disclose how their automated content moderation systems work, how they define controversial content categories such as “hate speech” and “disinformation,” and the number of pieces of content flagged or removed in such categories.

    Newsom’s office touted the bill as a way to improve transparency from social networks. But in a complaint filed in California’s Eastern District Court against California Attorney General Robert Bonta, X alleged that the law violates the First Amendment and California’s constitution by potentially compelling the company to moderate users’ politically charged speech.

    The law “compels companies like X Corp. to engage in speech against their will, impermissibly interferes with the constitutionally-protected editorial judgments of companies such as X Corp., has both the purpose and likely effect of pressuring companies such as X Corp. to remove, demonetize, or deprioritize constitutionally-protected speech,” the company alleged in the complaint. It added that the law could place an “undue burden” on social media companies such as Musk’s X, which is headquartered in California.

    Attorney General Bonta’s press office said in an email to CNN: “While we have not yet been served with the complaint, we will review it and respond in court.”

    A spokesperson for Newsom sent CNN a statement from last September in which the governor remarked on the bill.

    “California will not stand by as social media is weaponized to spread hate and disinformation that threaten our communities and foundational values as a country,” Newsom said in the statement. “Californians deserve to know how these platforms are impacting our public discourse, and this action brings much-needed transparency and accountability to the policies that shape the social media content we consume every day.”

    The lawsuit comes as Musk has escalated his rhetoric over what kinds of speech should be permitted on his platform, as the company’s core advertising business has taken a major revenue hit over concerns, among other things, about the approach to content moderation. Under Musk’s leadership, the platform has made several changes to its content policies, including ceasing enforcement of its Covid-19 misinformation policy and reinstating many previously banned users.

    Just last month, at least two brands paused their ad spending on X after their advertisements ran alongside an account promoting Nazism. (X suspended the account after the issue was flagged and said ad impressions on the page were minimal.)

    The billionaire this week threatened a lawsuit against the Anti-Defamation League for defamation, claiming that the nonprofit organization’s statements about rising hate speech on the social media platform have torpedoed X’s advertising revenue. (The ADL says it does not comment on legal threats, but CEO Jonathan Greenblatt spoke out against the #BanTheADL campaign on X.)

    In Friday’s lawsuit, X Corp. alleged that requiring social media companies to report their moderation practices could pressure the platforms into “limiting or censoring constitutionally-protected content that the State finds objectionable.” It also claimed that the law could force social platforms “to take public positions on controversial and politically charged issues” and thus tailor those positions in a way it otherwise wouldn’t to avoid public scrutiny.

    The law “‘compel[s]’ X Corp. to ‘speak a particular message,’ which necessarily ‘alters the content of’ its speech,’” in violation of its First Amendment rights, the company alleges in the complaint.

    The lawsuit seeks a jury trial on the constitutionality and legal validity of the California law.

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  • France orders Apple to pull iPhone 12 off shelves for high radiation levels | CNN Business

    France orders Apple to pull iPhone 12 off shelves for high radiation levels | CNN Business

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    CNN
     — 

    Apple is fighting France’s claims that the iPhone 12 surpasses European radiation exposure limits after French regulators on Tuesday ordered a pause on sales and a fix to phones already sold to customers.

    France’s National Frequency Agency said it “has demanded that Apple withdraw the iPhone 12 from the French market, effective 12 September 2023, as measures show the specific absorption rate exceeds the set limits.” The agency said the iPhone 12 is not compliant with European Union regulations.

    “Apple must immediately adopt all necessary measures to prevent the iPhone 12 in the supply chain from being made available on the market,” ANFR added.

    Disputing the agency’s claims, Apple said it had already given the agency multiple lab results conducted by the company and independent third parties that showed the device’s compliance with relevant SAR regulations and global standards.

    The company said it was contesting the AFNR’s review results and would continue to work with the agency to demonstrate the phone’s compliance.

    SAR is a measure of the rate of energy absorption by the body from the source being measured, according to the ANFR. But experts and regulators generally say not to worry.

    “To date, and after much research performed, no adverse health effect has been causally linked with exposure to wireless technologies,” according to the World Health Organization. “Provided that the overall exposure remains below international guidelines, no consequences for public health are anticipated.”

    ANFR ruled that for iPhone 12s already in use, Apple “must adopt all necessary corrective measures to bring the telephones into conformity as soon as possible, otherwise, Apple will have to recall the equipment.”

    The measure was effective from Tuesday, with the regulator adding it would ensure the product is no longer offered for sale in all distribution channels in France from that day.

    France’s Minister for the Digital Economy Jean-Noel Barrot confirmed in a tweet that iPhone 12 sales are “halted in France until Apple offers an update for all affected devices.”

    “The @anfr found that the iPhone 12 was emitting a level of waves slightly higher than the authorized threshold,” Barrot wrote in another tweet, translated from French. “This level is more than 10 times lower than the level at which there could be a health risk.”

    The announcement came as Apple unveiled the iPhone 15 and iPhone 15 Pro, Apple’s newest iteration of its iconic product, at its annual keynote event in California on Tuesday.

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  • Biden administration seeks to remove medical bills from credit reports | CNN Politics

    Biden administration seeks to remove medical bills from credit reports | CNN Politics

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    CNN
     — 

    Millions of Americans with unpaid medical bills would no longer have that debt show up on credit reports under proposals being considered by the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau.

    The agency, which is soliciting feedback from small businesses that may be affected, expects to issue a proposed rule next year, the bureau said Thursday.

    If the rule is finalized, consumer credit companies would be barred from including medical debt and collection information on reports that creditors use to make underwriting decisions.

    Creditors would only be able consider non-medical information when evaluating borrowers’ loan applications. And debt collectors would no longer be able to use the listing of medical debt on credit reports as leverage to pressure consumers into paying questionable bills, the bureau said.

    “Research shows that medical bills have little predictive value in credit decisions, yet tens of millions of American households are dealing with medical debt on their credit reports,” said CFPB Director Rohit Chopra. “When someone gets sick, they should be able to focus on getting better, rather than fighting debt collectors trying to extort them into paying bills they may not even owe.”

    Roughly 20% of Americans reported having medical debt, according to a 2022 report from the bureau. But Chopra stressed that many health care bills contain mistakes.

    “Families are often barraged with a string of confusing and error-ridden bills, and too many of us have ended up in a doom loop of disputes between insurance companies and health care providers,” he said. “These bills, even ones where the patient doesn’t owe anything further, can end up being reported on the patient’s credit report.”

    The proposals under consideration are the latest step in the bureau’s efforts to curb the impact of medical debt on consumers. CFPB and other agencies are also looking into medical billing practices, including costly products such as medical credit cards and installment loans.

    The White House has also sought to help lessen Americans’ medical debt burden as part of its effort to help people contend with inflation and higher costs of living. Last year, it laid out a four-point plan to help protect consumers, including having the bureau investigate credit reporting companies and debt collectors that violate patients’ and families’ rights.

    Medical debt has lowered people’s credit scores, which affects their ability to buy a home, get a mortgage or own a small business, Vice President Kamala Harris said in a call with reporters on Thursday.

    “We know credit scores determine whether a person can have economic health and well-being, much less the ability to grow their wealth,” she said. “Today, we are offering a solution to fix this problem … Together, these measures will improve the credit scores of millions of Americans so that they will better be able to invest in their future.”

    Also last year, the three largest credit reporting agencies – Equifax, Experian and TransUnion – announced they would remove nearly 70% of medical debt from consumer credit reports.

    The agencies no longer include medical debt that went to collections on consumer credit reports once it has been paid off. That eliminated billions of dollars of debt on consumer records.

    In addition, unpaid medical collection debt no longer appears on credit reports for the first year, whereas the previous grace period was six months. That gives people more time to work with their health insurers or providers to address the bills. And medical collection debt of less than $500 is no longer included on credit reports.

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  • Amazon invests up to $4 billion in Anthropic AI in exchange for minority stake and further AWS integration | CNN Business

    Amazon invests up to $4 billion in Anthropic AI in exchange for minority stake and further AWS integration | CNN Business

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    CNN
     — 

    Amazon said on Monday that it’s investing up to $4 billion into the artificial intelligence company Anthropic in exchange for partial ownership and Anthropic’s greater use of Amazon Web Services (AWS), the e-commerce giant’s cloud computing platform.

    The deepening partnership between the two companies highlights how some large tech firms with massive cloud computing resources are increasingly leveraging those assets to gain a bigger foothold in AI.

    As part of the deal, AWS will become the “primary” cloud provider for Anthropic, with the AI company using Amazon’s cloud platform to do “the majority” of its AI model development and research into AI safety, the companies said. That will include using Amazon’s suite of in-house AI chips.

    Anthropic also made a “long-term commitment” to offer its AI models to AWS customers, Amazon said, and promised to give AWS users early access to features such as the ability to adapt Anthropic models for specific use cases.

    “With today’s announcement, customers will have early access to features for customizing Anthropic models, using their own proprietary data to create their own private models, and will be able to utilize fine-tuning capabilities via a self-service feature,” Amazon said in a release.

    Anthropic already offers its models to AWS users through Amazon Bedrock, Amazon’s one-stop shop for AI products. Bedrock also provides access to models from other providers including Stability AI and AI21 Labs, along with proprietary models developed by Amazon itself.

    In a release, Anthropic said that Amazon’s minority stake would not change its corporate governance structure nor its commitments to developing AI responsibly.

    “We will conduct pre-deployment tests of new models to help us manage the risks of increasingly capable AI systems,” Anthropic said.

    Amazon and Anthropic both made commitments to the Biden administration this year to conduct external audits of its AI systems before releasing them to the public.

    Amazon’s investment in Anthropic follows similar moves by cloud leaders such as Microsoft. In 2019, Microsoft invested $1 billion in ChatGPT-maker OpenAI. More recently, Microsoft made a $10 billion investment in OpenAI this year and launched a push to bring OpenAI’s technology into consumer-facing Microsoft products, such as Bing.

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  • Netflix shutters its DVD rental business, marking the end of the red envelope era | CNN Business

    Netflix shutters its DVD rental business, marking the end of the red envelope era | CNN Business

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    CNN
     — 

    Netflix will send out its last red envelope on Friday, marking an end to 25 years of mailing DVDs to members.

    The company announced earlier this year it is shutting down its DVD-by-mail service, 16 years after it gradually shifted its focus to streaming content online. Netflix will continue to accept returns of customers’ remaining DVDs until October 27.

    Introduced in 1998 when Netflix first launched, the DVD service promised an easier rental experience than having to drive to the nearest Blockbuster or Hollywood Video. The red envelopes, which have long been synonymous with Netflix itself, littered homes and dorm rooms across the country.

    Although the idea of receiving a DVD in the mail now may sound almost as outdated as dial-up internet, some longtime customers told CNN they continued to find value in the DVD option.

    Colin McEvoy, a father of two from Bethlehem, Pennsylvania and a self-described film fanatic, said he rushed through 40 movies in the last few weeks to get through the remainder of his queue before the service ends. McEvoy has remained faithful to Netflix’s DVD service so he can keep watching Bollywood and obscure independent films not often found on streaming services.

    “I was basically watching them as soon as I got them, and then returning the discs as quickly as possible to get as many as I could,” said McEvoy, who has been using Netflix’s DVD-by-mail service since 2001, just three years after it launched.

    “I remember I was in high school when I first signed up for it, and the concept was so novel I had to really convince my dad that it was a legit service and not some sort of Internet scam,” said McEvoy, who uses an old Xbox 360 to play his Netflix DVDs. “Now I have friends who’ve seen my red Netflix envelopes arrive in the mail, and either didn’t remember what they were or couldn’t believe that I still got the DVDs in the mail.”

    Some other Netflix users stood by its DVD service not only for the selection but for added perks. Brandon Cordy, a 41-year-old graphic designer from Atlanta, previously told CNN he stuck with DVDs because many digital rentals don’t come with special features or audio commentaries.

    There are other factors, too. Michael Inouye, an analyst at ABI Research, said some consumers may still not have access to reliable or fast enough broadband connections, or simply prefer physical media to digital, much in the way that some audio enthusiasts still purchase and collect CDs and records.

    For Netflix, however, the offering has made less sense in recent years. “Our goal has always been to provide the best service for our members, but as the DVD business continues to shrink, that’s going to become increasingly difficult,” co-CEO Ted Sarandos wrote in a blog post in April.

    Shutting down its DVD business could help Netflix better focus resources as it expands into new markets such as gaming as well as live and interactive content. Its DVD business has also declined significantly in recent years. In 2021, Netflix’s non-streaming revenue – mostly attributable to DVDs – amounted to 0.6% of its revenue, or just over $182 million.

    The cost to operate its DVD business may also be a factor, especially as Netflix rethinks expenses broadly amid heightened streaming competition and broader economic uncertainty. “Moving plastic discs around costs far more money than streaming digital bits,” said Eric Schmitt, senior director analyst at Gartner Research. “Removing and replacing damaged and lost inventory are also cost considerations.”

    Even before Netflix announced the news, some longtime subscribers said they could see the writing on the wall.

    “The inventory of available titles, while still vast, had been contracting some over the years with some movies that were once available no longer being so,” Cordy said. “Turnaround times to get a new movie or movies also started to take longer, so I knew it was only a matter of time. But I didn’t want it to end if I could help it.”

    Other DVD subscribers were hoping for a happy ending. Bill Rouhana, the CEO of Chicken Soup for the Soul Entertainment – which owns DVD rental service Redbox – told The Hollywood Reporter in April he hoped to purchase Netflix’s DVD business. “I’d like to buy it… I wish Netflix would sell me that business instead of shutting it down,” he said. Redbox remains popular despite the shift in streaming, but took a hit during the pandemic because of the lack of new movies and TV shows to fill the boxes.

    A Netflix spokesperson told CNN it has no plans to sell the DVD business and will be recycling the majority of its DVDs through third-party companies that specialize in recycling digital and electronic media. It will also donate some of its inventory to organizations focused on film and media.

    Netflix is also offering subscribers a “finale surprise” where they could opt-in to receive up to 10 DVDs selected at random from their queue.

    McEvoy, who already subscribes to Disney+, Hulu, the Criterion channel and Mubi, said he’s now testing out other services such as Eros (Indian cinema) and Viki (Korean and Chinese films) for harder-to-find content. Still, he said, he’s “sad” to see Netflix’s DVD service depart.

    “I absolutely would not have been able to find all of those movies [I’ve watched] if not for the Netflix DVD service,” he said.

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