Verily is closing its medical device program as Alphabet shifts more resources to AI

Verily is closing its medical device program as Alphabet shifts more resources to AI

Alphabet’s life sciences arm Verily laid off staff and eliminated its entire devices program Monday. CEO Stephen Gillett announced the “difficult decision” to wind down the program in a staff memo, according to Business Insider. “Over the years, Verily has built a legacy in developing world-class, innovative medical devices,” Gillett wrote, noting that the “path…

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Alphabet CEO Sundar Pichai dismisses AI job fears, emphasizes expansion plans

Alphabet CEO Sundar Pichai dismisses AI job fears, emphasizes expansion plans

In a Bloomberg interview Wednesday night in downtown San Francisco, Alphabet CEO Sundar Pichai pushed back against concerns that AI could eventually make half the company’s 180,000-person workforce redundant. Instead, Pichai stressed the company’s commitment to growth through at least next year. “I expect we will grow from our current engineering phase even into next…

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Waymo may use interior camera data to train generative AI models, but riders will be able to opt out

Waymo may use interior camera data to train generative AI models, but riders will be able to opt out

Waymo is preparing to use data from its robotaxis, including video from interior cameras tied to rider identities, to train generative AI models, according to an unreleased version of its privacy policy found by researcher Jane Manchun Wong, raising fresh questions about how much of a rider’s behavior inside autonomous vehicles could be repurposed for…

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#FTC says partnerships like Microsoft-OpenAI raise antitrust concerns

#FTC says partnerships like Microsoft-OpenAI raise antitrust concerns

The Federal Trade Commission said in a staff report issued Friday that there are potential competitive issues in partnerships between big tech companies and generative AI developers — specifically, Microsoft’s backing of OpenAI and Amazon and Alphabet/Google’s partnerships with Anthropic. “The FTC’s report sheds light on how partnerships by big tech firms can create lock-in,…

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