Is Threads under threat? Can Reddit say no to Google search? Nvidia is using AI to design its AI chips. And if you want to get past OpenAI’s guardrails, it’s easy – just ask it in Zulu.
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These and more top tech stories on Hashtag Trending
I’m your host Jim Love, CIO of IT World Canada and Tech News Day in the US.
Threads Software Limited, a British firm, which trademarked the name “Threads” in 2012 for its intelligent messaging hub, has given social media giant Meta a 30-day ultimatum to cease using the name in the UK.
Their product, a software hub, designed by Threads Software Limited, archives a company’s emails, tweets, and VoIP calls in a cloud database. The company revealed that it had declined four offers from Meta to acquire its “threads.app” domain.
To add insult to injury, when Meta introduced its own “Threads” app, the British company found itself removed from Facebook.
John Yardley, the managing director of Threads Software Limited, commented on the situation, highlighting the “David and Goliath” nature of the battle and emphasizing that Meta doesn’t have the right to use the “Threads” brand name. Meta has yet to comment on the matter.
Sources include: Business Insider
Reddit, the popular online forum, is reportedly considering cutting ties with search giants like Google.
According to a report by The Washington Post, if Reddit fails to strike deals with generative AI companies for its data, it might block search crawlers from Google and Bing.
This would mean that Reddit posts wouldn’t appear in search results.
While Reddit initially seemed to refute the report, it later clarified that the possibility of blocking search crawlers isn’t off the table. The company’s spokesperson, Tim Rathschmidt, stated that their earlier comment about “nothing is changing” was only in reference to user logins.
While they may not be blocking google search, there are now over 535 news organizations that block their content from being scraped by companies like OpenAI for AI training.
Sources include: The Verge
Nvidia is leveraging AI chatbots to revolutionize the intricate process of semiconductor design.
Modern chips, comprising tens of billions of transistors, present a colossal challenge in design, often requiring thousands of engineers and up to two years to finalize.
Nvidia, known for its complex chips that fuel technologies like ChatGPT, has taken its 30-year archive, and integrated this vast data making it available to a large language model driven chatbot.
One primary application is leveraging the company’s extensive history to answer questions. Nvidia’s chief scientist, Bill Dally, highlighted that senior designers often spend significant time addressing queries from junior designers. By introducing a chatbot into the equation, senior designers can save a considerable amount of time.
The research underscored that a chatbot, when fed with specific data from Nvidia’s experience, could outperform even advanced models, offering a cost-effective solution. Additionally, Nvidia showcased AI’s capability to generate code, aiming to streamline the troubleshooting process for engineers.
Sources include: Reuters
OpenAI’s ChatGPT has been striving to add advanced safety measures to prevent the software from being used inappropriately.
Researchers at Brown University have discovered an easy way around these prohibitions. They found that by translating “unsafe” commands into less commonly studied languages like Zulu or Scots Gaelic, they could bypass ChatGPT’s safety guardrails.
Apparently these guardrails, designed to prevent the AI from generating harmful or slanderous content, appear to be primarily optimized for English. The study revealed that translating unsafe inputs into these “low-resource” languages could elicit harmful responses from ChatGPT nearly half the time, compared to a less than 1 per cent success rate with the original English inputs.
The findings underscore the AI industry’s oversight in handling less-studied languages, posing safety risks for the 1.2 billion speakers of such languages.
Sources include: ZDNet
John Chen, who has been at the helm of BlackBerry Ltd. (has it really been for a decade?) is set to depart from the company. Effective November 4, Chen will retire from his roles as the executive chair and CEO. Richard (Dick) Lynch, who joined BlackBerry’s board in 2013 and has held prominent positions at Verizon Communications and Verizon Wireless, will step in as the interim chief executive and board chair.
The company is currently on the hunt for a permanent CEO. Chen’s exit aligns with his contract terms and follows BlackBerry’s decision to separate its IoT division from its cybersecurity unit.
Chen’s leadership took BlackBerry from the edge of bankruptcy and transformed a hardware company to a software-focused company with offerings in cybersecurity and IoT technologies. An amazing accomplishment.
Sources include: IT World Canada
And that’s the top tech news for today.
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