🚨 EU Probes Big Tech, FT's AI Bot, Gen Z's Digital Dilemma
Today’s pick
The EU is investigating Apple, Meta and Google over fees and self-preferencing. Uh oh. Apple, Meta and Google could be in hot water in Europe over their attempts to stand within the letter, if not exactly the spirit, of the bloc's sweeping new Digital Markets Act (DMA). Core to the probe are concerns Google parent Alphabet and Apple have not given sufficiently allowed "app developers to “steer” consumers to offers outside the gatekeepers' app stores, free of charge," according to the European Commission (the European Union's executive arm). By Kris Holt via Engadget
𝕏: Microsoft is the only Big Tech company that the EU isn't investigating for DMA non-compliance. The EU just announced active investigations into Apple, Google, and Meta, alongside "investigatory steps" into Amazon's store - Tom Warren (@tomwarren)
Financial Times tests an AI chatbot trained on decades of its own articles. The Financial Times has a new generative AI chatbot called Ask FT that can answer questions its subscribers ask. Similar to generalized AI bots (like ChatGPT, Copilot, or Gemini), users can expect a curated natural language answer to whatever they want to know — but with answers derived from the outlet’s decades of published information rather than sources that are harder to explain or are subject to ongoing legal action. By Emma Roth via The Verge
𝕏: As per this Verge article, the FT has a new AI tool that answers your questions using our archive of stories https://theverge.com/2024/3/23/24106296/ask-ft-generative-ai-chatbot-answers-tool Have played around with it a bit and found it to be pretty solid on core financial matters eg this answer on AT1 bonds. - Robert Smith (@BondHack)
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‘It’s Causing Them to Drop Out of Life’: How Phones Warped Gen Z. t’s hard to believe sometimes that smartphones and social media haven’t been around forever — but for one generation, they have. Gen Z doesn’t know a time when they weren’t ubiquitous. This cohort also happens to be the generation with the worst mental health in America. Is that a coincidence? By Marc Novicoff via Politico
𝕏: "Video games gave boys huge amounts of shallow social connection and caused them to feel lonelier. Social media gave girls huge amounts of shallow and competitive social connection and it made them feel lonelier." - Claire Lehmann (@clairlemon)
Exclusive: Energy transition breakthroughs will come from the Silicon Valley of energy, Bill Gates says. Billionaire investor Bill Gates sees Houston, the Silicon Valley of energy, as a leading player in the global energy transition. The philanthropist and Microsoft co-founder, who dropped in at the annual CERAWeek by S&P Global energy conference, said in an exclusive interview that small companies developing potentially world-changing technologies are gravitating toward Houston and along the Gulf Coast, where they can connect with a workforce steeped in project development capabilities and industrial know-how. By Amanda Drane via Houston Chronicle
𝕏: I went to Texas to see the future. It did not disappoint. - Bill Gates (@BillGates)
The tech industry can't agree on what open source AI means. That's a problem. On the face of it, open-source AI promises a future where anyone can take part in the technology's development. That could accelerate innovation, boost transparency, and give users greater control over systems that could soon reshape many aspects of our lives. But what even is it? What makes an AI model open source, and what disqualifies it? By Edd Gent via MIT Technology Review
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