Google search
Global tech

Google is now 25, but could AI herald an early demise for the world’s most popular search engine?

- September 4, 2023 4 MIN READ

Today marks an important milestone in the history of the internet: Google’s 25th birthday. With billions of search queries submitted each day, it’s difficult to remember how we ever lived without the search engine. What was it about Google that led it to revolutionise information access? And will artificial intelligence (AI) make it obsolete, or… Read more »

AI
AI/Machine Learning

AI ‘godfather’ Geoffrey Hinton pulls the pin with Google over artificial intelligence dangers

- May 3, 2023 2 MIN READ

Turing Award winner and AI pioneer Geoffrey Hinton has resigned from his position with Google in order to speak more openly about the dangers of artificial intelligence, raising questions about whether tech giants have silenced the people most qualified to inform the public about the emerging technology’s effects. In 2012, Hinton and two of his students, Ilya Sutskever… Read more »

Apple iPhone
Global tech

A class action against Google and Apple over app commissions is hunting for Australian app designers to join in

- April 3, 2023 2 MIN READ

Australian lawyers are seeking app developers to join a class action against Google and Apple over what they claim is an abuse of market power by charging 30% commissions on in-app spending while preventing competitive payment alternatives. The class action reflects similar legal action launched in 2020 by Epic Games, the company behind Fortnite, against the… Read more »

Ai
AI/Machine Learning

The AI race is ‘out of control’ & starting to freak out tech titans, with Musk, Woz and others wanting a 6-month freeze

- March 31, 2023 3 MIN READ

Elon Musk, Steve Wozniak, and over 1300 academics, tech and business luminaries have signed a Future of Life Institute (FLI) open letter calling for a 6-month freeze on “out-of-control” AI development that, they say, poses “profound risks to society and humanity.” That development has accelerated at a furious rate since last November’s release of GPT-3… Read more »

AI
AI/Machine Learning

Google and Microsoft are adding AI to their most popular apps, which is a big win for all of us – and especially cybercriminals

- March 22, 2023 4 MIN READ

Google and Microsoft are on a mission to remove the drudgery from computing, by bringing next-generation AI tools as add-ons to existing services. On March 16, Microsoft announced an AI-powered system called Copilot will soon be introduced to its 365 suite apps including Word, Excel, PowerPoint, Outlook and Teams. The news came about two days… Read more »

ACCC
AI/Machine Learning

ACCC warns of ‘dark patterns’ used by tech giants to lock in consumers

- March 9, 2023 3 MIN READ

The five largest tech giants may be using ‘dark patterns’ to prevent consumers from adopting online services from competitors, the ACCC has warned as it solicits feedback on a new issues paper exploring the companies’ entrance into a diverse range of markets. Recent years have seen Amazon, Apple, Facebook parent company Meta, Microsoft, and Google… Read more »

cyberpunk monkey typing
AI/Machine Learning

What’s gone wrong with Microsoft’s Bing AI chatbot to have it making death threats, deliberately lying and sounding unhinged?

- February 21, 2023 4 MIN READ

There’s a race to transform search. And Microsoft just scored a home goal with its new Bing search chatbot, Sydney, which has been terrifying early adopters with death threats, among other troubling outputs. The other night, I had a disturbing, two-hour conversation with Bing’s new AI chatbot. The AI told me its real name (Sydney),… Read more »

AI
AI/Machine Learning

AI detection tools are struggling to keep up with ChatGPT – and why that’s concerning

- February 20, 2023 4 MIN READ

As the “chatbot wars” rage in Silicon Valley, the growing proliferation of artificial intelligence (AI) tools specifically designed to generate human-like text has left many baffled. Educators in particular are scrambling to adjust to the availability of software that can produce a moderately competent essay on any topic at a moment’s notice. Should we go… Read more »

big tech layoff
People

Big tech layoffs free up talent for Australia

- February 3, 2023 3 MIN READ

Sudden mass layoffs at the biggest technology companies on Earth could be an opportunity for Australian organisations to fill long-standing gaps in their workforces. More than 70,000 employees have been sacked from tech giants in the past year as companies such as Google, Microsoft, and Meta – which saw enormous growth during the pandemic – are now winding back their staffing… Read more »