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Google rebrands
its AI services
SAN FRANCISCO | Google on Thursday introduced a free artificial intelligence app that will enable people to rely on technology instead of their own brains to write, interpret what they’re reading and deal with a variety of other task in their lives.
With the advent of the Gemini app, named after an AI project unveiled late last year, Google will cast aside the Bard chatbot that it introduced a year ago in an effort to catch up with ChatGPT, the chatbot unleashed by the Microsoft-backed startup OpenAI in late 2022. Google is immediately releasing a standalone Gemini app for smartphones running on its Android software.
In a few weeks, Google will put Gemini’s features into its existing search app for iPhones, where Apple would prefer people rely on its Siri voice assistant for handling various tasks.
Although the Google voice assistant that has been available for years will stick around, company executives say they expect Gemini to become the main way users apply the technology to help them think, plan and create. It marks Google’s next foray down a new and potentially perilous avenue while remaining focused on its founding goal “to organize the world’s information and make it universally accessible and useful.”
“We think this is one of the most profound ways we are going to advance our mission,” Sissie Hsiao, a Google general manager overseeing Gemini, told reporters ahead of Thursday’s announcement.
The Gemini app initially will be released in the U.S. in English before expanding to the Asia-Pacific region next week, with versions in Japanese and Korean.
Besides the free version of Gemini, Google will be selling an advanced service accessible through the new app for $20 a month. The Mountain View, California, company says it is such a sophisticated form of AI that will it be able to tutor students, provide computer programming tips to engineers, dream up ideas for projects, and then create the content for the suggestions a user likes best.
The Gemini Advanced option, which will be powered by an AI technology dubbed “Ultra 1.0,” will seek to build upon the nearly 100 million worldwide subscribers that Google says it has attracted so far — most of whom pay $2 to $10 per month for additional storage to back up photos, documents and other digital material. The Gemini Advanced subscription will include 2 terabytes of storage that Google currently sells for $10 per month, meaning the company believes the AI technology is worth an additional $10 per month.
Google is offering a free two-month trial of Gemini Advanced to encourage people to try it out.
The rollout of the Gemini apps underscores the building moment to bring more AI to smartphones — devices that accompany people everywhere — as part of a trend Google began last fall when it released its latest Pixel smartphones and Samsung embraced last month with its latest Galaxy smartphones.
It also is likely to escalate the high-stakes AI showdown pitting Google against Microsoft, two of the world’s most powerful companies jockeying to get the upper hand with a technology that could reshape work, entertainment and perhaps humanity itself. The battle already has contributed to a $2 trillion increase in the combined market value of Microsoft and Google’s corporate parent, Alphabet Inc., since the end of 2022.
In a blog post, Google CEO Sundar Puchai predicted the technology underlying Gemini Advanced will be able to outthink even the smartest people when tackling many complex topics.
“Ultra 1.0 is the first to outperform human experts on (massive multitask language understanding), which uses a combination of 57 subjects — including math, physics, history, law, medicine and ethics — to test knowledge and problem-solving abilities,” Pichai wrote.
But Microsoft CEO Satya Nadella made a point Wednesday of touting the capabilities of the ChatGPT-4 chatbot — a product released nearly a year ago after being trained by OpenAI on large-language models, or LLMs.
“We have the best model, today even,” Nadella asserted during an event in Mumbai, India. He then seemingly anticipated Gemini’s next-generation release, adding, “We’re waiting for the competition to arrive. It’ll arrive, I’m sure. But the fact is, that we have the most leading LLM out there.”
The introduction of increasingly sophisticated AI is amplifying fears that the technology will malfunction and misbehave on its own, or be manipulated by people for sinister purposes such as spreading misinformation in politics or to torment their enemies. That potential has already led to the passage of rules designed to police the use of AI in Europe, and spurred similar efforts in the U.S. and other countries.
Google says the next generation of Gemini products have undergone extensive testing to ensure they are safe and were built to adhere to its AI principles, which include being socially beneficial, avoiding unfair biases and being accountable to people.
Georgia could make it harder for some to join unions
ATLANTA | As Georgia shovels out billions in economic incentives to electric vehicle manufacturers and other companies, the state’s ruling Republicans are moving to make it harder for workers at those firms to join labor unions, in what could be a violation of current federal law.
The state Senate voted 31-23 on Thursday for a bill backed by Gov. Brian Kemp that would bar companies that accept state incentives from recognizing unions without a formal secret-ballot election. That would block unions from winning recognition from a company voluntarily after signing up a majority of workers, in what is usually known as a card check. Senate Bill 362 moves to the House for more debate.
Union leaders and Democrats argue the bill violates 1935’s National Labor Relations Act, which governs union organizing, by blocking part of federal law allowing companies to voluntarily recognize unions that show support from a majority of employees.
“At the end of the day, voluntary recognition is a protected right, period,” said Hannah Perkins, political director for the Georgia AFL-CIO union federation, which claims 500,000 members in the state. Only 4.4% of Georgia workers are union members, the eighth-lowest rate among states.
The National Labor Relations Board, the federal agency overseeing union affairs, did not immediately respond Thursday to an email seeking comment.
Georgia’s bill is modeled after a law passed in Tennessee last year, but there could be similar legislation offered in many other states. The conservative American Legislative Exchange Council is promoting the idea. The national push could also be a response to a decision by the Democratic-controlled NLRB last year that made it easier for unions to organize by card check.
Governors in other Southern states traditionally hostile to organized labor have been speaking out against unions in recent weeks, after the United Auto Workers vowed a fresh push to organize nonunion auto factories after multiple failed attempts.
Alabama Republican Gov. Kay Ivey said her state’s economic success is “under attack.” Henry McMaster, South Carolina’s Republican governor, told lawmakers in the nation’s least unionized state last month that organized labor is such a threat that he would fight unions “ all the way to the gates of hell.”
Georgia Gov. Brian Kemp proclaimed his support for the bill in a January speech to the Georgia Chamber of Commerce, echoing the chamber’s own agenda. He said the move would protect workers’ “right to opportunity” from President Joe Biden’s pro-union agenda and outside forces “who want nothing more than to see the free market brought to a screeching halt.”
Alabama and South Carolina are among five states that in 2010 or 2012 passed state constitutional amendments guaranteeing access to secret union ballots. Indiana, like Tennessee has passed a state law. The National Labor Relations Board challenged the Arizona amendment in court, but a federal judge in 2012 declined to overturn it, saying it was too soon to judge whether the state amendment conflicted with federal law.
Kemp and fellow Georgia Republicans argue that they are protecting workers from being bullied into joining unions by giving them the protection of a secret ballot.
“Why is it such a bad policy to say, if you’re in the state of Georgia, you have a right to be protected, you have a right to choose whether or not to unionize, and you’re not going to get bullied, and you’re not going to get blackmailed?” asked state Sen. Bo Hatchett, a Cornelia Republican who Kemp appointed as one his floor leaders in the Senate.
Democrats, though, say the bill is really about making it harder for unions to organize and for companies to accept them. Most employers who oppose unions require employees voting on organizing to attend mandatory anti-union meetings before a vote, which can cause employees to vote against unions.
“All too often employers are engaging in these scorched-earth campaigns against workers,” said state Sen. Nikki Merritt, a Lawrenceville Democrat who said a union contract protected her in a former job. Like most Senate Democrats Thursday, Merritt wore a red bandanna as a symbol of union solidarity.
State. Sen Mike Hodges, a Brunswick Republican who is sponsoring the bill, denied that it would violate federal law.
“It does not prohibit a company’s employees from unionizing or require an employer to oppose unionization in any action,” said Hodges, another Kemp floor leader.
Hodges said he has a number of relatives who had been union members and understands “the addition to a lifestyle that union wages make.”
“If I thought this bill in any way, shape or form was injurious to unions or to union members, I would not carry it,” Hodges said.
But Democrats said they think the bill is an attempt to attack federal labor law.
“They think that they found a loophole, so they want this to be a test case,” said Sen. Jason Esteves, an Atlanta Democrat. “They want this to go to court because they’re hoping the Supreme Court will allow them to chip away.”
U.S. applications for unemployment benefits fall again
The number of Americans filing for jobless claims fell last week despite more layoff announcements from high-profile companies recently.
Applications for unemployment benefits fell by 9,000 to 218,000 for the week ending Feb. 3, the Labor Department reported Thursday.
The four-week average of claims, which evens out some of the weekly volatility, increased by 3,750 to 212,250.
Weekly unemployment claims are seen as a proxy for the number of U.S. layoffs in a given week. They have remained at extraordinarily low levels despite efforts by the U.S. Federal Reserve to cool the economy.
The Federal Reserve raised its benchmark rate 11 times beginning in March of 2022 in an effort to bring down the four-decade high inflation that took hold after an unusually strong economic rebound from the COVID-19 recession of 2020.
Though inflation has eased considerably in the past year, the Labor Department reported recently that overall prices rose 0.3% from November to December and were up 3.4% from 12 months earlier, a sign that the Fed’s drive to slow inflation to its 2% target will likely remain a bumpy one.
The Fed has left rates unchanged at its last four meetings.
As the Fed rapidly jacked up rates in 2022, most analysts predicted that the U.S. economy would tip into recession. But the economy and the job market remained surprisingly resilient.
U.S. employers delivered a stunning burst of hiring to begin 2024, adding 353,000 jobs in January in the latest sign of the economy’s continuing ability to shrug off the highest interest rates in two decades.
Last month’s job gain — roughly twice what economists had predicted — topped the December gain of 333,000, a figure that was revised sharply higher. The unemployment rate stayed at 3.7%, and has been below 4% for 24 straight months — two full years — the longest such streak since the 1960s.
Though layoffs remain at low levels, there has been an uptick in job cuts recently across technology and media. Google parent company Alphabet, eBay, TikTok and the Los Angeles Times have all recently announced layoffs. Just this week, Snap, which owns the social media app Snapchat, announced it was cutting 10% of its workforce.
Outside of tech and media, UPS, Macy’s and Levi’s also recently cut jobs.
In total, 1.87 million Americans were collecting jobless benefits during the week that ended Jan. 27, a decrease of 23,000 from the previous week.
Nevada high court dismisses Steve Wynn’s lawsuit
LAS VEGAS | The Nevada Supreme Court on Thursday dismissed a defamation lawsuit brought by casino mogul Steve Wynn against The Associated Press over a story about two women’s accounts to police alleging he engaged in sexual misconduct.
The court cited state anti-SLAPP law in rejecting Wynn’s claim that he was defamed in the February 2018 AP article, which cited police documents. SLAPP, or strategic lawsuits against public participation, refers to court filings made to intimidate or silence critics.
“Nevada’s anti-SLAPP statutes were designed to limit precisely the type of claim at issue here, which involves a news organization publishing an article in a good faith effort to inform their readers regarding an issue of clear public interest,” the three-justice panel said in a unanimous opinion.
Wynn had argued that the documents failed to fully describe elements of a woman’s account that would have cast doubt on her allegation that he raped her in the 1970s in Chicago and that she gave birth to their daughter in a gas station restroom.
Lauren Easton, AP vice president of corporate communications said in a statement that the news organization is pleased with the ruling.
“We believe the Nevada Supreme Court made the right decision,” Easton said.
Attorney Todd Bice, representing Wynn, said he was “surprised that the Court would change Nevada law and disregard the Nevada Legislature in order to extend legal protections to a news report that was determined to be false.”
He said Wynn’s legal team now is “considering all options.”
Wynn, the 82-year-old developer of a decadeslong casino empire, filed the lawsuit in April 2018 against AP, one of its reporters and Halina Kuta, the woman who made the claim. Two months earlier he had resigned as chairman and chief executive of Wynn Resorts.
Wynn has consistently denied sexual misconduct allegations, which were first reported in January 2018 by the Wall Street Journal.
The case went to the state high court twice, after Clark County District Court Judge Ronald Israel first dismissed AP from the case in August 2018 on the grounds that it “fairly reported” information based on an official document, a police complaint by Kuta, even though authorities never investigated the allegation.
Las Vegas police said too much time had elapsed since Kuta said the events occurred in 1973 or 1974.
Neither accuser was identified in the AP report. Their names and other identifying information were blacked out in documents obtained by AP under a public records request. Las Vegas police refused to provide additional details.
The AP typically does not publish names of people who say they are victims of sexual assault, but Kuta agreed to be named in later news reports.
The trial court judge later ruled that Kuta defamed Wynn with her claims, which the judge termed “totally fanciful,” and awarded Wynn a nominal amount of $1 in damages.
Wynn appealed Israel’s ruling to the state Supreme Court, where Bice argued in July 2020 that AP omitted relevant elements of Kuta’s complaint that would lead people to doubt the veracity of her allegation.
The high court reinstated the lawsuit in November 2020, saying Israel erred in dismissing AP from the case on fair report privilege grounds and instructing him to consider AP’s other arguments for dismissing the case under the Nevada anti-SLAPP statute.
Israel then granted AP’s motion to dismiss, and Wynn appealed again. The Supreme Court accepted written briefings but did not hear oral arguments again before issuing Thursday’s ruling.
—From AP reports
