6 takeaways from the OpenAI senate hearing | Mashable

Apparently, one of generative AI’s extraordinary capabilities is unifying politicians, the public, and the private sector in regulating it.

We saw that today in a Senate Judiciary Committee hearing(opens in a new tab) about how to govern AI. OpenAI CEO Sam Altman, IBM chief privacy and trust officer Christina Montgomery, and NYU emeritus professor Gary Marcus testified in front of the privacy, technology, and law subcommittee about what to do now that generative AI has been freed from Pandora’s Box. Altman was open and cooperative, even advocating for regulation of ChatGPT and generative AI. But that seemed to have a disarming effect on the subcommittee, who asked mostly softball questions.

Read More

Use it or lose it: Google says it will delete inactive accounts | CNN Business

If you haven’t logged into your Google account in a long time, you better use it or lose it.

Google announced Tuesday it will start deleting accounts that have been inactive for at least two years, a move that the company says is intended to prevent security risks.

The updated policy takes effect immediately, but Google said it will not begin deleting accounts until December. The company plans to send out multiple warning notifications to users and to conduct the purge of inactive accounts in phases.

The first accounts on the chopping block will be those that were created and then never revisited by the user, Google said. The policy also will only impact personal accounts, leaving organizations like schools and businesses untouched.

Read More

A man’s rare gene variant may have shielded him from devastating form of early Alzheimer’s | Live Science

A newly discovered genetic variant protects against a particularly devastating form of early Alzheimer’s disease, raising scientists’ hopes of finding treatments that can prevent or slow the progression of this and other forms of the disease.

The discovery is only the second gene variant reported to protect against autosomal dominant Alzheimer’s disease (ADAD), a form of Alzheimer’s caused by an inherited genetic mutation. People with ADAD begin to show signs of dementia in their mid-40s and rarely survive past the age of 60, study co-author Dr. Joseph Arboleda-Velasquez(opens in new tab), a biomedical researcher at Harvard University, told Live Science.

The patient at the heart of the new study was a male member of a Colombian family that researchers have been following for a long time because they’re known carriers of the genetic mutation that causes ADAD. This man carried that gene, but instead of succumbing to early dementia, he remained healthy into his late sixties and developed only mild Alzheimer’s disease by age 72. He died at 73 years old of non-dementia-related causes.

Read More

EMV Technology: What Small Merchants Need to Know | Business News Daily

EMV chip cards have become the bread and butter of in-person card payment. So why aren’t you accepting them yet?

  • EMV technology powers credit and debit cards that include payment chips alongside the traditional magnetic stripe.
  • The liability for credit card fraud stemming from non-EMV transactions lies with merchants, not credit card companies.
  • The primary benefits of EMV ― fraud reduction, mobile add-ons, easier customer payments ― substantially outweigh the challenges of implementation.
  • This article is for small business owners interested in accepting EMV payments through credit card chips.

Read More

9 Inflation Tips for Startups | AllBusiness.com

The United States experienced historic inflation in 2022, and it paved the way for the surge of price increases that followed into 2023. Meanwhile, people continue to become entrepreneurs. According to the U.S. Census Bureau, over 5 million applications were filed to form new businesses in 2022. And now, many of these companies are facing an impending recession—or an economic squeeze at the very least.

For these fledgling startups, it’s important to proactively combat the rippling effects of inflation to stay afloat. From reassessing margins to cutting costs, the following inflation tips can help startups and entrepreneurs lessen the impact of economic headwinds.

Read More

Why You Should Pay Employees to Stop Working for You | Business.com

Learn what voluntary severance is and when you should offer it.

The past few years have been somewhat tumultuous in terms of the labor force. The pandemic led to a massive wave of layoffs, which was followed by a rapid — and somewhat chaotic — rehiring of workers. Now, as businesses face high levels of inflation, a looming recession and economic uncertainty, many employers are rethinking those recent hires and starting to make cuts again.

An obvious and common way to cut labor costs is to lay off workers. According to the Layoffs.fyi database, more than 1,000 tech companies made layoffs in 2022, resulting in more than 150,000 employees being laid off. However, layoffs aren’t business owners’ only option when it comes to reducing their workforce. One alternative is to offer voluntary severance — paying your employees to quit.

Read More

Scaling Smarter: How Payroll Platforms Benefit Startups | The Startup Magazine

Starting a new business can be an exciting journey where you’re bound to experience your fair share of ups and downs along the way. In this regard, one of the necessary evils startups have to deal with is finances, especially when it comes to managing payroll. The issue is, how can you even think about scaling your business when such a bottleneck is staring you right in the eyes, with each mistake having costly ramifications to boot?

That’s where payroll platforms come in. In essence, these are designed to automate the process entirely, an investment that virtually pays for itself considering how much time they save you – your most valuable asset you should rather invest in growing your business. They will help you make the deductions where necessary, generate pay stubs, and all the other tedious tasks you’d otherwise have to do manually.

In today’s post, we will explore payroll platforms from the perspective of startups, noting how they can help them overcome the setbacks they face on a daily basis.

Read More

US border crisis: El Paso braces for worst as Title 42 deadline looms | BBC News

A record number of migrants – more than 10,000 – were recently apprehended at the US-Mexico border in a 24-hour period, fuelling fears over what comes next when a controversial immigration policy expires this week.

Nowhere are the realities of what some have termed a border “crisis” more evident than in the Texas city of El Paso.

Here, migrants – many of them confused about the impending rule changes – have been left sleeping rough in makeshift campsites on city streets over the last several days.

Several thousand were camped out earlier this week around a single church in the city centre.

Read More

Google I/O 2023 is a wrap — here’s a list of everything announced | TechCrunch

On Google I/O keynote day, the search and internet advertising provider put forth a rapid-fire stream of announcements during its developer conference, including many unveilings of recent things it’s been working on.

Since we know you don’t always have time to watch a two-hour presentation, the TechCrunch team took that on and delivered story after story on new products and features. Here, we give you quick hits of the biggest news from the keynote as they were announced, all in an easy-to-digest, easy-to-skim list. Here we go:

Read More