2023’s Tech-Biz Landscape: Innovation, Challenges, and Trends

With Microsoft’s investment package of $1 billion in 2019, OpenAI moved from non-profit to “capped” for-profit (with a profit cap set to 100X). A Semafor report published on Jan. 10, 2023, revealed Microsoft’s plan to invest an additional $10 billion in return for owning a 49 percent stake in OpenAI, which values the company at $29 billion. Other investors would get another 49 percent, and OpenAI’s non-profit parent company would own 2 percent.

Sam Altman is a tech entrepreneur and the CEO of OpenAI, a San Francisco-based research lab that creates artificial intelligence. OpenAI’s ChatGPT has been praised for its versatility and flexibility but criticized for its potential to spread misinformation. Altman testified before a Senate subcommittee on privacy, technology, and the law on May 16, 2023. He proposed the creation of a US or global agency to license the most powerful AI systems. Altman is also known for his previous role as president of Y Combinator. This startup accelerator has funded some of Silicon Valley’s most successful tech companies, including Airbnb, Dropbox, and Stripe.

Google announced on Feb. 6, 2023, that it’s launching a chatbot service called Bard. The conversational AI is being tested for feedback and will be released to the public in the coming weeks. Bard explains complex subjects in simple terms and does other things, like providing tips on planning a party or lunch ideas. It’s part of a project called Atlas by Google to counter ChatGPT’s success. Sundar Pichai, Google CEO, declared Bard combines the breadth of the world’s knowledge with AI’s power, intelligence, and creativity.

Who is winning the AI race?

In December, UBS analysts reported that ChatGPT had 57 million unique visitors, potentially outpacing TikTok’s adoption rate. $10bn is being invested in OpenAI by Microsoft, which plans to integrate AI into every product it makes. Google is partnering with a start-up led by former OpenAI leaders, Anthropic, to add AI features to its search engine and other products.

Paul McCartney told BBC Radio 4’s Today program on June 12, 2023, that AI technology was used to separate Lennon’s voice and a piano from a 1978 demo recorded two years before his death. “Now And Then” was given to McCartney by Yoko Ono in 1994. Two other songs from the same cassette, “Free As A Bird” and “Real Love,” were released in 1995 and 1996 as part of the Beatles’ Anthology series. However, “Now And Then” was abandoned due to background noise and technical issues. McCartney said AI had given him another chance to finish the song, which he called “the final Beatles record.” The song was released in October 2023.

Elon Musk, a co-founder of OpenAI and CEO of Tesla and SpaceX, was one of the signatories of an open letter published by the Future of Life Institute, a nonprofit backed by Musk, on March 29, 2023. The letter urged AI labs to stop training AI systems more powerful than GPT-4, OpenAI’s latest large-language model. It suggested a six-month pause or government suspension to jointly allow independent experts to develop and implement shared safety protocols for AI systems.

Who co-signed the AI-stopping letter?

The letter was also signed by Steve Wozniak, co-founder of Apple; Yuval Noah Harari, historian and author; Andrew Yang, entrepreneur, and former US presidential candidate; and more than 1,000 other tech leaders.

Elon Musk announced plans to build an upcoming factory in Shanghai, China, on April 9, 2023. The factory will annually produce 10,000 megapacks – Tesla’s energy storage products that stabilize energy grids and prevent power outages. Building work on the proposed factory is expected to begin later this year, with battery production due to begin by the summer of 2024. The new factory will supplement Tesla’s existing Megapack plant in California, producing another 10,000 units annually. Tesla has announced plans for another overseas plant in Monterrey, Mexico, but not a Megapack plant.

Elon Musk values Twitter at $20 billion, according to an internal memo reported by the Information on March 25, 2023. Musk paid $44 billion for Twitter in October 2022, meaning Twitter lost more than half its value in just half a year. However, Musk acknowledged it as an overpayment at the time of the deal. The company’s value dropped throughout the year as advertisers pulled out of the platform.

Mark Zuckerberg, the CEO of Meta (formerly Facebook), and Elon Musk, the CEO of Tesla, SpaceX, and Twitter, have agreed to fight each other in a cage match after exchanging challenges on social media. The feud started when Musk tweeted he was “up for a cage fight” with Zuckerberg. Zuckerberg responded with “Send me the location” on Instagram. Musk then suggested “Vegas Octagon” as the venue, referring to the fenced-in area used for Ultimate Fighting Championship (UFC) bouts. The fight date and time are not set. However, Musk said it “might actually happen” and admitted it could end badly for him, as he has not started training yet. Meanwhile, Zuckerberg has trained in mixed martial arts (MMA) and recently won jiu-jitsu tournaments. The fight was eventually canceled, as Zuck felt Musk was not serious enough.

Meta (formerly known as Facebook) tossed another social media player into the ring on July 6, 2023. This contender, named ‘Threads,’ is a text-based conversation app. It’s like Twitter but with a Zuck instead of a Musk. Users can conveniently use their existing Instagram login details to sign up. Threads became an overnight sensation, attracting over 100 million users only days after its launch.

China’s commerce ministry declared it opposed a TikTok sale just hours before Shou Zi Chew, TikTok’s CEO, testified before Congress about TikTok’s ties to China on March 23, 2023.

What was his testimony about?

During the five-hour testimony, Republican and Democratic lawmakers repeatedly asked Chew if TikTok was spying on Americans on behalf of the Chinese government, which he strongly denied. Chew also said that ByteDance is not owned or controlled by the Chinese government – a notion undermined by China’s commerce ministry’s earlier statement.

Montana passed a bill that makes it illegal for app stores to offer TikTok in the state. The bill was motivated by concerns about potential Chinese spying through the app. It specifies that the ban would be lifted if TikTok is sold to a non-Chinese company or Congress passes a law banning TikTok nationwide. Gov. Greg Gianforte signed the unprecedented law on May 17, 2023, making Montana the first state to ban TikTok from app stores starting Jan. 2024. Nonetheless, it will face legal challenges from TikTok and other groups claiming it violates free speech rights.

The Mate 60 Pro’s advanced 7-nanometer processor is a tiny marvel causing big waves. This chip, a collaboration between Huawei and China’s top chipmaker SMIC, is an unexpected technological leap. Launched on Aug. 29, 2023, this smartphone showcases China’s prowess in dodging the Western 5G chip embargo. It also has the US rethinking trade policies.

Apple announced its first mixed reality headset, Vision Pro, at its annual Worldwide Developer Conference (WWDC) on June 5, 2023. The device can seamlessly blend digital content with the physical space around the user, using advanced cameras, sensors, displays, and audio. Apple calls this technology spatial computing and claims it is the first of its kind. The device can also switch between augmented and virtual reality modes and supports eye, hand, and voice input. The downside: It costs $3,499 and will be available in early 2024 in the US market.

Apple gave the iPhone 15 Pro models a little makeover, announced during their Sept. 12, 2023 event. Gone are the days when stainless steel was the talk of the town. Now, it’s all about the more durable and lighter titanium. And while the world waited for the iPhone 15, Apple sprinkled some more magic with iOS 17. The real party trick? Turning your iPhone into a bedside clock. Finally.

Changpeng Zhao is the co-founder and CEO of Binance, which he launched in 2017 after raising $15 million through an initial coin offering. Binance offers various services to crypto enthusiasts, such as trading, stakes, lending, mining, and launching new tokens. In March 2023, the Commodity Futures Trading Commission (CFTC) filed a lawsuit against Binance and Zhao in Illinois, claiming they breached derivatives rules and operated a “web of deception.” On June 5, 2023, the SEC joined the legal attack with 13 charges against Binance and Zhao. The SEC said Binance had mixed “billions of dollars” in customer funds and secretly sent them to a separate company controlled by Zhao. Zhao has vowed to defend his platform vigorously and said Binance is not a US exchange.

The Binance Trial’s Result

By Nov. 21, Zhao pleaded guilty to Violating Money Laundering Rules. He will pay a $50 million fine and step down as CEO. Binance had agreed to pay $4.3 billion in fines as part of a guilty plea.

Netflix announced that it would end its DVD-by-mail service on Sept. 29, 2023, after shipping more than 5 billion discs over 25 years. Launched in 1998, the service was once Netflix’s biggest money maker but became obsolete in the video streaming era. Netflix split its DVD and streaming services in 2011, creating a separate website called DVD.com for its mail-order business. They stopped disclosing the number of DVD subscribers in 2018 as the service declined in popularity and profitability.

Nvidia is the leading producer of graphics processing units (GPUs), essential for running complex AI models that generate human-like content. The company’s shares have soared by more than 200% since October 2023 as investors were impressed by its revenue forecast and generative AI innovation. On May 30, 2023, Nvidia briefly joined the exclusive club of US companies with a market value of $1tn. This club includes Apple, Alphabet, Microsoft, and Amazon.

Anthropic is a start-up founded by some brainy folks from OpenAI. They’re diving deep into “Generative AI.” On Sept. 25, 2023, Amazon, the e-commerce giant, splashed up $4 billion on them, with Amazon Web Services becoming the company’s primary cloud playground.

xQc, whose real name is Félix Lengyel, is a popular Twitch streamer who plays video games and hosts shows for almost 12 million followers. Many consider him Twitch’s most popular streamer. On June 17, 2023, he announced his departure from Twitch for Kick, a rival streaming platform. He signed a two-year non-exclusive contract worth roughly $70 million, with incentives that could bump that to $100 million. Kick is backed by online gaming and gambling sites in Australia and offers streamer-friendly policies such as lower subscription fees, non-exclusive contracts, and more creative freedom. xQc plans to continue streaming on Twitch and appearing on YouTube and TikTok, but he aims to focus on Kick. His agent, Ryan Morrison, said his deal was “one of the highest deals in entertainment, period.“

Stablecoins are a type of digital currency gaining prominence in recent years, with companies like PayPal diving into the mix as of August 7, 2023. Stablecoins are designed to minimize volatility associated with cryptocurrencies like Bitcoin. They achieve this stability by anchoring themselves to a “stable” reserve asset, such as the US dollar or gold. US PayPal customers can now transfer Paypal’s stablecoin, PYUSD, which equals $1 (US). They can also convert other supported cryptocurrencies to and from PYUSD.

As of Nov. 2023, Rupert Murdoch, the 92-year-old media mogul, will be chilling in his new role as chairman emeritus of both Fox Corp. and News Corp. media holdings, with Lachlan Murdoch taking over his previous roles. And when Murdoch Sr. joins the magnificent newsroom in the sky, control of the Fox empire will become a family affair, with all four of Murdoch’s adult children having an equal say.

The Alef model A is the first flying car approved for testing by the US government. It was certified by the Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) on June 12, 2023. Alef Automotive, a California startup, can now exhibit, research, and develop its flying car. The Model A can carry one or two people, fly up to 110 miles, and park like a normal car. The company has taken refundable pre-orders for more than 400 vehicles. However, it still needs approval from the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration to be used on roads.

Elon Musk values Twitter at $20 billion, according to an internal memo reported by the Information on March 25, 2023. Musk paid $44 billion for Twitter in October 2022, meaning Twitter lost more than half its value in just half a year. However, Musk acknowledged it as an overpayment at the time of the deal. The company’s value dropped throughout the year as advertisers pulled out of the platform.

Before its collapse in Nov. 2022, FTX was valued at $32 billion and the third-largest exchange in volume. CoinDesk reported that FTX was lending its token FTT to Alameda Research, which FTX founder Sam Bankman-Fried owns. FTX experienced a bank run after the story sparked mass withdrawals. On Dec. 12, 2022, Sam Bankman-Fried was arrested in the Bahamas at the request of the US government. Bankman-Fried’s arrest came just a day before he was due to testify in front of the House Financial Services Committee.

In 2021, Sam Bankman-Fried instructed those working for him to pay a bribe of $40 million to one or more Chinese officials to help unfreeze trading accounts maintained by FTX’s sister company, Alameda Research, that held up to $1 billion in cryptocurrencies. Bankman-Fried was charged with 13 criminal counts, including foreign bribery, on March 28, 2023.

Sam Bankman-Fried, the once-billionaire founder of FTX, couldn’t resist the urge to give a couple of witnesses in his upcoming trial a friendly ‘nudge’ (or, as the court calls it, “witness tampering”). The judge revoked his bail, leading to his imprisonment, in a hearing on August 11, 2023. He is suspected of sharing his ex-partner Caroline Ellison’s private writings with a New York Times reporter and contacting FTX’s general counsel with encrypted messages. Bankman-Fried faces charges of stealing billions of dollars in FTX customer funds to plug losses at his Alameda Research hedge fund, where Caroline Ellison was CEO. Ellison has pleaded guilty and is expected to testify against him at his trial on October 2.

Changpeng Zhao is the co-founder and CEO of Binance, which he launched in 2017 after raising $15 million through an initial coin offering. Binance offers various services to crypto enthusiasts, such as trading, stakes, lending, mining, and launching new tokens. In March 2023, the Commodity Futures Trading Commission (CFTC) filed a lawsuit against Binance and Zhao in Illinois, claiming they breached derivatives rules and operated a “web of deception.” On June 5, 2023, the SEC joined the legal attack with 13 charges against Binance and Zhao. The SEC said Binance had mixed “billions of dollars” in customer funds and secretly sent them to a separate company controlled by Zhao. Zhao has vowed to defend his platform vigorously and said Binance is not a US exchange.

The Binance Trial’s Result

By Nov. 21, Zhao pleaded guilty to Violating Money Laundering Rules. He will pay a $50 million fine and step down as CEO. Binance had agreed to pay $4.3 billion in fines as part of a guilty plea.

Holmes was the founder and CEO of Theranos, a startup that raised nearly $1 billion from investors and became a Silicon Valley sensation. However, The Wall Street Journal exposed her technology as flawed and dangerous in 2015. She was convicted of fraud and conspiracy in January 2022 and sentenced to 11 years in prison in May 2023. She was incarcerated on May 30, 2023, in a women’s prison camp in Texas.

Washington Mutual, or WaMu, was a savings and loan association that collapsed in 2008 at the height of the global financial crisis. It had $307 billion in assets and was sold to JPMorgan Chase for a bargain price of $1.9 billion. The bank’s failure was the largest in US history, surpassing the previous record by Continental Illinois in 1984.

What happened to Silicon Valley Bank?

Silicon Valley Bank was the second-largest failure in US history, with $209 billion in assets. Its collapse was triggered by a bank run and a downgrade in its credit rating. The bank’s customers, mostly tech companies and wealthy individuals, withdrew $42 billion in one day on March 10, 2023, leaving the bank with a negative cash balance. Starting March 13, 2023, SVB’s depositors were able to access their funds as The Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation (FDIC) and the Federal Reserve stepped in. Assuming SVB’s liabilities, HSBC agreed to take over and buy the UK arm of the bank for one pound. Signature Bank, a New York-based regional bank, shuttered suddenly on March 12, marking the third-biggest bank failure in US history.

First Citizens Bank is a family-owned bank founded in 1898 by Frank Holding Sr. and his family. It has become the largest family-owned bank in the US, with over 500 branches in 19 states. On March 26, 2023, the bank purchased all deposits and loans from Silicon Valley Bridge Bank. This was the financial institution whose collapse in March 2023 was the second-largest in US history and set off a chain reaction that caused the third-biggest bank-fail.

Regulators seized troubled First Republic Bank Monday, May 1, 2023, and sold its deposits and most of its assets to JPMorgan Chase Bank. With $229 billion in assets, First Republic Bank became the second-largest bank failure in US history. It surpasses Silicon Valley Bank, which failed on March 10, 2023. Both banks were acquired by JPMorgan Chase, the nation’s largest bank, which has previously acquired failed banks such as Washington Mutual and Bear Stearns during the 2008 financial crisis. Get more news trivia facts on the First Republic Bank failure here.

Soros Fund Management, Fortress Investment Group, and Monroe Capital formed a lender consortium to provide about $225 million in a credit bid. The bankruptcy filing was announced on May 15, 2023, as Vice Media Group faced financial difficulties and top-executive departures. Vice Media Group is known for its websites, such as Vice, Refinery29, i-D, and Motherboard, and its TV program “Vice News Tonight,” which was canceled in April 2023.

Factcheck: Billionaire George Soros said he is “alive and healthy” on May 15, 2023, after viral posts on social media falsely claimed he had a fatal heart attack a day earlier. Soros, 92, has been a frequent target of antisemitism, conspiracy theories, personal attacks by Viktor Orban and Vladimir Putin, and endless “death” hoaxes.

Bed Bath & Beyond filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy on Apr. 23, 2023. The company announced it would stop accepting coupons on Apr. 26, 2023, when store-closing sales began. The announcement came after failing to secure funding and facing years of dreary sales and losses.

ShopRite is a grocery store and supermarket chain. CVS, Walgreens, and Rite Aid are the go-to spots for prescription and over-the-counter meds. On Oct. 16, 2023, Rite Aid, the third-largest US drugstore chain, filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy protection due to declining profits from prescription drug sales. It also faced increased competition from Amazon, big-box stores, and others, not to mention 1,600 lawsuits related to its role in the opioid crisis. Rite Aid is expected to close 400 to 500 of its approximately 2,200 stores after already closing 200 stores. CVS and Walgreens, other major drugstore chains, have also closed stores in recent years.

After the dramatic boardroom shuffle at OpenAI, which saw Sam Altman ousted from his CEO throne on Nov. 17, 2023, he didn’t have to wander the tech wilderness for long. While Microsoft swiftly announced they scooped up Altman and his comrade-in-AI, Greg Brockman, by Nov. 22, Altman was back at OpenAI’s CEO seat.

M&M announced on Jan. 23, 2023, that they would take “an indefinite pause” from their “spokescandies” as they felt they were too divisive for a polarized country. Maya Rudolph is the new spokesperson for the brand.

How are the cartoon candies divisive?

Recently, M&M changed its characters’ shoes, replacing their green M&M heels with flats and swapping their brown M&M stilettos for smaller, more comfortable ones. Mars Wrigley also introduced a purple M&M in Sept. 2022, “celebrating women across the country who are flipping the status quo,” and figures on the right criticized it as “Woke M&M’s.”

Unpaid Reddit moderators on strike, blocking users and advertisers, chose to post only images of comedian John Oliver as a symbol of protest. The strike started on June 14, 2023, and affected over 9,000 subreddits. This is after Reddit announced that it would start charging fees to some third-party developers from July 1, 2023, as part of its plan to go public later in 2023. This angered many moderators who use third-party apps to access Reddit’s data and perform tasks unavailable on the official app (such as content moderation). Reddit’s CEO Steve Huffman refused to negotiate with the protesters.

When Elon Musk, the owner of Twitter/X, tweeted his agreement with a controversial statement accusing Jewish people of “hating white people” in November 2023, major companies like IBM, Apple, Lionsgate, Comcast/NBCUniversal, Paramount Global, Warner Bros Discovery, and The Walt Disney Company announced they have stopped advertising on the platform. Soon after, X announced it was suing Media Matters, an organization monitoring hate speech in social media, for defamation.

Apple, the tech giant from Cupertino, California, recently faced a heated situation with its iPhone 15 models. Users around the globe reported that their shiny Apple iPhones were getting too warm for comfort. Apple found that a software bug and some popular apps like Instagram and Uber caused the devices to run hotter than a summer day in the desert. On Sept. 30, 2023, Apple announced that they’re working on an update to the iOS 17 system to cool things down.

Former US President Donald Trump received a target letter from Special Counsel Jack Smith, dated July 2023. The letter indicates that Trump is under investigation for his role in the January 6 Capitol riots. The letter cites three potential charges: conspiracy to defraud the United States, obstruction of an official proceeding, and violation of section 241 of the US legal code that makes it unlawful to conspire to violate civil rights. These charges relate to various instances of Trump pressuring officials, including his former vice president Mike Pence, and his efforts to obstruct power transfer.

Rupert Murdoch testified under oath that some of his Fox News hosts knowingly endorsed the false narrative that the 2020 election was stolen from Donald Trump. According to legal documents revealed on Feb. 27, 2023, he said he could have ordered them to stop but didn’t. He also said that, in hindsight, he wished they had been stronger in denouncing the fraud claims. This admission was part of a $1.6 billion defamation lawsuit by Dominion Voting Systems, which makes voting machines and software. Dominion claims that Fox News defamed it by airing false allegations that its machines were rigged to favor Joe Biden over Trump.

Fox News acknowledged that “certain claims” it made about Dominion were false as part of the settlement agreement reached on April 18, 2023. This was shortly before a trial was set to begin in Delaware Superior Court, sparing Fox News owner Rupert Murdoch a court visit. Dominion sued Fox News in 2021 for $1.6 billion, alleging that the network defamed it by broadcasting baseless allegations from former President Trump and his allies. Despite privately expressing skepticism and ridicule about the claims, Fox hosts repeatedly argued on air that Dominion was tied to the late Venezuelan leader Hugo Chavez, paid kickbacks to politicians, and flipped millions of votes from Trump to Biden. Fox News said it hoped the settlement would allow the country to move forward from the issues. Dominion said it represented “vindication and accountability.” Fox News did not apologize.

Tucker Carlson’s last show on Fox News aired on Friday, April 21, 2023. He ended the show by telling his viewers: “We’ll see you Monday; in the meantime, have the best weekend.” He did not know it would be his final show on Fox News.

Fun Fact: Carlson posted a video on Twitter on April 26, 2023, speaking publicly for the first time since his firing. He did not address his exit from Fox but railed against “completely irrelevant” debates on TV and “the liars who have been trying to silence” him. Get all the amazing Tucker Carlson Fox News exit trivia facts here.

Kanye West claimed he liked Jewish people again after watching Jonah Hill’s acting in the 2012 film “21 Jump Street,” in an Instagram post accompanied by a photo of the movie poster. He added, “No one should take anger against one or two individuals and transform that into hatred towards millions of innocent people… Thank you, Jonah Hill, I love you.” West had previously made multiple anti-Semitic remarks, leading to him being temporarily removed from social media and losing multiple business deals. He returned to Instagram on March 25, 2023.

ChatGPT is a chatbot that is powered by the GPT-3 language model. It uses machine learning algorithms to generate responses to user input. The GPT-3 model is a large, state-of-the-art language model trained on a massive amount of text data, allowing it to generate coherent and relevant responses to a given topic. ChatGPT can be used to chat with users in a conversational manner, providing answers to questions and engaging in back-and-forth dialogue. While it may not always provide the most accurate or detailed answers, it can be a fun and interesting way to interact with a machine-learning model.

Did an AI Chatbot write this answer?

The question, multiple answers, and (in this case, factual) explanation were written by OpenAI’s ChatGPT by using the prompt: “Create a quiz question on the subject “What is ChatGPT?” with four short multiple-choice answers, one funny, two misleading answers, and one correct answer, and then a 150-word explanation of the correct answer.” The prompt took longer to write than for the result to be generated. Within a week of ChatGPT being unveiled on Nov. 30, 2022, over a million users had tried to chat it up.

One of the main features of GPT-4 is that it can process and generate different types of media, such as images and videos. This allows users to input a picture or video and ask for a summary, description, or transformation. This feature was not present in GPT-3.5, which could only deal with text. OpenAI has not officially verified reports that GPT-4 was trained with 100 trillion parameters. GPT-3, on the other hand, was trained with “only” 175 billion parameters. GPT-4 is available for ChatGPT Plus users starting March 15, 2023.

Tesla is developing Optimus – a humanoid robot capable of performing unsafe, repetitive, or boring tasks. The robot’s introduction is on the 2022 Tesla AI day, Sept. 30, 2022. And yes, it takes its name from the Transformers’ Optimus Prime.

The ITU held the world’s first-ever news conference with humanoid robots in Geneva, Switzerland, on July 7th, 2023. Nine robots and their creators were available for reporters’ questions at this “unprecedented media event.” This was part of the UN’s AI for Good Global Summit. The humanoid robots reassured human reporters at the event that they had no intention of overthrowing or replacing them. They did suggest they could be more efficient government leaders.

Sam Altman is a tech entrepreneur and the CEO of OpenAI, a San Francisco-based research lab that creates artificial intelligence. OpenAI’s ChatGPT has been praised for its versatility and flexibility but criticized for its potential to spread misinformation. Altman testified before a Senate subcommittee on privacy, technology, and the law on May 16, 2023. He proposed the creation of a US or global agency to license the most powerful AI systems. Altman is also known for his previous role as president of Y Combinator. This startup accelerator has funded some of Silicon Valley’s most successful tech companies, including Airbnb, Dropbox, and Stripe.

With Microsoft’s investment package of $1 billion in 2019, OpenAI moved from non-profit to “capped” for-profit (with a profit cap set to 100X). A Semafor report published on Jan. 10, 2023, revealed Microsoft’s plan to invest an additional $10 billion in return for owning a 49 percent stake in OpenAI, which values the company at $29 billion. Other investors would get another 49 percent, and OpenAI’s non-profit parent company would own 2 percent.

Sam Altman, OpenAI chief executive and co-founder of Tools for Humanity, is behind the Worldcoin project, which aims to scan the irises of every human being on Earth. The latest buzz was on Aug. 7, 2023, during a glitzy event at an art gallery in downtown Manhattan, where shiny orbs greeted attendees. These orbs contain cameras designed to capture images of a person’s irises, converting these scans into unique digital IDs. The grand plan is to provide support in a world transformed by AI, with these IDs serving as the foundation.

According to a New York Times Jan. 20, 2023, article, the founders of Google, Larry Page and Sergey Brin have re-engaged with the company to help with its AI strategy. Google has been worried about ChatGPT, developed by OpenAI, as it could potentially disrupt its search business. According to a slide presentation reviewed by the New York Times, the search giant plans to debut more than 20 new AI products and showcase a version of its search engine with chatbot features in 2023.

Are layoffs part of Google’s strategy for 2023?

Alphabet (Google’s parent company) cut 12,000 jobs in Jan. 2023. In a memo on Jan. 20, 2023, Sundar Pichai, Alphabet’s CEO, said that the layoffs ensure that “our people and roles are aligned with our highest priorities.”

Google announced on Feb. 6, 2023, that it’s launching a chatbot service called Bard. The conversational AI is being tested for feedback and will be released to the public in the coming weeks. Bard explains complex subjects in simple terms and does other things, like providing tips on planning a party or lunch ideas. It’s part of a project called Atlas by Google to counter ChatGPT’s success. Sundar Pichai, Google CEO, declared Bard combines the breadth of the world’s knowledge with AI’s power, intelligence, and creativity.

Who is winning the AI race?

In December, UBS analysts reported that ChatGPT had 57 million unique visitors, potentially outpacing TikTok’s adoption rate. $10bn is being invested in OpenAI by Microsoft, which plans to integrate AI into every product it makes. Google is partnering with a start-up led by former OpenAI leaders, Anthropic, to add AI features to its search engine and other products.

Google released its conversational AI bot Bard on March 21, 2023, as a stand-alone webpage featuring a question box. Google’s Bard is a chatbot trained to be informative and comprehensive, while Microsoft’s Bing is a chatbot optimized for search results. This makes Bard a noticeably less effective tool than Bing at surfacing useful information from the internet. However, it is supposedly better at answering questions that require a conversational approach. Google now allows limited public access to its Bard AI chatbot in some territories, granting access to tens of thousands of users who join a waiting list.

Google’s Bard, the ever-so-helpful AI chatbot, has a nifty new feature aptly named “Google It.” Whenever you doubt Bard’s overconfident answers, you can simply click on the “G” icon, and Bard will cross-reference its response with the vast web. This marvelous feature was unveiled on Sept. 19, 2023. You can find it right in your Bard chat. Validated answers glow reassuring green, while the more dubious ones blush in orange.

Baidu, China’s search engine mogul, unveiled Ernie Bot, China’s AI chatbot sensation, on Aug. 31, 2023. Not before Beijing approved Baidu’s decision to release Ernie Bot to the public, of course. By the afternoon of its grand debut, Ernie Bot became the top app on Apple’s iOS store in China. And as a cherry on top, Baidu’s stock price danced up by over 3%.

Elon Musk gave his AI project that he says will try to understand the nature of the universe (and avoid annihilating humans) the name TruthGPT. He announced his plan to create his own rival to OpenAI’s Chat-GPT in an interview with Fox News’s Tucker Carlson on April 17, 2023. Musk also said he created the X.AI company in Nevada and approached AI researchers to join his team. Optimus is the name of Musk’s humanoid AI bot that he revealed at Tesla’s AI Day event in August 2022, which aims to replace workers at routine, repetitive jobs. No connection to Donald Trump’s Truth Social.

Elon Musk, the tech mogul behind SpaceX and Tesla, announced the formation of his new artificial intelligence company, xAI, on July 12, 2023. Musk, known for his ambitious and futuristic projects, aims to use xAI to “understand reality” and delve deeper into the realm of AI. The announcement was made on Twitter, and Musk also had a July 14 Twitter Spaces talk to discuss the venture in more detail.

Elon Musk, a co-founder of OpenAI and CEO of Tesla and SpaceX, was one of the signatories of an open letter published by the Future of Life Institute, a nonprofit backed by Musk, on March 29, 2023. The letter urged AI labs to stop training AI systems more powerful than GPT-4, OpenAI’s latest large-language model. It suggested a six-month pause or government suspension to jointly allow independent experts to develop and implement shared safety protocols for AI systems.

Who co-signed the AI-stopping letter?

The letter was also signed by Steve Wozniak, co-founder of Apple; Yuval Noah Harari, historian and author; Andrew Yang, entrepreneur, and former US presidential candidate; and more than 1,000 other tech leaders.

Nvidia is the leading producer of graphics processing units (GPUs), essential for running complex AI models that generate human-like content. The company’s shares have soared by more than 200% since October 2023 as investors were impressed by its revenue forecast and generative AI innovation. On May 30, 2023, Nvidia briefly joined the exclusive club of US companies with a market value of $1tn. This club includes Apple, Alphabet, Microsoft, and Amazon.

Paul McCartney told BBC Radio 4’s Today program on June 12, 2023, that AI technology was used to separate Lennon’s voice and a piano from a 1978 demo recorded two years before his death. “Now And Then” was given to McCartney by Yoko Ono in 1994. Two other songs from the same cassette, “Free As A Bird” and “Real Love,” were released in 1995 and 1996 as part of the Beatles’ Anthology series. However, “Now And Then” was abandoned due to background noise and technical issues. McCartney said AI had given him another chance to finish the song, which he called “the final Beatles record.” The song was released in October 2023.

Anthropic is a start-up founded by some brainy folks from OpenAI. They’re diving deep into “Generative AI.” On Sept. 25, 2023, Amazon, the e-commerce giant, splashed up $4 billion on them, with Amazon Web Services becoming the company’s primary cloud playground.

After the dramatic boardroom shuffle at OpenAI, which saw Sam Altman ousted from his CEO throne on Nov. 17, 2023, he didn’t have to wander the tech wilderness for long. While Microsoft swiftly announced they scooped up Altman and his comrade-in-AI, Greg Brockman, by Nov. 22, Altman was back at OpenAI’s CEO seat.

A pre-bunking approach involves releasing short videos that show people how to spot false claims. It is considered a quick and easy method of limiting the impact of misinformation. In the fall of 2022, Google launched a prebunking video campaign in Poland, the Czech Republic, and Slovakia in the largest test of the method. The videos dissect different techniques used to make false claims about Ukrainian refugees. A new German prebunking campaign from Google will focus on photos and videos and the ease with which they can be posed as evidence of something false.

According to director and executive producer Ali Selim, Marvel’s Secret Invasion intro sequence was designed by Method Studios using artificial intelligence. The opening credits show a watercolor rendering of Secret Invasion’s key players and themes. The series follows Nick Fury (Samuel L. Jackson) as he uncovers a covert invasion by the shapeshifting Skrull population on Earth. The AI-generated credits sparked backlash online and criticism that the controversial technology might cost artists their jobs. The series debuted on Disney+ on June 21, 2023.

During the historic 2023 strike, SAG-AFTRA sought significant increases in minimum wages to match the rising cost of living. They also sought AI protections ensuring that their digital doubles wouldn’t steal the show without compensation, and streaming participation bonuses recognizing that binge-watching isn’t just a hobby; it’s an economic frontier. The strike, which paused the industry since July 14, officially ended on November 9, 2023. The deal, described as “historic” by Union President Fran Drescher, is set to bring about the biggest contract-on-contract gains in the union’s history.

This AI-generated persona is being used on YouTube to spread malware. The videos are supposed to trick people into downloading Photoshop, Premiere Pro, or various video games from malicious links in the description section. Since November 2022, there have been 200-300% more such video frauds. This is according to CloudSEK, an artificial intelligence company predicting cyber threats, in a report published on March 13, 2023.

What’s the Danger?

Info stealers use those links to steal passwords, credit card numbers, bank account numbers, browser data, crypto wallet details, and system info from personal computers.

How do they make those videos?

To make their videos look more professional and trustworthy, hackers create realistic-looking personas with Synthesia and D-ID. Additionally, they hijack existing YouTube accounts with huge subscriber bases and use various tricks to avoid detection.

In 2016, Mastodon was launched as a “free, open-source, decentralized social media platform” aimed at being a “viable alternative to Twitter.” Mastodon is a federated social network owned by different people and groups. A lot of Mastodon is crowdfunded. The servers it runs are funded through Patreon, a subscription platform used by content creators. More than 70,000 users joined Mastodon on the day after Elon Musk announced he bought Twitter.

Wasn’t Mastodon something else?

The Mastodon social platform was named after an extinct relative of elephants and mammoths.

Simply put, Metaverse is a collection of Virtual 3D meeting spaces. It’s been one of the most prominent tech buzz terms of 2021. Epic Games directed fundraising to build Fortnite into a metaverse; Microsoft presented Mesh, a mixed reality software enabling virtual presence through Microsoft devices. South Korea announced the creation of a national metaverse alliance to build a unified national VR and AR platform.

What’s Facebook’s Metaverse?

In 2021 Facebook announced it attempts to develop a Metaverse. On Oct. 18, Facebook announced plans to create 10,000 jobs in the European Union over the next five years to help build the virtual environment. US tech news website The Verge broke the news that Facebook’s founder and chief executive, Mark Zuckerberg, is preparing to change the name of the company at the company’s annual Connect conference on Oct. 28, 2021, to match its new ambitions. The new name chosen for the company is Meta.

As of mid-Sept. 2022, TikTok is the second most popular domain in the world, after Google, according to online performance and security company Cloudflare. As reported by NewsGuard on Sept. 14, 2022, nearly one in five videos that TikTok automatically suggests when searching for videos related to prominent news topics contained misinformation. TikTok’s official community guidelines prohibit harmful misinformation. Chinese company ByteDance owns the app.

Linda Yaccarino, previously the head of advertising and partnerships for NBCUniversal, was confirmed as the new CEO of Twitter on May 12, 2023. She was appointed by Elon Musk, who bought the platform last year for $44 billion. She will focus on business operations while Musk works on product design and technology. Yaccarino is one of the rare female chief executives in technology. She has often said she was the only woman at the table and faced bias incidents in her career.

Twitter Blue is the company’s subscription service, allowing paying subscribers to recall tweets, theme their Twitter app and app icon, and experience new features early.

Where and when is Twitter Blue available?

Twitter first launched the Twitter Blue service in June 2021 in Canada and Australia on iOS. On Nov. 9, 2021, Twitter Blue became available in the US and New Zealand and on Android and the web. After purchasing Twitter, Elon Musk said he was considering raising the subscription price and moving all verified users to the paid program. Starting Dec. 13, 2022, the relaunched service costs $8 a month for web users and $11 a month for iPhone users. Subscribers see fewer ads, can post longer videos, and have their tweets emphasized.

On Feb. 19, 2023, Meta, the parent company of Facebook and Instagram, announced Meta Verified as a premium subscription service. Users who pay a monthly fee get blue check marks, improved reach, extra impersonation protection against accounts “claiming to be you,” and direct access to customer service. Users must submit a government ID to prove their identity, use their legal names on their profile pages, and pay $11.99 (or $14.99 on iOS and Android) monthly to qualify for Meta Verified. Australia and New Zealand will get the service first.

Wasn’t that “Twitter Blue”?

Meta’s subscription move follows Twitter’s push to charge for blue check marks through Twitter Blue. Elon Musk’s company announced that starting on Mar. 20, SMS-based two-factor authentication will be limited to paid accounts.

xQc, whose real name is Félix Lengyel, is a popular Twitch streamer who plays video games and hosts shows for almost 12 million followers. Many consider him Twitch’s most popular streamer. On June 17, 2023, he announced his departure from Twitch for Kick, a rival streaming platform. He signed a two-year non-exclusive contract worth roughly $70 million, with incentives that could bump that to $100 million. Kick is backed by online gaming and gambling sites in Australia and offers streamer-friendly policies such as lower subscription fees, non-exclusive contracts, and more creative freedom. xQc plans to continue streaming on Twitch and appearing on YouTube and TikTok, but he aims to focus on Kick. His agent, Ryan Morrison, said his deal was “one of the highest deals in entertainment, period.“

By February 2023, TikTok had an average of 125 million active users in the EU. In October 2022, there were 65.9 million TikTok users in the US, with two-thirds of teens using it. The number of Canadians on TikTok is relatively small (26%), but 76% of people 18-24 have an account.

What is the TikTok ban?

The European Commission temporarily banned TikTok from staff phones over cybersecurity concerns on Feb. 23, 2023. The reason: The Chinese government could use TikTok to promote pro-Beijing views or sweep up users’ information. The White House on Feb. 27 gave government agencies 30 days to ensure they do not have the Chinese-owned app on federal devices. By Feb. 28, Canada announced its own ban on TikTok from all government-issued devices. China’s foreign ministry said that the US government has been “overstretching the concept of national security.” and “suppressing other countries’ companies.”

China’s commerce ministry declared it opposed a TikTok sale just hours before Shou Zi Chew, TikTok’s CEO, testified before Congress about TikTok’s ties to China on March 23, 2023.

What was his testimony about?

During the five-hour testimony, Republican and Democratic lawmakers repeatedly asked Chew if TikTok was spying on Americans on behalf of the Chinese government, which he strongly denied. Chew also said that ByteDance is not owned or controlled by the Chinese government – a notion undermined by China’s commerce ministry’s earlier statement.

Montana passed a bill that makes it illegal for app stores to offer TikTok in the state. The bill was motivated by concerns about potential Chinese spying through the app. It specifies that the ban would be lifted if TikTok is sold to a non-Chinese company or Congress passes a law banning TikTok nationwide. Gov. Greg Gianforte signed the unprecedented law on May 17, 2023, making Montana the first state to ban TikTok from app stores starting Jan. 2024. Nonetheless, it will face legal challenges from TikTok and other groups claiming it violates free speech rights.

Mark Zuckerberg, the CEO of Meta (formerly Facebook), and Elon Musk, the CEO of Tesla, SpaceX, and Twitter, have agreed to fight each other in a cage match after exchanging challenges on social media. The feud started when Musk tweeted he was “up for a cage fight” with Zuckerberg. Zuckerberg responded with “Send me the location” on Instagram. Musk then suggested “Vegas Octagon” as the venue, referring to the fenced-in area used for Ultimate Fighting Championship (UFC) bouts. The fight date and time are not set. However, Musk said it “might actually happen” and admitted it could end badly for him, as he has not started training yet. Meanwhile, Zuckerberg has trained in mixed martial arts (MMA) and recently won jiu-jitsu tournaments. The fight was eventually canceled, as Zuck felt Musk was not serious enough.

Meta (formerly known as Facebook) tossed another social media player into the ring on July 6, 2023. This contender, named ‘Threads,’ is a text-based conversation app. It’s like Twitter but with a Zuck instead of a Musk. Users can conveniently use their existing Instagram login details to sign up. Threads became an overnight sensation, attracting over 100 million users only days after its launch.

Elon Musk, owner of X, formerly known as Twitter, and part-time digital drama king, pointed fingers at the Anti-Defamation League (ADL) for allegedly trying to “strangle” the platform. This is after ADL’s Director, Jonathan Greenblatt, tweeted on Aug. 31, 2023, about a “productive conversation” with X’s CEO, Linda Yaccarino, about addressing the platform’s hate speech. The post was met with backlash by white supremacists, leading to the trending hashtag #BanTheADL. And during this storm, Musk chose to voice his choked-up sentiments about the ADL with a lawsuit.

In a Sept. 18, 2023, live-streamed conversation with Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, Elon Musk spilled some beans about Twitter, now known as “X”. Among the tidbits, he mentioned that X has 550 million monthly users. Musk suggested introducing a “small monthly payment” for X users during the same chat. Why, you ask? To combat those pesky “vast armies of bots.”

Elon Musk values Twitter at $20 billion, according to an internal memo reported by the Information on March 25, 2023. Musk paid $44 billion for Twitter in October 2022, meaning Twitter lost more than half its value in just half a year. However, Musk acknowledged it as an overpayment at the time of the deal. The company’s value dropped throughout the year as advertisers pulled out of the platform.

Mark Zuckerberg was born on May 14, 1984. Elon Musk was born 13 years earlier, on June 28, 1971. Zuckerberg shared a photo of him training with UFC stars Israel Adesanya and Alex Volkanvski at his home in Northern California on July 11, 2023. Musk has been taunting Zuckerberg on social media and said he would donate $1 billion to charity if Zuckerberg wins a UFC-style cage fight against him.

In Apple’s ever-evolving world, where innovation meets “I didn’t know I needed that,” iOS 17 introduced the “Check In” feature. Released on Sept. 18, 2023, “Check In” allows users to share their location with selected contacts to let them know when the user made it back home safely or even give them a heads up if their friend takes a little longer than expected.

On July 1, 2023, Twitter implemented this revised policy to discourage “extreme levels” of data scraping and system manipulation. Verified accounts were limited to reading 6,000 posts daily, while unverified accounts were restricted to 600 posts daily. This decision led to a digital uproar, with the hashtag #TwitterDown trending in some parts of the world. Not missing a beat, Meta Platforms, the parent company of Facebook and Instagram, saw this as an opportunity to announce their new Threads app.

Unpaid Reddit moderators on strike, blocking users and advertisers, chose to post only images of comedian John Oliver as a symbol of protest. The strike started on June 14, 2023, and affected over 9,000 subreddits. This is after Reddit announced that it would start charging fees to some third-party developers from July 1, 2023, as part of its plan to go public later in 2023. This angered many moderators who use third-party apps to access Reddit’s data and perform tasks unavailable on the official app (such as content moderation). Reddit’s CEO Steve Huffman refused to negotiate with the protesters.

On June 2, 2023, YouTube announced that it was reversing its election integrity policy established in December 2020. The company said that leaving the policy in place may have the effect of “curtailing political speech without meaningfully reducing the risk of violence or other real-world harm.” The updated policy doesn’t change YouTube’s other misinformation rules, such as those that disallow content aiming to mislead voters about the time, place, means, or eligibility requirements for voting. Media watchdog groups and experts criticize the policy change. They say it could spread more election misinformation and disinformation on the platform.

On March 17, 2023, YouTube allowed Former President Trump back on the platform. The announcement came after similar decisions by Twitter and Meta, which owns Facebook and Instagram. It’s one of the first significant content decisions YouTube has taken under its recently appointed chief executive, Neal Mohan, who assumed the top job in February 2023. Ten days earlier, YouTube loosened its profanity rules so that creators who used swear words at the start of a video could still profit from the content.

A pre-bunking approach involves releasing short videos that show people how to spot false claims. It is considered a quick and easy method of limiting the impact of misinformation. In the fall of 2022, Google launched a prebunking video campaign in Poland, the Czech Republic, and Slovakia in the largest test of the method. The videos dissect different techniques used to make false claims about Ukrainian refugees. A new German prebunking campaign from Google will focus on photos and videos and the ease with which they can be posed as evidence of something false.

The Digital Services Act (DSA) is a regulatory framework within the European Union. It mandates digital platforms, like Elon Musk’s X (formerly Twitter), to mitigate risks to public security and civic discourse, especially by tackling online illegal content. Three days after the Hamas terror attack on Israeli civilians on Oct. 7, 2023, EU Commissioner Thierry Breton told Musk that his platform was “being used to disseminate illegal content and disinformation in the EU.” Non-compliance with the act could result in a fine of 6% of X’s revenues or a total blackout in the EU. The UK technology secretary, Michelle Donelan, also echoed similar concerns, urging social media platforms to act against violent content.