Goldman Sachs stopped its bankers in Hong Kong from using Anthropic’s AI models, in the latest sign of expanding US-China tech tensions. The American startup’s chatbots are banned in mainland China, and Goldman’s move suggests US AI firms could increasingly treat Hong Kong as off-limits as well, the Financial Times ...
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Oil rises as Trump rejects Iran’s peace proposalOil rises as Trump rejects Iran’s peace proposal
The price of oil crept back up on Wednesday after US President Donald Trump rejected Iran’s proposal to open the Strait of Hormuz and defended his maritime blockade. Trump met with a group of energy executives on Tuesday to discuss how to minimize impacts from the war as the blockade ...
Putin, Trump discuss brief Ukraine trucePutin, Trump discuss brief Ukraine truce
US President Donald Trump discussed a possible, brief Ukraine ceasefire in a lengthy phone call with Russian President Vladimir Putin on Wednesday. The truce, poised to coincide with Russia’s Victory Day holiday on May 9, would come several weeks after Kyiv and Moscow negotiated a ceasefire around Orthodox Easter, though ...
France details plan to phase out fossil fuelsFrance details plan to phase out fossil fuels
France announced a plan to phase out fossil fuels completely by 2050. While other legislatures have similarly ambitious aims — the EU and UK both plan to reach net zero by 2050, which functionally requires ending fossil fuels. What is new is the granularity: The roadmap specifically targets an end ...
Big Tech firms beat earnings expectations amid AI spending questionsBig Tech firms beat earnings expectations amid AI spending questions
Alphabet, Amazon, Meta, and Microsoft all beat first-quarter earnings expectations on Wednesday, but investors are poised to closely scrutinize their heavy spending on AI. Big Tech has propped up the US stock market — and in many ways, the US economy writ large — in the last year, but investors ...
AI tools are making online anonymity increasingly difficultAI tools are making online anonymity increasingly difficult
AI tools can identify the writing of almost anyone with a sizable online presence, rendering much online anonymity impossible. The tech writer Kelsey Piper had Claude Opus 4.7 read unpublished 150-word snippets of her writing; it successfully named her as the author each time. Semafor’s Tom Chivers replicated the finding ...
Is revenue the wrong way to value AI?Is revenue the wrong way to value AI?
The News Last week, I got called out for a column where I said Anthropic was winning in enterprise over OpenAI, at least based purely on revenue. Jordan Wilson, who hosts the podcast, called that line “a very SV/Twitter bubble take, not yet backed by real data.” He has a ...
Musk v. Altman trial is reverse GladiatorMusk v. Altman trial is reverse Gladiator
An Oakland jury has begun the process of deciding who’s less popular, Elon Musk or Sam Altman. (Or is there some way for both sides to lose?) While Silicon Valley’s trial of the century is billed as being about nonprofit governance, make no mistake: This is all about putting two ...
Why Ruben Gallego put himself in the barrelWhy Ruben Gallego put himself in the barrel
David’s view Ruben Gallego’s friends told him to, “lay low,” as he put it, “and this will pass over.” He didn’t agree. The Arizona Democratic senator was right about one thing: This month’s sexual assault allegations against Eric Swalwell, Gallego’s onetime “best friend,” didn’t just destroy the Californian’s political career. ...
Progressive groups: We don’t need the Democratic Party to cause a ‘blue wave’Progressive groups: We don’t need the Democratic Party to cause a ‘blue wave’
The Scoop Eighteen months after losing everything, left-leaning activists and unions have a comeback in their sights. All they need is money, aggressive turnout of their 2024 voters, and a president who keeps screwing up on the cost of living. The Democratic Party could figure out its own problems later. ...