Technology

➚ MOVE FAST: Olive branch. OpenAI and Microsoft are giving local news outlets $10 million, with individual publications earning $50,000, to use AI to figure out how to make such reporting profitable. It’s an offering of peace from a company that’s being sued by media companies for alleged copyright infringement.

➘ BREAK THINGS: Nuclear option. In a long running IP fight, chip designer Arm has revoked Qualcomm’s license to use its technology, potentially forcing Qualcomm to halt sales of its ubiquitous smartphone chips.

Most big AI product announcements lately have seemed kind of incremental. On Tuesday, Anthropic made a big leap, unveiling Claude 3.5 Sonnet, which has the first-of-its-kind ability of using a computer in the same way a human does it — by pointing, clicking and typing.

It’s not all that great at it, but it’s a fascinating experiment and there are some interesting use cases. Anthropic suggested that it could be used for testing software, presumably doing the work of bug testers, who essentially constantly use software to see if they can find problems.

The idea is enticing because it’s sort of halfway between software AI and embodied AI, or robots. But it also doesn’t seem at all where AI is going. It reminds me a little bit of some autonomous driving startups from a decade ago that built machines that would physically depress the gas and brake pedals and turn the steering wheel.

AI, just like autonomous cars, is not destined to use the same interfaces as humans. In fact, it should lead to the disappearance of the mouse and keyboard entirely for most purposes.

Return of the Jedi

THE SCENE

The $10 billion Pentagon cloud computing plan known as Jedi fell apart years ago, but the bitter battles between tech giants vying for the contract left lawsuits and allegations in their wakes, some of which are still swirling today.

In the latest example, a court deposition this summer that hasn’t been previously reported adds new details to Oracle’s efforts to discredit Amazon’s bid.

In 2018, when it appeared as if Amazon was going to win the entire Jedi contract, reporters said they had been given a “dossier” containing allegations that British investor André Pienaar and others had conspired to influence the Jedi contract in favor of Amazon through ties to a then-Defense Department adviser.

The files contained accusations that Pienaar was deeply involved with Russian oligarchs, a familiar theme at the time, when another dossier about Donald Trump alleged Russia had compromised the sitting president.

News outlets reported that it couldn’t be determined who, exactly, had commissioned the Pienaar allegations. Oracle, which eventually lodged a formal complaint about the Pentagon’s handling of the contract with the Government Accountability Office and took the case to court, was the rumored source at the time. (The GAO and the court found no wrongdoing).

But in a deposition earlier this year in a federal court proceeding brought by Pienaar, who claims all of the allegations against him are fabricated, an attorney hired by Oracle said that damaging accusations against Pienaar indeed originated with the company founded by Larry Ellison.

Hive CEO & Co-Founder Kevin Guo will speak at the Future of Technology session at the Fall Edition of Semafor’s World Economy Summit on Oct. 24. The Future of Technology session will explore the breakthroughs in AI, quantum computing, and robotics that are disrupting industries, reshaping consumer behavior, and pushing policymakers to adapt to new challenges.

Tune in live tomorrow for real-time coverage.

Mark Zuckerberg’s fickle fans have turned on him once again. The Facebook CEO, who pulled off one of the biggest image makeovers in corporate history, has drawn the ire of the tech media.

But this time, he didn’t ruin democracy or destroy a generation of teens. Rather, he banned accounts on Threads (aka replacement Twitter) that track the real-time whereabouts of private jets. That’s right, we now have to put in some real elbow grease if we want to know where Taylor Swift is right this minute.

Kara Swisher, who has known Zuckerberg since he was just a small child, called him “quietly awful and truly and forever the most compromised tech figure in modern memory” on Threads. “Why follow in Elon’s wake to protect other rich folks.”

Remember, Threads may owe its existence to Elon Musk’s decision to ban similar accounts on Twitter (before he changed the name). Soon after he acquired Twitter, Musk’s own private jet was being tracked and, after a stalking incident, he was over it. If you were tracking real-time whereabouts of billionaires, you were gone. And then journalists who complained about this also got booted.

All of this helped spur an exodus of media elites from Twitter. And Zuckerberg welcomed them all to Threads with open arms. Could this be Elon’s opening to finally win back the media? Lol, kidding.

The valuation AI search engine Perplexity is seeking in its latest fundraising round, according to The Wall Street Journal. The company started the year valued at $520 million. It’s one of the few new consumer AI startups that has gained traction. The Journal’s parent company also sued Perplexity on Monday for copyright infringement.

• US intelligence warns of foreign election interference.
• Apollo, SoftBank eyed giant AI fund.
• Democrat lawmakers introduce bill to protect African diaspora council.