(This article is part of Today’s Cache, The Hindu’s newsletter on emerging themes at the intersection of technology, innovation and policy. To get it in your inbox, subscribe here.)
Google lays off “hundreds” again
Yesterday, Google’s spokesperson confirmed that the company is cutting jobs in its ad sales team that will impact hundreds. Employees from its Large Customer Sales (LCS) unit, a team that sells ads to big businesses will be the most impacted. The Google Customer Solutions (GCS) team which sells ads to smaller clients will now take over as the main sales team at the company, a report by The Verge stated.
Last week, the internet giant fired hundreds from its Google Assistant team as well as from its knowledge and information product teams. Google still hasn’t clarified the exact number of layoffs but reports state that it could be more than 1,000. Besides, Amazon also announced layoffs last week as did live-streaming platform Twitch.
CEOs wrestle with how to make AI pay at Davos
Even as AI generates a loud buzz at the World Economic Forum at Davos, CEOs grapple with how to make money from the technology. Company leaders at the conference said that despite the ChatGPT-frenzy, generative AI tech has a lot to prove with cloud security company Cloudflare CEO Matthew Prince even saying that in the months ahead people may even feel an “AI letdown.”
Companies were mainly concerned about the “hallucinations” generated by AI chatbots which don’t have a solution to them yet. Other issues discussed at the meet were about how regulation would impact these AI solutions once they are integrated within enterprises. Upcoming elections also appeared as another serious concern that would be affected by the misuse of AI.
Meta’s was ‘reluctant’ to protect kids online
A complaint filed by New Mexico Attorney General Raul Torrez against Facebook and Instagram owner Meta in December stated that the tech company had failed to protect young users from exposure to child sexual abuse material and allowed adults to solicit explicit imagery from them. Newly redacted documents from the lawsuit showed Meta’s “historical reluctance” to protect children on its platforms.
Documents containing messages and presentations from 2020 and 2021 showed that employees within the company were aware of these issues but slow when it came to acting upon them. Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg and CEOs of Snap, Discord, TikTok and X, are all scheduled to testify before the U.S. Senate on child safety in January-end.
