David Fuller and Eoin Treacy's Comment of the Day
Category - General

    Google Unveils Plan to Demolish the Journalism Industry Using AI

    This article from Futurism may be of interest to subscribers. Here is a section: 

    But it's not unfair to say that Google, which in April, according to data from SimilarWeb, hosted roughly 91 percent of all search traffic, is somewhat synonymous with, well, the internet. And the internet isn't just some ethereal, predetermined thing, as natural water or air. The internet is a marketplace, and Google is its kingmaker.

    As such, the demo raises an extremely important question for the future of the already-ravaged journalism industry: if Google's AI is going to mulch up original work and provide a distilled version of it to users at scale, without ever connecting them to the original work, how will publishers continue to monetize their work?

    Google has unveiled its vision for how it will incorporate AI into search," tweeted The Verge's James Vincent. "The quick answer: it's going to gobble up the open web and then summarize/rewrite/regurgitate it (pick the adjective that reflects your level of disquiet) in a shiny Google UI."

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    Ueda's BOJ Subtly Changes English Translation in New Era Signal

    This article for Bloomberg may be of interest to subscribers. Here is a section: 

    At Ueda’s first policy meeting last month, board members discussed “patiently” maintaining easing, according to a summary of opinions released by the central bank Thursday. 

    “Patiently” implies waiting for a condition to be fulfilled and contrasts with the previous wording of “persistently” keeping up with easing, a word that was used up until the March meeting, when the BOJ was still led by Ueda’s predecessor Haruhiko Kuroda.

    Given that the original Japanese word remained unchanged, the change in English doesn’t suggest a major shift. It does however hint at Ueda’s intention of signaling a gradual move away from the Kuroda era. Some economists suggest that the change acknowledges a shift in Japan’s economic reality. 

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    PacWest Reports Decline in Deposits, Western Alliance's Grow

    This article from Bloomberg may be of interest to subscribers. Here is a section:  

    PacWest Bancorp reported a drop in deposits and Western Alliance Bancorp said its deposits grew, with investors continuing to scrutinize the levels amid tumult in the regional-banking industry.

    Beverly Hills-based PacWest said in a regulatory filing Thursday that deposits fell 9.5% last week after Bloomberg News reported that the lender was in talks with potential investors. The bank didn’t specify its total deposit levels after the decline, but said it had total deposits of $28.2 billion as of March 31, and that it had immediately available liquidity of $15 billion as of May 10, exceeding uninsured deposits of $5.2 billion. Hours after the Bloomberg report last week, PacWest confirmed it was in talks with several potential investors.

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    China's Weak Inflation, Borrowing Show Economic Recovery Waning

    This article from Bloomberg may be of interest to subscribers. Here is a section: 

    Separately, data from the People’s Bank of China showed credit and new loans were much worse than expected in April as consumers and businesses curbed their borrowing.

    “China’s credit data came in well below estimates, reinforcing the concerns over the sustainability of post-Covid recovery,” said Zhou Hao, chief economist at Guotai Junan International Holdings Ltd. Overall growth momentum “has been slowing significantly,” he said. 

    Expectations of policy easing has been growing, and a “policy rate cut looks imminent in the second quarter,” he added.

    China’s economic growth accelerated to a one-year high in the first quarter after pandemic restrictions were dropped, led by stronger consumers spending on travel and shopping. Recent data has been more mixed though, with manufacturing activity contracting in April and imports plunging.

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    Dollar on Pace for Best Day in Nearly Two Months

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    The US dollar is on pace for its biggest rise in nearly two months as concerns about a slowing US economy, hawkish policy messaging, a US debt-ceiling standoff and the solvency of regional banks supported havens. The pound fell after the Bank of England lifted its policy rate 25 basis points and indicated more hikes may be required to slow inflation.

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    Brookfield Cuts Value of Property Holdings Amid Market Swoon

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    “Unfortunately, the negative sentiment is dragging down the real estate sector more broadly,” the firm’s president, Connor Teskey, told investors during an earnings call Wednesday. “We think that’s completely unfair.” 

    The Brookfield group is one of the world’s largest owners of prime office properties, with a portfolio that includes New York’s Manhattan West and London’s Canary Wharf. Office landlords in major cities around the world are being squeezed by a combination of higher borrowing costs and lower occupancy, as many companies continue to allow employees to work from home at least part of the time. 

    Brookfield Asset’s parent company has defaulted on mortgages covering more than a dozen office buildings, mostly in Los Angeles and around Washington.

    The property market is “bifurcated” as high-quality assets perform well and lower-quality assets struggle, Teskey said on the call. 

     

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    Australia Pledges $1.4 Billion in Bid to Be Hydrogen Superpower

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    As countries compete for capital, investors and developers have said aggressive subsidies like the US Inflation Reduction Act — which provides $374 billion in funding for clean energy — will be needed to attract the vast investment required.

    The new measures are a “great first step,” Fortescue Metals Group Ltd. said in a statement on Wednesday. The Australian iron ore miner has ambitions to become one of the world’s biggest green hydrogen producers and plans to reach final investment decisions on five projects around the world this year.  

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    Salesforce Introduces the Next Generation of Tableau, Bringing Generative AI for Data and Analytics to Everyone

    This news release from Salesforce may be of interest. Here is a section: 

    Significance: The generative AI revolution will transform how work gets done, making it exponentially easier for everyone to tap into immense troves of trusted data to do their jobs more efficiently. Nearly 80% of senior IT leaders believe generative AI will help their organization make better use of data — which business leaders agree is critical for decision-making. However, 41% say they can’t understand their data because it is too complex or not accessible enough, and one-third cite inability to generate insights from data as an issue for their organizations. 

    Tableau GPT can generate visualizations for sales leaders based on natural language prompts that display real-time progress against their quota, along with recommendations for helping them meet goals. If average order value is decreasing, Tableau GPT can generate visuals for commerce leaders that provide insights as to why, alongside suggested solutions to resolve the problem. Or Tableau GPT can automatically create visualizations for service leaders that display changes in their teams’ CSAT scores, identify potential causes — such as a high-level of active tickets and longer response time — and offer up solutions.

    What’s new: By bringing the power of generative AI to analytics, and combining it with unified, real-time data from Data Cloud, Tableau is empowering everyone to make smarter, faster, data-driven decisions.

    Tableau GPT is a reimagining of Tableau and makes it easier for everyone to tap into generative AI to better understand and interact with their data in a trusted and secure way. Users can surface insights in a conversational way by simply asking questions within the console, which helps power smarter data experiences for analysts, consumers, admins, developers, and more.  

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