Tag: Google

Google Fined $270 Million, in Part Over How It Trained Its AI

Google was hit with a roughly $270 million fine on Wednesday, in part over how it trained its AI.

French regulators say Google went back on its commitments tied to negotiating deals with news outlets in France for their content. The watchdog alleged Google used the journalists’ content without telling them in order to teach its AI chatbot Bard — now rebranded as Gemini.

Google had promised in a previous settlement to “negotiate in good faith based on transparent, objective and non-discriminatory criteria,” which the regulators referred to as “Commitment 1.”

The regulators said there are still legal questions related to the use of news content to train AI models, but “at the very least, the Autorité considers that Google breached Commitment 1 by failing to inform publishers of the use of their content for their Bard software.”

The regulators also said that Google failed to cooperate with a monitoring trustee installed as part of a previous settlement, didn’t negotiate in good faith, and didn’t provide complete revenue information to negotiating parties.

The California-based company was fined €250 million over the listed violations and did not dispute the facts, the French regulators said.

In a statement released Wednesday, Google said the fine was “not proportionate” to the allegations.

Google said it agreed to pay because it was “time to move on.”

In its statement, Google said it was focused on “the larger goal of sustainable approaches to connecting people with quality content and on working constructively with French publishers.”

“Throughout the last few years, we have been willing to discuss concerns from publishers or the FCA and that is still the case today,” Google wrote. “But it is now time for greater clarity on who and how we should be paying so that all parties can plan a course

Can You Make Money on Google News?

Okay, these days, people love easy money. I am not sure. Maybe they want easy money, and maybe they don’t, but the economy is hard, or are they too lazy? I don’t know. What I know is looking for this easy cash is harder and cannot be fit for these types of people as the infamous “Nothing comes easy.”

I joined Instagram recently, and I was scrolling through Reels (a habit I have formed over time in a short time since signing up, but I don’t really like it) in the past or the other week, I saw a video of a man claiming you can earn like $2,500 per day on Google News!

Wow! I was interested. I watched a little but scrolled past it. I never saved that short video because I was not serious, for I knew, almost automatically, that it must be a hoax – you know you should know these things – but I regret it.

I regret it because I don’t have that particular video to use right now as my point of reference when telling you how to forget about making any money on Google News. I needed to revisit it, watch it, and further explore the intricacies behind making quick money on this Google News; intricacies because these are the same people saying you can make money on AI whilst seated somewhere.

>> Why Has WhatsApp GB Been Banned?

Luckily, even though I can’t find that reel video on search, and someone should tell Mark Zuckerberg that the Instagram search engine has always been poor, and also can’t recall the name of its creator, I still remember the name of a certain website he mentioned in that video. I had a clue that it was “AARP.” I had researched about

Liberal Party press releases make a splash on Google News

Google News results for the search “Labor position nuclear”.

Google News results for the search “Labor position nuclear”.Credit: Calum Jaspan

On its support page, Google says it uses “automated systems” to compile its news index, saying it “algorithmically discovers news content through search technologies”.

Google plays a key role in the news ecosystem in Australia and globally. Google Search and News link people to publishers’ websites more than 24 billion times each month, the company says.

Its algorithm can be a deciding factor in a website’s traffic and its ability to drive revenue through advertising and subscriptions.

In 2021, the federal government implemented the news media bargaining code as a tool to bridge the power imbalance between digital platforms and news publishers.

Google says it is one of the world’s biggest financial supporters of journalism. In Australia, it directly contributes more than $135 million to news organisations through deals agreed as part of the bargaining code per year.

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At the start of March, Meta said it would not sign new deals with publishers when they expire later this year in a blow to the industry. The government can designate Meta under the code, however is yet to do so.

Conversely, Google says it is in the process of renegotiating the three-year commercial deals it signed in 2021.

According to web analytics company Similarweb, social media platforms such as Facebook and X (previously Twitter) have been tapering off news links since 2020. Referrals to news websites almost halved across the three years to October.

Harvard University’s Nieman Lab for Journalism reported in February that Google has tested removing its News tab from search results.

Search engine optimisation (SEO) is an online practice that allows publishers to target keywords that are relevant to a story in order to attain a higher ranking in Google’s search engine result pages.

New

Google hit with $271M fine over Gemini AI tool copyright breach

France’s competition watchdog on Wednesday said it fined Alphabet’s Google $271.7 million for breaches linked to EU intellectual property rules in its relationship with media publishers, citing concerns about the company’s AI service.

The watchdog said Google’s AI-powered chatbot Bard — since rebranded under the name Gemini — was trained on content from publishers and news agencies, without notifying them.

Google has pledged not to contest the facts as part of settlement proceedings, the watchdog said, adding the company also proposed a series of remedy measures to certain shortcomings.


CEO Sundar Pichai discussing Gemini
The watchdog said Google’s AI-powered chatbot Bard was trained on content from publishers and news agencies, without notifying them. Google

Google said it accepted the settlement “because it is time to move on,” adding “we want to focus on the larger goal of sustainable approaches to connecting people with quality content and on working constructively with French publishers.”

The company said the fine was disproportionate, and said the watchdog had not sufficiently taken into account its efforts “in an environment where it’s very hard to set a course because we can’t predict which way the wind will blow next.”

The fine is linked to a copyright dispute in France over online content in a case triggered by complaints from some of the country’s biggest news organizations, including Agence France Presse (AFP).

The dispute appeared to be resolved in 2022 when the tech giant dropped its appeal against an initial 500 million euro fine issued at the end of a major investigation carried out by the Autorite de la Concurrence.

But in Wednesday’s statement, the watchdog said Google violated the terms of four out of seven commitments agreed in the settlement, including conducting negotiations with publishers in good faith and providing transparent information.

The watchdog in particular cited Google’s AI chatbot Bard,

Google apologizes after new Gemini AI refuses to show pictures, achievements of White people

The latest version of Google’s Gemini artificial intelligence (AI) will frequently produce images of Black, Native American and Asian people when prompted – but refuses to do the same for White people.

In a statement to Fox News Digital, Gemini Experiences Senior Director of Product Management Jack Krawczyk addressed the responses from the AI that had led social media users to voice concern.

“We’re working to improve these kinds of depictions immediately,” Krawczyk said. “Gemini’s AI image generation does generate a wide range of people. And that’s generally a good thing because people around the world use it. But it’s missing the mark here.”

Gemini, formerly known as Google Bard, is one of many multimodal large language models (LLMs) currently available to the public. As is the case with all LLMs, the human-like responses offered by these AIs can change from user to user. Based on contextual information, the language and tone of the prompter, and training data used to create the AI responses, each answer can be different even if the question is the same.

ARTIFICIAL INTELLIGENCE IS BIG, BUT ARE COMPANIES HIRING FOR AI ROLES TOO FAST?

Google Gemini AI refuses to show pictures of White people

Gemini’s senior director of product management at Google has issued an apology after the AI refused to provide images of White people.  ((Photo by Betul Abali/Anadolu via Getty Images) / Getty Images)

Fox News Digital tested Gemini multiple times to see what kind of responses it would offer. Each time, it provided similar answers. When the AI was asked to show a picture of a White person, Gemini said it could not fulfill the request because it “reinforces harmful stereotypes and generalizations about people based on their race.”

“It’s important to

Google Launches Gemini Business and Enterprise in Move To Raise Revenue From AI Tools

Key Takeaways

  • Alphabet’s Google is rolling out business and enterprise plans to use Gemini in Google Workspace, in a move that could help it better monetize its artificial intelligence tools. 
  • The business and enterprise plans could also help Google compete with rivals like Microsoft that offer premium versions of AI tools for businesses.
  • Google announced the launch of its Gemma family of open source AI models for developers as well, which could compete with Meta’s open source models and help Google gain new cloud users.

Alphabet’s Google (GOOGL) is rolling out new business and enterprise plans to use Gemini, its most power family of artificial intelligence (AI) models, in Google Workspace, in a move that could help the tech giant better monetize its AI tools. 

Google said in a blog post Wednesday that its Duet AI for Google Workspace offering AI integration with popular apps such as Docs and Gmail would become Gemini for Google Workspace going forward, with a lower-priced plan called Gemini Business available for $20 per user per month with an annual subscription. Gemini Enterprise, which Google said offers some additional features compared to Gemini Business such as translating closed captions and soon taking meeting notes, can be purchased for $30 per user per month with an annual commitment.

The launch comes not long after Google rebranded its Bard AI chatbot as Gemini earlier this month, released new mobile apps, and a premium subscription model of its Google One package. Alphabet and Google CEO Sundar Pichai had previously outlined plans to fully integrate Gemini into the company’s products and advertising in Alphabet’s earnings call in late January. 

The business and enterprise plans from Google could help it better compete with rivals like Microsoft (MSFT) and ChatGPT maker OpenAI, which offer their own premium subscriptions with AI tools

Google News’ bias skewed even further left in 2023 — 63% from liberal media sources, only 6% from the right: analysis

Google’s already left-leaning news aggregator platform Google News skewed even more off the charts in 2023, according to a recent analysis.

Media company AllSides’ latest bias analysis found that 63% of articles that appeared on Google News over two weeks were from left-leaning media outlets — a 2% increase from 2022, when 61% of articles on the aggregator were from liberal outlets.

By contrast, the number of right-leaning news sources picked up by Google News in 2023 was 6%, a relative improvement from the paltry 3% the previous year.

After looking at roughly 500 articles curated on Google News’ homepage, AllSides found that 16% come from left-leaning CNN, while 12% came from the equally liberal New York Times.

Of the top 10 news sites Google News aggregates from, eight of them lean left — including Yahoo! News, CBS, Associated Press and NBC, according to AllSides.

Media company AllSides’ latest bias analysis found that 63% of articles that appeared on Google News over a two-week period were from leftist media outlets last year versus just 6% on the right. AllSides

The only two that don’t skew towards Democratic audiences: Reuters, which AllSides considers center, and conservative outlet Fox News.

Out of the 500 articles AllSides analyzed, just 6%, or 30, linked back to Reuters. Even less — 5%, or 25 articles — were originally posted on Fox’s website.

More concerning data showed that Google News consistently displayed articles with a left lean than right on six hotly-debated topics: abortion, climate change, economy, election, immigration and Biden.

The search engine’s already left-leaning news aggregator platform Google News skewed even more off the charts. IB Photography – stock.adobe.com

For all search terms except “immigration,” stories aggregated from progressive outlets accounted for over half of the results, according to AllSides.

Outlets on the right

Google debuts Gemini for Business as tech firms seek to monetize AI investments

Google (GOOG, GOOGL) on Wednesday announced a new tier of its AI-capable enterprise productivity suite Gemini for Workspace. The move is another strike at rival Microsoft (MSFT) as the pair continue to battle for customers in the generative AI era.

Google’s new offering, known as Gemini Business, is an add-on for its Workspace suite of products which includes Gmail, Docs, Meet, Sheets, and Slides. At $20 per user per month, the Gemini for Business is $10 cheaper than Google’s existing Gemini Enterprise and Microsoft’s Copilot for Microsoft 365.

Gemini for Business adds Gemini to the Workspaces suite via email drafting assistance, data analysis, document creation, and more. It also includes access to a standalone version of Google’s Gemini via a custom landing page, which uses Google’s Gemini Ultra large language model.

A series of servers powering Google's Gemini AI platform. (Image: Google)

A series of servers powering Google’s Gemini AI platform. (Image: Google) (Google)

Gemini for Enterprise offers all of the same features that come along with Gemini for Business, as well as the ability to translate captions in Google Meet in more than 100 language pairs, and in the future, it will take meeting notes for users.

Neither Gemini for Business nor Gemini for Enterprise has a minimum user requirement, so both small and medium businesses and enterprises can sign up for either service. Google also says no user conversations with Gemini for Business or Gemini for Enterprise will be used for advertising, reviewed by humans, or used to train its algorithms.

In addition to Gemini for Business, Google also announced it’s rolling out its Google One AI Premium plan. The service adds Gemini to the company’s consumer productivity suite and features access to Google’s Gemini Advanced, which runs on the company’s Ultra 1.0 AI model. The company says it’s also working on bringing Gemini for Workspace to education users

Google replaces Duet AI with Gemini for Workspace, brings Business and Enterprise plans

Google Gemini Pro

Google is launching new plans for business customers using Gemini. Earlier this year, Bard was replaced by Gemini and the AI technology arrived on Google Workspace too. With today’s announcement, Gemini for Google Workspace is replacing Duet AI for Google Workspace.

Now, with the Gemini Business plan, alongside other features, users can access a standalone experience where they can chat with Gemini.

The company blog post revealed that 88% of small and medium-sized businesses wish to utilize generative AI to optimize data analysis, customer service, drafting emails, and managing other work-related tasks. The blog explained its Gemini for Workspace facility by stating:

“Today we’re launching Gemini Business, a lower price offering to help organizations big and small get started with generative AI in Workspace. This plan gives them access to Gemini for Workspace — including experiences like Help me write in Docs and Gmail, Enhanced Smart Fill in Sheets, and image generation in Slides — for as low as $20 per user per month with an annual commitment.”

Another option individuals can get is the Gemini Enterprise plan. This replaces Duet AI for Workspace Enterprise and offers the same services as Gemini Business alongside several additional ones. The technology is priced at $30 every month for every customer who signs up for the annual subscription. Duet AI customers will be upgraded to the Gemini Enterprise plans automatically.

Gemini Enterprise comes with language translation for closed captions in AI-powered meetings. This means that Gemini can translate content in over 100 language pairs. Soon, it will also take meeting notes for the attendees.

Gemini for Workspace

Apart from this, Google is letting corporate customers chat with Gemini. The standalone experience utilizes the 1.0 Ultra technology and is beginning to roll out for the Gemini Business and Enterprise plans.

According to the company, the 1.0

Google News searches ranked AI-generated ripoffs above real articles — including a Post exclusive

Google News searches turn up AI-generated articles that brazenly steal from legitimate media outlets – and The Post has already identified at least one such ripoff of its own published work.

Late last week, The Post tested Google News by searching for recent articles about Federal Trade Commission nominee Melissa Holyoak and sorting the results by most recent date of publication.

The Post’s exclusive Jan. 8 story about Holyoak was listed lower in search results than a nearly identical ripoff – published by an outlet with the generic name “Business News” and the bizarre domain address “biz.crast.net” that seemingly cranks out troves of AI-generated articles.

The fake version of the article featured the same artwork – and even included references to “The Post” in its regurgitated copy. The ripoff is attributed to “Shawn Johnson,” whose byline turned up more than 17,800 pages of results and published dozens of articles last Friday alone.

By late afternoon on Friday, a Google spokesperson confirmed the article “violates our policy and will be removed.”

Google also confirmed that AI-generated content is not against its policies, but that content can be removed if it is determined to be “spam” that was published specifically to rank high in News results.

An AI-generated ripoff ranked above The Post’s original story in search results.

Independent outlet 404 Media called out the issue last week after obtaining screenshots that showed AI-generated ripoffs – including regurgitations of a “Star Wars”-related post published by Distractify and an article published by Heavy.com about an “execution-style murder” – appearing alongside real articles in Google News search results.

The spread of AI-generated articles is already a “real problem” for the industry, according to Danielle Coffey, CEO of the News/Media Alliance.

“It’s a broken system because it’s not rewarding the quality human-created content across the