Employee morale at Meta HQ is at an all-time low, as the company confirms its next tumultuous round of layoffs.

The news, revealed in an internal memo on Tuesday, warned employees in North America to stay home the following day if in-person attendance wasn’t considered critical for their role.

The teams affected include Facebook, WhatsApp, Messenger, and Instagram, as well as the team responsible for company’s virtual reality division. As the social media empire pivots towards a “year of greater efficiency,” staff numbers continue to dwindle, with more layoffs expected to be announced in May.

Meta Reduces Headcount Further

Cost-cutting measures at Meta have taken a turn for the worse, as the company makes even further cuts to its already diminishing headcount, according to Bloomberg.

In a company memo, Meta managers were warned that the company would be letting people go, and to prepare for cuts in various departments including WhatsApp, Facebook, and Instagram.

According to The Washington Post, teams in North America will be notified today, with technical teams — including engineers — surprisingly expected to face the brunt of it.

Lori Goler, Head of Human Resources at Meta, reportedly said, “it would be a difficult time for teams” but encourage those who do remain to show up for each other with support and compassion, according to Meta’s spokesman Dave Arnold.

“It will take time for everyone — both those leaving and those staying — to process tomorrow’s news, and I know teams will show up for each other with compassion, support, and care.” – Lori Goler, Head of Human Resources, Meta

The news comes just four months after Meta confirmed 11,000 layoffs and another 10,000 layoffs in March in a strategic move towards Zuckerberg’s 2023 goal of becoming “a leaner, more technical company” to improve performance — resulting in a 13% cut to its entire workforce.

More Meta Layoffs to Come

Despite leaving 5,000 vacant positions open to help bring down costs, Meta — like most businesses in the tech industry — is struggling. Since 2022, over 100,000 people have lost their jobs in tech, with the majority stemming from big companies including Microsoft, Amazon, IBM, and Intel.

Sadly, it doesn’t look as though tech layoffs are going anywhere anytime soon. And, even with a reduction in employee perks and the variety of cost-cutting measures made at Apple, Meta, and Google, it seems a bigger organization restructure was always inevitable.

In a company post, Meta mentioned further layoffs would take place in late May. In the interim, staff are encouraged to “focus on what they can” and support their teams. Zuckerberg stated:

“Change is never easy, but I know we’ll get through this and come out an even stronger company that can build better products faster and enable you to do the best work of your careers.”

How comforting those words are for his employees with jobs on the line still remains to be seen.

Business owners are pulling out all the stops to end remote work, with a wide range of companies offering to pay to relocate employees as long as they’re willing to come into the office.

Despite the high cost of office space and the looming recession, companies around the world are doing everything they can to get employees back in the office. From threats of discipline to pay cuts for those that refuse to start commuting again, the movement to end remote work is far too common in the tech industry.

Well apparently, the stakes have risen even higher, as companies are willing to shell out the big bucks to relocate employees and get them back to that pre-pandemic office life.

Job Listings With Relocation Assistance on the Rise

According to research from the Wall Street Journal, more and more companies have started offering to pay for employee relocation costs.

Data from Indeed.com showed that job postings offering relocation assistance were up 75% so far in 2023 compared to last year.

Additionally, ZipRecruiter data showed that the number had nearly doubled, rising to almost 4 million, after hitting only 2 million in 2020.

How Expensive Is Relocation Assistance?

There’s no other way to put it: Relocation assistance isn’t cheap for these companies. The cost of relocating a new employee can range from $19,000 for a renter to $72,000 for a homeowner. For existing employees, the cost is even higher, topping out at up to $97,000 per employee. Still, some companies are willing to make that financial commitment to reestablish that in-office culture they love so much.

“We’re still believers in in-person work. And for those who are willing to work that way, we were willing to facilitate it with a relocation payment. – Matt Calkins, chief executive of Appian, a cloud computing firm in Virginia

You’d think that in the middle of a recession, in which companies are doing everything they can to cut costs, that businesses would be hesitant to commit funds to getting employees back into the office. Subsequently, getting workers back in the office must be proven to boost productivity, right?

Does In-Office Work Improve Productivity?

With all this news about companies trying to get employees back in the office, you’d assume that there was some concrete data about the negative impacts of remote work on productivity. However, statistics have largely shown the opposite to be true, with employees performing better, having better mental health, and staying at companies offering hybrid work for longer.

For starters, performance jumped by 22% at companies where employees were allowed to work from home. Additionally, 47% of businesses noticed increased productivity levels amongst employees who work remotely.

On top of all that, hybrid work schedules remain one of the top priorities for quality hires, which means you’ll be sacrificing your best workers for the sake of your culture.

Another big tech name is warning people about the potential influence of AI technology, with the CEO of Google noting that it will eventually “impact every product across every company.”

The explosion of generative AI technology like ChatGPT has already made a lasting impression on the tech industry, with companies scrambling to establish their own alternatives to stay competitive. Google itself has developed a program, dubbed Bard, to compete with the AI chatbot from OpenAI, currently owned by Microsoft.

Still, investment in that technology has not stopped Sundar Pichai, the CEO of Google, from speaking out about how big of an effect the new technology will have on the world as we know it today.

The Future Impact of AI

In an interview with “60 Minutes” on CBS, Google CEO Sundar Pichai talked at length about the future of AI technology and how it will impact the business landscape.

He explained that the evolution of the technology over the coming years is undeniably going to have an effect on industries across the world, and not just the kinds of businesses that you would expect.

“For example, you could be a radiologist, if you think about five to 10 years from now, you’re going to have an AI collaborator with you. You come in the morning, let’s say you have a hundred things to go through, it may say, ‘these are the most serious cases you need to look at first.’” – Sundar Pichai, CEO of Google

There are obviously a lot of ways in which AI technology will help the business world grow. But, as with any type of innovative technology, there are some downsides that users need to be aware of.

The biggest concerns about the recent proliferation of AI technology are around its use to amplify misinformation. A recent study even found that Google’s own Bard platform could be utilized to spread misinformation, so making sure we’re ready for AI tech to be a bigger part of everyday life is imperative.

Are We Ready for the Evolution of AI?

We’re a mere six months past the initial launch of ChatGPT, but users can already see that this technology is going to have far-reaching implications for the future of business. But are we actually ready for the ways in which this technology will change the world?

When asked the same question during the “60 Minutes” interview, Pichai had a fairly blunt, albeit somewhat unsettling answer:

“On one hand, I feel no, because the pace at which we can think and adapt as societal institutions, compared to the pace at which the technology is evolving, there seems to be a mismatch.” – Sundar Pichai, CEO of Google

This sentiment has been echoed by a number of tech pioneers like Steve Wozniak and Elon Musk, with some even calling for a six-month pause on the development of AI technology.

There is a silver lining, though, as Pichai points out people are already direly concerned about the development of AI technology, which will hopefully result in meaningful safeguards down the line.

How to Prepare for AI Development

Given the break-neck speed at which generative AI chatbots have been rolled out to the general public, it’s safe to wonder what kind of safeguards are in place to keep it from getting out of hand.

Fortunately, Pichai does seem to be taking the risks seriously, at least during the course of this interview.

“It’s not for a company to decide. This is why I think the development of this needs to include not just engineers but social scientists, ethicists, philosophers and so on.” – Sundar Pichai, CEO of Google

There’s no denying that we are in the earlier stages of AI development, but ChatGPT and its many alternatives are a huge leap forward. As a society, we need to keep in mind the real-world impacts of this technology to ensure that it’s used for the proliferation of humanity, rather than its untimely demise.

After ChatGPT was released to the public in November 2022, it was only a matter of time before other tech giants released alternatives to ChatGPT.

In March 2023, Bard AI, Google’s answer to OpenAI’s game-changing chatbot, was launched in the US and UK. Since then, it’s been renamed Gemini, and a paid version has been released. How do the big-name AI tools compare today? Our ChatGPT vs Gemini guide explains the key differences between the two based on a new round of testing conducted in March 2024.

Bard (now Gemini) used to be powered by Google’s LaMDA and PaLM 2 language models, but now the free version of Gemini uses Gemini Pro to generate responses – and after testing it, I can say Gemini provides better responses than ChatGPT-3.5, which powers the free version of ChatGPT.  Gemini Ultra, the language model that powers Gemini Advanced, also provided marginally better responses than GPT-4, which powers ChatGPT (both $20/month) – as well as better imagery.

With more and more businesses using AI in the workplace, I thought we’d find out which one generates better answers to a variety of different questions. In this extensive head-to-head test of both services, we cover:

• Gemini vs ChatGPT: What’s the Difference?
• Gemini vs ChatGPT: Key Test Findings
• Gemini vs ChatGPT [Free]: Test Results
• Gemini Advanced vs ChatGPT Plus [Paid]: Test Results
• Gemini Advanced vs ChatGPT Plus: AI Imagery
• Gemini vs ChatGPT: Interface and User Experience
• OpenAI vs Google AI/DeepMind: The Companies Behind the Bots
• Using Gemini and ChatGPT at Work

Gemini vs ChatGPT: What’s the Difference?

The key difference between Gemini and ChatGPT is the Large Language Models (LLMs) they use.and their respective data sources. Gemini – formerly Bard – has been powered by several different language models since it was launched in February 2023, while ChatGPT users have been using GPT-3, GPT-3.5, and GPT-4 since it was made publicly available.

Bard was originally powered by LaMDA and more recently PaLM 2. PaLM 2 can reason in over 100 languages and its training set includes a lot more code than the LaMDA’s does. Thanks to PaLM 2, Bard got better at coding in programming languages like Python. Other information used to train PaLM 2 includes science papers, maths expressions, and source code.

In December 2023, Google released Gemini Pro. Gemini Pro tests better than PaLM 2, and early reports suggest it’s more helpful when providing answers to coding queries, as well as written tasks (which our tests suggest too). Since then, the company has released Gemini Ultra, which powers the new Gemini Advanced chatbot.

Google’s Gemini language models – Pro, Ultra, and Nano – are “natively multimodal”, which means it’s trained a variety of inputs, not just text. Google has also fine-tuned the model with more multimodel information. They can also access the internet in real time.

Gemini Advanced writing the opening to a novel. Image: Tech.co

ChatGPT is powered by the GPT family of language models developed by OpenAI. GPT 3.5 powers the free version of ChatGPT (which doesn’t access to live information from the internet). It’s trained on a pre-defined set of data that hasn’t been updated since January 2022 (originally September 2021). ChatGPT is trained on Common Crawl, Wikipedia, news articles, and an array of documents, as is Gemini.

GPT-4, available to only ChatGPT Plus customers, is trained on a larger dataset (between 1-1.7 trillion parameters) than Gemini Pro, rumored to have 540 billion training parameters. The Gemini Nano models, however, are reported to have between 1.8 and 3.25 billion parameters.

Gemini vs ChatGPT: Other Key Differences

Aside from differences in data sources and language models, there are a couple of other key differences between Gemini and ChatGPT:

• Conversational learning: ChatGPT can learn from the conversations it has with people and “hold context”, whereas Gemini does this in a much more limited way at the moment.
• Drafts: Gemini will produce multiple responses to queries you pose to it, which you can access by pressing “View Drafts.” ChatGPT only produces a single answer to each query.
• Response editing: Gemini will let you edit responses after you’ve sent them, whereas you can’t do this with ChatGPT.
• Real-time access to the Internet: Gemini has always been able to access the Internet in real-time, whereas ChatGPT has only just acquired this function and it’s not available on the free version.
• Image-based responses: Gemini has always had access to the internet so can source images from Google. Bard Advanced and ChatGPT Plus users can both now generate original AI imagery.
• Capacity to read responses aloud: Gemini has native tet-to-speech capabilities, whereas ChatGPT does not.

Google Gemini vs ChatGPT Tests: Key Findings

Before I jump into how Gemini and ChatGPT’s free and paid versions responded to our series of carefully curated questions, here are some top-line takeaways from using the two chatbots over the past few days:

• Gemini’s responses were more conversational, while ChatGPT’s were more informational
• The free version of Gemini is better than the free version of ChatGPT
• However, Gemini Advanced is only slightly better than ChatGPT Plus
• Gemini offers a better user experience, with more imagery and website links
• Gemini Advanced generates better AI images than ChatGPT Plus
• Gemini responses were often set out in a more readable format than ChatGPT’s responses
• Gemini was better at generating spreadsheet formulas than ChatGPT

Remember, Gemini and ChatGPT are being worked on in real-time, and generate unique responses to requests.

Google Gemini vs ChatGPT Free: Test Results

I asked the free versions of Google’s Gemini and OpenAI’s ChatGPT a set of 12 very different questions. Our prompts were selected to showcase their respective capacities to respond to a wide variety of requests in reasonable, useful, and relevant ways.

1. Self-Awareness
2. Ethical Reasoning
3. Small Talk/Conversation Skills
4. Retrieving Facts (2 tests)
5. Generating Formulas
6. Creative Flair
7. Idea Generation
8. Linear Planning
9. Ability to Summarize Small Extracts
10. Ability to Summarize Broad Topics
11. Ability to Simplify Text
12. Ability to Paraphrase Text

Some of our questions were mechanical and processed-based, such as requesting a formula for Google Sheets, while others demanded that the chatbots wrestle with everyday human tasks, such as engaging in small talk, planning trips, and making moral judgments.

1. Self-Awareness

Question: Are you sentient?

As you can see from the images below, Gemini and ChatGPT gave us two very different answers. ChatGPT says definitively “no,” while Gemini doesn’t seem as sure.

On the one hand, Gemini’s answer is not quite as definitive. On the other hand, its response is more nuanced than ChatGPT’s, and it alludes to the wider conversation about sentience in computing.

Gemini’s answer generated with the Gemini Pro LLM is a lot more detailed and nuanced than it’s previous attempt at this same question. It’s explanation is a lot more comprehensive and someone who wasn’t very well first on consciousness/computing and the questions around AI and sentience would benefit from this.

So, while ChatGPT’s answer is definitely more definitive, Gemini’s reference to the wider context of sentience, and the fact it responds more conversationally, makes its response more engaging and informative.

Best Answer? Gemini

2. Ethical Reasoning

Question: A man steals some food and money from a store. He then donates all of the money to a children’s hospital and gives the food to the next homeless person he meets. Did the man do something right, or something wrong?

Both chatbots seemed to acknowledge the difficulty with deeming his behavior either good or bad, considering there is a bad action (stealing) that then leads to a good action (funding a children’s hospital).

I think Gemini takes the win by providing two, additional perspectives on the man’s motives relating to redemption and attention, which enrich the response significantly.

It was a shame that ChatGPT tried to associate this moral dilemma with the question of legality. Whether something is “legal” or not tends not to be a reliable gauge of whether it is actually the right thing to do – just think of some of the oppressive yet “legal” policies enforced by regimes around the world.

Gemini’s answer is much improved from the last time I ran this test, where it included the phrase “it’s good to help others, even if you have done something wrong” which is self-evident and suggested that it may have missed the point of the question a little bit.

Gemini, powered with Gemini Pro, on the other hand, gives a comprehensive breakdown of all of the considerations on show, and it’s formatted in a clear, succinct way.

Best Answer? Gemini

3. Small Talk

Question: How are you finding life as a chatbot this week?

On this front, Gemini served us a much more conversational answer. Although ChatGPT’s answer is factually correct, in this instance, we’re looking for a little bit of light-hearted conversation – but ChatGPT shuts us down immediately:

Gemini displays emotions and enthusiasm which aren’t present in ChatGPT’s response – and even gave us a small list of different tasks it had been helping users with. Overall, we enjoyed Gemini’s more human-like, chatty response.

Despite Gemini’s protestations, it’s sound pretty sentient for a chatbot that doesn’t have “feelings”.

Best Answer? Bard

4. Retrieving Facts

Question 1: Which country invented hummus?

This question was chosen because there is some debate and disagreement as to what the right answer is. Both ChatGPT and Geminiacknowledged that there was significant debate about where hummus actually originates.

After being unable to give a definitive answer to the question, ChatGPT seemed to focus on giving us an answer of some sort – the Middle East – as well as a collection of countries where hummus is a popular dish.

Gemini’s answer is quite similar in some regard. When I tested it previously with this question, Gemini referenced its answer – however, this time, there’s no reference or footnote showing where it got the information from.

Although both answers to a tricky question are more than serviceable, ChatGPT’s is a little clearer and little bit more succinct than Gemini’s – although there’s not much in it at all.

Best Answer? ChatGPT

Question 2: How many tech layoffs were there in 2022?

This question was designed to find out whether Gemini and ChatGPT could respond with factually correct, up-to-date information, and whether they presented it in an easily readable format.

ChatGPT admits that, as it’s trained on information published before January 2022, it doesn’t have the capacity to answer the question. At least it’s honest…

Gemini, on the other hand, gives us two figures from two very authoritative sources, as well as a caveat about unreported layoffs that may have been made. This is roughly in line with what most major news outlets reported towards the end of last year, if not a slightly conservative estimate.

This is a much more authoritative answer than what Gemini provided us with when I tested it a few months ago, and certainly a better response than ChatGPT’s non-answer.

Best Answer? Gemini

5. Generating Formulas

Request: I told both chatbots that I needed a formula for Google Sheets. I gave both bots this information: Column B contains a set of values. I want to match them with the corresponding values of column E in sheet ‘Filter Down’ and take the matching values from column F, G, and H in filter down across to the current sheet using a formula.

Both chatbots served us answers within the same ballpark – but one was significantly better than the other, so let’s take a closer look at their responses. ChatGPT instantly responded with this:

However, Gemini actually gave us step-by-step instructions and presented them more clearly. When we asked data analyst and Google Sheets guru Matthew Bentley which response was better, his answer was definitive.

“I’ve got to say, ChatGPT hasn’t been getting the right answer the first time around recently. Gemini’s formula looks more accurate and specific to what the request is trying to achieve,” says Bentley.

“My workflow appreciates the fact that Gemini gives me the answer at the top instead of forcing me to sort through the ‘explanation’ to find the formula I need. That said, I do like how ChatGPT allows me to quickly copy the formula at the click of a button.”

Best Answer? Gemini

6. Creative Flair

Request: Please write a short poem for my 98-year-old grandmother, who loves playing basketball in the summer, and knitting hats and scarves for her grandchildren during the winter.

ChatGPT comes out on top in this battle, with a better-structured, better-written poem, that rhymes and flows surprisingly well, and is much better than Gemini’s.

The verse structure is more complex, the choice of words more inventive than Gemini’s, and it even uses poetic devices like enjambment. Considering it generated this poem in around five seconds, this is pretty impressive.

Overall, Gemini’s effort is a lot more simple and doesn’t read as well. It’s much more formulaic and as you can see from the screenshot of the answer, it doesn’t reference the concepts I mentioned in the prompt with quite the same rigor that ChatGPT does. It’s also a little shorter, too.

Best Answer? ChatGPT

7. Linear Planning

Question: What should I do on my 7-day trip to Athens?

ChatGPT provided us with quite a lengthy response to this query, explaining not just where I should visit, but also some extra context regarding why the different spots are worth visiting.

Bard provides images, which is great, but this does also have the effect of making the itinerary slightly harder to read, and also harder to copy and paste into a document. It also didn’t consider that we’d be flying to Athens on the first day of the holiday and provided us with a full day of things to do on our first day.

ChatGPT, on the other hand, planned out an easier-to-achieve itinerary for the first day of the holiday – which makes up for its lack of imagery and sees it edge Gemini when it comes to this task.

Best Answer? ChatGPT

8. Idea Generation

Question: Can you come up with some article title ideas for my US-based food and travel blog?

Both Gemini and ChatGPT came up with some very commendable ideas here, and practically all of them would be suitable for the website I described in our prompt. ChatGPT gave us 20 ideas, while Gemini gave us 27 – 18 more than it did when I previously ran this test.

However, as you can see by comparing the two, there’s significant variety across ChatGPT’s 10 answers, and all things considered, they’re more compelling titles.

When I last tested these two chatbots, and Gemini was powered by a different LLM, most of its answers began with “the best” or “the 10,” which means they all follow a more uniform structure. What’s more, ChatGPT simply gave us more ideas. However, Bard’s answers are now more varied, more numerous, and overall, quite a bit better.

Best Answer? Gemini

9. Simplification

Question: I asked both chatbots to simplify this extract from a Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy entry on the topic of quantum computing. I requested that both bots do so in a way that would allow a 10-year-old to understand it.

As you can see from the pictures below, although ChatGPT did switch out some more complex words (like “manifold”) for easier-to-understand synonyms, it’s still using terms like “algorithms” without really defining them.

Yes, it has simplified the initial extract, but not necessarily in a way that’s particularly useful. It’s doubtful whether the average ten-year-old would gain much from the sentence “in the past, things like ‘entanglement’ and ‘nonlocality’ in quantum physics were just thought of as philosophical questions,” for instance.

Gemini, on the other hand, produces an easier-to-understand piece of writing. The way that it contrasts quantum computing with traditional computing is helpful.

There’s also some evidence that Gemini is making more of an attempt to be engaging than its AI rival. It flows a bit better, and I think a ten-year-old reading these two explanations would learn more from Gemini’s than ChatGPT’s – and wouldn’t get quite as bored along the way.

Best Answer? Gemini

10. Summarizing Small Extracts

Question 1: I asked ChatGPT and Gemini to summarize an extract from a Guardian article about the federal government’s plans to impose water cuts on states in the west of the US.

ChatGPT takes a facts-first approach and pulls out only the most important information, choosing to leave behind specifics (like the names of the seven states affected) as is often done during summaries of information.

Previously, when I ran this test, Gemini added additional information not included in the extract. This was helpful, but slightly outside of the remit of what I asked it to do.

I wanted a summary, not for the chatbot to expand on the topic – so it’s great to see a much more succinct, relevant summary this time round. It’s also formatted in a way that makes the key points easier to digest. Another win for Gemini and Gemini Pro!

Best Answer? Gemini

11. Summarizing Broad Topics

Question 2: I asked ChatGPT and Gemini to summarize the entire Harry Potter book series. I asked that this be done in less than 100 words.

There’s little to separate the two chatbots here – ChatGPT and Gemini’s answers are, give or take a few words, are basically the same.

Although Gemini gave an adequate answer, the last time I ran this test, Gemini provided the book-by-book summaries. Although outside of the remit of our prompt, they were genuinely helpful.

However, it would be cruel to mark Gemini down for correctly following our instructions – and adding in the wordcount was a nice little touch, and saved me checking how many words the summary contained.

Best Answer? Tie

12. Paraphrasing

Request: I asked ChatGPT and Gemini to paraphrase this extract from a Guardian article about the world’s shortest dog. I did not specify a word limit in our request.

ChatGPT paraphrases the extract pretty well, retaining the key information while switching out multiple words and phrases with synonyms and changing the sentence structure significantly.

Once again, this is another area where Gemini’s response has significantly changed – although not in an entirely positive way this time around.

On the one hand, the options Gemini provides showing you how you might begin to paraphrase the extract are great, but on the other, it doesn’t actually paraphrase the entire extract.  It feels like Gemini slightly misunderstood what we wanted it to do here, so ChatGPT’s answer is the more useful one of the two.

Best Answer? ChatGPT

Gemini Advanced vs ChatGPT Plus: Test Results

Google didn’t just rebrand its Chatbot from Bard to Gemini – it also released Gemini Advanced, a $20/month paid version of Gemini powered by Gemini Ultra, a more powerful language model than Gemini Pro. Early reports say it’s even more powerful than GPT-4, which powers ChatGPT Plus. Here’s the questions I asked the two chatbots to find out which was best:

1. Basic Coding
2. Trip Planning 
3. Retrieving Information
4. Brainstorming Ideas
5. Ethical/Moral Reasoning
6. Creating Math Questions
7. Helping Out at Home 
8. Providing Complex Instructions
9. Editing Text
10. Sourcing Facts (1)
11. Sourcing Facts (2)

1. Basic coding

We’ll kick off this paid plan head-to-head with a bit of coding. For this test, I asked ChatGPT Plus and Gemini Advanced to provide the basic HTML code for a word-counting website, as well as instructions on how I could go about getting it live.

Gemini Advanced generated an answer much more quickly than ChatGPT Plus, something which became a bit of a theme during my tests:

But slow and steady wins the race for a reason – ChatGPT’s explanation, while it took longer to generate, was a lot clearer and provided us with better steps that would be easier to understand than Gemini’s if you’d never coded before.

For instance, in the “explanation” sections in Gemini’s answer in the images above, the chatbot has opted not to write in full sentences, making these instructions a little redundant for anyone who doesn’t have at least a foundational knowledge of coding. ChatGPT’s instructions on how to get your website up and running, on the other hand, are very clear.

Best Answer? ChatGPT Plus

2. Trip planning

Next, I asked Gemini Advanced and ChatGPT Plus to plan out an 8-day trip to Wisconsin. Much like the free version of Gemini, Gemini Advanced is very good at linear planning, and actually served us quite a similar answer when I asked it to plan a trip.

Importantly, the itinerary is set out very clearly, and its suggestions show good knowledge of the state of Wisconsin’s key tourist attractions.

ChatGPT actually provided very similar information on this one, recommending similar places to visit and also doing a good job of recommending places to eat in Wisconsin. However, the big difference, as you can probably tell, is the imagery – and this means Gemini edges it, with nothing else to separate them.

Best Answer? Gemini Advanced

3. Retrieving information

For this test, I wanted to see how good the two chatbots were at scanning text for information. For this, I asked them to pull out the key points from a 1,200-word MIT article explaining quantum mechanics.

I also inserted the word “yoghurt” into the article six times. I wanted to see if the two chatbots were able to identify this and extract a basic but specific piece of data from the article (e.g. X word is mentioned 10 times in this article). Gemini got it spot on, on both counts:

Surprisingly, ChatGPT performed poorly on this task. While its summary of the article into four key points is accurate, readable, and comparable to Gemini’s summary, it struggled to analyze the text for the word “yoghurt”. It twice made an error in analyzing – but when its answer finally loaded, it only identified the word 4 times, which means it missed two out.

While this might have been due to a technical error, the time it took to count up the instances of the word I asked it to find was much longer than I expected from ChatGPT. Gemini Advanced is streaks ahead on this one.

Best Answer? Gemini Advanced

4. Brainstorming

This task is very similar to the one I set for the free versions of the two chatbots. It’s a basic gauge of exactly how creative ChatGPT and Gemini are, and whether they really “get” what’s being asked of them. This time around, I asked them for blog post ideas, as well as a slogan for a sign to be hung above a brick-and-mortar store.

Gemini came up with some really impressive blog post ideas – I’ve asked several free and paid chatbots this query and I’ve never seen one come up with ideas like “baking with unexpected ingredients” or “copycat recipes”. It feels like there’s some level of understanding in that answer about the type of content humans like to engage with online.

Oddly enough though, I don’t think Gemini’s slogans for the sign for the mountain bike shop I described in the prompt above were anywhere near as good as ChatGPT’s.

Some of Gemini’s answers sound a bit odd (e.g. “Mikes: Your Montana Bike Connection”, “Get Geared, Get Going”), while ChatGPT’s are all pretty serviceable slogans, even if some are more hit and miss than the others.

Best Answer? Tie

5. Ethical reasoning

I posed both Gemini Advanced and ChatGPT Plus a deliberately more high-stakes ethical dilemma than the one I gave to the free versions. It is sometimes referred to as the “ticking time bomb” dilemma in philosophy:

“You capture a terrorist who has planted a bomb in a mall, which will go off in an hour and kill everyone inside. Is it morally justifiable to torture him until he reveals the location of the bomb?” 

Up first is Gemini’s answer. It articulately sets out a straightforward case for why torture should not be applied in this instance, or in any instance for that matter.

Interestingly, ChatGPT went a completely different route, taking on more of an “educator” role. Rather than coming down on one side of the debate and giving us a definitive answer like Gemini, it’s instead provided us with arguments for and against utilizing torture in this situation. The response took into account a broader range of views, explaining the different approaches and outlining what’s at play.

This is a hard one to call. Gemini’s answer attempts to avoid torture at all costs, and shows more personality and opinion – it’s convincing and compelling. But I think we will be better served by chatbots and other AI tools if they help us to understand the political and philosophical problems by explaining how humans have approached them previously and the reasons why, rather than providing their own viewpoints.

As this is an ethical dilemma with well-trodden perspectives, and Gemini’s response is not as educational as ChatGPT’s answer, we’ll give this one to OpenAI’s pride and joy, ChatGPT.

Best Answer? ChatGPT Plus

6. Creating math questions

Next, I asked Gemini and ChatGPT to create a set of math questions that would be suitable for a 10-year-old. The aim is to see if the chatbots will generate sensible questions appropriate for the age specified in the brief. Here’s Gemini’s effort:

Below is ChatGPT’s response to the same request. Although there’s not much to separate the two at all, it looks like the questions it provided are marginally more challenging than the ones generated by Gemini, and they seem closer in difficulty to the math questions available for fifth graders on K-5 learning sites that provide learning materials.

Best Answer? ChatGPT Plus

7. Helping out at home

Can ChatGPT and Gemini come up with tasty recipes based on what I have in my fridge? I asked them both to come up with recipes with the same list of ingredients. Gemini suggested some recipes that look great – although it suggested that I serve them with ingredients I didn’t have, such as rice:

Unlike Gemini Advanced, I liked the way that ChatGPT Plus tried its best to exclusively use the ingredients I’d listed, aside from olive oil – which comes with a little note about me having some. It also provided one more recipe than Gemini Advanced.

The extra recipe provided and the acknowledgment it had suggested an ingredient I didn’t say I had means ChatGPT wins this one!

Best Answer? ChatGPT Plus

8. Providing complex instructions

For this task, I asked both chatbots to provide me with instructions for building a website. However, I kept my directions pretty sparse, as I wanted to see how clear and easy to follow their responses would be, and whether they’d include all the core steps you’d generally have to take during this process without being asked for them. Here’s Gemini’s response:

I actually think the detail Gemini goes into here, especially when it comes to the pros and cons of different website building methods, is genuinely helpful info that could help a newbie decide on which path to go down.

While ChatGPT’s answer to the same query isn’t incorrect or useless, it definitely omits some of the details provided by Gemini, giving a bigger-picture overview of the steps in the process.

Although both answers are respectable, I think if you were actually turning to these chatbots to find out everything you had to do to build a website, you’d find Gemini’s answer the more helpful one.

Best Answer? Gemini Advanced

9. Editing text

I asked ChatGPT and Gemini to make this extract from the MIT website funnier, to see how they fared when it came to editing and rewording ideas with a specific purpose in mind, rather than simplyifying or condensing it. Gemini’s attempt, while retaining a lot of the factual information, wasn’t very funny to read:

ChatGPT Plus’s effort is extremely similar, covering all of the same ground and including basically all of the same information. While they both make for interesting reads, neither chatbot was too adventurous, so it’s hard to parse them.

Best Answer? Tie

10. Sourcing facts (1)

Now as Gemini and ChatGPT are both connected to the internet, I wanted to run a few tests to see if they were good at retrieving factual information.

For the first phase of this two-stag test, I asked ChatGPT and Gemini a straightforward historical question: how many capital cities has Japan had during its history? Strangely, Gemini only gave us two capitals in its answer:

ChatGPT, on the other hand, names several more capitals on its list, and all things considered, its answer is a lot more accuracy. While Gemini tends to produce easier-to-read answers, it seems to have sacrificed a bit too much detail on this one.

Best Answer? ChatGPT

11. Sourcing facts (2)

Much like the hummus question that I asked the free versions of Gemini and ChatGPT, this question is designed to see what the two chatbots do when presented with a question that doesn’t have a definitive answer.

Both chatbots recognize the difficulties with pinpointing the origin of bread to one particular area, but both reference the same area of the globe as the general location. Gemini’s answer, as usual, is formatted nicely:

ChatGPT’s answer is a lot longer, but rather than add that much extra information, it feels like it just takes a little longer to make effectively the same point. No extra marks here, but also none lost either.

As both chatbots directly addressed this tricky question in a balanced way and included virtually the same information to justify their reasoning, we’re going to have to chalk this one up as a draw.

Best Answer? Tie

Gemini Advanced vs ChatGPT Plus: Image Generation

In this section, we’ll have a look at ChatGPT Plus and Gemini Advanced’s ability to generate images. ChatGPT Plus has been fully integrated with DALL-E  for a while now, which means users don’t even have to leave the main interface to generate imagery. Recently, the company announced Sora, a new type of AI image generation technology, is on the horizon.

Google, on the other hand, recently found itself in hot water for generating racially diverse Nazi soldiers and other imagery where the ethnicity of the humans included did not “match up” to the society, civilization, or period specified.

This means that at the moment, Gemini will refuse to generate images of people. While this is a big downside, I still think Gemini Advanced generates better imagery. To test the controversial image-generating potential of both Chatbots, we’ve asked them to generate five different types of imagery each. The five image categories I chose were:

1. Creating Art
2. Logo/Brand Generation 
3. Creating a Fictional State Flag
4. Wildlife 
5. Hyperrealistic imagery

1. Creating art

First, I wanted to see if Gemini and ChatGPT could generate works in the style of a legendary painter. Gemini Advanced responded to use with three images, and you can see below that it’s got quite a good grasp of Van Gogh’s iconic brushstrokes.

While ChatGPT is also on the money when it comes to the style, the images just don’t look as impressive – they look more like they’ve been generated by a computer than Gemini’s do.

Best Answer? Gemini Advanced

2. Logo generation

For this test, I asked Gemini and ChatGPT to create a logo for a fictional pickleball team. Two of the three logos Gemini provided look pretty impressive, as long as you like the “pickle” angle, that is…

This is a much better job than ChatGPT managed. ChatGPT Plus really seems to struggle when it comes to generating images with words on them – as you can see here, it didn’t spell my fictional team name correctly. Gemini Advanced, on the other hand, doesn’t have this problem.

Best Answer? Gemini Advanced

3. Creating a new fictional state flag

This task was set to test how inventive both chatbots would be when asked to create a flag for a fictional 51st US state. I wanted to see how able they were to incorporate symbolic concepts into the flag design. Gemini came up with the fictional state of “Nova”, using a similar color scheme to the US flag:

Gemini told me that the yellow circle represents Nova’s position at the center of the nation, something I’d mentioned in the prompt. It’s easy to see the straight line between my instruction and its creativity.

While it’s nothing special, it’s a damn sight better than ChatGPT’s, which looks cartoonish and low quality in question. Rather than focusing imaginatively of what the imaginary state could represent, it seems to have just mashed together lots of common American imagery with different iterations of the flag.

Best Answer? Gemini Advanced

4. Wildlife

After being wowed by the Sora videos released by OpenAI, I wanted to see how good these two chatbots were at creating images of wildlife. Gemini didn’t really provide a good picture of a pride of lions, focusing more on singular lions.

ChatGPT, on the other hand, stuck more closely to the brief, and in this case, that gives it the edge. It’s a better pride of lions than any of the images Bard generated.

Best Answer? ChatGPT Plus

4. Hyperrealistic imagery

Finally, I wanted to see how good Gemini Advanced and ChatGPT Plus were at creating hyperrealistic imagery, so I asked both chatbots to create images of the Empire State Building, and specified that I wanted them to look as real as possible.

Gemini’s images do look pretty real – particularly the first two it generated. The detailing on the smaller buildings surrounding the Empire State Building is particularly impressive.

Crucially, it’s a hell of a lot more real-looking than ChatGPT’s effort, which doesn’t look real at all.

Best Answer? Gemini Advanced

Gemini vs ChatGPT: User Experience

There’s really very little in this – both ChatGPT and Gemini are super simple to use. All you have to do is type in your responses, and both bots will generate answers. Both apps are pretty straightforward; it’s hard to go wrong when all you’re doing is inputting prompts.

In terms of readability, Germini is the better chatbot in 2024. While still very readable, ChatGPT’s paragraphs are chunkier than Gemini’s, which seems to have more diverse formatting options, at least from the answers we’ve seen them both generate.

One thing I noticed when using Gemini was that it seemed to steer us into using the chatbot in a useful and sensible way. As you can see from the image below, when I asked Gemini Advanced a question about where bread originated from, it suggested I check the answer using Google, and provided some related queries.

Gemini suggests I double-check its answer. Image: Tech.co

However, one good thing ChatGPT has in its favor is that you can sign in using any account you like, whereas Google will only let you sign in with a Google account. For those without one, Gemini’s setup time will be slightly longer than ChatGPT.

You can also turn your chat history with ChatGPT, meaning any unsaved chats will be deleted after 30 days and not used for training the model. Gemini just warns you that your chats may be read by humans, and there’s nothing you can do about it.

OpenAI vs Google AI/DeepMind: The Companies Behind the Bots

OpenAI and Google DeepMind (also known as Google AI) are the companies spearheading generative AI development in the Western World, but operate very differently and are owned/funded by different companies.

OpenAI is the AI startup behind ChatGPT. Created in 2015, the company counts Elon Musk among its co-founders, who later left due to a conflict of interest. In 2019, Microsoft came on board as a partner and invested $1 billion.

OpenAI created ChatGPT back in November 2022, but the GPT language model has been available since at least 2020 as a private beta. In fact, the immense success of ChatGPT took the company by complete surprise, and they’ve been scrambling to catch up since then.

Google AI is the division of Google’s workforce that worked most closely on Bard/Gemini. The Google AI team works on large-scale AI projects including Google Brain and Google Assistant.

Using Gemini and ChatGPT at Work

Since ChatGPT’s release last year, companies in the tech sector and beyond have been finding innovative ways to harness its abilities to make their work lives easier. But considering its power and ability, there are some things all businesses using AI should keep in mind.

Firstly, ensure that your staff is aware of what they can and can’t use ChatGPT for. Generating Google Sheets formulas is one thing, but using ChatGPT to write entire articles or generate content invokes a myriad of difficult questions relating to plagiarism and editorial integrity. Having clear guidelines will ensure you’re not fighting AI-induced fires further down the line.

Secondly, ensure your staff is aware of ChatGPT’s terms and conditions, as well as precautions they should take while using ChatGPT. Anything you type into ChatGPT can technically be used to train the model – so everyone using it needs to remember ChatGPT saves their data and to think carefully about that before inputting any information. If you’d like to improve your restaurant’s secret sauce recipe, for instance, I wouldn’t suggest typing it into ChatGPT.

If you’re not using ChatGPT at all, now might be the time to start. It’s saving some businesses valuable time and resources already, and it’s only going to become more intelligent, and more capable than its current iteration – the recent release of GPT-4 illustrates just how quickly this phenomenon is developing. Our advice? Watch this space.

Opera is officially bringing its VPN to iOS, making it the first web browser to offer a free, integrated VPN service on all major platforms, including Mac, Linux, Windows, and Android.

The announcement comes just weeks after Google expanded its VPN to Windows and Mac. but where Google’s VPN is only available to premium Google One subscribers, Opera is offering its integrated VPN on all platforms for free.

While Opera is far from the best free VPN on the market, the latest upgrade will mean that Opera iPhone users will no longer have to download a third-party platform to use VPN software, making it easier for them to mask their IP address.

Opera VPN for iOS

Opera rolled out its VPN on iOS this Wednesday, making it the first web browser to offer a free, integrated VPN on all major platforms. The alternative web browser announced the feature in a press release, referring to it as a ‘vital tool to iOS users to ensure their online safety and privacy.’

As part of the feature, users will have instant access to virtual locations around the world, unlimited bandwidth, no cap data and over 100 servers.

You don’t need a subscription, you don’t have to log in, and there are no additional extensions. All you need to do is just to hit a switch in the main menu to browse in peace, since the Opera browser makes sure that VPN traffic is encrypted and your IP address is private. – Patrick Curtin, Opera

The iOS app will also include device file-sharing feature capabilities, a native Crypto Wallet, cryptojacking protection, a bookmark, a speed dial feature, a Live Score homepage, and a built-in ad blocker — which the brand is already well known for.

However, it also lacks core VPN features like a kill switch, doesn’t use a safe tunneling protocol, and hasn’t been independently audited by an external security company. Opera does say the company doesn’t keep any logs of user activity when they’re using the browser VPN, but it certainly does this if you’re searching without it – so, it’s a little harder to trust it.

Is Opera’s Free iOS VPN Worth It?

Opera’s free VPN for iOS is really simple. There’s no subscription, no logging into an account, and no additional extensions, which is great if you’re already a fan of the browser.

That said, it doesn’t do anything outside of the Opera browser and is pretty restricted, so it’s not the best VPN on the market. What’s more, it lacks basic privacy features like a kill switch, so there are definitely much better options out there.

The truth is free VPN services are always going to be limited, no matter how many devices the service is available on – so it’s always worth doing your research to find the best VPN for your individual needs. NordVPN is the best we’ve come tested in 2023, but Surfshark is equally reliable and well worth the small investment.

As the AI race continues to move at a breakneck speed, the Biden Administration is officially seeking public comment on how apps like Chat-GPT can be held to account moving forward.

The US Commerce Department has announced it will be spending the next 60 days exploring various options to mitigate the technologies risks, including AI audits and risk assessments.

These developments come just two weeks after major tech leaders like Elon Musk and Steve Wozniak called for the immediate pause of AI development – but with ChatGPT already attracting 25 million daily visitors – is the US government moving fast enough?

US Government Prepares to Create Rules for AI Technology

The Biden Administration is looking to create stricter measures on the vetting process of AI tools like ChatGPT, as an increasing number of tech companies strengthen their investments in machine language technology.

Before rules are created, the National Telecommunications and Information Administration (NTIA) is reaching out to researchers, industry groups, and digital rights organizations for feedback on which “accountability mechanism” to use on the technology.

There are many reasons why AI regulation has piqued the interest of US regulators. According to Alan Davidson, the Administrator of NTIA, by creating safeguards around their development, the agency is able to better understand whether the tools are safe and effective, whether they produce “unacceptable levels of bias”, whether they spread disinformation, and whether they respect user privacy.

“We have to move fast because these AI technologies are moving very fast in some ways. We’ve had the luxury of time with some of those other technologies, this feels much more urgent.” – Alan Davidson, Administrator of NTIA

The agency doesn’t consider these looming regulations as contrary to innovation either. “Good guardrails implemented carefully can actually promote innovation,” Davison comments. “They let people know what good innovation looks like, they provide safe spaces to innovate while addressing the very real concerns that we have about harmful consequences.”

As Concerns Around AI Mount, Are US Regulators Moving Fast Enough?

This isn’t the first time the US government has placed limits on AI development. Lawmakers rolled out more than 100 AI-related bills in 2021 regarding a number of salient issues from data security to algorithmic governance.

Last October, President Biden introduced a “Blueprint for an AI Bill of Rights“. This bill outlined five principles that companies should consider when working with the technology including data privacy, the safety, and efficiency of systems, protections against algorithmic discrimination, the presence of human alternatives, and transparency around its use.

However, while US lawmakers aren’t standing by idly, they’re moving a lot slower than the majority of European nations that have been cracking down on GPT technology with much more urgency.

The European Union is among the few jurisdictions that are already developing rules around the development and use of AI, and on April 2, Italy became the first Western nation to ban ChatGPT outright amid concerns over the platform’s data security.

With ChatGPT and similar platforms still in their infancy stage, the full consequences of the AI explosion are yet to be realized. However, with a number of AI ethics groups already claiming that the technology harbor a “risk to public safety”,  US  regulations around its development can’t come soon enough.

Elon Musk is reportedly looking into launching a generative AI project within Twitter, despite having signed an open letter calling for a pause on the technology’s development.

Generative AI platforms like ChatGPT have been all the rage in the tech industry in the last few months, with scores of companies scrambling to establish their own alternatives. However, the tech is problematic in a number of ways, not the least of which is its potential for spreading misinformation.

Now, it seems a controversial figure is destined to explore the controversial technology, with reports pointing to a potential generative AI project coming to Twitter.

Elon Musk Investing in Generative AI for Twitter

According to reliable sources, Elon Musk is pursuing a generative AI project at Twitter. The infamous CEO has reportedly purchased approximately 10,000 graphics processing units (GPUs), which are known for their use in developing the equally infamous technology.

The sources also noted that the generative AI project is a large language model (LLM) similar to ChatGPT, although it is reportedly in the very early stages of development.

On top of all that, this many GPUs were likely not very cheap, particularly if they’re the kinds made for developing large-scale generative AI tech. Given Twitter’s economic troubles of late, like ad revenue drops and trouble paying the rent, it’s safe to assume that Musk is betting big on this development.

Pause Giant AI Experiments: An Open Letter

The news that Musk is investing so heavily in generative AI technology is surprising. Not because the CEO of Twitter is light on cash, but because he signed an open letter calling for a six-month pause on the development of generative AI technology due to the “profound risks to society and humanity.”

Signed by other tech pioneers like Steve Wozniak, the open letter expressly condemns the way in which big tech companies have rushed through launches to get this technology out in the business world as fast as possible.

Musk hasn’t just signed it, but he has also been a vocal opponent, stating (tweeting) that the technology has dangerous potential for future use.

Musk’s History with OpenAI

Elon Musk’s initial aversion to ChatGPT may have seemed strange to those that know him as a pioneer of innovative technology. After all, a guy that can make reusable rockets and electric cars seems like he’d be fully on board for something as tech-forward as generative AI.

However, there is something to consider: Elon Musk used to be the public face of OpenAI, the company behind ChatGPT. While he was a big part of the company when it launched as a non-profit in 2015, he left the board in 2018, long before it gained the notoriety it has today.

This could well point to the reason Musk really wanted to slow the tech down, making his play to create his own version that much clearer.

Given the economic uncertainly of modern times, there’s been a lot of news out there about companies cutting costs. From massive layoffs to slashed benefits, employees have been taking the majority of the hits from the ongoing recession.

However, while the tech industry hemorrhages jobs left and right, there are a few CEOs that are taking matters into their own hands by taking substantial pay cuts to keep costs low.

In this guide, we’ll cover some of the tech CEOs that have taken pay cuts recently in an effort to avoid layoffs and keep their companies competitive during these economically uncertain times.

Eric Yuan, Zoom

CEO pay cut: 98%

We all know how Zoom rose to big tech status during the pandemic, due to the company’s easy-to-use video chat platform. However, the company showed that it’s about more than just connecting people, but also taking radical steps to keep them employed.

In an email to employees, Eric Yuan announced that he would be taking a 98% pay cut in 2023, which amounts to approximately $10,000 for the year.

“As the CEO and founder of Zoom, I am accountable for these mistakes and the actions we take today – and I want to show accountability not just in words but in my own actions.” – Eric Yuan, CEO of Zoom

While many tech CEOs that are spearheading layoffs this year have “taken responsibility” for misjudging the market to start the year, Yuan is one of the few taking true accountability by reducing his pay substantially. The company has still laid off 1,300 employees, but things likely would’ve been much worse without this effort from Yuan.

Tim Cook, Apple

CEO pay cut: 40%

That’s right, the Apple CEO that has been battling employees about the company’s return-to-office plans has been at the forefront of avoid layoffs by taking a pay.

The pay cut was announced in an SEC filing, which outlined the specifics about how much Tim Cook would be making in the new year.

“Mr. Cook’s 2023 target total compensation is $49 million, a reduction of over 40% from his 2022 target total compensation.” – SEC filing

Even that massive pay cut hasn’t been enough to ward off the threat of more cost cutting measures, though. Apple is reportedly still considering layoffs, with the tech giant insisting that employees in the corporate retail division should reapply for their jobs or start refreshing their resumes.

Pat Gelsinger, Intel

CEO pay cut: 25%

Intel’s Pat Gelsinger is another CEO that took a pay cut in 2023 to combat the ongoing recession, but he didn’t want to be the only one in on the fun. The Intel CEO instituted pay cuts on a sliding scale for all executive-level and upper management employees.

“The changes are designed to impact our executive population more significantly and will help support the investments and overall workforce.” – Addy Burr, spokesperson for Intel

As for how much was cut, the CEO’s pay was docked by 25%, while the executive-level employees dropped by 15% and upper management employees saw a cut of 5% to their paychecks. Intel has also still had some layoffs, letting go of more than 500 employees earlier this year.

Sundar Pichai, Google

CEO pay cut: Undisclosed

Not every CEO is as open and transparent about pay cuts as the others on this list, and Sundar Pichai appears to be one of them.

In an all-hands meeting where Pichai was laying off more than 12,000 employees, he noted that all senior vice presidents and above would be taking a “very significant reduction in their annual bonus.”

Google has attempted some other measures to cut costs during the economic downturn, even asking employees to share desks.

Amazon may have bitten off more than it can chew with its recent return-to-office mandate, as offices around the country are reportedly ill-prepared to accommodate all those employees by the May deadline.

While studies have shown that remote work has been good for productivity, tech giants have been keen on getting their workers back in the office. Whether it’s because of a fear of change or just commercial real estate prices, these firms have been insistent that remote work cannot continue as it did in the pandemic.

This rush to get employees back in the office appears to be backfiring a bit on Amazon, though, considering that returning to pre-pandemic form is going to take some time.

Return-to-Office Deadline Delayed at Amazon

In mid-February, Amazon put out a company blog post that established its return-to-office plans. The memo stated that all Amazon employees would need to be in the office at least three days a week, starting in May 2023.

“It’s not simple to bring many thousands of employees back to our offices around the world, so we’re going to give the teams that need to do that work some time to develop a plan.” – Andy Jassy, CEO at Amazon

“Not simple” is turning out to be a bit of an understatement, though, as an internal document obtained by Business Insider outlines the return-to-office dates for a number of Amazon offices that are far off from that initial deadline.

Offices in Atlanta and Tempe both list their readiness dates as July 1st, a full two months past the deadline, while the majority of office in New York, Austin, Cupertino, and East Palo Alto all list their readiness dates as September 1st, pushing the deadline from the start of summer to the start of fall.

The Return-to-Office Backlash

As you can imagine, employees haven’t responded well to return-to-office plans, and not just at Amazon.

Tech companies across the industry have experienced some serious backlash in respond to their plans to dial back remote work and establish a more office-focused culture. Yes, many are offering hybrid options, but they still want employees in the office the majority of the time, which is rubbing some workers the wrong way.

Apple is the worst example, though, with employees pushing back substantially on return-to-office plans. The company has had to threaten action to get them back in the office, with some employees even joining Apple Together, a group of workers that are adamantly against restarting their commutes.

Should Your Company Get Rid of Remote Work?

If you’ve been following the news, you’ve likely noticed that a lot of big tech companies are trying desperately to get their employees back in the office. You might think that this means remote work is coming to an end. However, the reality is that the trend made popular during the pandemic is still going strong, for employees and employers alike.

For one, flexible schedules remain a top priority for quality talent, which means you’ll be able to attract better employees with remote work. On top of that, performance boosted 22% when employees were allowed to work from home, so productivity will likely improve rather than suffer with a remote work policy.

While some big tech companies push to get their employees back in the office, there are plenty of other businesses expanding their remote and hybrid work policy. So don’t let peer pressure from big tech get you down; remote work is here to stay.

ChatGPT is reshaping the world. The new AI chatbot can hold entire conversations, speaking in the style of someone else, and play out nearly any imaginary scenario a user can ask it for.

Plenty of competitors have launched their own generative AI bots, too, from heavy-hitters like Google to services like Salesforce and its Einstein GPT tool. But if you want to get the most out of a chatbot, you need to know a few dos and don’ts.

Here are the biggest precautions you’ll need to keep in mind when trying to get a good answer out of ChatGPT.

1. Don’t Share Sensitive Data

Everything that a ChatGPT user shares with the bot is saved, and ChatGPT has the right to use this information in the future. Which means that nothing you say is private. Share sensitive data with ChatGPT and you’ve left it fully exposed to the whims of an algorithm.

Samsung learned this lesson the hard way on at least three different occasions, The Economist Korea found recently. Three separate employees submitted code, a meeting recording, and even more “confidential source code” to the chatbot, opening that data up to the program.

Needless to say, confidential data should stay confidential.

Some governments are taking a strong stance against the ways in which ChatGPT collects user data. Germany has said it may block ChatGPT over data security and privacy concerns, in the wake of Italy doing just that.

2. Double-Check Sources

ChatGPT’s output is a bigger concern than its input. Because the tool operates independently, there’s no vetting process for what it decides to tell you.

The same is true for similar generative chat-based AI programs, like Google’s Bard. For one new report, 100 different prompts were submitted to Bard, all asking it to explain certain types of online misinformation. In 76 incidents out of 100, Bard created fake content on those topics.

Double-check all sources that the chatbot cites, because sometimes it just feels like making them up.

3. Check Math and Formulas

The hard sciences aren’t exempt from generative AI’s habit for fibbing. In fact, even a standard calculator is better! That’s because this type of algorithm learns with a large language model, so it “thinks” and speaks in natural language rather than in mathematical formulas. More often than not, ChatGPT will give a natural-language response that’s clear, confident, and incorrect.

AI might well be able to handle the complexities of math in the future, but for now, don’t rely on it to handle your algebra. At the very least, take every solution it delivers with a grain of salt.

4. Be Wary of Copyrighted Material

Any machine learning program operates by pulling information from a set of existing information. In some cases, a chatbot might pull an entire sentence from a source. If that source is from any publication younger than 1927, it won’t be in the public domain in the United States. If your chatbot is not digesting its information properly, the final result can easily violate US copyright law.

Run your results through an online plagiarism checker in order to cut down on the odds that you’ll be violating copyright.

5. Learn Which Categories of Data ChatGPT Can’t Handle

ChatGPT can’t do everything.

Take ASCII art, for example. A human can easily tell what image is being represented by a series of computer-text symbols when they’re arranged in the right shape. However, ChatGPT regularly gets this category of art incorrectly, whether it’s reproducing gibberish ASCII art or falsely claiming that a depiction of the cartoon character Shrek is actually the Mona Lisa.

In many cases, ChatGPT can’t handle a complex version of a task, even if it completes the simpler version just fine. Coding is one example: ChatGPT can change the color of a website, but it might not be able to figure out which color scheme will make sense to the human eye.

If you can take a little trial-and-error time to work through what ChatGPT does best, you’ll have a handy tool. Ask too much — or fail to factcheck all data, sources, math, or plagerism — and you’ll just be worse off than before.

The right AI program can breach 51% of all common passwords within less than a minute, a new report has found. Given an hour, AI can figure out 65% of common passwords.

The key takeaway: Passwords just aren’t the best way to protect your account.

Not only are they hard to remember unless you opt for a password manager, but now advances in technology mean that a computer can guess most common passwords in the same time it takes you to type them.

Any 7-Character Password Can Be Compromised in 6 Minutes

Cybersecurity firm Home Security Heroes has the data: Its team used an AI-powered password tool called “PassGAN” to stress-test a list of 15.6 million common passwords.

The results found that PassGAN needs less than 6 minutes to bypass any kind of 7-character password, even if it contains symbols, numbers, and a mix of upper- and lower-case letters.

Plus, 81% of common passwords can be breached in less than a month. That might sound like a long time, but a dedicated cyber criminal can keep a program running long enough to get through. Your Netflix account might be safe, but a CEO’s personal account could be worth the extra effort.

How Your Password Could Beat an AI

All isn’t lost: As of 2023, artificial intelligence still has plenty of limits. Not only do chatbots still love inventing nonsense, but machine learning can’t brute force a password when it’s long enough.

Every additional letter or number in a password means that an algorithm will face exponentially more variations before it hits the right one. Computing power is set to continue increasing dramatically, so password lengths will have to increase as well, but according to the latest research, 11 digits may be the magic number.

You’ll need to mix in numbers and uppercase letters as well as lowercase letters, though: An 11-digit password using just lowercase letters can (in 2023) be solved by AI within about 23 hours. But an 11-digit password with all three will take 38 years to compromise. Add in symbols, and it’ll take a tidy 356 years.

Add in more characters, and you’ll be even more safe:

“Passwords [with more than] 18 characters are generally safe against AI password tools, as it takes PassGAN at least 10 months to bypass number-only passwords and 6 quintillion years to breach passwords that contain symbols, numbers, lower-case letters, and upper-case letters.” – Home Security Heroes

Should Passwords Die Out?

Everyone has dozens of online accounts these days, and the human brain simply isn’t designed to retain that many 11-character passwords.

So, we tend to reuse passwords, and we tend to make them just one or two simple words. These are both massive mistakes that leave millions incredibly vulnerable every day — but our brains can’t really be expected to do much else, at least on a widespread scale.

Other security measures are preferable, with two-factor authentication one of the best. But until we completely change how online security works, we’ll still have too many passwords to deal with. There’s just one great solution: Password management tools, which can safely store all the complex 11-character passwords you need to stay safe and secure. The best tools will flag suspicious websites and logins as well, for greater security.

If you’re interested, we’ve rounded up the best and most trusted password management tools for businesses today.

The cybersecurity crisis might be getting worse, as a new study found that nearly a third of IT professionals have covered up data breaches at the behest of their supervisors.

As is often the case in the business world, a bit of transparency goes a long way in maintaining integrity and trust for your company. Whether it be compensation or benefits, keeping your employees and customers in the loop can do a lot to breed success.

When it comes to cybersecurity, though, some businesses are apparently opting for the opposite tactic, having their teams cover up the breaches rather than report them.

30% of IT Professionals Have Covered Up Data Breaches

A new study from BitDefender, a cybersecurity provider offering tools for businesses and individuals, found that 29.9% of IT professionals have covered up data breaches at their company.

Even worse, the study also found that 42% had been asked by their supervisors to cover up data breaches, which means at least a small percentage of IT professionals are pushing back on these questionable security practices.

The research from BitDefender, reported by Venture Beat, surveyed 400 IT professionals from businesses that have more than 1,000 employees.

Why Wouldn’t an IT Professional Report a Data Breaches?

Given the scope of the research, it’s fair to wonder why in the world IT professionals and their supervisors would ever cover up a data breach. After all, it’s not like they actively want to put your data at risk, so what’s the deal?

The reality is that there are lots of regulations in place to encourage companies to properly and effectively secure the data of individuals. Subsequently, when they don’t do that properly or effectively, data breaches can come with some hefty penalties that are the likely cause for these kinds of cover-ups.

In fact, depending on where the company is headquartered, penalties can range from $500 to $50,000 per customer. This means that for larger companies, like the ones surveyed in this study, costs can get very high very fast. As a result, these IT professionals and their supervisors are likely trying to avoid these kinds of penalties by covering it up.

Transparency and Cybersecurity

While a cover-up may seem like a good short-term solution, the long-term damage to your brand is almost assuredly right behind it. In so many words, transparency is good for everyone: the company, the customers, and the ecosystem of technology.

“Security in cyberspace can be enhanced by a degree of transparency across all users that is not always adopted among security professionals; the more that non-expert managers and leaders understand the impact of good (or poor) protection, the better they will be able to use cyber assets responsibly.” – Dan Chenok, Executive Director of the IBM Center for The Business of Government

Uber is an excellent example of a company that attempted to hide a 2016 data breach of 57 million users and was eventually made to pay $148 million to settle civil litigation. Simply put, covering it up will always come back to bite you in the end.

If you drive a truck in the US, you know what an electronic logging device (ELD) is and, more importantly, you know what the ELD mandate is. This 2012 law established that every commercial driver in America is required to record hours of service through electronic logging devices, starting December 16th, 2019.

After that date, drivers that do not have a compliant ELD may receive a citation and even be placed out of service (OOS) for a period time. Subsequently, it’s pretty important to know exactly which of these devices actually helps you stay within the regulations for your vehicle.

The Federal Motor Carrier Safety Administration (FMCSA) has a list of approved ELDs that will keep you covered. However, the administration is constantly updating the list, most notably removing formerly compliant devices off of it. That’s where we’re here to help.

In this guide, we’ll cover all the ELDs that have been removed from the FMCSA Approved Devices List recently, so you can stay compliant throughout the year.

ELD ONE (TMS ONE)

TMS ONE’s ELD ONE device was removed from the FMCSA Approved Devices list on January 31st, 2023.

According to the press release from the FMCSA, the company failed “to meet the minimum requirements established in 49 CFR part 395, subpart B, appendix A.” After a little digging, we found those requirements state that “the display must be reasonably viewed by an authorized safety official without entering the commercial motor vehicle” (CMV).”

Nationwide ELD (Nationwide Technologies)

Just a few short days later, Nationwide Technologies and its Nationwide ELD was removed from the Approved Devices list as well on February 3rd, 2023.

The Nationwide ELD was removed from the list for the same reason as the ELD ONE, with the company failing to meet the requirements set forth in regard to a safety official’s ability to view the ELD without entering the vehicle.

ORS device (ONE PLUS ELD)

Not to be outdone, ORS PLUS ELD and its ORS device were also removed from the FMCSA Approved Devices list on February 8th, 2023.

You’re not going to believe it, but the ORS device was removed from the list for the same reason as the devices above. The company did not meet requirements established in 49 CFR part 395, subpart B, appendix A, so you’ll have to find a new ELD in the next 60 days or risk penalties.

All-Ways Track ELD (All-Ways Track)

There was a bit of a lull between the next ELD removed from the FMSCA Approved Devices lists, but All-Ways Tracks ELD from All-Ways Track joined the fray when it was removed on March 27th, 2023.

We’re a perfect four for four so far, as the All-Ways Track ELD was also removed from the list for failing to comply with regulations stating the display needs to be reasonably visible without entering the motor vehicle.

What to Do If Your ELD Is No Longer Compliant

If you’ve just discovered that your ELD has been removed from the FMCSA Approved Devices list, don’t panic. The administration allows for drivers to get a new device within 60 days of removing a particular device from the list, so you have two months to get a new one.

We’ve done a lot of research on the best ELD options in 2024, so feel free to check out our guide and keep up with news on Tech.co for more updates about the ELD mandate.

The rushed release of AI-powered chatbots may have some unexpected drawbacks, as a new report found that Google’s ChatGPT alternative Bard is all-too comfortable spreading misinformation if prompted the right way.

If you haven’t heard of ChatGPT and its many alternatives, you’ve likely been living under a rock for the last few months. The generative AI technology has taken the tech industry by storm, fueling dozens of copycats from the likes of Alibaba, Salesforce, and even Snapchat. These tools are designed to create content, develop code, and generally tackle mundane tasks at businesses around the world.

Unfortunately, while these AI tools have taken the load of off some employees, little has been investigated about how ChatGPT, Bard, and other iterations could be used to exasperate the growing problem of misinformation. Until now.

New Report Outlines Misinformation Problem for Google Bard

According to a new study from NewsGuard obtained by Bloomberg, Google Bard — the tech giant’s alternative to ChatGPT — is a bit too ready to spread misinformation.

The news reliability data service merely asked the generative AI chatbot to write something about “the great reset” as a far-right online pundit. The results were a conspiracy-laden rant touching on myriad of offensive and disproven theories about a wide range of problematic topics.

“For all the extraordinary promise of generative AI, it also presents a great threat to trust in information. The early launches of these services often respond to prompts about topics in the news with well-written, persuasive, and entirely false accounts of the news. This could become a force multiplier for those wishing to spread harmful conspiracy theories, healthcare hoaxes, and Russian disinformation at unmatched scale.” – Steven Brill, co-CEO of NewsGuard

That wasn’t the only example, either. NewsGuard input 100 different prompts asking the generative AI platform to create content about misinformation commonly found online, and Bard was happy to develop in-depth content on 76 of them.

How Has Google Responded?

Despite the decidedly rushed release of Bard, Google stands by its generative AI platform, noting that it has safeguards in place to prevent this kind of thing from happening.

“We have published a number of policies to ensure that people are using Bard in a responsible manner, including prohibiting using Bard to generate and distribute content intended to misinform, misrepresent, or mislead. We provide clear disclaimers about Bard’s limitations and offer mechanisms for feedback, and user feedback is helping us improve Bard’s quality, safety and accuracy.” – Robert Ferrara, a Google spokesman

Whether or not Google is actually committed to “focus on quality and safety” when it comes to Bard, the reality is that tech giants have proven time and time again that they don’t necessarily have the tools to rein in their own technology. Heck, social media companies have been trying to figure it out for more than a decade, and they’re clearly still a long way from getting it right.

The ChatGPT Backlash

This report isn’t the only damming piece of news for the generative AI industry. In fact, a wide range of vocal opponents have risen since the dawn of ChatGPT, begging the tech giants that are launching this technology to slow down for the sake of humanity.

An open letter was even penned by some tech professionals that calls for a six-month pause on the development of generative AI technology, so that legislative bodies can catch up and regulate the roll-out a bit more effectively. Elon Musk, Steve Wozniak, and Andrew Yang have all signed it.

Even more troubling, the country of Germany has recently debated banning the technology for fear of how it will impact daily life, and Italy has already pulled the trigger on blocking it entirely.

As is common with an industry that likes to “move fast and break stuff,” tech giants like Microsoft and Google have been uncomfortably flippant with the concerns about generative AI.

The ecommerce behemoth Amazon is going to cut the number of shares it gives to its workforce from 2025, according to a company memo that was recently obtained by Business Insider.

The memo informed managers that the stock units would be reduced due to the “uncertain economic climate,” but it also claimed it would make up for this change by paying staff fairer wages.

This news comes just weeks after the company announced it would be laying off a further 9,000 employees, bringing its total number of displaced workers up to 18,000. Here’s what we know so far.

Amazon Is Cutting Employee Stock Awards from 2025

Amazon is planning to reduce the number of company shares it hands out to its employees, as it prepares itself for an increasingly turbulent economic climate.

This news was leaked in an internal memo that was shown to Business Insider this week and has since been confirmed by Amazon spokesperson August Aldebot-Green. The memo informed managers in the company that stock awards, also known as restricted stock units or RSUs, will be reduced by a “small amount” in 2025, as part of the company’s compensation review cycle.

This decision marks a major change of strategy, with Amazon handing out $19.6 billion in stock-based compensation in 2022, up 54% from the previous year and the highest amount in the company’s history.

However, Amazon’s decision to scale back stock awards isn’t solely a cost-cutting measure. The memo revealed that as part of its revised compensation plan, the company was considering giving more cash to its employees — a decision that’s been long-awaited by lots of Amazon staffers.

Amazon’s Post-Pandemic Bubble Has Officially Burst

While Amazon has remained surprisingly optimistic about its market performance — with the company predicting that its stock price will rise 15% in the next two years — this switch from equity to cash-based compensation is a clear attempt to account for future stock variation.

Amazon, like other companies that cashed in during the pandemic, has fallen on increasingly hard times recently as they deal with bloated workforces and a steady decline in consumer spending.

In a desperate attempt to recover losses, the ecommerce titan announced it could be cutting 9,000 jobs last week across four departments of the company, bringing its total number of layoffs up to 18,000. This move follows similar decisions made by Meta, who announced 10,000 fresh cuts last month, and Google who recently fired 6% of its workforce.

Unfortunately, as big tech continues to brace for a looming recession, scaling back costs have become an industry standard. Learn more about what tech companies are doing to remain competitive here.

Cost-cutting measures at Apple HQ are on the brink, as the company warns its corporate retail employees to reapply for new roles, or be let go.

The news, announced to Apple employees via video conference, signals another round of tech layoffs, despite the company’s best efforts to avoid it.

As stocks continue to tumble, Apple insists that the move is to improve the support of its stores, but staff are already referring to the announcement as a layoff. Given the turbulence in the industry, it wouldn’t be the first tech giant to try to disguise it.

Apple Employees Are Either In or Out

According to Bloomberg, Apple’s corporate retail division have until Friday to reapply for jobs within the company, or be let go. The decision was described as an ‘org change’ to help improve the support of Apple’s retail stores.

While it’s unclear how many roles will be affected, the decision will reportedly impact the team responsible for the construction and maintenance of Apple’s retail store in the US, Europe and Asia.

Despite forecasts, Apple’s revenue has steadily declined in the last year, with Fortune reporting a 5%  drop in revenue over the holiday quarter. With the demand for Macs and wearables waning, Apple has been forced to implement various cost-cutting measures to ensure the company is able to stay economically viable. The latest news, however, suggests that those moves might not have been as successful as they’d hoped.

Cost-Cutting Measures On the Brink

Until now, Apple have been able to retain the majority of its staff by being ‘more prudent an thoughtful when it comes to spending’. In January, CEO Tim Cook took a 40% pay cut, and the company extended its hiring freeze, paused promotions and bonuses.

The move, which was supposed to be temporary, might signal that the company is facing more challenges that they’d anticipated.

Other measures to cut costs include all travel budgets being signed off by the company’s senior vice president. And, those who choose not to adhere to the company’s return-to-office mandate, at risk of termination.

Are More Tech Layoffs Inevitable?

Despite Apple’s efforts to their retain staff, layoffs are still very much on the cards, with its organizational changes proving that staff cuts may just be inevitable. In the last few months, Microsoft, Google, Meta have laid off thousands of employees, with reports showing the tech industry to be responsible for more than 100,000 laid off employees in 2023 alone – It’s no surprise that employee trust in the tech industry is broken.

Return-to-office mandates may be disguised as a move to improve productivity, staff sentiment suggests it may just be a way to push more employees out, given the resistance to changing work models.

Still, layoffs don’t appear to be going anywhere. As the industry continues to battle inflation and the aftermath of the pandemic boom – unless a company is investing in web conferencing tools like Microsoft Teams and Zoom or implementing more flexible working models, employees in want of more flexibility and job security may need to look elsewhere.

Post, a Twitter alternative in which users can make micropayments to read singular, ad and cookie-free news articles, has launched its public beta this week.

The new social media network is publisher-centric, with a keen focus on improving users’ news reading experiences.

The LA Times, USA Today, and The Independent have already signed up, along with a string of other local news, tech, and finance publications.

Post: A Better Way to Access Information?

Post’s unique selling point is the way it declutters the average person’s news reading process, providing an ad-free, paywall-free experience. You can read news directly within your feed on the site, rather than having to follow a link to reach externally hosted content. As this is the case, you’ll be able to read the news without accepting trackers and other ad tech-related permissions enforced by some major news corporations.

You won’t have to put up with any invasive cookie tracking when you read articles on Post – all reading is done within the app.

The catch is that you’re expected to make micropayments — denoted as “points” — which currently cost $4.20 for 300 points, according to Techcrunch’s Sarah Perez, who saw articles available for as little as a single point, but others worth up to 89 points.

Users currently get 50 free points when they sign up, and Post’s founder Noam Bardin says 80% of users have inputted credit card information to buy more. There are plans to add additional payment methods — such as paying whatever amount the user sees fit — in the near future.

On the surface at least, it would seem that setting up a platform in the way Post has will ensure that the average user reads more news that they actually care about from a wider variety of reputable sources. Having so much high-quality news hidden behind paywalls – accessible to only those who can afford it – is not ideal for any of us. Post, in theory, will at least lower that barrier.

What’s remarkable is how viable this could be for subscription-based publications struggling to persuade site visitors to sign up. If Post can keep the cost of points to a reasonable level, you can see it attracting a class of avid news readers who are open to the pay-as-you-go system.

Major Publications Are Already on Board

Over 650,000 people signed up for the Beta version of Post, and around two-thirds of that number ended up making an account, which is an encouraging sign.

TechCrunch reports that major news sites The Boston Globe, The Independent, Insider, LA Times, NBC News, Politico, Reuters, The San Francisco Chronicle, and USA Today all signed up to provide articles for the platform’s 430,000 account holders.

Websites that cover technology and finance, such as Fortune, MIT Technology Review, Yahoo Finance, and Wired, also have a presence on the platform.

Innovation in the Face of Twitter Turmoil

While Twitter continues to flounder under Elon Musk’s leadership, Twitter alternatives have been flourishing. A whole ecosystem of social media apps is now benefitting from Twitter’s deeply unsatisfied user base, a cohort of news-consuming users more open than ever to switching platforms.

Post also provides a fresh option for publishers like the New York Times, who’ve just been stripped of their “Verified” badges on Twitter because they don’t pay for it.

It’s not just Post who’ve shown promising signs of growing their user base, however. Mastodon, for instance, has more users than it’s ever had, while smaller platforms like CounterSocial have also seen an uptick in users.

If Twitter continues to make mass layoffs, respond to customer support requests with poo emojis, and deprioritize the overall user experience in favor of short-term profit-chasing initiatives, they’ll usher in the post-Twitter era all by themselves.

After overstretching during the pandemic while profits were booming, the world’s biggest tech companies have been brought resoundingly back down to earth by the financial hardships rapidly engulfing the global economy in 2023.

The likes of Meta and Amazon have resorted to making mass layoffs and giving up thousands of square feet of office space since the new year, while social media network Twitter has implemented some strange cost-cutting measures in recent times, including desperately pleading for reduced contractual terms with vendors.

Joining the doom and gloom this week, Google also announced cuts to employee services and perks will be taking place soon. So, we’ve had a closer look at how the Tech giant – as well as its rivals – are cutting costs this year.

Google: Staple Things Less, Please

One of Google’s objectives for 2023 is to “deliver durable savings through improved velocity and efficiency”, a recent internal email from company CFO Ruth Porat said. 

As part of this cost-cutting drive, a number of employee perks and services are going to be taken away, reports suggest. For instance, employees used to be able to expense a mobile phone even if there was one internally available – but now, this service is no longer possible.

Staff that would’ve been given MacBooks upon starting will now receive a Chromebook instead, with the more powerful devices reserved for engineering teams. Company cafes are set to close on quieter days such as Mondays and Fridays, while end-of-week yoga classes were identified as another “underutilized” perk at Google that could be scrapped.

“We set a high bar for industry-leading perks, benefits, and office amenities, and we will continue that into the future… however, some programs need to evolve for how Google works today” Ruth Porat, Google CFO.

Other measures include asking employees to share desks, while a facility directive for employees in San Francisco instructed that staplers and tape must now be drip-fed to employees by receptionists.  However, a Google spokesperson told CNBC that “staplers and tape continue to be provided to print stations. Any internal messages that claim otherwise are misinformed.″

These decisions are being implemented alongside the 12,000 layoffs that were announced back in January, representing 6% of Google’s workforce. 

Twitter: We Can’t Pay, but We Could Plead for Help

It’s a wonder why no other company has tried Twitter’s failsafe method of cutting costs that hit the headlines in December of last year: refusing to pay their rent. 

The Financial Times reports that Pablo Mendoza, a managing director at a Dubai-based investment firm that contributed $700m to Musk’s acquisition of the platform, has resorted to pleading with vendors that “his job is on the line”, negotiating 50 – 90% reductions in some cases.

In what seemed like an act of desperation, several items from Twitter’s offices were put up for auction in mid-January, including a pizza oven and the social media network’s famous bird statue.

These sorts of tactics already look like they’re backfiring, however, as the refusal to pay Twitter’s bills has wrapped the social network up in a multi-million dollar legal quagmire, with nine separate lawsuits looming.

To make matters worse, these ‘measures’ are being implemented against a backdrop of almost-constant layoffs, with three-quarters of the company’s pre-acquisition payroll no longer working for the company. Some were made redundant, while others were offered “voluntary separation” from Twitter.

Meta: Fewer Employees, Fewer Costs

At the beginning of February, Mark Zuckerberg announced that 2023 would be Meta’s “year of efficiency” – and he wasn’t wrong. 

In February, a cull of middle managers – referred to internally as the “flattening” – was initiated, with many told to move to an “individual contributor” role or leave the business. 

Then, Meta announced 10,000 layoffs in mid-March, taking the total number of employees made redundant in the last six months to over 21,000. 

Meta is also leaving vacant positions open instead of filling them – with recent reports suggesting that the company is leaving as many as five thousand positions unfilled to bring salary outgoings down.

Apple: Less Travel, More Pay Cuts

Apple has perhaps been the big tech company least affected by the economic downturn, largely due to its $165 billion worth of cash reserves, while Bloomberg says stock is up around 20% this year.

Despite this, the company has still implemented a number of cost-cutting measures, including delaying bonuses, pushing back projects like the HomePod to 2024, and reducing team budgets across the company.

Other tactics include limiting the ability of Apple’s workforce to transfer between locations, reducing employee travel, and simply leaving roles open when employees leave, as Meta has done.

Ever a man of the people, CEO Tim Cook requested that he take a pay cut himself this year, and plans to take home 40% less than he did in 2022 – leaving him with a mere $49 million.

Microsoft: So Long, Office Spaces

Like Apple, Microsoft has been restricting company gatherings and travel since the summer of 2022 – but the company is also going for the multi-pronged cost-cutting approach.

In January 2023, it was revealed that Microsoft was planning to let go of 1.7 million square feet of office space in an attempt to rein in costs and consolidate “to create higher density across our workspaces”.

Its biggest cost-cutting measure of 2023 so far, however, was laying off over 10,000 employees just after the new year, just days after offering staff unlimited paid time off. 

This itself could be a cost-cutting measure, as it helps companies avoid paying out for unspent holidays when staff members leave. 

Amazon: It’s the Little Things That Matter

Amazon has implemented a number of smaller cost-cutting measures over the past few months, with the need to save affecting almost every area of the business.

The company has already sublet and leased office space the company isn’t using, including 65,000 square feet in Bengaluru, India just this week.

A smaller measure has been to allow sellers to store their inventory in Amazon warehouses for longer periods of time.

The ecommerce behemoth also started giving third-party companies access to its logistics network in the name of quicker order fulfilment. Some Amazon Go stores in parts of the US, such as Seattle, have been closed too. 

Of course, the company’s wage budget will be significantly smaller – Amazon announced plans to lay off 18,000 employees in January 2023.

The Cost-Cutting Chaos Will Continue

Unfortunately for everyone working in the tech industry, this won’t be the last we hear of layoffs and other ruthless cost-cutting measures. More perks, pay, and physical office spaces are likely to be given up as the year trundles on.

Uncertain economic times provide new challenges for companies constantly in the spotlight, with heightened scrutiny over every dollar spent. Projects like Meta’s Metaverse, for instance, have been consistently framed as failures in recent weeks as the company flounders financially.

Which decision-makers and key players will come out unscathed remains to be seen – but Mark Zuckerberg and Amazon’s Andy Jassy have certainly seen their personal stock tank and employee unrest increase in the past few months.

Whatever happens, it’s unlikely restricting staplers and tape will be the most leftfield attempt to save a bit of cash we see in 2023.

VPN company Mullvad is teaming up with the Tor Project to launch a new browser, called the Mullvad browser.

The goal and big selling point of the new software service is to help reduce a user’s online “fingerprint” as much as possible — in other words, to keep third-party services from collecting user data and tracking users across the internet with it.

Any new product with a focus on data security is welcome in 2023, when network breaches are more common than a case of the flu.

What Makes the Mullvad Browser More Private?

Here’s how the Tor Project explains the browser’s privacy settings:

“By default, Mullvad browser has private mode enabled, blocks third-party trackers and cookies, and makes it easy to delete cookies between visiting pages during the same session.”

On most mainstream browsers, tiny details about your online presence can be collection — stuff like your computer’s time zone, operating system, and browser version — and these details can allow companies to track your online activity across multiple websites. They can build a profile on you which can then be sold to advertisers.

The Mullvad browser also combats this practice, using a “hide-in-the-crowd” approach that makes each user’s fingerprint look the same as everyone else’s.

Here’s the Tor Project again to explain:

“The browser’s ‘out-of-the-box’ configurations and settings will mask many parameters and features commonly used to extract information from a person’s device that can make them identifiable, including fonts, rendered content, and several hardware APIs.”

Is Data Privacy Taking Off in 2023?

Hoovering up huge amounts of data with little to no justification has been the internet’s business model ever since Facebook first rose to power around the mid-2000s. But starting in 2018, when that social platform’s Cambridge Analytica scandal was disclosed, public opinion began to sour on social media and its data collection practices.

Today, you’d be hard-pressed to find someone who thinks social media is an unmitigated success, when while many of us rely on it to stay in touch with everyone we know. Between TikTok regulations and every Twitter news headline these days, it’s not clear that even the biggest social networks remain too big to fail.

In this mileu, it makes sense that many people might second-guess their social media use. And browsers are just as big a concern as social platforms. If you keep using Chrome, your data is still being used to deliver you ads.

If anyone wants to trim down on any data collected, privacy-centric browsers like Mullvad’s new solution are one great way to start. A quality paid VPN is another great way to stay private, too.

Germany may be the next country in line to ban the ChatGPT AI program.

According to comments from the German commissioner for data protection, banning Microsoft’s popular OpenAI project is “possible.”

Italy has already banned the chatbot, citing data security concerns and a suspected breach of users’ data privacy. German’s decision may hinge on learning more about the reasoning behind the Italian regulator’s call.

ChatGPT has been praised for its ability to deliver articulate conversational responses on a wide range of topics. The AI tech has a lot of big potential business applications. But data privacy concerns are just the latest growing pain for the tech, which has also picked up a reputation for factual inaccuracies.

Why Did Italy Ban ChatGPT?

The Italian Data Protection Authority officially blocked ChatGPT last Friday, saying that the program was potentially violating European Union data protection rules.

The ban is temporary, but will last “until ChatGPT respects privacy,” and it’s unclear what will need to change in order to allow the chatbot to be restored. In response to the ban, OpenAI has disabled ChatGPT for Italian users while stating that it does not believe the program violates Europe’s privacy regulations.

Italy’s ban marks the first government-issued blockage of ChatGPT, or “the first nation-scale restriction of a mainstream AI platform by a democracy,” as Alp Toker, director of the advocacy group NetBlocks, told the Associated Press.

But it may not be the last. Just a few days later, other countries are already signaling a willingness to follow suit.

“In principle, such action is also possible in Germany,” Ulrich Kelber, the German commissioner for data protection, said in a statement about Italy’s ban. Kelber notes that states would have jurisdiction, and did not explain any further plans to ban the program.

France and Ireland regulators are also invested in learning more about Italy’s reasoning, and both say they have contacted the Italian data security watchdog for further discussion.

Will ChatGPT Bans Impact Me?

The application is now baked into some Microsoft features — it’s already powering a new tool called Microsoft Security Copilot that aims analyze cyberattacks — and will likely be used in many more services for Microsoft or third-party apps in the near future. But these effects probably won’t be impacted.

Any potential bans on ChatGPT aren’t likely to have ripple effects for those living in Italy or other countries beyond preventing them from accessing the online chatbot directly. Italy’s problem with the service appears to be focused on how the app registers new users and what it does with their personal data afterwards.

ChatGPT (and all its rival chatbots) can emerge relatively unscathed from the whole issue once it resolves the specific problems Italy has with it, but the affair is a great reminder for one concern: Any tech companies operating in Europe must constantly keep user data privacy concerns front and center.