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The verbal tussle between West Bengal Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee and Visva Bharati University (VBU) Vice Chancellor Bidyut Chakraborty over Nobel laureate economist Amartya Sen’s unauthorized possession of land at Bolpur-Santiniketan in Birbhum district took a murkier turn with the university authorities issuing a statement accusing the chief minister “of seeing through her ears”.
On January 30, the chief minister, as a counter to the accusation by Chakraborty of Sen occupying 1.38 acres of land, which is excess of his legal entitlement of 1.25 acres, handed over to the Nobel laureate the land holding records of the state Land & Land Reforms Department, which shows his legal entitlement over the entire 1.38 acres of land that he is occupying.
The very next day while speaking at a public meeting, the chief minister said that the students, teachers, and non- teaching staff of the university were suffering because of the “autocratic” behavior of the highest authorities of the university. The chief minister also said that she would write to Prime Minister Narendra Modi on the matter.
In reaction to these two developments, the university authorities late Wednesday evening issued a statement where it accused the chief minister of “seeing through her ears”. The statement signed by the university’s chief public relation officer Mahua Ganguly claimed that the university would be better off without the chief minister’s blessings as it is walking in the path shown by the Prime Minister.
Urging the chief minister to develop her opinion based on facts and not on hearsay, the statement also referred to the events of senior Trinamool Congress leaders being jailed on charges of teachers’ recruitment irregularities and cattle-smuggling scams.
In the statement, it was claimed that a minister and vice-chancellors are behind the bars now because the chief minister took decisions based on inputs given to her by her toadies. “Your favorite follower without whom you could never imagine Birbhum is currently in jail,” read the statement-making a slating a reference to Trinamool Congress’ Birbhum district president, Anubrata Mondal, who is currently in judicial custody for his alleged involvement in the cattle-smuggling scam.
Reacting to the statement, Trinamool Congress’s state general secretary and the party’s spokesman in West Bengal, Kunal Ghosh, said that it is unfortunate the vice-chancellor of Gurudev Rabindranath Tagore-founded Visva Bharati University is claiming to walk in the path shown by the Prime Minister instead of that shown by Gurudev. “It proves that this central university is no longer an educational institution. Rather, it is a breeding ground for future BJP workers,” he said.
While mired in a terrible economic crisis, Pakistan’s inflation created a new record in January and reached the highest level after 1975, mainly due to supply constraints as thousands of containers of food items, raw materials, and equipment are stuck at ports after the cash-strapped government curtailed imports due to a shortage of dollars in the country.
Consumer Price Index (CPI) inflation in January 2023 accelerated to 27.55 percent from 24.47 percent a month earlier, as the unprecedented surge in food items’ prices in the month jacked up the general inflation, The News reported.
In May 1975, the CPI inflation was 27.77 percent. The average inflation in July-Jan 2022/23 was recorded at 25.4 percent against only 10.26 percent in the same period of FY22, according to the Pakistan Bureau of Statistics (PBS).
The core inflation (excluding the food and energy components) also peaked in the month under review since 2011.
It indicates that the State Bank of Pakistan (SBP) will keep the discount rate elevated in the coming monetary policy review.
On January 23, the central bank raised the policy rate by 100 basis points to 17 percent — the highest since 1998 — to help stabilize the economy.
High inflation has become a nightmare amid the financial crunch and insufficient supplies, The News reported.
It is eroding the political capital of the 13-party coalition government led by the PML-N.
It is not only affecting ordinary people but also industries and businesses due to costly bank financing.
The inflation rate in Pakistan averaged 8.05 percent from 1957 until 2023, reaching an all-time high of 37.8 percent in December 1973 and a record low of minus 10.32 percent in February 1959.
More than 146.4 million people permanently resided in Russia as of January 1, down 555,332 from the past year, data published by the country’s Federal Statistics Service revealed.
More than 40 million people lived in the Central Federal District and over 13 million of them lived in Moscow, the capital and largest city of Russia reports Xinhua news agency.
More than 13.6 million people lived in the Northwestern Federal District and almost 5.6 million of them lived in the country’s second-largest city of St. Petersburg.
Some 109.6 million people permanently resided in urban areas, with 16 cities having a population of above 1 million people respectively, including Novosibirsk, Yekaterinburg, Kazan, and Nizhny Novgorod.
The Jammu-Srinagar National Highway opened for traffic movement on Thursday after remaining mostly closed since January 30 due to mudslides and shooting stones triggered by rain between the stretch of Ramban and Banihal.
“Traffic plying smoothly on Jammu Srinagar NHW. Mughal road and SSG road closed,” Jammu and Kashmir Traffic police said.
The highway is the lifeline of the Kashmir valley and the main road link connecting Kashmir with the rest of the country.
Kashmir-bound trucks laden with essential supplies and other vehicles pass through the highway and fruit-carrying trucks from Kashmir’s head for the rest of the country through this road.
Shimron Hetmyer hammered a last-ball six to pull Gulf Giants over the line for a five-wicket n against MI Emirates in the 24th match of the DP World ILT20 at the Sheikh Zayed Cricket Stadium here and assured their place in the playoffs.
In a match in which bowlers from both sides excelled, Chris Jordan’s three-wicket spell backed by Dominic Drakes, David Wiese, and Rehan Ahmed with two wickets each helped Gulf Giants bowl out the MI Emirates for 139 runs in 19.5 overs.
However, things were not so easy for Gulf Giants too as MI Emirates’ bowlers put on a spectacular performance to almost clinch victory.
Despite the loss, the MI Emirates are still third on the ILT20 points table and will look to win their remaining two games for a shot at the playoffs. MI Emirates is in the third slot two points ahead of Dubai Capital and Sharjah Warriors but it will be an exciting three-way shoot-out between these teams for the last two slots in the knockout
Chasing the modest total, Gulf Giants opener Tom Banton hit 45 off 39 balls with five boundaries and six, which carried the team closer to the target. But with 11 runs needed off the last over, Shimron Hetmyer hit the last ball of the match for a six to ensure a nail-biting five-wicket win on Wednesday night.
Jordan with figures of 3 for 12 and Dominic Drakes (2 for 21), David Wiese (2 for 14), and Rehan Ahmed (2 for 27) set the stage for victory. Gulf Giants batsmen batted with caution and MI Emirates bowled tightly giving nothing away till the exciting last over.
Gulf Giants won the toss and elected to bowl. MI Emirates’ opener Andre Fletcher fell to the second ball of the first over, trapped leg before by Dominic Drakes. UAE’s Basil Hameed joined his national team and prolific scorer Muhammad Waseem. They took the score to 27 in 3.4 overs when Hameed going for a pull shot off David Wiese edged to his helmet and got caught by Chris Lynn at short fine leg for 9. Only 36 runs came off the powerplay.
Nicholas Pooran, well known for his six hits, cracked the first six off the match off Rehan Ahmed over long-on. The ninth over from Ahmed turned costly when Waseem hit one six and Pooran hit him for two sixes and take 21 runs off that over. In the 10th over, Waseem hit Wiese for a huge six-over long-on. At the halfway mark, MI Emirates was 76 for 2. In the 12th over Chris Jordan struck to clean bowl Waseem for 29. Pooran and Waseem had put on 61 runs in 46 balls for the third wicket.
Rehan Ahmed took the prize wicket of Pooran in the 13th over forcing him to pull into the hands of Shimron Hetmyer at deep mid-wicket for 42. The task of accelerating the run flow fell on skipper Kieron Pollard and Najibullah Zadran but Pollard departed pulling Rehan Ahmed to Drakes at mid-wicket for 19.
With half the side back in the dug-out for 112 by the 15th over, MI Emirates continued to lose wickets in every over that followed. In the 16th over, Zadran went for a pull top-edged to wicketkeeper Tom Banton off Jordan for 1. This was followed by Jordan Thompson falling to Drakes in the next over caught by Chris Lynn at gully for 1.
In the 18th over, Trent Boult got caught by James Vince at mid-off for 1 off Wise. In the last over, Jordan picked his third wicket having Dwayne Bravo caught at covers by Drakes for 3 while Fazalhaq Farooqi got run out for a duck. In the last 52 deliveries MI Emirates lost eight wickets for 51 runs and could score only 18 runs and lost five wickets in the last five overs
Chasing the gettable target, opener and skipper James Vince with Tom Banton batted at a very slow pace and with caution. In the powerplay, they scored just 35 runs and went on to register a half-century partnership in 7.4 overs. At the score of 61, Vince fell to the last ball of the ninth over to Jordan Thompson caught by Bravo at long off for 26.
Chris Lynn joined Banton with 79 runs needed in 66 balls. Banton went on to score freely and hit 45 before Bravo got him out caught by Waseem at deep mid-wicket. Gerhard Erasmus with Lynn kept the scoreboard moving. Lynn hit Thompson for three consecutive boundaries in the 14th over to take 17 runs off that over.
In the last five overs, Gulf Giants needed 38 runs only. Lynn and Erasmus put on 42 runs in 4.5 overs to pull their team closer to victory before Erasmus got caught by Bravo off Fazalhaq Farooqi for 20. Lynn fell for 28 caught by Waseem at deep extra cover when Gulf Giants needed 17 runs in the last 11 deliveries. David Wiese slashed at Bravo to get a boundary. Bravo got Jordan run out while trying to steal a single to make it 11 runs needed off the last over.
Jordan Thompson bowling the last over bowled a wide, gave two runs to the second delivery, a single to the third, and made it seven runs off the last four balls, then six runs off the last three through a single. Another wide made it four runs off two balls and a single off the next to make it three off the last ball. Hetmyer hit the last ball for a mighty six over long-on to pull off a thrilling win.
MI Emirates 139 all out in 19.5 overs (Muhammad Waseem 29, Nicholas Pooran 42; Chris Jordan 3-12, Dominic Drakes 2-21, David Wiese 2-14, Rehan Ahmed 2-27) lost to Gulf Giants 143/5 in 20 overs (Tom Banton 45, James Vince 26, Chris Lynn 28, Gerhard Erasmus 20, Dwayne Bravo 2-32) by 5 wickets.
The Indian Budget for 2023-24 presented by Finance in Parliament seeks to maintain a balance of sustaining a growth focus and deficit reduction, said Jeremy Zook, Director, and Primary Sovereign analyst for India, Fitch Ratings.
According to Zook, the Budget was largely in line with Fitch rating expectations and did not significantly change the sovereign credit profile.
India’s fiscal deficit and government debt ratio are high relative to peer medians, but the government’s emphasis on reducing the deficit helps to stabilise the debt ratio over the medium term, Zook remarked.
“This Budget sought to maintain a balance of sustaining a growth-oriented focus through a further increase in capex spending while maintaining an eye toward deficit reduction. The government aims for modest fiscal consolidation while accommodating a higher capex spend and changes to income tax slabs, largely by substantially reducing subsidies in the coming year,” Zook said.
Adding further, Zook said that given the uncertainty in the global economy and commodity prices, there is potential downside risk to the deficit target before the next general elections, in particular in the event that a shock such as another commodity price spike leads to pressures for sustained subsidy spending.
The Budget’s nominal growth and revenue assumptions are broadly credible, in our view, though risks remain tilted to the downside given the uncertain global outlook. The government’s real GDP growth assumption of 6.5 percent is slightly higher than our 6.2 percent, but nominal growth forecasts are similar, Zook said.
The government’s continued emphasis on ramping up capex spending should provide a fillip to both near- and medium-term growth.
According to Zook, India is well-placed to sustain higher rates of growth in the medium term than many of its peers, with the capex drive helping to underpin this view.
It is likely to be challenging for the Indian government to achieve its 4.5 percent of GDP deficit target by FY26, as achieving this target implies an additional 0.7 percent of GDP consolidation in each of the subsequent two fiscal years. Nevertheless, the commitment to reducing the fiscal deficit is a positive signal for debt sustainability.
“Over the next five years, we forecast India’s government debt to GDP ratio to stabilise at around 82 percent. This is based on a continued path of gradual deficit reduction, as well as robust nominal growth of around 10.5 per cent of GDP. Our robust growth outlook for India is a key factor supporting the stabilization of the debt ratio in the absence of stronger deficit reduction,” Zook said.
Microsoft-owned OpenAI has launched its paid subscription plan for ChatGPT, its text-generating AI that can write like humans.
The new subscription plan, ChatGPT Plus, will be available for $20 a month, and subscribers will receive a number of benefits.
The benefits are general access to ChatGPT even during peak times, faster response times and priority access to new features and improvements.
“ChatGPT Plus is available to customers in the United States, and we will begin the process of inviting people from our waitlist over the coming weeks,” said the company in a statement late on Wednesday.
“We plan to expand access and support to additional countries and regions soon. By offering this subscription pricing, we will be able to help support free access available to as many people as possible,” OpenAI added.
ChatGPT was thrown open for public use late last year.
“Since then, millions of people have given us feedback, we’ve made several important updates and we’ve seen users find value across a range of professional use cases, including drafting and editing content, brainstorming ideas, programming help, and learning new topics,” said the company.
The company will soon launch the (ChatGPT API waitlist), and “we are actively exploring options for lower-cost plans, business plans, and data packs for more availability”.
OpenAI has also launched a new tool that will distinguish between human-written and artificial intelligence (AI)-generated text.
Meanwhile, Microsoft has announced a multi-year, multi-billion dollar investment in OpenAI.
After laying off 11,000 employees, Meta Founder and CEO Mark Zuckerberg now want 2023 to be the “year of efficiency”.
In his quarterly earnings call with analysts late on Wednesday, Zuckerberg said that “I just think we’ve entered somewhat of a phase change for the company”.
He said that global headcount steadily climbed for nearly two decades, making it “very hard to really crank on efficiency while you’re growing that quickly”.
After the layoffs, Zuckerberg said he is focused on “increasing the efficiency of how we make decisions”.
Meanwhile, Zuckerberg has now reportedly put middle managers at the company on notice.
According to the newsletter Command Line by The Verge’s Alex Heath, Zuckerberg warned managers at a recent all-hands meeting.
“I don’t think you want a management structure that’s just managers managing managers, managing managers, managing managers, managing the people who are doing the work,” the Meta CEO apparently told them.
The Central government on Thursday will move a motion for thanks on the President’s address in the Lok Sabha.
The motion would be moved by the BJP MP C.P. Joshi. The Lower House will discuss the motion on the address delivered by President Droupadi Murmu to both Houses of Parliament on January 31, the first day of the Budget Session.
Two reports of the standing committee on transport regarding demands for grants for the current fiscal for the ministry of road transport and highways as well as the ministry of tourism will also be laid in the Lok Sabha.
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Goals and cards were galore on an interesting day in the I-League 2022-23 season as local club Kenkre FC held table-toppers RoundGlass Punjab 3-3 in an exciting clash.
Six goals and six yellow cards in the first half, no goals but two yellow cards, one of them resulting in a send-off, in the second. That is the story of Kenkre FC’s match against RoundGlass Punjab FC — a clash between two sides that are as apart on the points table as these two. In the end, the lowly-placed Kenkre FC snatched away one precious point from Hero I-League table-toppers RoundGlass Punjab here at Cooperage Stadium on Wednesday.
The match got off to an electrifying start when in only the third minute, Kenkre’s Nepalese midfielder Anjan Bista cut into the Punjab box from the left and centered to Hero of the Match Ranjeet Pandre, who calmly tapped in to make it 1-0. But it became incredible when just two minutes later, Basta’s cross from the left wing found an unmarked Aman Gaikwad at the far post. His right-footed volley went straight in.
Staikos Vergetis and his boys looked shell-shocked and they could not get a grip on the proceedings till the 12th minute when they had the first attempt at goal from Juan Mera’s free-kick. Valpuia’s head, however, was not good enough to beat Kenkre goalie Padam Chhetri.
However, Akhil Kothari’s men lost the plot after being 2-0 up and Punjab were soon all over them. Things started to heat up and within the first 25 minutes, Chencho Gyeltshen and Ashis Pradhan of Punjab were shown yellow cards. Punjab’s goal came in the 25th minute when Valpuia made a solo run from midfield into the opposition box, with Majcen and Chencho waiting on his left. The entire Kenkre defense was busy marking Majcen and missed Chencho, who tapped in Valpuia’s pass. Punjab was back in it.
Hardly a couple of minutes had passed when Kenkre custodian Chhetri failed to grab Juan Mera’s powerful left-footer from outside the box. Huidrom Naocha Singh pounced on the rebound to make it 2-2. Then Chhetri made the blunder, without which the home team could have boasted of beating the table-toppers, after beating Sreenidi Deccan the other day.
It was the 39th minute of the match. Brandon Vanlalremdika crossed from the right and Kenkre’s Banpynkhnawram Nongkhlaw tried a wild clearance as the ball flew toward the goal. Chhetri could have caught it but strangely fist it away, with Majcen on his shoulders. The Slovenian got a faint touch as the ball landed inside the goalline to put Punjab ahead.
However, the lead did not last even a minute. Suraj Jeet Negi, who was to receive two yellow cards later and get marching orders, split the Punjab defence with a through pass to put things on a plate for Pandre. He dodged past Kiran Kumar Limbu to restore parity.
The rest of the match was more about ill-tempered moments that earned players, and even officials on the bench, yellow cards. Both defences looked tighter after the breather. Punjab still had more possession and created more opportunities, but luck did not favor them. Brandon’s shot off Mera’s cross from the right hit the upright. Even Majcen came close to scoring his tenth goal in the Hero I-League but his header went over the bar in the 84th minute.
In the final minute of stoppage time, Valpuia’s shot from a hand-shaking distance was blocked by a defender. Punjab players and staff thought there was a handball off the resultant corner and they deserved a penalty. Referee Dipu Roy thought otherwise and only awarded yet another yellow card to one of Vergetis’s assistants.
Former Rajasthan Chief Minister Vasundhara Raje on Wednesday termed the Budget 2023-24 presented by Union Finance Minister Nirmala Sitharaman a historic one, adding it will take the country towards inclusive development.
“The Budget presented by Finance Minister Sitharaman under the able leadership of Prime Minister Narendra Modi works on ‘Sarvajan Hitaya, Sarvajan Sukhay’, and takes the country towards an inclusive development track,” the senior BJP leader said.
She welcomed the announcement that the outlay for capital expenditure in the Union Budget is being stepped up sharply by 35.4 percent from Rs 5.54 lakh crore in the current year to Rs 7.50 lakh crore in 2022-23 and said that the budget will transform the country’s economy into the world’s third-largest economy.
Also, welfare expenditures have also been increased, which Raje said is a welcome step.
“This budget will take India fast forward in the direction of green growth which is completely dedicated to the prosperity of all sections including farmers, women, job-profession, businessmen and youth,” she said.
Raje said that a big relief has been given to the middle class by making income up to Rs 7 lakh tax-free.
“The efforts made in this budget to more than double the subsidy, to open the National Digital Library and new Nursing Colleges for the youth, and to improve the economic condition of the tribal groups are commendable,” she added.
She has said that along with strengthening 50 airports, heliports, water aerodromes and advanced landing zones, along with giving 7.5 percent interest to women via Mahila Samman Patra, doubling the savings accounts limit for senior citizens and giving allowance for 3 years to 47 lakh youths through PM Kaushal Vikas Yojana 4.0 are a gift for the countrymen.
Meta-owned WhatsApp on Wednesday said it banned over 36 lacks ‘bad’ accounts in India in the month of December 2022 in compliance with the new IT Rules 2021, which are being amended to put more responsibilities on social media platforms.
Between December 1 and December 31, 3,677,000 WhatsApp accounts were banned, and 1,389,000 of these accounts were proactively banned before any reports from users, said the company.
The messaging platform, which has more than 400 million users in the country, received 1,607 complaint reports in December in the country, and the records ‘actioned’ were 166.
“In accordance with the IT Rules 2021, we’ve published our report for the month of December 2022. As captured in the latest Monthly Report, WhatsApp banned over 3.6 million accounts in the month of December,” according to a WhatsApp spokesperson.
Under the upgraded IT Rules 2021, major digital and social media platforms, with in excess of 5 million users, have to publish monthly compliance reports.
Meanwhile, in a major push towards an open, safe, trusted, and accountable Internet, the Ministry of Electronics and IT has notified some amendments aimed at protecting the rights of ‘Digital Nagriks’.
The amendments impose a legal obligation on intermediaries to take reasonable efforts to prevent users from uploading such content.
A 6.1-magnitude earthquake hits the southern Philippines on Wednesday with no immediate reports of damage or injury, local media said.
Previously, the US Geological Survey (USGS) said an earthquake with a magnitude of 6.0 jolted 4 km SSW of Monkayo, the Philippines at 10:44:45 GMT, Xinhua news agency reported.
The epicenter, with a depth of 13.501 km, was initially determined to be at 7.7776 degrees north latitude and 126.0462 degrees east longitude, according to the (USGS).
Leading industry players on Wednesday welcomed several fresh initiatives in the Union Budget 2023-24, especially setting up 100 5G labs and opening the centers of excellence (CoEs) for artificial intelligence (AI).
With the 5G roll-out now gaining momentum in India, the Centre announced plans to set up 100 labs in the top engineering institutions to develop 5G apps and services.
“With the ongoing 5G rollouts in India, the government’s decision to establish 100 5G application Labs is a timely move to spur innovation in developing the 5G ecosystem and India’s relevant use cases,” said Manoranjan Mohapatra, CEO, of Comviva.
There is a great opportunity to combine 5G and AI to improve network speed, responsiveness, and efficiencies, he added.
Arvind Bali, the CEO, of the Telecom Sector Skill Council, said that the annual demand for telecommunications and 5G has increased by 33.7 percent (in September 2022).
“There was a demand for 1.3 million workers in FY22-23 which is growing each year and new use-cases including cloud computing, robots, and the Internet of Things (IoT) are also seeing a sharp rise in hiring. We believe the initiatives will be beneficial to close the country’s growing demand-supply gap of technical talent workforce,” Bali added.
In the ChatGPT era, the Finance Minister announced the government will open three centers of excellence for artificial intelligence (AI) at top educational institutions.
Matthew Foxton, India Regional President and Executive Vice-President, of Branding & Communications, IDEMIA, said that the adoption of a unified KYC process, utilizing Digilocker and Aadhaar as the primary means of identity verification, “is a positive step forward and will increase financial accessibility for marginalized communities”.
According to Rajiv Bhalla, Managing Director, India & Vice President APAC, at Barco, the country has the potential to be a world-class infrastructure center, moving toward net zero carbon emissions by 2070 and “setting up the AI-based solutions in health, education, and sustainable cities will give an additional push towards the extensive use of technology”.
In good news for online gamers, the government on Wednesday proposed to remove the minimum threshold for TDS and clarify taxability relating to online gaming.
Currently, an 18 percent tax is being levied on the commission collected by online gaming companies for games not involving betting or gambling.
Among the Union Budget 2023-24 proposals were “removing the minimum threshold of Rs 10,000 for TDS and clarifying taxability relating to online gaming”.
Paavan Nanda, Co-Founder, of WinZO games, said that the proposed changes lend clarity to the gaming companies while creating an airtight accounting system for the exchequer.
“Aligning it with a player’s net winnings in a financial year seems like a just provision for the 500 million online gamers in India. Recognizing and carving out a separate clause in the act for ‘Online Gaming’ as against gambling or betting is in line with MeitY’s recent draft amendment to IT rules for Online Gaming, and is a testimony to the government’s genuine intent to nurture the burgeoning sector,” Nanda added.
The industry players hoped that the outcome would retain the current 18 percent tax slab on gross gaming commissions.
Roland Landers, the CEO, of All India Gaming Federation, said the Finance Bill carves out the distinction between betting and gambling activities and online games, by introducing a new Section 194BA which takes a user’s net winnings from online games at the end of the financial year.
“While we await the CBDT’s clarifications and guidelines in this regard, we are hopeful that the certainty in taxation offered by the budget announcement will be a huge stimulus for the growth of the online gaming industry,” said Landers.
Industry estimates suggest that there are around 20,000 games from Indian companies on the Google Play Store across different categories.
According to Broadband India Forum (BIF), given the size and scale of the industry, it is recommended that online games are clearly defined particularly in respect of elements of consideration, which may be in the form of service fee/commission charged by gaming intermediary for provisioning or facilitating or organizing the online gaming service to the users in addition to the deposits towards prize pools.
“The Draft Online Gaming Rules provide a great fillip to the promotion of online skill-based gaming which is expected to be one of the biggest drivers of demand for broadband and help realize the Vision of PM Narendra Modi to help India tap the multi-trillion dollar opportunity and lead the international gaming sector,” said T.V. Ramachandran, President, BIF.
Pranay Bhatia, Partner, Tax & Regulatory Services, said that the online gaming sector needed independent recognition which the budget proposals provided.
“Outlining a simplified withholding tax regime will go a long way in addressing the anxieties of online gaming intermediaries. However, certain ambiguities arising from the language of the provisions cannot be ruled out,” Bhatia noted.
Google is testing ChatGPT-like products, which use its LaMDA (Language Model for Dialogue Applications) technology, media reports said.
Under new AI-powered chat products, the tech giant is testing a chatbot called “Apprentice Bard,” where employees can ask questions and receive detailed answers similar to ChatGPT, also a new search desktop design that could be used in a question-and-answer form, reports CNBC, citing sources.
The testing follows an all-hands meeting where employees expressed concerns about the company’s competitive edge in AI, given the sudden popularity of ChatGPT, created by OpenAI, a Microsoft-backed startup.
Moreover, Google’s parent company Alphabet is working on a project under its cloud unit called Atlas, which is a “code red” response to ChatGPT, the large-language chatbot that took the public by storm late last year, said the report.
Further, it mentioned that Apprentice Bard, which looks similar to ChatGPT, includes a feature in which answers can include recent events, which ChatGPT doesn’t have yet.
“As a result of ChatGPT, the LaMDA team has been asked to prioritize working on a response to ChatGPT,” read one internal memo viewed by CNBC.
“In the short term, it takes precedence over other projects,” the email said.
Apprentice Bard took the place of “Meena”, a previous version of a smart chatbot that had been launched internally but was later discontinued, said the report.
Meanwhile, Microsoft announced a multi-year, multi-billion dollar investment in OpenAI, the developer behind AI-driven ChatGPT which has become a rage. The tech giant, which infused $1 billion in OpenAI in 2019, did not divulge the investment amount in the “third phase of our long-term partnership with OpenAI”. Earlier reports had claimed Microsoft may infuse up to $10 billion in OpenAI.
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