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Google Unveils AI Spam Shield for Gmail

RETVec is a novel open-source text vectorizer that allows people to build more resilient and efficient server-side and on-device text classifiers…reports Asian Lite News

Google has developed an AI-powered spam detection system that can help spot “adversarial text manipulations” like emails with special characters, emojis, typos and other characters that easily bypassed Gmail defenses.

Touted as “one of the largest defense upgrades in recent years,” the Google upgrade comes in the form of a new text classification system called RETVec (Resilient and Efficient Text Vectorizer).

“To help make text classifiers more robust and efficient, we’ve developed a novel, multilingual text vectorizer called RETVec that helps models achieve state-of-the-art classification performance and drastically reduces computational cost,” the company said.

Systems such as Gmail, YouTube and Google Play rely on text classification models to identify harmful content including phishing attacks, inappropriate comments, and scams.

These types of texts are harder for machine learning models to classify because bad actors rely on adversarial text manipulations to actively attempt to evade the classifiers.

“For example, they will use homoglyphs, invisible characters, and keyword stuffing to bypass defenses,” said the tech giant.

Due to its novel architecture, RETVec works out-of-the-box on every language and all characters without the need for text preprocessing, making it the ideal candidate for on-device, web, and large-scale text classification deployments.

“Models trained with RETVec exhibit faster inference speed due to its compact representation. Having smaller models reduces computational costs and decreases latency, which is critical for large-scale applications and on-device models,” the tech giant said.

RETVec is a novel open-source text vectorizer that allows people to build more resilient and efficient server-side and on-device text classifiers.

The Gmail spam filter uses it to help protect Gmail inboxes against malicious emails, said Google.

ALSO READ-Google rolling out bulk select feature in Gmail for Android, iOS

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Spotify Strikes a Sour Note

Spotify founder and CEO Daniel Ek said in a note to staff that right-sizing the workforce is critical for the company to face the “challenges ahead”….reports Asian Lite News

Music streaming giant Spotify on Monday announced to eliminate about 17 per cent of its workforce across the company as it looks to become “both productive and efficient”.

Spotify founder and CEO Daniel Ek said in a note to staff that right-sizing the workforce is critical for the company to face the “challenges ahead”.

He cited slowing economic growth and increased capital costs as reasons for the layoffs, claiming that the company used lower-cost capital in 2020 and 2021 to invest heavily in the business.

“I have made the difficult decision to reduce our total headcount by approximately 17 per cent across the company. I recognise this will impact a number of individuals who have made valuable contributions. To be blunt, many smart, talented and hard-working people will be departing us,” Ek said.

Spotify employs about 8,800 people, and this job cut move will impact over 1,500 employees, according to TechCrunch.

Under Severance pay, the company will start with a baseline for all employees, with the average employee receiving approximately five months of severance. This will be calculated based on local notice period requirements and employee tenure.

The company will continue to cover healthcare for employees during their severance period. All employees will be eligible for outplacement services for two months.

“I realise that for many, a reduction of this size will feel surprisingly large given the recent positive earnings report and our performance. We debated making smaller reductions throughout 2024 and 2025,” the CEO wrote.

This is Spotify’s third round of layoffs this year.

In June, the company sacked 200 employees, or 2 per cent of its workforce, from its podcast division as part of a corporate reorganisation, while in January, it slashed 6 per cent of its workforce, or about 600 staffers, globally.

ALSO READ: Dell Enables 2M Indians in Digital Skills

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UK Govt recommends use of AI to judge if user is an adult 

Ofcom expects to publish its final guidance in early 2025, after which the government will bring these duties into force…reports Asian Lite News

The government’s internet regulator Ofcom on Tuesday set out new guidance on highly-effective age checks to stop children accessing online porn services.

Under the new Online Safety Act, websites and apps that display or publish pornographic content must ensure that children are not normally able to encounter pornography on their service, Ofcom said in a statement.

Methods could include photo ID matching, facial age estimation and credit card checks and online services must take care to safeguard users’ privacy and adults’ rights to access legal pornography, the regulator added.

Companies who ultimately fall short will face enforcement action, including possible fines.

Ofcom expects to publish its final guidance in early 2025, after which the government will bring these duties into force.

“Our practical guidance sets out a range of methods for highly effective age checks. We’re clear that weaker methods – such as allowing users to self-declare their age – won’t meet this standard,” said Dame Melanie Dawes, Ofcom’s Chief Executive.

“Regardless of their approach, we expect all services to offer robust protection to children from stumbling across pornography, and also to take care that privacy rights and freedoms for adults to access legal content are safeguarded,” Dawes added.

Latest research shows that the average age at which children first see online pornography is 13 – although nearly a quarter come across it by age 11 (27 per cent), and one in 10 as young as 9 (10 per cent).

The regulator said that websites and apps must introduce ‘age assurance’ – through age verification, age estimation or a combination of both – which is ‘highly effective’ at correctly determining whether a user is a child or not.

“Ofcom’s job is to produce guidance to help online pornography services to meet their legal responsibilities, and to hold them to account if they don’t. Our draft guidance sets strict criteria which age checks must meet to be considered highly effective; they should be technically accurate, robust, reliable and fair,” the regulator stressed.

“We also expect services to consider the interests of all users when implementing age assurance. That means affording strong protection to children, and taking care that privacy rights are safeguarded and adults can still access legal pornography,” it noted.

The vast majority of people are broadly supportive of age assurance on online pornographic sites as a means of protecting children.

ALSO READ-Apple to Bolster UK Workforce in Push for Artificial Intelligence Advancements

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IBM, Meta launch AI Alliance to build open, responsible AI

It aims to foster a vibrant AI hardware accelerator ecosystem by boosting contributions and adoption of essential enabling software technology…reports Asian Lite News

IBM and Meta on Tuesday launched the AI Alliance in collaboration with over 50 tech companies, founding members and collaborators globally.

The AI Alliance is focused on fostering an open community and enabling developers and researchers to accelerate responsible innovation in AI while ensuring scientific rigour, trust, safety, security, diversity and economic competitiveness.

“This is a pivotal moment in defining the future of AI. IBM is proud to partner with like-minded organizations through the AI Alliance to ensure this open ecosystem drives an innovative AI agenda underpinned by safety, accountability and scientific rigour,” said Arvind Krishna, IBM Chairman and CEO.

The AI Alliance plans to develop and deploy benchmarks and evaluation standards, tools, and other resources that enable the responsible development and use of AI systems at global scale, including the creation of a catalog of vetted safety, security and trust tools.

It aims to foster a vibrant AI hardware accelerator ecosystem by boosting contributions and adoption of essential enabling software technology.

The AI Alliance will launch initiatives that encourage open development of AI in safe and beneficial ways, and host events to explore AI use cases and showcase how Alliance members are using open technology in AI responsibly and for good.

The other participants in the AI Alliance are AMD, CERN, Cornell University, Dell Technologies, EPFL, ETH, Imperial College London, Intel, Linux Foundation, NASA, NSF, Oracle, Partnership on AI, Red Hat, Sony Group and Stability AI, among others.

Nick Clegg, President, Global Affairs of Meta, added that the AI Alliance brings together researchers, developers and companies to share tools and knowledge that can help us all make progress whether models are shared openly or not.

According to Lisa Su, AMD CEO and Chair, by embracing open standards and transparency across all aspects of the rapidly developing AI ecosystem, “we can help ensure the transformational benefits of responsible AI are broadly available”.

ALSO READ-IBM’s $500 Million Fund to Fuel AI Innovation

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India’s Gen Z to lead key trends on Instagram in 2024

About 43 per cent in India hoped that 2024 will be their self-improvement era! The year when they will invest in their personal growth and development…reports Asian Lite News

Gen Z in India will lead the key trends on Instagram next year, from prioritising careers to being super on point with meme preferences, and exploring a variety of food flavours, the Meta-owned company said on Monday.

In various realms, including food, beauty, and fashion trends, Indian Gen Z have shown a heightened inclination to embrace and explore emerging trends, according to the ‘2024 Instagram Trend Talk’ insights.

“Indian Gen Z’s upbeat and entrepreneurial spirit stands out as they eagerly explore new interests and trends across different domains. Their dedication to chosen fandoms and commitment to self-improvement shine through distinctly in these insights,” said Paras Sharma, Director of Content and Community Partnerships, Meta India.

“While in many aspects, Indian Gen Z’s are similar to their global peers, these trends also show specific areas where they are different and unique,” Sharma added.

From ayurvedic ingredients to vegan products, plant-based meats and adaptogens, GenZ in India are most excited to try diverse food and ingredients.

In 2024, Gen Z in India have ranked staying healthy, exploring career paths, and traveling as their top priorities. However, in contrast to other nations, Gen Z in India exhibit a stronger focus on their career pursuits, the Instagram report mentioned.

About 43 per cent in India hoped that 2024 will be their self-improvement era! The year when they will invest in their personal growth and development.

“As compared to other countries, Gen Z in India also believe starting your own business is the best way to achieve wealth,” the findings showed.

About 44 per cent of Gen Z in India are interested in DIY (do-it-yourself) and wearing clothes in unexpected ways.

“A fourth of GenZ said their favourite beauty trend is getting a new hairstyle,” the report said.

Virtually every Gen Z in India aligns with a specific fandom, ranging from music aficionados like the BTS army, Swifties, AR Rahman, Shreya Ghoshal, and Anirudh, to gaming enthusiasts invested in Minecraft, Fortnite, Call of Duty, and Roblox. Sports-wise, their affiliations span the Indian Cricket Team, Barcelona, Real Madrid, Royal Challengers Bangalore, and Chennai Super Kings.

“Nine out of 10 GenZ in India consider themselves part of a fandom. India has the highest percentage of sports superfans, as compared to Gen Z from other countries,” said the report.

ALSO READ-Insights into Young Minds

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Vinod Khosla Backs Murthy’s Work Anthem

The 68-year-old billionaire had said in the past that he works 80-hour weeks, and that the “grind doesn’t appear to stop anytime soon”…reports Asian Lite News

Indian-American businessman and co-founder of Sun Microsystems, Vinod Khosla has backed Infosys founder NR Narayana Murthy’s suggestion that India’s youth must work 70 hours every week to improve the country’s overall work productivity.

Responding to a question by a user on X, Khosla, the ace venture capitalist, said those who felt “attacked” by Murthy’s opinion needed mental health therapy.

“For people who ‘felt attacked’ by this they need mental health therapy. They should learn to ‘toughen up’ and not feel attacked. OK to not work 70 hrs/wk and live with the consequences of the choices you make. He is speaking to ‘career ambitious’ young people but there are other ways to live with different choices,” his post read.

The 68-year-old billionaire had said in the past that he works 80-hour weeks, and that the “grind doesn’t appear to stop anytime soon”.

Further, Khosla said that one should be internally-driven as bigger titles, bigger houses don’t make everyone happy.

Infosys co-founder NR Narayana Murthy(twitter)

“Not working 70 hrs/wk may not get you the biggest house or car to show to your neighbors, but you can make that choice. Lots of other things make people happy. Be internally driven and not externally driven by what others expect of success: bigger titles, bigger house don’t make everyone happy,” the Silicon Valley veteran said.

In a recent episode of the “The Cerebral Valley Podcast”, Khosla said he plans on investing for the next 25 years if his health permits.

“I have this saying ‘You grow old when you retire, you don’t retire when you grow old,'” the investor continued. “I’ve seen too many people retire and grow old. So I clearly plan to do — health permitting — this for the next 25 years. And then I’ll be Warren Buffet’s age and he’s still doing it.”

Khosla’s investing career began after he became a general partner at Kleiner Perkins Caufield & Byers in 1986. In 2004, he started his own VC firm he called Khosla Ventures, which backed companies like Instacart, Impossible Foods, and DoorDash.

SoftBank-backed Unicommerce to hire over 150 people in next 2-3 months.

Murthy had sparked a debate after he said in a YouTube podcast that if India wants to compete with developed economies that have made remarkable progress in recent decades, young people should work for 70 hours a week.

In a recent interaction with Zerodha co-founder Nikhil Kamath at the Bengaluru Tech Summit, he also advised infrastructure sector employees to work in three shifts instead of one.

While some people agreed with Murthy, the majority were sceptical and worried about the health implications of such a demanding work schedule.

Prior to Khosla, Chairman of JSW Group Sajjan Jindal and Bollywood actor Suniel Shetty, backed Murthy’s views.

CRED founder Kunal Shah said that “no big achievement can come with work-life balance” while mentioning that choosing “work-life balance is a personal choice”.

ALSO READ: ‘GenAI Requires Cultural Fluency Like Humans’

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Muted Hiring Ahead in Indian IT Industry

This led to negative employee net addition during this period, as companies reduced hiring and focused on improving overall utilisation levels….reports Asian Lite News

Hiring in the Indian IT services industry is expected to remain muted over the next two-three quarters amid slowdown in demand, with companies focusing on maintaining their profitability in the backdrop of lower revenue growth, a new report showed on Monday.

The Indian IT services companies hired extensively over the second quarter of FY2021 to the second quarter of FY2023, as demand for digitalisation accelerated following the Covid-19 pandemic, according to the report by credit rating agency ICRA.

Simultaneously, the attrition rate in the industry also intensified to 22-23 per cent due to the increased demand for talent. This led to a record hiring of 273,000 employees in FY2022 and another 94,400 employees in H1 FY2023 by the top five companies in the industry.

“However, from Q3 FY2023 onwards, the overall demand environment for IT services weakened due to uncertainty in the global macroeconomic environment,” according to the report.

This led to negative employee net addition during this period, as companies reduced hiring and focused on improving overall utilisation levels.

This has helped companies maintain their employee cost and profit margins in the recent quarters.

ICRA expects the revenue growth of the Indian IT services industry to moderate to 3-5 per cent in FY2024 in USD terms versus 10 per cent in FY2023 owing to the uncertain macroeconomic environment in key markets i.e the US and Europe.

“The slowdown is expected to persist for another couple of quarters, leading to overall slowdown in hiring in the industry,” said the report.

The attrition rate has declined in recent quarters, which has helped reduce the demand-supply mismatch in the industry, it added.

“Indian IT services companies continue to utilise the excess capacity added in FY2022 and H1 FY2023. The freshers recruited then are now getting utilised, leading the company to not backfill the attrition to an extent,” the report added.

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Doubtnut Joins Forces with Allen

Doubtnut’s team will continue their focus on building a world-class doubt resolution experience for students of Allen and Doubtnut,…reports Asian Lite News

Allen Career Institute on Monday announced the acquisition of AI-led doubts-solving platform, Doubtnut.

Doubtnut’s team will continue their focus on building a world-class doubt resolution experience for students of Allen and Doubtnut, the company said.

“Timely and effective resolution of doubts is a core consumer need in education. Doubtnut’s platform will allow us to greatly enhance the learning experience for our students. We are also excited by the prospects of offering Allen’s high-quality academic products to a wider audience,” Nitin Kukreja, CEO of Allen, said in a statement.

Moreover, the institute mentioned that Allen will bring its enriched curriculum and academic offerings to Doubtnut’s student base and cater to their needs for a better education.

“Doubtnut’s mission is to bring education to every student across India using technology and high-quality content. We have worked towards this vision over the last six years, gaining immense consumer love during this journey. We resonate with Allen’s vision of creating technology products that are focused on improving learning outcomes,” said Aditya Shankar, co-founder of Doubtnut.

EY acted as the exclusive financial advisor to Allen and Trilegal acted as the legal advisor. TTA acted as the legal advisor to Doubtnut, Aeka Advisors acted as Tax advisor to Doubtnut, the institute shared.

In order to strengthen its focus on building a world-class technology team, Allen has hired professionals from leading global and Indian consumer tech companies such as Amazon, Google, Meta, Flipkart, Samsung, Twitter, and others, taking its technology and product teams based in Bengaluru to more than 120.

ALSOR READ: ‘India’s Energy Demand to Double by Decade’s End’

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OpenAI applies for GPT-6, GPT-7 trademarks in China

GPT-4 Turbo has a 128k context window so it can fit the equivalent of more than 300 pages of text in a single prompt…reports Asian Lite News

ChatGPT developer OpenAI has reportedly applied for “GPT-6” and “GPT-7” trademarks in China as Sam Altman-run company continues to build large language models (LLMs).

The company has submitted two Chinese trademark applications for GPT-6 and two other filings for GPT-7, South China Morning Post reported, citing records of the Trademark Office of the China National Intellectual Property Administration.

The applications were submitted by OpenAI OpCo, the company’s entity in China. None of OpenAI’s services are available in China, including Hong Kong, at the moment.

OpenAI did not comment on the report. Since the launch of ChatGPT a year ago, OpenAI has been advancing the capabilities of its deep learning LLMs.

ChatGPT was initially built on GPT-3.5, which has 175 billion parameters.

Altman, the creator of AI chatbot ChatGPT who is now back at the helm after an intense drama over his ouster as CEO, had said that the company was not presently training GPT5 — the successor to GPT4.

Earlier this month, ChatGPT reached 100 million weekly active users and the company released new GPT-4 Turbo model that is more capable, cheaper and supports a 128K context window.

Addressing the company’s first developer conference, Altman said over two million developers use ChatGPT, including more than 92 per cent of Fortune 500 companies.

GPT-4 Turbo has a 128k context window so it can fit the equivalent of more than 300 pages of text in a single prompt.

“We also optimised its performance so we are able to offer GPT-4 Turbo at a 3x cheaper price for input tokens and a 2x cheaper price for output tokens compared to GPT-4,” said the company.

In addition to GPT-4 Turbo, the company is also releasing a new version of GPT-3.5 Turbo that supports a 16K context window by default.

OpenAI also released Assistants API to help developers build agent-like experiences within their own applications.

ALSO READ-Impact of AI on Customized Learning Experiences

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Google delays launch of its Gemini AI to next year

In June, Google’s DeepMind CEO Demis Hassabis said that Gemini would be more capable than OpenAI’s ChatGPT…reports Asian Lite News

Google has delayed the launch of Gemini, a conversational artificial intelligence that aims to compete with OpenAI, to next year in January, media report said.

According to The Information, citing sources, a series of Gemini events scheduled for next week in California, New York and Washington has been cancelled by Google CEO Sundar Pichai after the company found that the AI didn’t reliably handle some non-English queries.

The upcoming events, which were not publicly announced, would have marked Google’s most important product launch of the year, after it strained its computing resources and merged large teams to pursue OpenAI urgently, the report noted.

Gemini is designed to handle a wide range of applications, merging various sorts of data such as images and text for more advanced tasks.

In June, Google’s DeepMind CEO Demis Hassabis said that Gemini would be more capable than OpenAI’s ChatGPT.

Hassabis mentioned the engineers are using techniques from the AI programme AlphaGo — which was the first to defeat a champion human player of the board game Go — to make Gemini. Gemini is likely to bring improvements to Google’s existing AI and AI-enhanced products too, like Bard, Google Assistant and Search.

This new AI system was first teased at Google’s developer conference in May when the company announced the new AI projects.

ALSO READ-Indian Gen Z Leads in AI Learning: Report