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Hulu Black Friday deal: Get one year of the ad-supported plan for $1 per month

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Hulu is offering an enormous discount on its ad-supported plan for Black Friday. The streaming service will give you a year of Hulu (With Ads) for a mere $12. The plan typically costs $80 annually, giving you 85 percent off. Hulu’s Black Friday sale is live now and runs through the end of the day on November 28.

Hulu offers films, current-season episodes of popular broadcast television series and older TV. In addition, the Disney-owned service has original programming, like The Bear, Only Murders in the Building and The Handmaid’s Tale. Remember that the $12 Black Friday sale only applies to the version with advertisements, which doesn’t allow downloaded content for offline viewing.

New subscribers and former members who canceled their plan at least a month ago can take advantage of the Black Friday deal. Everyone who redeems it will pay directly to the streamer (rather than through an app storefront) and convert to a full-priced ($8 monthly) ad-supported plan at the end of 12 months. Hulu also offers an optional Starz add-on for $1 monthly for all new and existing subscribers.

If you're more interested in other streaming services, plenty of competitors are offering Black Friday deals at the moment. Max has dropped the monthly price of its ad-supported plan to $3 for the first six months, while Black Friday deals from Paramount+ start at $2 per month for the Essential tier. Peacock, meanwhile, is offering new subscribers access starting at $2 per month for the first year, or you can pay for one year upfront and only be charged $20.

Your Black Friday Shopping Guide: See all of Yahoo’s Black Friday coverage, here. Follow Engadget for Black Friday tech deals. Learn about Black Friday trends on In The Know. Hear from Autoblog’s experts on the best Black Friday deals for your car, garage, and home, and find Black Friday sales to shop on AOL, handpicked just for you.

This article originally appeared on Engadget at https://www.engadget.com/hulu-black-friday-deal-get-one-year-of-the-ad-supported-plan-for-1-per-month-182522537.html?src=rss

The Morning After: Tinder’s ‘rizz-first’ redesign just ruined rizz for everyone

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Tinder is adding many new, pretty basic, features, including the profile prompts and basic info tags other dating apps, like Hinge or Bumble, have. Profile prompts, for example, are a long-standing feature on both, with Tinder users now able to share their responses to statements like “The first item on my bucket list is… ” or “Two truths and a lie.”

The dating app points to Gen Z’s responses in its recent Future of Dating report as motivation for the updates, saying: “At Tinder, we understand that connecting today is about authenticity, depth and the desire for connections that go beyond the surface.”

The company calls it a “rizz-first redesign,” which equates to these new prompts, zodiac sign info and… new animations. Is that rizz-first? I’m not sure it is.

— Mat Smith

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The biggest stories you might have missed

Amazon will host free AI Ready courses to boost the AI talent pool

HBO’s Max is offering 70 percent off its ad-supported plan in Black Friday sale

What is going on with OpenAI and Sam Altman?

The Webb telescope captures a ‘chaotic’ view of the center of our galaxy

It’ll help test current theories of star formation.

TMA
NASA

The James Webb telescope has captured parts of the center of the Milky Way in “unprecedented detail.” This area is about 300 light-years from the galaxy’s supermassive black hole, Sagittarius A, and over 25,000 light-years from Earth. The galactic center is “the most extreme environment” in the Milky Way, according to University of Virginia professor Jonathan Tan.

Continue reading.

Most of OpenAI’s staff threatens to quit unless the board resigns

And reinstates Sam Altman as CEO.

OpenAI’s corporate drama kept Engadget busy over the weekend, as the company ousted its CEO and co-founder Sam Altman, then reportedly tried to get him back when he was poached by Microsoft — one of OpenAI’s major investors. Now, most of the company’s staff have threatened to quit unless the board resigns and reinstates former CEO Sam Altman and ex-president Greg Brockman. According to Wired and Kara Swisher, around 500 employees signed the letter.

Continue reading.

X CEO calls article that led to latest brand exodus ‘misleading and manipulated’

Linda Yaccarino says X stands against antisemitic content.

X CEO Linda Yaccarino called a report from watchdog group media Matters for America “misleading and manipulated,” following a large-scale advertiser pullout. In a note she sent to X employees on Sunday night, she said: “While some advertisers may have temporarily paused investments because of a misleading article, the data will tell the real story.”

Major advertisers, including Apple, Disney, Paramount Global and Yaccarino’s former employer, NBCUniversal, pulled their ads from X last week, after the watchdog group’s report found ads from some of these brands ran next to pro-Nazi content on the website. It also came days after Musk publicly endorsed an antisemitic conspiracy theory as a response to a far-right X user.

X filed its lawsuit against Media Matters on Monday.

Continue reading.

This article originally appeared on Engadget at https://www.engadget.com/the-morning-after-tinders-rizz-first-redesign-just-ruined-rizz-for-everyone-121537687.html?src=rss

Google admits YouTube’s war on ad blockers is resulting in ‘suboptimal viewing’ experiences

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Some YouTube viewers who use Firefox or Edge instead of Chrome have reported having to wait around five seconds every time they try to load a video. In screen recordings shared on Reddit and other online forums, users show how their screen goes blank for a short period when they click on a YouTube video before the page loads. But when they switch to Chrome, that waiting period seemed to be non-existent. Android Authority and 404media, which reported on the users' complaints, weren't able to replicate the phenomenon. We also didn't notice any difference in loading times when we accessed YouTube on different browsers. 

Based on the code found by some YCombinator and Reddit posters, YouTube has implemented an anti-adblocker mechanism that's causing the delays. We did find the snippet of code cited in those threads, but it's not quite clear what it does. In a statement that Google has provided Android Authority, it admitted that it has implemented a system that's meant to urge viewers to uninstall their ad blockers. The company said that users who have ad blockers installed "may experience suboptimal viewing" no matter what browser they choose to use

"To support a diverse ecosystem of creators globally and allow billions to access their favorite content on YouTube, we've launched an effort to urge viewers with ad blockers enabled to allow ads on YouTube or try YouTube Premium for an ad free experience," the spokesperson said. "Users who have ad blockers installed may experience suboptimal viewing, regardless of the browser they are using."

YouTube started cracking down on ad blockers earlier this year, but it went all out earlier this month when it prevented viewers around the world from watching videos unless they disable their apps, add-ons and extensions. The video hosting website is hoping to entice users who couldn't stand watching ads to subscribe to its $14-a-month YouTube Premium service. Multiple ad-blocking companies have since reported experiencing an elevated number of uninstallations per day since then, but Google has yet to reveal whether YouTube Premium subscriptions have also gone up as a result.

This article originally appeared on Engadget at https://www.engadget.com/google-admits-youtubes-war-on-ad-blockers-is-resulting-in-suboptimal-viewing-experiences-115041371.html?src=rss

Apple Watch SE falls to another new low in Black Friday sale

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There's never been a better time to buy the Apple Watch SE (2nd Gen), as it has fallen to another new low on Amazon. Both sizes (40mm and 44mm) are available with discounts of $70, with the 40mm GPS Watch SE starting at just $179, or 28 percent ($70) off and the 44mm model starting at $209 (25 percent off). That's an all-time low, besting the $189 price we saw just two days ago. 

With solid performance, a familiar design and support for numerous apps, the 2022 Watch SE scored a solid 89 in our Engadget review. It looks nearly identical to the latest Watch models, and delivers smooth performance despite the slightly older processor. Most importantly, it offer all the same features you'd get in the more expensive models, like all-day heart rate monitoring, built-in GPS, fall detection, Apple Pay support, sleep-tracking and more. Battery life has also been improved over the previous model.

It doesn't include a blood oxygen sensor or ECG, nor the always-on display of the Series 8 or Series 9 models. If those things aren't terribly important, you'll still get a full Watch experience. The other main drawbacks with all Watch models are sleep tracking that doesn't quite measure up to the competition, and less than a full day of battery life.

If you want the higher-end models, there's more good news too. All the Watch Series 8 models are on sale, starting at $299 for the Watch Series 8 (GPS 41mm), $329 for the Watch Series 9 (in red only, $100 off) and $359 for the Watch Series 9 in other colors.  

Your Black Friday Shopping Guide: See all of Yahoo’s Black Friday coverage, here. Follow Engadget for Black Friday tech deals. Learn about Black Friday trends on In The Know. Hear from Autoblog’s experts on the best Black Friday deals for your car, garage, and home, and find Black Friday sales to shop on AOL, handpicked just for you.

This article originally appeared on Engadget at https://www.engadget.com/apple-watch-se-falls-to-another-new-low-in-black-friday-sale-110511086.html?src=rss

Starfield update brings DLSS support and a number of fixes

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Starfield just received some key updates promised by Bethesda a couple of months ago, the developer announced. Version 1.8.86 comes with DLSS support that finally gives users with supported NVIDIA cards features including DLSS Super Resolution, Deep Learning Anti-aliasing (DLAA), Reflex Low Latency and DLSS frame generation. That should assuage numerous grumbling users, many of whom used a controversial DLSS mod to tide themselves over. 

Along with DLSS, the update includes GPU performance optimizations that will help users with higher-end cards. Bethesda has also addressed memory leaks and other related issues, improved renderer threading and made a number of other stability and performance improvements. On the graphics side, it added brightness and contrast controls (!), while addressing issues around ambient occlusion, shader compilation, HDR brightness (Xbox and Windows 11 only), material issues, crowd character eyes and more.

Gameplay also sees some welcome updates. You can now "eat the food placed in the world" via a "consume button" without having to add items to inventory, a nice quality-of-life fix. Bethesda also adjusted stealth to be more forgiving, resolved the problem of Andreja's head staying permanently cloaked, fixed an issue that could prevent players from firing weapons, resolved a problem with naked NPCs, fixed mouse issues and more. It also resolved quest problems that mostly revolve around inconsistent game play. 

Bethesda beta tested the new features earlier this month on Steam before deeming them fit for release. In September, it said that it's "working closely" with NVIDIA, AMD and Intel on driver support, possibly in response to a Digital Foundry technical report saying the game had "disproportionately poor NVIDIA and Intel performance." Starfield is among the best-selling games of 2023 (thanks in part to being free on Game Pass), with the company having reported 10 million players as of the end of September. 

This article originally appeared on Engadget at https://www.engadget.com/starfield-update-brings-dlss-support-and-a-number-of-fixes-092050462.html?src=rss

US Senator calls for the public release of AT&T ‘Hemisphere’ surveillance records

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US Senator Ron Wyden wants the public to know about the details surrounding the long-running Hemisphere phone surveillance program. Wyden has written US Attorney General Merrick Garland a letter (PDF), asking him to release additional information about the project that apparently gives law enforcement agencies access to trillions of domestic phone records. In addition, he said that federal, state, local and Tribal law enforcement agencies have the ability to request "often-warrantless searches" from the project's phone records that AT&T has been collecting since 1987. 

The Hemisphere project first came to light in 2013 when The New York Times reported that the White House Office of National Drug Control Policy (ONDCP) was paying AT&T to mine and keep records of its customers' phone calls. Four billion new records are getting added to its database every day, and a federal or state law enforcement agency can request a query with a subpoena that they can issue themselves. Any law enforcement officer can send in a request to a single AT&T analyst based in Atlanta, Georgia, Wyden's letter says, even if they're seeking information that's not related to any drug case. And apparently, they can use Hemisphere not just to identify a specific number, but to identify the target's alternate numbers, to obtain location data and to look up the phone records of everyone who's been in communication with the target. 

The project has been defunded and refunded by the government several times over the past decade and was even, at one point, receiving federal funding under the name "Data Analytical Services (DAS)." Usually, projects funded by federal agencies would be subject to a mandatory Privacy Impact Assessment conducted by the Department of Justice, which means their records would be made public. 

However, Hemisphere's funding passes through a middleman, so it's not required to go through mandatory assessment. To be specific, ONDCP funds the program through the Houston High Intensity Drug Trafficking Area, which is a regional funding organization that distributes federal anti-drug law grants and is governed by a board made up of federal, state and local law enforcement officials. The DOJ had provided Wyden's office with "dozens of pages of material" related to the project in 2019, but they had been labeled "Law Enforcement Sensitive" and cannot be released to the public. 

"I have serious concerns about the legality of this surveillance program, and the materials provided by the DOJ contain troubling information that would justifiably outrage many Americans and other members of Congress," Wyden wrote in his letter. "While I have long defended the government’s need to protect classified sources and methods, this surveillance program is not classified and its existence has already been acknowledged by the DOJ in federal court. The public interest in an informed debate about government surveillance far outweighs the need to keep this information secret."

This article originally appeared on Engadget at https://www.engadget.com/us-senator-calls-for-the-public-release-of-att-hemisphere-surveillance-records-083627787.html?src=rss

X lawsuit accuses Media Matters of running a campaign to drive advertisers away

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X has filed a lawsuit against media watchdog group Media Matters over the latter's research that showed ads on the social network appearing next to antisemitic content. The company's owner, Elon Musk, promised to file a "thermonuclear lawsuit" against the organization late last week following an advertiser exodus. In its complaint, X said Media Matters "knowingly and maliciously manufactured side-by-side images depicting advertisers' posts on X Corp.'s social media platform beside Neo-Nazi and white national fringe content." It added that the group portrayed the "manufactured images" as if they represented the typical user's experience in the platform. "Media Matters designed both these images and the resulting media strategy to drive advertisers from the platform and destroy X Corp," the company wrote. 

As TechCrunch notes, though, Media Matters didn't exactly "manufacture" the images it used with its research. Based on X's own investigation as it detailed in its lawsuit, the organization used an account older than 30 days to bypass the website's ad filters to follow a set of users known to produce "extreme, fringe content" along with the biggest advertisers on the platform. The group then allegedly kept on scrolling and refreshing its feed to generate "between 13 to 15 times more advertisements per hour than viewed by the average X user." X said the watchdog didn't provide any context regarding the "forced, inauthentic nature" of the advertisements it saw."

In a response to Media Matters' research, X CEO Linda Yaccarino said "not a single authentic user on X saw IBM's, Comcast's, or Oracle's ads next to the content in Media Matters' article." She added that "only two users saw Apple's ad next to the content, at least one of which was Media Matters," confirming that the organization did see the advertisements, even if it had to create the right conditions for them. After Yaccarino released her statement, Media Matters head Angelo Carusone retweeted several posts from seemingly authentic users showing ads for searches and tags such as "killjews" and "HeilHitler." We reached out to the organization about the lawsuit, and a spokesperson told Engadget: "This is a frivolous lawsuit meant to bully X's critics into silence. Media Matters stands behind its reporting and looks forward to winning in court."

Aside from X's lawsuit, Media Matters also has to grapple with an investigation by Ken Paxton, the Attorney General of Texas. Paxton said his office is looking into Media Matters, which he called "a radical anti-free speech" organization, for potential fraudulent activity. He said he's investigating the watchdog to "ensure that the public has not been deceived by the schemes of radical left-wing organizations who would like nothing more than to limit freedom by reducing participation in the public square."

The media watchdog had published its findings after X owner Elon Musk responded to a tweet that said Jews pushed "hatred against whites that they claim to want people to stop using against them." Musk wrote: "You have said the actual truth." Several big-name advertisers had pulled their campaigns from the platform following the incidents, including IBM, Apple, Disney, Paramount and Comcast. Meanwhile, Lionsgate specifically cited Elon's tweet as the reason for pulling its ads. 

According to Fortune, Yaccarino held an all-hands meeting after X filed the lawsuit to confirm to staff members that some customers' advertisements are still on pause. When asked about what the best outcome for the lawsuit would be, the CEO said a win would validate that X was right.

"They have a long history of being an activist organization, to force a narrative and not allow people of the world to make their own decisions," she reportedly responded. "I think one of the main goals that underscores the dedication to truth and fairness and that is that we allow people a global Town Square, to seek out their own information and make their own decisions. So exposing Media Matters to train people’s rights to make their own decisions will be a validation that X was right, and this was an inauthentic manipulation."

Update, November 21, 2023, 12:14AM ET: Added information from Fortune's report about X's all-hands meeting. 

This article originally appeared on Engadget at https://www.engadget.com/x-lawsuit-accuses-media-matters-of-running-a-campaign-to-drive-advertisers-away-from-its-website-040022933.html?src=rss

Spotify reportedly struck a special deal with Google that let it skip Play Store fees

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Spotify struck a special deal with Google that lets it pay no commission to Google when people sign up for subscriptions using the music streaming service’s own payment system on Android, according to new testimony in the ongoing Epic v. Google trial first reported by The Verge. As part of the same deal, Spotify paid Google just four percent commission if users signed up for the service through Google, far less than most other apps which typically pay 15 percent for subscriptions through the Google Play Store.

“Listening to music is one of [the phone’s] core purposes… if we don’t have Spotify working properly across Play services and core services, people will not buy Android phones”, Google’s partnerships head Don Harrison reportedly said in court. Both Google and Spotify also agreed to put $50 million each in a “success fund” as part of the deal.

The remarks were made as part of a lawsuit first filed against Google by Epic Games, the maker of the wildly popular Fortnite, in 2020. Epic claimed that Google’s Play Store on Android was an illegal monopoly that forced app makers to part with huge sums of cash in exchange for offering users in-app purchases through the Play Store. Epic filed a similar lawsuit against Apple in 2021, which it lost.

“A small number of developers that invest more directly in Android and Play may have different service fees as part of a broader partnership that includes substantial financial investments and product integrations across different form factors," Dan Jackson, a Google spokesperson, wrote to Engadget in a statement. "These key investment partnerships allow us to bring more users to Android and Play by continuously improving the experience for all users and create new opportunities for all developers.”

Spotify initially supported Epic in its fight against Google and Apple. But in 2022, the company started using a Google program called User Choice Billing that let Android apps use their own payment systems in exchange for giving a reduced cut to Google. The special deal revealed in court showed that Google was willing to carve out even more exceptions for popular apps like Spotify.

Google has had some pretty big business secrets spilled in the last few days. Last week, an economics professor testifying on behalf of the company in a separate antitrust trial that has since wrapped up, revealed that Google pays Apple 36 percent of all ad revenue it generates through Apple’s Safari browser, a figure which Alphabet CEO Sundar Pichai later confirmed while he was testifying in the Epic v. Google trial.

The Verge also reported earlier this month that Google offered Netflix, another popular streaming service, a custom deal. It offered a reduced commission of 10 percent, which Netflix turned down – instead choosing to not offer users a way to sign up for Netflix directly within its Android app.

Update, November 20, 2023, 6:50PM ET: This story was updated with a statement from Google.

This article originally appeared on Engadget at https://www.engadget.com/spotify-reportedly-struck-a-special-deal-with-google-that-let-it-skip-play-store-fees-224646377.html?src=rss

What is going on with OpenAI and Sam Altman?

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It’s been an eventful weekend at OpenAI’s headquarters in San Francisco. In a surprise move Friday, the company’s board of directors fired co-founder and CEO Sam Altman, which set off an institutional crisis that has seen senior staff resign in protest with nearly 700 rank-and-file employees threatening to do the same. Now the board is facing calls for its own resignation, even after Microsoft had already swooped in to hire Altman’s cohort away for its own AI projects. Here’s everything you need to know about the situation to hold your own at Thanksgiving on Thursday.

How it started

Thursday, November 16

This saga began forever ago by internet standards, or last Thursday in the common parlance. Per a tweet from former-company president Greg Brockman, that was when OpenAI’s head researcher and board member, Ilya Sutskever, contacted Altman to set up a meeting the following day at noon. In that same tweet chain (posted Friday night), Brockman accused the company of informing the first interim-CEO, OpenAI CTO Mira Murati, of the upcoming firings at that time as well:

- Last night, Sam got a text from Ilya asking to talk at noon Friday. Sam joined a Google Meet and the whole board, except Greg, was there. Ilya told Sam he was being fired and that the news was going out very soon.

- At 12:19PM, Greg got a text from Ilya asking for a quick call. At 12:23PM, Ilya sent a Google Meet link. Greg was told that he was being removed from the board (but was vital to the company and would retain his role) and that Sam had been fired. Around the same time, OpenAI published a blog post.

- As far as we know, the management team was made aware of this shortly after, other than Mira who found out the night prior.

Friday, November 17

Everything kicked off at that Friday noon meeting. Brockman was informed that he would be demoted — removed from the board but remain president of the company, reporting to Murati once she’s installed. Barely ten minutes later, Brockman alleges, Altman was informed of his termination as the public announcement was published. Sutskever subsequently sent a company-wide email stating that “Change can be scary,” per The Information.

Later that afternoon, the OpenAI board along with new CEO Murati addressed a “shocked” workforce in an all-hands meeting. During that meeting, Sutskever reportedly told employees the moves will ultimately “make us feel closer."

At this point, Microsoft, which just dropped a cool $10 billion into OpenAI’s coffers in January as part of a massive, multi-year investment deal with the company weighed in on the day’s events. CEO Satya Nadella released the following statement:

As you saw at Microsoft Ignite this week, we’re continuing to rapidly innovate for this era of AI, with over 100 announcements across the full tech stack from AI systems, models and tools in Azure, to Copilot. Most importantly, we’re committed to delivering all of this to our customers while building for the future. We have a long-term agreement with OpenAI with full access to everything we need to deliver on our innovation agenda and an exciting product roadmap; and remain committed to our partnership, and to Mira and the team. Together, we will continue to deliver the meaningful benefits of this technology to the world.

By Friday evening, things really began to spiral. Brockman announced via Twitter that he quit in protest. Director of research Jakub Pachocki and head of preparedness Aleksander Madry announced that they too were resigning in solidarity.

How it’s going

Saturday/Sunday, November 18/19

On Saturday, November 18, the backtracking begins. Altman’s Friday termination notice states that, “Mr. Altman’s departure follows a deliberative review process by the board, which concluded that he was not consistently candid in his communications with the board, hindering its ability to exercise its responsibilities. The board no longer has confidence in his ability to continue leading OpenAI.”

The following morning, OpenAI COO Brad Lightcap wrote in internal communications obtained by Axios that the decision “took [the management team] by surprise” and that management had been in conversation “with the board to try to better understand the reasons and process behind their decision.”

“We can say definitively that the board’s decision was not made in response to malfeasance or anything related to our financial, business, safety, or security/privacy practices,” Lightcap wrote. “This was a breakdown in communication between Sam and the board … We still share your concerns about how the process has been handled, are working to resolve the situation, and will provide updates as we’re able.”

A report from The Information midmorning Saturday revealed that OpenAI’s prospective share sale being led by Thrive Capital, valued at $86 billion, is in jeopardy following Altman’s firing. Per three unnamed sources within the company, even if the sale does go through, it will likely be at a lower valuation. The price of OpenAI shares has tripled since the start of the year, and quadrupled since 2021, so current and former employees, many of whom were offered stock as hiring incentives, were in line for a big payout. A payout might not be coming anymore.

On Saturday afternoon, Altman announced on Twitter that he would be forming a new AI startup with Brockman’s assistance, potentially doing something with AI chips to counter NVIDIA’s dominance in the sector. At this point OpenAI’s many investors, rightly concerned that their money was about to go up in generative smoke, began pressuring the board of directors to reinstate Altman and Brockman.

Microsoft’s Satya Nadella reportedly led that charge. Bloomberg’s sources say Nadella was “furious” over the decision to oust Altman — especially having been given just “a few minutes” of notice before the public announcement was made — even going so far as to recruit Altman and his cohort for their own AI efforts.

Microsoft also has leverage in the form of its investment, much of which is in the form of cloud compute credits (which the GPT platform needs to operate) rather than hard currency. Denying those credits to OpenAI would effectively hobble the startup’s operations.

Interim-CEO Mira Murati’s 48-hour tenure at the head of OpenAI came to an end on Sunday when the board named Twitch co-founder Emmett Shear as the new interim-CEO. According to Bloomberg reporter Ashley Vance, Murati had planned to hire Altman and Brockman back in a move designed to force the board of directors into action. Instead, the board “went into total silence” and “found their own CEO Emmett Shear.” Altman spent Sunday at OpenAI HQ, posting an image of himself holding up a green “Guest” badge.

“First and last time i ever wear one of these,” he wrote.

Monday, November 20

On Monday morning, an open letter from more than 500 OpenAI employees circulated online. The group threatened to quit and join the new Microsoft subsidiary unless the board itself resigns and brings back Altman and Brockman (and presumably the other two as well). The number of signatories has since grown to nearly 700.

Despite Sutskever’s early morning mea culpa, that seemed unlikely. The board had missed its deadline to respond to the open letter, Microsoft claimed to have hired Altman and Brockman and Shear had been named interim CEO.

Shear stepped down as CEO of Twitch in March, where he led the company for more than 16 years and has been working as a partner at Y Combinator for the past seven months. Amazon acquired the live video streaming app in 2014 for just under $1 billion.

“I took this job because I believe that OpenAI is one of the most important companies currently in existence. When the board shared the situation and asked me to take the role, I did not make the decision lightly,” Shear told OpenAI employees Monday.

“Ultimately I felt that I had a duty to help if I could,” he added.

Shear was quick to point out that Altman’s termination was “handled very badly, which has seriously damaged our trust.” As such he announced the company will hire an independent investigator to report on the run-up to Friday’s SNAFU.

“The board did *not* remove Sam over any specific disagreement on safety, their reasoning was completely different from that,” Shear continued. “I’m not crazy enough to take this job without board support for commercializing our awesome models.”

Following his departure to Microsoft on Monday, Altman posted, “the OpenAI leadership team, particularly mira brad and jason but really all of them, have been doing an incredible job through this that will be in the history books.”

“Incredibly proud of them,” he wrote.

There was one more twist in store on Monday, however. Reports suggested that Altman's move to Microsoft wasn't a sure thing — and that he was still angling for a return to OpenAI.

Tuesday, November 21

Tuesday was another eventful day in this soap opera-esque saga. Altman was said to be discussing his potential return to OpenAI with the board, just four days after those same people booted him out of the company. Bloomberg reported that, until Monday, the board "largely refused to engage" with Altman, so the fresh talks were notable. The negotiations were said to involve board member Adam D’Angelo (who is CEO of Quora) along with OpenAI investors who had been pushing for Altman's return.

Things largely remained quiet on the OpenAI front for several hours. However, on Tuesday afternoon, Brockman posted about ChatGPT's voice conversation feature becoming available to all users. That raised a few eyebrows, given that he seemed not to be involved with the company at the time.

The biggest shock of all emerged late on Tuesday night (early Wednesday on the East Coast) when OpenAI said it had reached an agreement in principle for Altman to return as CEO. The company noted that all parties were "collaborating to figure out the details." Brockman also said late Tuesday that he was returning and "getting back to coding tonight."

The board has a new look as well, with only D’Angelo remaining. Google Maps co-creator and former Salesforce co-CEO Bret Taylor succeeded Brockman as chair. Former US Treasury Secretary Larry Summers is the other member of the three-person board, which will reportedly vet a new set of up to nine permanent directors who will have the task of resetting OpenAI's governance. One of those board seats is said to be earmarked for Altman, while Microsoft is set to take one.

"I love OpenAI, and everything I’ve done over the past few days has been in service of keeping this team and its mission together," Altman said after the news of his return broke. "With the new board and with Satya's support, I'm looking forward to returning to OpenAI and building on our strong partnership with [Microsoft]." Altman added that when he decided to join Microsoft on Sunday evening, he felt at the time that "was the best path for me and the team."

"We are encouraged by the changes to the OpenAI board," Nadella wrote on X. "We believe this is a first essential step on a path to more stable, well-informed, and effective governance." Other OpenAI investors, such as Thrive Capital, were pleased about Altman's return, as was Shear.

"I am deeply pleased by this result, after ~72 very intense hours of work," Shear wrote. "Coming into OpenAI, I wasn’t sure what the right path would be. This was the pathway that maximized safety alongside doing right by all stakeholders involved. I’m glad to have been a part of the solution." In a nod to his time at Twitch and that platform's speedrunning community, Shear joked that he'd zipped through his time as OpenAI CEO in 55 hours and 32 minutes.

Many OpenAI workers went to the company's office to celebrate Altman and Brockman's return. At one point during the party, a smoke machine was said to have triggered a fire alarm.

Altman and Brockman may not have too much time to enjoy their stunning comeback before it's back to serious business, though. It also emerged on Tuesday that yet another lawsuit has been filed alleging that OpenAI didn't gain permission from rights holders before using their intellectual property without permission to train its generative AI models. In this case, a group of non-fiction authors say OpenAI did not compensate them for feeding their books and academic journals into its systems.

This article originally appeared on Engadget at https://www.engadget.com/what-is-going-on-with-openai-and-sam-altman-215725312.html?src=rss

Cruise co-founder resigns following CEO exit

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Cruise, the self-driving car company owned by General Motors, confirmed to Reuters that its co-founder and chief product officer Daniel Kan has resigned. Kan’s departure comes just a day after the company’s CEO Kyle Vogt announced his resignation on X after a 10-year tenure. Kan is said to have announced his resignation over Slack, however, the reasoning for his departure has not been made clear by the company.

The company’s executive reshuffling follows a public relations nightmare that started last month when a Cruise robotaxi hit a pedestrian in San Francisco and pinned them under the vehicle. The parent company, GM, is still conducting a safety probe on the accident and both autonomous and manual vehicle operations at Cruise remain suspended. The company’s public image has been reeling from the accident ever since, and about 950 robotaxis had to be recalled by GM. The California DMV suspended Cruises’ driverless permits shortly after, and that ruling has remained in place.

In a recent tweet, Cruise said that the company is focused on taking steps “to rebuild public trust.” Things have yet to look up for the company, especially after an expose by The Intercept revealed that the company knew its self-driving cars have trouble recognizing children and large holes in the roads. Furthermore, the former CEO said that the company would have to lay off an undisclosed number of employees and staff members in a memo.

Cruise has not made any statements about finding replacements for either its CEO or chief product officer as of yet. The New York Times reports that “instead of installing a new chief executive” General Motors has appointed two new members to the company board and Mo Elshenawy, Cruise’s executive vice president of engineering, will take up the role of President.

This article originally appeared on Engadget at https://www.engadget.com/cruise-co-founder-resigns-following-ceo-exit-214747271.html?src=rss