Author: arthursheikin@gmail.com

[ad_1] Stay informed with free updatesSimply sign up to the US banks myFT Digest — delivered directly to your inbox.Investment banking is on course to extend a record streak of underperformance, supplying less than a quarter of Wall Street revenues at the biggest US banks for the 14th quarter in a row. Traders are due to come to the rescue of their advisory colleagues once again when the banks report second-quarter results next week, with total trading revenues at the five largest Wall Street banks forecast to be $31bn — more than three times the figure for investment banking. Analysts…

[ad_1] Stay informed with free updatesSimply sign up to the Pensions industry myFT Digest — delivered directly to your inbox.The City of London Lord Mayor has criticised British companies for picking pension providers that charge the lowest fees, arguing more expensive managers who invest in alternative assets will deliver better returns. “We’ve ended up with pension pots that have lots of equity trackers and lots of fixed income because it’s a cheap way of doing it,” Alastair King said in an interview with the Financial Times, adding that there had been an industry “fixation” on costs over the past 10 years. King,…

[ad_1] Despite all the competition, OpenAI is still the leader in the space and is making its own moves that will likely worry rivals.It is planning to launch a new AI-powered web browser, for instance, that could compete with Google Chrome, the current industry leader. The browser will embed ChatGPT and feature an AI agent that can handle tasks like booking reservations and filling out forms.It also secured a $200 million contract to provide AI support to the US military. OpenAI will help develop capabilities to “address critical national security challenges in both warfighting and enterprise domains,” the Pentagon said…

[ad_1] Unlock the Editor’s Digest for freeRoula Khalaf, Editor of the FT, selects her favourite stories in this weekly newsletter.MPs have accused the chair of the Financial Ombudsman Service of “disrespectful” behaviour, saying she tried to stop them finding out that the body’s chief executive was sacked after a “mutual collapse in confidence”.The scathing findings by the House of Commons Treasury select committee add to a deepening crisis at the FOS. Its powers are set to be curbed by chancellor Rachel Reeves in her Mansion House speech on Tuesday after it became a lightning rod for City criticism of regulators.MPs…

[ad_1] Meta has acquired Play AI, a startup that uses AI to generate human-sounding voices. A Meta spokesperson has confirmed the acquisition, according to Bloomberg, which also reports that an internal memo stated that the “entire PlayAI team” will be joining the company next week. (TechCrunch has also reached out to Meta for confirmation.) Meta’s memo reportedly said that PlayAI’s “work in creating natural voices, along with a platform for easy voice creation, is a great match for our work and road map, across AI Characters, Meta AI, Wearables and audio content creation.” The company has been making big investments…

[ad_1] Therapy chatbots powered by large language models may stigmatize users with mental health conditions and otherwise respond inappropriately or even dangerously, according to researchers at Stanford University. While recent coverage in The New York Times and elsewhere has highlighted the role that ChatGPT may play in reinforcing delusional or conspiratorial thinking, a new paper titled “Expressing stigma and inappropriate responses prevents LLMs from safely replacing mental health providers” examines five chatbots that designed to provide accessible therapy, assessing them based on guidelines around what makes a good human therapist. The paper will be presented at the ACM Conference on…

[ad_1] When Steve Huynh was a principal engineer at Amazon, meetings began with a “study hall.”Amazon had a “reading culture” even among engineers, Huynh recently told the Pragmatic Engineer podcast, speaking of his time at the tech giant. Employees frequently drafted six-page memos, he said, which they shared with the company to update progress and demonstrate new projects.”I spent on the order of like 1-4 hours every day reading while I was a principal engineer,” Huynh said. “What an amazing culture that I think that almost every other company should replicate if they could.”Huynh, who said the company’s embrace of…

[ad_1] One Elon Musk business might be making a big investment in another. According to a Wall Street Journal report that cites investors close to SpaceX, the company has agreed to invest $2 billion in Musk’s AI startup xAI. The investment would reportedly be part of the $5 billion equity raise (along with another $5 billion in debt) that Morgan Stanley announced at the end of June. This would be SpaceX’s first investment in xAI, and one of its biggest investments in another company. The WSJ says SpaceX already uses xAI’s chatbot Grok to power customer service for its Starlink…

[ad_1] A cover letter might not be your top priority if you’re preparing an application for a job in tech — but perhaps it should be.That’s especially true if your hiring manager happens to be David Heinemeier Hansson, the creator of Ruby on Rails, a well-known framework for building web applications, and the CTO at software firm 37signals.In a lengthy six-hour interview with podcaster Lex Fridman published Saturday, the exec shared the two key things he looks for when hiring new computer programmers.”Up until this point, the main pivot point for getting hired was not your résumé, was not the…

[ad_1] This as-told-to essay is based on a conversation with James Bascharon, the founder and CEO of Vetnique. It has been edited for length and clarity.I always begin my story with my parents.My dad is a veterinarian, and my parents immigrated to the US from Egypt with almost nothing. My father started out cleaning dog cages, and my mother — a trained pharmacist — cleaned hotel rooms.Eventually, my dad earned his veterinary license and opened two animal hospitals. Watching him build something from the ground up inspired my deep appreciation for both animal care and entrepreneurship.Growing up in suburban Chicago,…