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In recent years, people have welcomed AI into their lives with open arms: as personal assistants, friends, therapists, even lovers. But one concern with having a chatbot in your pocket is that it can be hard to ignore. Reddit support groups are springing up for those struggling with chatbot addiction. 404 Media interviewed one self-confessed addict who had been staying up well into the night, compulsively talking to chatbots on Character.AI. The more I chatted with the bot, it felt as if I was talking to an actual friend of mine, the 18-year-old told journalist Ella Chakarian. Most people will probably just look at you and say, How could you get addicted to a literal chatbot? Now addicts are trying to break the cycle. Forums such as r/Character_AI_Recovery, which has more than 900 members, and r/ChatbotAddiction are serving as support groups for those struggling. While I have deleted the app, I keep going back to the website its practically reflex to me now, clicking back into my character ai tab. I hate it, one post on r/Character_AI_Recovery read. Nobody else knows about this addiction I have except myself because its humiliating. Another wrote: “I’m on my probably hundredth attempt of quitting. Others use the group to share their wins and hold themselves accountable. Ive been clean for a week! one posted. Another wrote: Been off three days now and everythings going well, but I have this feeling that I wont be able to get away from character ai. Character.ai says its striving to strike a balance between keeping its platform both engaging and safe, especially for teens, noting that this challenge is shared across the AI industry. A company spokesperson told Fast Company, Engaging with characters on our site should be interactive and entertaining, but its important for our users to remember that characters are not real people, adding that every chat includes disclaimers to that effect. To support younger users, Character.ai offers a suite of safety tools, including filtered content, time-use notifications, and Parental Insights, the latter of which gives guardians visibility into how teens use the platform. The company says users younger than 18 interact with a separate version of its language model designed to reduce exposure to sensitive material. We added a number of technical protections to detect and prevent conversations about self-harm, the spokesperson said, noting that in some cases this includes directing users to suicide prevention resources. While some have successfully weaned themselves off the chatbots, the likelihood of relapse remains high. Some platforms even encourage it, sending follow-up emails promoting different chatbots or offering incentives like a free months subscription to reengage users. I hated it whenever I’d see an email from the bot that had sent you a message, one former addict wrote. Or the emails telling me that a bot misses me. Just why? Isn’t this parasocial enough to them?
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E-Commerce
YouTube is cracking down on mass-produced and repetitive content. The Google-owned video-sharing platform has released additional guidance for its YouTube Partner Program (YPP) in response to the growing popularity of AI-generated videos. In order to monetize as part of the YPP, YouTube has always required creators to upload original and authentic content, the update states. YouTube is updating our guidelines to better identify mass-produced and repetitious content. This update better reflects what inauthentic content looks like today. The update comes into effect on Tuesday, July 15. How much AI is too much? However, the announcement was met with concern from some creators over whether any AI use would demonetize a video. Rene Ritchie, YouTubes head of editorial and creator liaison, released a video in an effort to put some of these worries to bed. Ritchie called the update minor, explaining that it should help with identifying unwanted content. This type of content has already been ineligible for monetization for years, and its content viewers often consider spam, he added. YouTube is in a unique position when it comes to AI. Its parent company, Alphabet, is backing a series of AI initiatives, benefiting from AIs widespread use. It runs the Google AI Studio and develops AI models such as the Gemini series. At the same time, Alphabet has to acknowledge not only the downsides of AI, but its potential to overwhelm platforms that rely on user-generated contentin other words, rein in instances of repetitive, inauthentic slop created with the very technologies that it’s investing so heavily in.
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E-Commerce
Yesterday, Nvidia Corporation (Nasdaq: NVDA) became the first company to surpass a $4 trillion market capitalization. The AI chip giant did so on the strength of its position in the artificial intelligence race that has been sweeping the globe. Nvidia makes the graphics cards and other computing infrastructure that power AI platforms. A companys market capitalization, or market cap, is determined by adding up the total value of all the shares in that company. As of yesterday, when you added up Nvidias total shares, you got a value of more than $4 trillion. But Nvidia isnt the only company that will likely cross this $4 trillion milestone. Here are other companies that are closeor relatively closeto the $4 trillion market valuation mark, as of the close of the market yesterday, according to stock market data from Yahoo Finance. Microsoft Microsoft Corporation (Nasdaq: MSFT) closed at $503.51 per share yesterday, bringing the companys market cap to just north of $3.7 trillion. This makes the Windows maker the second-most valuable company, only behind Nvidia. Of course, like all the companies on this list, its stock prices current and past performance are no predictor of where the companys valuation goes next. Still, as of the time of this writing, Microsoft is less than $300 billion in value away from becoming the worlds second $4 trillion company. Apple Apple Inc. (Nasdaq: AAPL) was the first public company in history to cross the $1 trillion, $2 trillion, and $3 trillion market cap marks. Currently, it ranks third in the worlds most valuable public companies. Yesterday, the companys shares closed at $211.14, giving Apple a market cap of just over $3.1 trillion. That means Apple is about $900 billion in value shy of a $4 trillion market cap. While this brings Apple closer in value to $4 trillion than the rest of the companies on this list, the $900 billion gap means Apples stock price will need to rise by nearly 25% to reach a $4 trillion market cap. The closest Apple has ever come to this threshold is a market cap of $3.9 trillion last yearnearly there. Amazon The e-retail giant Amazon.com, Inc. (Nasdaq: AMZN) is next closest to a $4 trillion market cap. But first, its got to pass the $3 trillion mark, too. As of yesterdays close at $222.54, Amazon has a market capitalization of approximately $2.3 trillion. This means the stock needs to nearly double in value to reach a $4 trillion market capitalization. Alphabet (Google) Right behind Amazon is Alphabet Inc. (Nasdaq: GOOG), owner of Google. The search giants share price closed at $177.66 yesterday, giving it a market cap of just over $2.1 trillion. Again, that makes it one of the most valuable companies ever, but it also means that Alphabet still needs to pass the $3 trillion mark before it can hope to achieve a $4 trillion valuation, matching Nvidia’s. Meta Facebook owner Meta Platforms, Inc. (Nasdaq: META) is the next closest U.S. company to a $4 trillion valuation. However, it is currently a long way from reaching that milestone. The companys shares closed at $732.78 yesterday, giving it a market cap of just over $1.8 trillion. That means Meta shares need to more than double to reach a $4 trillion valuation. Road to $10 trillion? That any public company would have a trillion-dollar market cap once seemed unimaginable. But then on August 2, 2018, Apple did just that, becoming the worlds first trillion-dollar company. It took 37 years, 7 months, and 21 days to reach that milestone after its initial public offering on December 12, 1980. Apples next trillion dollars came much faster. On August 19, 2020, Apple became the first company to surpass a $2 trillion market capitalization. It added that extra trillion in valuation in just 2 years and 17 days. Then, just 2 years, 10 months, and 11 days later, Apple became the first company to cross a $3 trillion market cap. Since Apple first became a 12-figure company in 2018, many other U.S. companies have surpassed this milestone. That includes Nvidia, Microsoft, Amazon, Alphabet, Meta, Tesla, and Broadcom. Whats remarkable about Nvidias rise to the most valuable publicly traded company ever is that while it took Nvidia just over 24 years to cross the $1 trillion market cap in June 2023, it took the company a mere 2 years and change to cross the $4 trillion mark. Thats an addition of another $3 trillion in market capitalization in less than 25 months. Of course, theres no guarantee that Nvidia stays above the $4 trillion market cap mark. Yet, the rate at which the biggest tech companies are increasing their market caps in recent years suggests that, if things continue on the same trajectory, the world may very well see its first $10 trillion company (or companies) before this decade is over.
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E-Commerce
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