Business
US markets today: Stocks hover near records after consumer inflation data rise; global cues mixed – The Times of India
Wall Street traded near record highs on Thursday as fresh US economic data reinforced expectations that the Federal Reserve will cut interest rates next week to support growth. The S&P 500 rose 0.3% in early trade after setting new records in the last two sessions, while the Dow Jones Industrial Average advanced 95 points and the Nasdaq composite added 0.4%, AP reported. Treasury yields stayed steady, signalling calm after the latest economic reports.Markets were buoyed by anticipation of a Fed rate cut, even as inflation remains above the 2% target and labour market data continues to show weakness. “Traders were already convinced the Fed will deliver its first cut to interest rates of the year at its next meeting, but they need inflation data until then to be mild enough not to derail those expectations,” analysts noted.Wall Street is betting the US economy can manage a “soft landing” — slowing enough to prompt monetary easing, but not collapsing into recession. An encouraging sign came from Wednesday’s wholesale inflation report, which showed price growth unexpectedly slowed in August.Among individual stocks, Opendoor jumped 36% after naming Shopify COO Kaz Nejatian as its new chief executive, with co-founders Keith Rabois and Eric Wu returning to the board. FedEx slipped 1.3% and UPS fell 2.1% after Bank of America downgraded both companies.In global markets, Europe’s major indexes gained at midday, with Germany’s DAX up 0.3%, Britain’s FTSE 100 advancing 0.5%, and France’s CAC 40 climbing 0.9%.In Asia, Japan’s Nikkei 225 surged 1.2% to 44,372.50, with SoftBank Group rallying 8.3% for a second straight day. Japan’s producer prices rose 2.7% year-on-year in August, up from 2.5% the prior month. China’s Shanghai Composite jumped 1.7% to 3,875.31, while Hong Kong’s Hang Seng dipped 0.4% to 26,086.32. Chipmakers Semiconductor Manufacturing International Corp and Hua Hong Semiconductor rose 6% and 3.8% respectively, while Cambricon Technologies gained 9%.Elsewhere, South Korea’s Kospi rose 0.9%, Taiwan’s Taiex edged 0.1% higher, and India’s Sensex gained 0.2%. Australia’s S&P/ASX 200 slipped 0.3%.
Business
SC permits Centre to review Rs 6,000cr additional dues on Vodafone-Idea – The Times of India
NEW DELHI: The Union govt on Monday convinced the Supreme Court to permit the department of telecom to review its demand of Rs 6,000 crore additional adjusted gross revenue demand for the FY 2016-17 on Vodafone-Idea. Chief Justice B R Gavai and Justice K Vinod Chandran was informed by solicitor general Tushar Mehta that since the previous round of litigation, in which Vodafone was ordered to pay the AGR dues, there had been a change of circumstance as the Centre has acquired a 49% stake in the company. Mehta said, “We do not want the company, in which the govt has a huge investment, to go bankrupt to make 20 crore people suffer. ‘Govt wants to prevent monopoly’ Govt wants more players in the mobile telecom sector to prevent monopoly,” said solicitor general Tushar Mehta. Vodafone through senior advocate Mukul Rohatgi had argued that the SC had frozen the AGR dues at Rs 58,254 crore as of 2016-17 and that the DoT cannot raise additional AGR dues in breach of the SC order. Govt had converted Rs 36,950 cr dues as its 49% equity in the telecom service provider.
The bench noticed the element of public interest in the case and permitted the Centre to take a fresh view of the additional AGR demands, especially when the issue is purely in the policy domain and involves the interests of 20 crore people. “We see no reason why the Centre should be prevented from taking a relook at the additional AGR dues,” the bench said.
NEW DELHI: Govt has approved seven projects worth Rs 5,532 crore, out of 249 proposals received under the Electronics Components Manufacturing Scheme, electronics and IT minister Ashwini Vaishnaw said on Monday. The minister said the production of electronics components from the approved projects is likely to reduce the import bill of around Rs 20,000 crore. “Seven plants under electronics components have been approved. In coming days, more projects will be approved. We expect these projects to reduce import bill by around Rs 20,000 crore,” Vaishnaw said. The minister said that proposals for the manufacturing of multi-layer printed circuit boards or motherboard base, camera modules, copper laminates, and polypropylene films (used in capacitors for consumer electronics) have been approved.
OpenAI has released new estimates of the number of ChatGPT users who exhibit possible signs of mental health emergencies, including mania, psychosis or suicidal thoughts.
The company said that around .07% of ChatGPT users active in a given week exhibited such signs, adding that its artificial intelligence (AI) chatbot recognizes and responds to these sensitive conversations.
While OpenAI maintains these cases are “extremely rare,” critics said even a small percentage may amount to hundreds of thousands of people, as ChatGPT recently reached 800 million weekly active users, per boss Sam Altman.
As scrutiny mounts, the company said it built a network of experts around the world to advise it.
Those experts include more than 170 psychiatrists, psychologists, and primary care physicians who have practiced in 60 countries, the company said.
They have devised a series of responses in ChatGPT to encourage users to seek help in the real world, according to OpenAI.
But the glimpse at the company’s data raised eyebrows among some mental health professionals.
“Even though .07% sounds like a small percentage, at a population level with hundreds of millions of users, that actually can be quite a few people,” said Dr. Jason Nagata, a professor who studies technology use among young adults at the University of California, San Francisco.
“AI can broaden access to mental health support, and in some ways support mental health, but we have to be aware of the limitations,” Dr. Nagata added.
The company also estimates .15% of ChatGPT users have conversations that include “explicit indicators of potential suicidal planning or intent.”
OpenAI said recent updates to its chatbot are designed to “respond safely and empathetically to potential signs of delusion or mania” and note “indirect signals of potential self-harm or suicide risk.”
ChatGPT has also been trained to reroute sensitive conversations “originating from other models to safer models” by opening in a new window.
In response to questions by the BBC on criticism about the numbers of people potentially affected, OpenAI said that this small percentage of users amounts to a meaningful amount of people and noted they are taking changes seriously.
The changes come as OpenAI faces mounting legal scrutiny over the way ChatGPT interacts with users.
In one of the most high-profile lawsuits recently filed against OpenAI, a California couple sued the company over the death of their teenage son alleging that ChatGPT encouraged him to take his own life in April.
The lawsuit was filed by the parents of 16-year-old Adam Raine and was the first legal action accusing OpenAI of wrongful death.
In a separate case, the suspect in a murder-suicide that took place in August in Greenwich, Connecticut posted hours of his conversations with ChatGPT, which appear to have fuelled the alleged perpetrator’s delusions.
More users struggle with AI psychosis as “chatbots create the illusion of reality,” said Professor Robin Feldman, Director of the AI Law & Innovation Institute at the University of California Law. “It is a powerful illusion.”
She said OpenAI deserved credit for “sharing statistics and for efforts to improve the problem” but added: “the company can put all kinds of warnings on the screen but a person who is mentally at risk may not be able to heed those warnings.”
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