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STEVENS: As I age, keeping up with the accelerating demands of technology can be nearly impossible - but I never thought I'd end up underqualified to eat a biscuit.

An anonymous reader quotes a report from 404 Media: Employees at Robert F Kennedy Jr.'s Department of Health and Human Services received an email Tuesday morning with the subject line "AI Deployment," which told them that ChatGPT would be rolled out for all employees at the agency. The deployment is being overseen by Clark Minor, a former Palantir employee who's now Chief Information Officer at HHS. "Artificial intelligence is beginning to improve health care, business, and government," the email, sent by deputy secretary Jim O'Neill and seen by 404 Media, begins. "Our department is committed to supporting and encouraging this transformation. In many offices around the world, the growing administrative burden of extensive emails and meetings can distract even highly motivated people from getting things done. We should all be vigilant against barriers that could slow our progress toward making America healthy again." "I'm excited to move us forward by making ChatGPT available to everyone in the Department effective immediately," it adds. "Some operating divisions, such as FDA and ACF [Administration for Children and Families], have already benefitted from specific deployments of large language models to enhance their work, and now the rest of us can join them. This tool can help us promote rigorous science, radical transparency, and robust good health. As Secretary Kennedy said, 'The AI revolution has arrived.'" [...] The email says that the rollout was being led by Minor, who worked at the surveillance company Palantir from 2013 through 2024. It states Minor has "taken precautions to ensure that your work with AI is carried out in a high-security environment," and that "you can input most internal data, including procurement sensitive data and routine non-sensitive personally identifiable information, with confidence." It then goes on to say that "ChatGPT is currently not approved for disclosure of sensitive personally identifiable information (such as SSNs and bank account numbers), classified information, export-controlled data, or confidential commercial information subject to the Trade Secrets Act." The email does not distinguish what "non-sensitive personally identifiable information" is. HHS did not immediately respond to a request for comment from 404 Media. [...] The agency has also said it plans to roll out AI through HHS's Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services that will determine whether patients are eligible to receive certain treatments. These types of systems have been shown to be biased when they've been tried, and result in fewer patients getting the care they need.

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They were the gigs that epitomised the Britpop era.  Oasis played to sell-out crowds of 250,000 over two nights in the grounds of Knebworth House in Hertfordshire in August 1996

We're making billions on AI, how about you?

Google Cloud CEO Thomas Kurian says the Chocolate Factory's rental computing business has $106 billion of unfulfilled contracts, and he expects Google Cloud will be able to realize about half of that in revenue within two years.…

The football pundit, 40, stunned in a leather mini dress while the singer, 35, opted for a coordinating look for the event which took place at Brasserie Zedel in London.

Cameron Moore, 48, claims he has been wrongly accused of a sex attack at Donald Trump 's Mar-a-Lago.

The incident came after Thomas Tuchel 's side took a 2-0 lead thanks to goals from Harry Kane and Noni Madueke, who bagged his first for his country.

Lorry driver Dan Shillito, 34, from Hull, East Yorkshire, stopped his vehicle under a motorway bridge in Chesterfield, Derbyshire, and climbed onto the roof to save a man from taking his life.

Women have been left with painful burns and thrush from a popular deodorant used by thousands every day.

Google Cloud CEO Thomas Kurian revealed the company has already made billions from AI by monetizing through consumption-based pricing, subscriptions, and upselling. "Our backlog is now at $106 billion -- it is growing faster than our revenue," said Kurian, speaking at the Goldman Sachs Communacopia and Technology Conference in San Francisco. "More than 50% of it will convert to revenue over the next two years." CNBC reports: Kurian said some people pay Google by consumption, giving the example of AI infrastructure purchased by enterprise customers. "Whether it's a GPU, TPU or a model, you pay by token -- meaning you pay by what you use," he said. Tokens represent chunks of text that a AI models process when they generate or interpret language. Some people use customer service systems, paying for it by what Kurian called "deflection rates." Such rates are priced based on the business value customers get -- things like uptime, scalability, AI features and security. Google Cloud also provides tools like a "deflection dashboard," that customers can use to track and manage agent interactions. Last month, Google won a $10 billion cloud contract from Meta spanning six years. Meta had largely been reliant on Amazon Web Services for cloud infrastructure, though it also uses Microsoft Azure. Some customers pay for cloud services by way of subscriptions. "You pay per user per monthly fee -- for example, agents or Workspace," said Kurian, referring to the company's Gemini products, which has its own subscription tiers with various storage options, and the Google Workspace productivity suite, which also has several subscription tiers. Google One, a popular personal cloud storage subscription, offers a basic monthly service to users for $1.99 a month. Earlier this year, the company offered a new subscription tier called "Google AI Ultra," which offers exclusive access to the company's most "cutting edge" AI products with 30 terabytes of storage for $249.99 per month. Kurian gave an example of Google Cloud's cybersecurity subscription tiers, saying "we've seen huge growth in that." Kurian said that upselling is another key aspect of Google Cloud's strategy. "We also upsell people as they use more of it from one version to another because we have higher quality models and higher-priced tiers," Kurian said. He said that once customers use Google's AI services, they wind up using more of the company's products. "That leads customers who sign a commitment or contract to spend more than they contacted for, which drives more revenue growth," he added. Kurian says it is capturing new customers more quickly too. "We've seen 28% sequential quarter-over-quarter growth in new customer wins in the first half of the year," said Kurian, adding that nearly two-thirds of customers already use Google Cloud's AI tools in a meaningful way. "Selling to existing customers is always easier than selling to new customers, so it helps us improve the cost of sales," Kurian said.

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Yesterday's air strike on Hamas leaders in Qatar was a rarity - the first time in recent years that one of Israel 's dramatic attacks on its regional enemies has failed to achieve its planned result

Will the last person to leave Britain please turn out the lights… That was a front page headline on April 9 1992, warning of the consequences should Neil Kinnock's Labour win that day's election.

Police should scrap the recording of non-crime hate incidents and 'allow people to speak freely' without fearing arrest, its watchdog said yesterday.

But despite having 25 years' experience working with infants, Channel 5 's TV super nanny Laura Amies' concerns were completely dismissed - with tragic consequences.

Downton Abbey star Allen Leech has teased that the beloved period drama could return with a prequel exploring the backstory of the late Dame Maggie Smith's iconic character, Violet Crawley. 

In a first-of-its-kind study French researchers found that people with the condition were up to 11 times as likely to have dementia.

Thomas Tuchel's time in charge of the Three Lions team caught a rocket in Belgrade as his team ran riot, with five different players finding the net to all-but-secure their side's World Cup spot.

And they're off. We may need racing commentator Cornelius Lysaght to do justice to Labour 's deputy leadership election, there are so many runners.

The How Clean is Your House? and Celebrity Big Brother star passed away on June 16 aged 83 following a short illness.

Airline passengers who fall foul of hand luggage rules have always risked fines and having to put their bags in the hold once they reach the gate.