According to a recent poll, employee morale at Microsoft has dropped significantly in just a few months. In November 2020, 70% of employees said they would stay at the company if they got another offer. However, the number has since fallen to just 47%. Dissatisfied workers are asking the company’s leadership team how they plan to improve morale, as it feels like there is no light at the end of the tunnel. In contrast, Bay Area founders and venture capitalists are eager to get into AGI House, an AI hacker house that serves as a community hub for the region’s growing AI scene. The luxurious, 18,000-square-foot mansion in Hillsborough can accommodate up to 10 founders and researchers and has raised $68 million so far. Founders and researchers focused on developing AI are using the house as a base that provides a true home for researchers and entrepreneurs who can bounce ideas off one another.
ElevLabs raised $19 million in early-stage funding from Andreessen Horowitz and GitHub’s former CEO to support growth in the publishing and audiobooks sector. ElevenLabs aims to gain ground in the sector with its artificial intelligence technology, which generates realistic voice recordings of written text. However, scientists warn that AI still needs humans to train it to produce the best results. As more AI-generated content is published online, future AI will use this material to train itself. Employees are also hiding their AI productivity hacks from their bosses, according to a Wharton professor, who recommended that companies try to encourage employees to share their productivity-increasing ideas rather than banning AI outright.
Meta, the parent company of Facebook, has unveiled a generative AI model that can replicate the voices of loved ones; however, the technology is too risky for public release. The company says that the product, Voicebox, can speak six languages. Meanwhile, a new report that analyzes the top 451 podcasts in the United States shows that about 10% were related to politics and government, while a quarter were devoted to true crime. About 50% of the top-ranked podcasts also had a video component. For those on a budget, there are free movie online streaming websites available. These 12 streaming services/apps offer some of the best and most popular films on the internet, free of charge and completely legally.
