Apple Weighs Using Anthropic or OpenAI to Power Siri in Major Reversal
The iPhone maker has talked with both companies about using their large language models for Siri, according to people familiar with the discussions. It has asked them to train versions of their models that could run on Apple's cloud infrastructure for testing, said the people, who asked not to be identified discussing private deliberations.
Try Our AI Features
Explore what Daily8 AI can do for you:
Comments
No comments yet...
Related Articles
Business Insider
18 minutes ago
- Business Insider
Mira Murati's startup is dangling $500,000 salaries to win the AI arms race
Thinking Machines Lab, the much-talked-about, secretive AI startup founded earlier this year by former OpenAI chief technology officer Mira Murati, has been shelling out top dollar for technical talent ahead of launching any products. TML is paying two members of its technical staff $450,000 in salary, while another is getting $500,000, according to hiring data obtained by Business Insider. A fourth staffer, listed as a "co-founder/machine learning specialist," receives $450,000 per year. The data comes from federal filings that companies are required to make when they hire a non-US resident on an H-1B visa, which allows them to hire 85,000 specialized workers through an annual lottery. Since companies rarely disclose salary data, the data offers a rare snapshot of what candidates are fetching in this job market. The figures only include base salaries, not the lucrative sign-on bonuses and equity awards that are often where the real money is made when someone goes to work for a startup. A spokesperson for TML declined to comment. OpenAI and Anthropic did not respond to requests for comment. The data is from the first quarter of this year, before Murati raised $2 billion in seed funding at a $10 billion valuation, as BI previously reported. It is also before Meta hired Scale CEO Alexandr Wang as part of a $14.3 billion deal to take a 49% stake in his company, ratcheting up the AI talent wars to a new level of feverish intensity. Earlier this month, OpenAI CEO Sam Altman said Meta was trying to poach AI talent with signing bonuses of $100 million. The $462,500 average salary TML offered four technical hires is considerably higher than more established large language model competitors Murati is aiming to compete with. OpenAI is paying an average of $292,115 to the 29 technical staffers listed in the filings, with the highest-paid position earning $530,000 and the lowest earning $200,000. Anthropic pays an average of $387,500 to 14 technical hires, with the highest-paid position earning $690,000 and the lowest receiving $300,000. TML went on a hiring spree earlier this year, hiring Bob McGrew, OpenAI's former chief research officer; researcher Alec Radford; John Schulman, who co-led the creation of ChatGPT; Jonathan Lachman, formerly the head of special projects at OpenAI; Barret Zoph, a cocreator of ChatGPT; and Alexander Kirillov, who worked closely with Murati on ChatGPT's voice mode. The company has paused accepting new applications, according to its website. Murati spent 6 ½ years at OpenAI, where she worked on the development of ChatGPT and other AI research initiatives. She was briefly appointed interim CEO in November 2023 after OpenAI's board abruptly fired Sam Altman, a move that sparked turmoil within the company. After Altman's reinstatement as CEO, Murati resumed her role as CTO.
Yahoo
33 minutes ago
- Yahoo
Exclusive-Scale AI's bigger rival Surge AI seeks up to $1 billion capital raise, sources say
By Milana Vinn and Krystal Hu (Reuters) -Surge AI, a data-labeling firm that competes with Scale AI, has hired advisors to raise as much as $1 billion in the first capital raising in the firm's history, sources told Reuters, as it seeks to capitalize on growing user demand amid Scale AI's recent customer exodus. The company, founded by former Google and Meta engineer Edwin Chen, is targeting a valuation of over $15 billion, sources said, cautioning that the talks are still in early stages and the final number could be higher. The funding would be a mix of primary and secondary capital that provides liquidity for the employees. Surge AI, which has been profitable and bootstrapped by Chen, has raked in over $1 billion in revenue last year, bigger than its better-known competitor Scale AI, which reported $870 million in revenue over the same period of time. In comparison, Scale AI was valued at $14 billion in a funding round last year, and was mostly recently valued at nearly $29 billion when Meta invested for a 49% stake in the company and poached its CEO Alexandr Wang to be its chief AI officer to lead its new Superintelligence Labs. Surge AI declined to comment. Like other Scale AI competitors, Surge AI is benefiting from Scale AI's customer losses following Meta's investment. This includes OpenAI and Scale's largest customer, Google, who are now planning to move away from the platform over concerns that doing business with Scale could expose their research priorities to Meta. Scale has said its business remains strong, and it is committed to protecting customer data. Surge AI's quiet yet meteoric rise has positioned it as one of the largest players in the crowded data labeling industry, defying the typical Silicon Valley playbook of raising massive rounds of venture capital to fuel growth. Founded in 2020, the San Francisco-based company has largely operated under the radar, known for its premium, high-end data labeling services used by top AI labs, including Google, OpenAI and Anthropic. As reinforcement learning from human feedback (RLHF) has become more important in training advanced AI systems, the demand for meticulously labeled, nuanced datasets has grown. Surge AI has capitalized on this trend by appealing to a network of highly skilled contractors instead of large pools of low-wage labor. The outsized funding of Surge would be a test of investor interest in the data labeling sector. Some investors view data labeling as an ongoing necessity for AI development, predicting a continued demand from leading AI labs. Others express concern that the industry's low margins and reliance on human labor could make it vulnerable to automation, as AI technology advances and the need for manual annotation diminishes. Error in retrieving data Sign in to access your portfolio Error in retrieving data Error in retrieving data Error in retrieving data Error in retrieving data
Yahoo
33 minutes ago
- Yahoo
Senators to Vote on Trump's Tax Bill After Deal, Thune Says
(Bloomberg) -- Senate Majority Leader John Thune said his chamber will soon vote on passage of President Donald Trump's tax and spending bill after securing enough support to pass the legislation. Struggling Downtowns Are Looking to Lure New Crowds Philadelphia Transit System Votes to Cut Service by 45%, Hike Fares Sprawl Is Still Not the Answer 'I believe we do' have enough votes to pass the bill, Thune said. 'But like I've said I'm of Scandinavian heritage so I've always been a realist so we will see what happens.' The Senate worked through the night on Trump's $3.3 trillion tax and spending package, with Republican leaders still negotiating Tuesday morning with key GOP holdouts. Thune did not specify what changes were made to the bill to convince holdouts to support the measure. 'I hear we're doing well,' Trump told reporters upon arriving in Florida Tuesday. 'I think it's going to be the greatest bill ever passed.' Alaska Republican Lisa Murkowski, a moderate concerned about Medicaid and green energy cuts, appeared to be the central focus of SEnate leaders' attention early Tuesday. Throughout the negotiations in recent days, there have been eight major Republican holdouts. Thune can afford to lose only three senators and still pass the measure. Two — Rand Paul of Kentucky and Thom Tillis of North Carolina — have said they are solidly against it, leaving very little room for error as the South Dakota Republican tries to get to 50 votes on the package. Senate aides huddled on the chamber floor Tuesday morning going line-by-line through last-minute revisions to the bill. Murkowski, whose efforts to protect her home state from Medicaid cuts were rejected by the Senate ruleskeeper, had meetings both on and off the Senate floor throughout the night. She would not divulge early Tuesday whether she'd support the bill. 'The sun is up, I'm going to go have a cup of coffee,' Murkowski told reporters. Murkowski had backed an effort to soften an aggressive planned phase-out of subsidies for wind and solar projects under Trump's tax-and-spending package. The amendment sponsored by Republican Joni Ernst of Iowa would also do away with a proposed new excise tax the Senate bill would slap on wind and solar projects that use components from China and other 'foreign entities of concern.' Ernst, carrying donuts through the Capitol on Tuesday morning, said she didn't think her amendment would ultimately get a vote. The change would risk displeasing fiscal conservatives who have insisted on the more stringent requirements to qualify for the tax credits. 'I don't think they're going to let us' bring up the amendment, she told reporters. 'There's a lot of stuff that went on over night, that kind of waylaid a lot of our plans.' Another moderate holdout, Susan Collins of Maine, said she still has 'reservations' about the bill after the Senate all-nighter. Democrats, angered by the Medicaid cuts in the bill, voted to defeat a Collins amendment that would have doubled the rural hospital fund in the bill to $50 billion, in exchange for a tax increase on some of the highest-earning Americans. As leaders continue to twist arms on the bill itself, they also need to ensure they have enough votes on a final 'wraparound' amendment tweaking the legislation ahead of a vote on final passage. Republican aides workshopped that amendment with the parliamentarian to determine whether changes adhere to the chamber's rules to pass the bill along party lines. Part of the calculus for Senate leaders is to strip language that could threaten the bill's odds in the House, which is planning to vote on the Senate measure later this week. The House's own version of the bill passed by a single vote. The Senate's deeper Medicaid cuts will put pressure on swing-district Republicans, while Freedom Caucus hardliners are angry that the Senate bill would contribute to larger deficits than the House-passed measure. At least one New York Republican — Representative Nick LaLota — has said he'd vote against the bill over a compromise on the state and local tax deduction that he says doesn't do enough to deliver savings to his district. LaLota had supported the House measure. Yet so far, unlike in 2017, Trump has been able to corral his party at the end, with only a few willing to buck the pressure to vote for his signature legislation. --With assistance from Chris Cioffi, Jamie Tarabay and Ken Tran. (Adds Trump remark in the fifth paragraph) America's Top Consumer-Sentiment Economist Is Worried How to Steal a House SNAP Cuts in Big Tax Bill Will Hit a Lot of Trump Voters Too China's Homegrown Jewelry Superstar Pistachios Are Everywhere Right Now, Not Just in Dubai Chocolate ©2025 Bloomberg L.P. Sign in to access your portfolio
