Chase DiFeliciantonio

At a time when many workers are wondering how artificial intelligence will change or eliminate their jobs, President of the Federal Reserve Bank of San Francisco Mary Daly made a simple assertion that shows how high-level officials are thinking about the issue. “In history, there’s been no technology ever … that has reduced employment on net,” Daly said Monday during onstage remarks in San Francisco at the Commonwealth Club. “The issue is, there’s often a large time frame in between when it repl…

<img data-reference=“slideshow” data-document-id=“cms/api/amp/slideshow/BB1obOQc” /><p>Pacific Gas and Electric Co. is getting into the <a href=“https://www.sfchronicle.com/ai/” rel=“noopener”>artificial intelligence</a> business.</p> <p>The utility will help fund an AI startup incubator planned in downtown San Jose as part of the city’s push to rejuvenate its business district and <a href=“https://www.sfchronicle.com/tech/article/san-jose-ai-startups-18668036.php”>draw startups and money south<…

At an otherwise mostly low-key affair last week at Stanford University’s Human-Centered Artificial Intelligence institute, venture capitalist Marc Andreesen’s heated warnings against government regulation of AI stood in stark contrast to the more moderate tone of the day. The institute’s co-director, Fei-Fei Li, asked Andreesen about “troubling bills on our state Senate floor” that would regulate AI software — likely a reference to legislation by state Sen. Scott Wiener proposing safety testing…

Apple is a comparative latecomer to the artificial intelligence boom that kicked off nearly two years ago, but the tech giant has announced plans to catch up by adding AI capabilities across its apps and products, including a deal with OpenAI to incorporate the startup’s ChatGPT bot into Apple’s Siri personal assistant. Apple CEO Tim Cook and other company executives made the announcements during the company’s annual developer conference in Cupertino on Monday. The highly anticipated step was a…

The San Francisco company described in a blog post how its chatbots have already been misused to post political spam and generate entire articles. It also described steps it is taking to stop these practices.

At a Fort Mason workshop with sweeping views of the Golden Gate Bridge, most of the tinkerers inside rarely look up to take in the stunning setting. Instead, on the second floor of tech incubator Founders Inc., more than a dozen young inventors sit hunched over lines of code or prodding wires into circuit boards hoping to build the next great electronic gadget powered by artificial intelligence. Scattered around a lab strewn with wires, industrial drills and battery components are devices in var…

San Franciscans are about to find out how big a hit city services could take as Mayor London Breed and local legislators prepare to close another huge deficit. In the coming days, Breed is expected to unveil her next spending plan that will detail how she intends to keep the government afloat despite a nearly $800 million two-year shortfall caused largely by rising costs, weak tax revenues linked to the city’s ailing downtown and the slow return of the tourism industry decimated by the pandemic.…

Media industry fears that artificial intelligence will crush the value of exclusive news articles by quickly ingesting and regurgitating them on competing sites are no longer a futuristic concern. Hoodline, a San Francisco company that runs a national network of “hyperlocal” news sites, is aggressively embracing the practice, replete with fictitious author bylines. Under the ownership of Impress3 Media since 2020, Hoodline’s sites are using generative AI to write entire news stories to rapidly g…

When Cheryl Guess lost her job as an event planner in Palm Springs two years ago, she didn’t think she’d have to leave the state for good. But that’s exactly what happened after a dispute in 2022 with her former employer led to months-long delays in getting the unemployment benefits she needed to keep paying her rent. Guess appealed her case and won. But by that time it was nearly two years later and she had long since run out of cash, left with no option but to go live with her daughter in Oreg…

Tens of billions of dollars have poured into AI companies looking to use the technology to revolutionize everything from medicine to education over the past year. But concerns about the technology — both its power and potential to disrupt work and life — have also grown. A report released Monday by Stanford University shows just how much those possibilities, and very real worries, have come to the fore since OpenAI launched its ChatGPT chatbot that sent the artificial intelligence industry into…

Gov. Gavin Newsom has encouraged the dozens of departments that make up California’s state government to use artificial intelligence. Some have jumped at the chance to use the emerging technology in everything from traffic prediction to tax filing. Now Newsom’s administration has released a road map to guide state agencies that want to buy or use the technology. The plan devolves much of the onus onto departments and agencies to evaluate whether and how to use generative AI — which can create te…

If you’re anxious that artificial intelligence might wipe out your job or take over the world, the antidote could be hiding at the mall right next to the Wetzel’s Pretzels. So maybe lighten up. A company called Immersive Gamebox is offering an interactive group game that turns your dystopian dread into fun. Called “Black Mirror Careers,” the experience lets participants don motion capture hats and caper through an array of wall-projected puzzles that promise to help them figure out their future…

Two of the Bay Area’s largest business groups are looking to merge. The Bay Area Council, led by Jim Wunderman and based in San Francisco, and the San Jose-based Silicon Valley Leadership Group, led by Ahmad Thomas, could join forces as San Francisco and the Bay Area face reputational headwinds, but are also poised to benefit immensely from the artificial intelligence industry. “The object of this is to do what these two groups have done well but do it bigger and better,” said Jim Wunderman, wh…

Elon Musk has filed suit against OpenAI and its CEO Sam Altman, alleging the company he helped launch in 2015 has strayed from founding principles set forth in its charter to responsibly and openly develop AI technology. Musk has long argued that powerful artificial intelligence concentrated in private hands could be a threat to humanity. What started as a nonprofit venture has turned into a profit-seeking enterprise, alleged the lawsuit filed Thursday in San Francisco Superior Court. The civil…

After Macy’s announced it would close 150 stores nationwide, including its iconic San Francisco location in Union Square as early as next year, it might be easy to point the finger at online retail undercutting in-person shopping and eroding the need for big department stores. After all, the pandemic drove consumers online for just about every purchase. Read more: S.F. Macy’s closing is huge setback for Mayor Breed. Here’s how she’s responding S.F. downtown exodus: S.F. Macy’s closure could hav…

Maybe Sharky Laguana, the former head of San Francisco’s small business commission, put it best. “Government can stop businesses from opening, and can force them to close,” Laguana wrote on social media site X. “But government can’t force businesses to start, and can’t force them to stay open,” he added. It can only give them an opportunity to succeed. When it comes to ensuring the multibillion-dollar AI industry succeeds in their respective cities, San Francisco and San Jose are taking starkly…

What is a rare book? “Any book you’re willing to pay a lot of money for” is how David Thornton, a collector turned dealer and owner of Discovery Bay Old Books put it, standing at his booth on the floor of the Pier 27 convention hall in San Francisco on day two of the Antiquarian Book Fair, which continues through Sunday, Feb. 11. Dealers, collectors and lookie-loos — often clad in tweed suits, circular spectacles and flowing beards — came from as far afield as Paris and London for the event. Do…

Spam or robocalls that use artificial-intelligence generated voices will be banned in the United States after a unanimous ruling from the Federal Communications Commission that aims to crack down on the emerging technology used in scams and efforts to mislead voters. The ruling comes after a company apparently using artificial intelligence faked President Joe Biden’s voice during the New Hampshire primary to encourage people not to vote. Last month, California Attorney General Rob Bonta’s office…

As generating images with artificial intelligence gets easier and better, determining which are real and which are digital composites is getting harder. Menlo Park-based Meta, owner of Facebook, Instagram and Threads, said Tuesday it will begin labeling AI-generated images when possible in the coming months. The company said in a blog post from Nick Clegg, Meta’s head of global affairs, that it is working “with industry partners on common technical standards for identifying AI content,” includin…

Senators on both sides of the aisle criticized the heads of large social media sites during a Washington, D.C., hearing on Wednesday for failing to adequately protect childrens’ safety online. Both California senators — Alex Padilla and Laphonza Butler — took a measured approach toward the technology executives during the nearly four-hour-long Senate Judiciary Committee hearing. Padilla used his allotted seven minutes of time to query them about their business practices, safety tools and parenta…