With the boom in artificial intelligence (AI), robots and'smart' everything, it would be fair to assume that life in Silicon Valley is pretty sweet right now. Only last year, tech workers were posting enviable'Day In The Life' videos showing off buffet lunches, happy hours and arcade games in their offices. But fast forward 12 months and things have turned sour. In the first 33 days of 2023 alone, the likes of Paypal, Microsoft, Amazon, and Google's parent company Alphabet have announced a total of 42,000 lay-offs. Add that to 40,000 from other tech companies – plus the 160,000 employees who were let go last year – and the mass exodus nears a purge of some quarter of a million staff.

Waymo's chief financial officer Ger Dwyer and its head of automotive partnerships and corporate development Adam Frost -- two longtime executives at the autonomous vehicle company -- are leaving this month, departures that comes amid some executive shuffling following CEO John Krafcik's exit earlier this year. Dwyer and Frost's departure was shared internally this week, according to multiple sources. Waymo has confirmed to TechCrunch that Dwyer and Frost are leaving. "We're grateful to Ger and Adam for all they've done for Waymo and wish them all the best," a spokesperson said in an emailed statement. "An executive search is underway for a new CFO to lead us into our next chapter as we continue to build, deploy and commercialize the Waymo Driver."

Alphabet has been testing the robots with simple tasks, like sorting garbage into landfill, compost, and recycling piles. Robots learned how to perform these tasks with a combination of simulation, reinforcement, and collaborative learning, according to Google. The company says that its success at this task proves that robots can learn new tasks in the real world through practice.

Alphabet, the parent company of Google, is getting back into robotics after a first attempt several years ago fizzled. But this time the company wants to create robots with minds of their own. The company's R&D lab, known as X, announced the Everyday Robot Project on Thursday, describing its efforts to build a new breed of robots infused with artificial intelligence. The goal is a robot that can be "taught" how do to something, rather than needing to be programmed by humans ahead of time to perform a chore. "It's possible for robots to learn how to perform new tasks in the real world just through practice, rather than having engineers'hand code' every new task, exception, or improvement," Hans Peter Brondmo, Alphabet X's "Chief Robot Whisperer", wrote in a blog post announcing the news Thursday.

Parent company Alphabet's Google and Verily are using machine knowledge to help screen diabetic retinopathy (DR) and diabetic macular edema (DME). The two eye conditions are one of the major causes of blindness and if everything works well, it may facilitate automated screening. Which means that it will be able to detect disease sooner and provide more people with access to screenings. A part of Google's parent company Alphabet called Verily is working with Google to conduct clinical research around the world, especially in India, where studies showed the algorithm was as good at assessing images for disease as general ophthalmologists and retinal specialists, according to a blog post from the companies. Artificial Intelligence Can Detect Heart Problems in the Future, Says Study by Mayo Clinic. The "First real-world clinical use of the algorithm" has been initiated at Aravind Eye Hospital in Madurai as a result of the research.

A group of Google employees and shareholders are calling for the search giant to link executive compensation with its ability to meet diversity goals. They will present a proposal for that policy at Google parent company Alphabet's annual shareholder meeting on Wednesday. All this despite the fact that Alphabet has already voiced its opposition to the proposal, saying it's not in the best of the company or its shareholders. The move caps off several months of controversy at Google, largely surrounding the firm's decision to take part in a partnership with the Pentagon, where its TensorFlow software would be used in its AI drone program, called Project Maven. Ultimately, Google announced it wouldn't renew its contract with the Pentagon when it expires in 2019, after thousands of employees wrote an open letter urging it to do so, while others resigned over the firm's involvement.

The government has unveiled a new £30 million fund to help get driverless cars on the road. Chancellor Philip Hammond vowed to bring fully-autonomous vehicles to the UK by 2021 in his autumn budget last year. The latest multi-million round of funding is designed to speed-up the roll-out of autonomous vehicles by supporting technology and automotive companies developing driverless systems. Companies will have to bid for the funding, Business Minister Richard Harrington announced today. Of the £30 million total, the government has set aside £5 million to be awarded specifically to projects building cars that can park themselves.

Google has all but removed a core principle from its employee code of conduct and people are taking notice. For the last 18 years, the Silicon Valley giant has put the phrase'Don't be evil' front and center in its code of conduct as a way of demonstrating that it wants Googlers to strive to do the right thing. That has since changed, however, as Google updated its code of conduct to only briefly mention the phrase, according to Gizmodo, which first spotted the move. Google has all but removed a core principle -- 'Don't be evil' -- from its employee code of conduct. In previous iterations of its code of conduct, Google dedicated several paragraphs to the principle.

Google's parent company Alphabet has reported lower than expected profits in the last three months of 2017 after higher costs offset an increase in advertising sales. Revenue for the three months ending December 31 was $32.3 billion (£22.6bn), a rise of 24% on the same period in 2016. Overall, Alphabet reported a loss of $3 billion (£2.1bn) for the fourth quarter as it set aside $11 billion for taxes - an estimated $9.9 billion (£6.9bn) was for taxes on repatriated earnings. Excluding the tax provision, Alphabet would have posted a profit of $6.8 billion (£4.7bn), falling short of the $7 billion analysts had predicted. The tech giant's shares slid 2.3 per cent in after-hours trade on the results, highlighting concerns about the rising costs of projects such as the Waymo's self-driving car service, and the fact that profits were weaker than expected. The company also used its earning report to confirm that current board member John Hennessy has been named Alphabet chairman following the departure of Eric Schmidt in December.

Driverless vehicles will face a'testing' 200-mile (320km) journey across the UK next year. The autonomous cars will have to contend with challenges such as winding country lanes, motorways and roundabouts, in an effort to test their systems. The nationwide test, dubbed HumanDrive initiative, is designed to put the computer-controlled cars through their paces in'live traffic and natural conditions'. The HumanDrive initiative hopes to put the computer controlled cars through their paces in'live traffic and natural conditions' on a 200-mile (320 km) road test of the driverless cars The UK wants to get driverless cars on the road by 2021. However, British roads present a number of unique challenges that autonomous driving systems are unlikely to be prepared for after testing in the United States.