Inside the ultimate Star Wars house | AI researcher sues Amazon for withdrawing job offer

May the 4th be with you. GeekWire reporter Kurt Schlosser went inside the ultimate Star Wars house not that far, far away from Seattle and witnessed an epic collection that includes a movie theater fit for the Death Star. Check out the photos and read more.

A London-based artificial intelligence researcher is suing Amazon after he accepted a role as an applied scientist, went through an eight-month U.S. visa process, and relocated to Seattle — only to have the offer withdrawn before he could start the job he was hired to do. Read more. 

Microsoft is updating its OpenAI-powered Bing search chatbot with several new features, and expanding its availability beyond the initial limited preview, looking to build on its momentum three months after the initial launch. Read more. 

Is this what 2019 felt like? We stopped by Amazon’s HQ campus in Seattle this week to check out the vibe as the company’s return-to-office mandate officially begins.

DocuSign released a report highlighting the benefits of remote work — which caught our attention given that the company is forcing employees back to the office. Read more. 

Zillow beat revenue expectations for the first quarter, but CEO Rich Barton cautioned that “we continue to live in a very challenging housing macro environment, with no clear indications of a turn.” Read more. 

Tableau has a new CEO. The Seattle-based data visualization giant owned by Salesforce is now led by Ryan Aytay, a longtime Salesforce executive who was most recently chief revenue officer of Tableau. 

Hot links:

• Seattle, San Francisco, and Portland, Ore., are among the bottom in a ranking of downtown area activity compared to pre-pandemic levels. (Axios) 

• Amazon is working on its own ChatGPT-like technology in an effort to revamp its Alexa business. (Business Insider)

• The White House unveiled a plan to combat AI risks, and President Biden dropped by an AI meeting on Thursday that included CEOs from Google and Microsoft. (Twitter, CNN) 

• TNT used a drone camera during its NBA broadcast last night, and it didn’t get rave reviews. (Bleacher Report, SBNation)