OpenAI co-founder and former chief scientist Ilya Sutskever’s new AI startup, Safe Superintelligence (SSI), is using Google Cloud’s TPU chips to power its AI research, part of a new partnership the companies announced on Wednesday in a press release. Google Cloud says SSI is using TPUs to “accelerate its research and development efforts toward building […]

The sale of bankrupt EV startup Canoo’s assets to its CEO has been okayed by the judge overseeing the case. After evaluating a number of limited objections to the sale, Judge Brendan Shannon said in a hearing Wednesday he believes the process was fair and that no one else but Canoo CEO Anthony Aquila made […]

The list of 1,223 victims in 51 countries hints at the “true scale of the spyware problem,” per one researcher.

New York’s A-list venture capital seed fund, Lerer Hippeau, announced on Wednesday that it closed a ninth $200 million fund. That’s a step up from its eighth fund, which closed at $140 million, it said. With the new fund, Lerer Hippeau has $1.4 billion of assets under management. Since its inception in 2010, Lerer Hippeau […]

OpenAI thinks AI benchmarks are broken. Now the company is launching a program to fix how AI models are scored. The new OpenAI Pioneers Program will focus on creating evaluations for AI models that “set the bar for what good looks like,” as OpenAI phrased it in a blog post. “As the pace of AI […]

Anthropic announced on Wednesday that it’s launching a new, very expensive subscription plan for its AI chatbot Claude: Max. An answer to OpenAI’s $200-a-month ChatGPT Pro tier, Max comes with higher usage limits than Anthropic’s $20-per-month Claude Pro subscription, as well as priority access to the company’s newest AI models and features. A bit confusingly, […]

Last week, prediction market startup Kalshi sued New Jersey and Nevada after they tried to shut down its recently launched sports trading operation. In the lawsuit, Kalshi claimed that, since they’re a federally regulated platform, state gaming commissions don’t have the authority to set rules for them. “We’re not necessarily very concerned [because] we are […]

A study went viral several months ago for implying that, as AI becomes increasingly sophisticated, it develops “value systems” — systems that lead it to, for example, prioritize its own well-being over humans. A more recent paper out of MIT pours cold water on that hyperbolic notion, drawing the conclusion that AI doesn’t, in fact, […]

YouTube on Wednesday announced an expansion of its pilot program designed to identify and manage AI-generated content that features the “likeness,” including the face, of creators, artists, and other famous or influential figures. The company is also publicly declaring its support for the legislation known as the NO FAKES ACT, which aims to tackle the […]

Sean Plankey's nomination to head up CISA will be blocked, for now.

Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Company (TSMC) may have to pay a fine of $1 billion or more to resolve a U.S. export control investigation related to a chip it made that was used in a Huawei AI processor, according to a report by Reuters. TSMC did not provide any further comments as it is now “in […]

Doing laundry can be a chore. It takes time and is tedious. Few people like to do it. So it’s no surprise that startups have emerged to take that load off your back — literally. And investors are lining up to fund new and older players alike.  Eleven-month-old NoScrubs has just raised $2 million in […]

Samsung has updated SmartThings, its app that lets users control the company’s IoT devices, with new home automation capabilities in an apparent bid to cross-sell more of its smart home devices and appliances to existing customers. Besides the automation features, users will get new integrations with the Samsung Health app, an intercom feature, and support […]

It’s been a tough but exciting year for 23-year-old Jaspar Carmichael-Jack, founder and CEO of AI sales agent startup Artisan. Artisan just raised a $25 million Series A led by Glade Brook Capital, Carmichael-Jack exclusively tells TechCrunch. Y Combinator, Day One Ventures, HubSpot Ventures, Oliver Jung, Fellows Fund, and others participated as well. A year […]

Hosting platform WordPress.com on Wednesday launched a new AI website builder that allows anyone to create a functioning website using an AI chat-style interface. The feature, which is being made available to WordPress users for free, is targeted at entrepreneurs, freelancers, bloggers, and others who need a professional online presence, the company says. At this […]

Instagram appears to be quietly testing locked reels that viewers would have to unlock with a code and a provided hint. The feature is a simple way to increase engagement with the creator’s content, but it could also offer creators and celebrities a way to share exclusive reels with their most dedicated fans, who are […]

After months of hearty marketing efforts and large-scale technology demos across the U.S., Nuro has secured $106 million in fresh funding to help scale its autonomous driving technology and advance commercial partnerships.  The Series E round brings Nuro’s total funding raised to $2.2 billion and its valuation to $6 billion. That’s a drop from the […]

Legal tech has come a long way, but the bulk of an intellectual property or patent lawyer’s work today is still done with spreadsheets, word processors, and PDFs. A startup out of Delaware, Solve Intelligence, is using generative AI to speed up that work, believing its tech is uniquely suited to the needs of patent […]

Tessell, a startup developing a multi-cloud database-as-a-service, has raised $60 million in a new funding round led by WestBridge Capital ahead of its plans to expand its market presence and launch an AI-powered conversational database management service. As data becomes more critical than ever, many companies are struggling to manage and store it efficiently. Legacy […]

It’s been a couple of years since our last topic-focused, one-day event — but with AI transforming the tech landscape, we couldn’t miss the chance to gather 1,200 founders, CEOs, entrepreneurs, investors, and anyone shaping the future of AI for a deep dive into what’s next. On June 5 in Zellerbach Hall at UC Berkeley, […]