Silicon Valley leaders including White House AI & Crypto Czar David Sacks and OpenAI Chief Strategy Officer Jason Kwon caused a stir online this week for their comments about groups promoting AI safety. In separate instances, they alleged that certain advocates of AI safety are not as virtuous as they appear, and are either acting in the interest of themselves …
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Your AI tools run on fracked gas and bulldozed Texas land | TechCrunch
The AI era is giving fracking a second act, a surprising twist for an industry that, even during its early 2010s boom years, was blamed by climate advocates for poisoned water tables, man-made earthquakes, and the stubborn persistence of fossil fuels. AI companies are building massive data centers near major gas-production sites, often generating their own power by tapping directly …
Read More »Should AI do everything? OpenAI thinks so | TechCrunch
Silicon Valley’s rule? It’s not cool to be cautious. As OpenAI removes guardrails and VCs criticize companies like Anthropic for supporting AI safety regulations, it’s becoming clearer who the industry thinks should shape AI development. On this episode of Equity, Kirsten Korosec, Anthony Ha, and Max Zeff discuss how the line between innovation and responsibility is getting blurrier, plus what …
Read More »ChatGPT’s mobile app is seeing slowing download growth and daily use, analysis shows | TechCrunch
ChatGPT’s mobile app growth may have hit its peak, according to a new analysis of download trends and daily active users provided by the third-party app intelligence Apptopia. Its estimates indicate that new user growth, measured by percentage changes in new global downloads, slowed after April. In addition, global daily active user growth has stopped and plateaued in more recent …
Read More »ChatGPT: Everything you need to know about the AI chatbot
ChatGPT, OpenAI’s text-generating AI chatbot, has taken the world by storm since its launch in November 2022. What started as a tool to supercharge productivity through writing essays and code with short text prompts has evolved into a behemoth with 300 million weekly active users. 2024 was a big year for OpenAI, from its partnership with Apple for its generative …
Read More »Can AI Avoid the Enshittification Trap?
I recently vacationed in Italy. As one does these days, I ran my itinerary past GPT-5 for sightseeing suggestions and restaurant recommendations. The bot reported that the top choice for dinner near our hotel in Rome was a short walk down Via Margutta. It turned out to be one of the best meals I can remember. When I got home, …
Read More »OpenAI CEO Sam Altman warns of AI investment bubble despite industry’s explosive growth
OpenAI CEO Sam Altman has warned that the artificial intelligence market may be entering a bubble, likening the current frenzy around AI to the dot-com boom of the late 1990s. In comments reported by The Verge on Friday, Altman said, “Are we in a phase where investors as a whole are overexcited about AI? My opinion is yes. Is AI …
Read More »OpenAI pauses Sora video generations of Martin Luther King Jr. | TechCrunch
OpenAI announced Thursday it paused the ability for users to generate videos resembling the late civil rights activist Martin Luther King Jr. using its AI video model, Sora. The company says it’s adding this safeguard at the request of Dr. King’s estate after some Sora users generated “disrespectful depictions” of his image. “While there are strong free speech interests in …
Read More »Nscale inks massive AI infrastructure deal with Microsoft | TechCrunch
AI hyperscaler startup Nscale has signed a sizable deal with Microsoft to bring Nvidia AI hardware to multiple data centers. The AI cloud provider announced on Wednesday that it signed a deal with Microsoft to bring approximately 200,000 Nvidia GB300 GPUs to three data centers in Europe and one in the U.S. These GPUs will be delivered through Nscale-owned operations …
Read More »Sam Altman says ChatGPT will soon allow erotica for adult users | TechCrunch
OpenAI CEO Sam Altman announced in a post on X Tuesday the company will soon relax some of ChatGPT’s safety restrictions, allowing users to make the chatbot’s responses friendlier or more “human-like,” and for “verified adults” to engage in erotic conversations. “We made ChatGPT pretty restrictive to make sure we were being careful with mental health issues. We realize this …
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