Hundreds of public figures and tech notables call for action to address 'risk of extinction from AI'

TechCrunch Newsletter

By Christine Hall Tuesday, May 30, 2023

Today, a lot of AI enthusiasts are now warning us about too much of a good thing. We also found out what happens when a partnership goes wrong and Alexa finds a new voice. If you were able to take the long weekend, I hope you're ready for all this news because this is your Daily Crunch for Monday.  — Christine The top story of the day should come as no surprise to you Daily Crunchers — it's about AI. Only this time hundreds of scientists, academics, tech CEOs and public figures, among them OpenAI CEO Sam Altman, have added their names to a statement urging global attention on existential AI risk. Remember the open letter signed by Big Tech bigwigs, like Elon Musk, that made the rounds in March? It's kind of like that, but brings up "extinction." You better read more. As we reported, "first they worked in tandem, now they're in an e-bike patent suit." We're talking about a deal that went sour between eBikeLabs and Cowboy. Get the scoop. Meanwhile, BlackRock has once again fiddled with Byju's valuation. Find out how far it’s fallen. Look out below: Serve Robotics has a sweet new deal to deliver food for Uber Eats and will deploy up to 2,000 sidewalk delivery bots to do so. See what these cuties look like. Read and eat: Amazon is now experimenting with dine-in payments in India. Read more. I need a hero: "More bang for your buck" is the approach Carrum Health is taking with its value-based cancer care offering. It's now got $45 million to do more. Find out how the company plans to use it. If your computer's background could talk: Well, maybe it can't talk, but it can show you pretty pictures and sounds of nature. Portal's Mac app helps users do just that. See what delights Portal has in store for us. A slow leak: A database containing the details of almost half a million RaidForums users leaked online. This comes a year after the U.S. Department of Justice seized the notorious cybercrime forum. Read more. Image Credits: Olemedia / Getty Images (Image has been modified)

Sometimes you just can't help but go down a rabbit hole of whatever the internet puts in front of you. Well, if that's the way you roll, Web Roulette has an addictive, "swipeable" web browser for you that incorporates your favorite websites and the ability to shake it up if you want to be surprised. Find out more. Your favorite code-building platform has a new product: UpCodes took in some new funding to help it launch a new AI-based tool to make navigating the world of building codes even more streamlined. Read more about its catchy name. The pandemic not only stretched the abilities of healthcare providers, but it also showed us what happens when everyone is trying to buy the same box of rubber gloves and masks. Hoping to not have that pattern repeated, at least for dental practices, companies like Wellplaece have created a marketplace that enables practices to discover products and compare prices. Get the scoop. Say "what" again: Sorry, folks, Amazon's Alexa will reportedly no longer respond in a celebrity voice. Find out why. A picture's worth a thousand words: Qflow takes in $9.1 million for a unique way to track construction receipts and de-carbonize projects. Learn more. What do you meme?: It was only a matter of time before someone incorporated memes into education. Antimatter closed on a $2 million round of funding to help students meme about topics they master. Shitposting at its finest. Itsy bitsy EV: Arcimoto has had an interesting year so far, but now it's getting down to business with a teeny-tiny EV. See what it looks like. Game on…in the car?: I'm not sure what to think of Tesla's latest in-dash feature or the fact that the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration gave its blessing. Read more. Shop till you drop: Instacart's new feature lets you save a shopper as your favorite so they can be the first alerted of future orders. Find out how to do that. Now here's some more: HackCapital launches investment platform competitor to Odin, Vauban Pluton Biosciences takes its carbon-fixing microbes to market with a fresh $16.6M Taking the pulse on the Northeast seed market with Techstars' Kerty Levy A popular Android app began secretly spying on its users months after it was listed on Google Play Image Credits: Getty Images

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Three climate technologies every investor should have in their portfolio Now that we’ll likely blow past the 1.5 degree Celsius target that would have slowed down our worsening climate crisis, investors and entrepreneurs need to focus on scalable solutions. With that in mind, climate reporter Tim De Chant examined three technologies “that deserve a closer look": Enhanced rock weathering Fusion Grid management software “Fusion may not pan out, but if it does, the winners could make Exxon look small by comparison,” he writes. Three more from the TC+ team: Welcome to the trillion-dollar club, Nvidia Klarna's Q1 results show that the fintech unicorn's turnaround is in full swing Solana's co-founder sees potential for its blockchain to be the 'Apple of crypto' TechCrunch+ is our membership program that helps founders and startup teams get ahead of the pack. You can sign up here. Use code "DC" for a 15% discount on an annual subscription. Read More Image Credits: ArtisticPhoto / Shutterstock

TechCrunch (virtually) in Atlanta On June 7, TechCrunch will host City Spotlight: Atlanta. We have a slate of amazing programming planned, including a fireside chat with Ryan Glover, the co-founder of the fintech Greenwood, as well as a panel that examines the venture ecosystem within the Atlanta region and identifies the best ways to raise and meet with local venture capitalists. But that's not all. If you are an early-stage Atlanta-based founder, apply to pitch to our panel of guest investors/judges for our live pitching competition; the winner gets a free booth at TechCrunch Disrupt this year to exhibit their company in our startup alley. Register now! Read More Image Credits: Bryce Durbin

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Reliance Industries launches low-priced fashion marketplace for Indian shoppers

TechCrunch Newsletter

By Christine Hall Friday, May 26, 2023

Today, India's richest man is investing in low-cost fashion, ChatGPT becomes available in even more countries, and Sam Altman gets chatty. Meanwhile, we want you South American startups! Apply to Startup Battlefield 200. There will not be a Monday newsletter due to the Memorial Day holiday in the U.S. Now, let's dig into your Daily Crunch for Friday.  — Christine First up, Reliance Industries, which is Ajio's retail fashion arm in India, has a new endeavor called Ajio Street, which offers clothing and accessories starting as low as 199 Indian rupees, or $2.40. Here's where it gets interesting: Mukesh Ambani, known as India's richest man, runs Reliance. Apparently, "deploying an affordability-led approach to achieve market dominance has been a longstanding strategy" for Reliance." Read more. Also, find out why Reliance is being referred to as India's eventual e-commerce kingpin. Next, Sam Altman has his hands in everything. Yesterday we brought you news that OpenAI's ChatGPT was available in 11 countries. Now that's jumped to over 30. Find out where else. Also, OpenAI is taking the democratic approach to deciding what rules AI systems should follow. Read more about what that involves. And finally, Altman himself shares his optimistic view of our AI future. Rounding out the top three stories of the day is Info Edge, which decided to write off its entire investment in a manufacturing technology startup in India. Learn about who that is. Not ashamed: Instead of trying to mask its Chinese identity, low-code application developer Seafile is taking the symbiotic relationship approach by forming a German joint venture. Get the scoop. Data decisions: Meta's closing out a busy week with some assurances to U.K. antitrust regulators that it will limit how it uses ad data to boost Facebook Marketplace. Read more on how it plans to do that. Road trippin': Ford and Tesla are now BFFs. Elon Musk did a Twitter Spaces with Ford CEO Jim Farley, where Musk referenced that Tesla might "open source more code" to other automakers. Meanwhile, the two companies reached an agreement that gives electric-driving Ford owners access to over 12,000 Superchargers across the U.S. and Canada. Now here's some more mobility moments: Applied Intuition to buy autonomous trucking SPAC Embark for $71M Following successful mission, Virgin Galactic targeting June for first commercial spaceflight Electric truck maker Nikola at risk of being delisted from Nasdaq Image Credits: Brais Seara / Getty Images

Profitability over growth: 5 investors explain their mantra for South Korean startups South Korea saw a unicorn boom in recent years, but it’s still feeling the impacts of a global market correction. “Venture funding in Asia in the first quarter of 2023 declined 33% from Q4 2023 and 57% from Q1 2022,” reports Kate Park, who surveyed five investors to get their predictions for 2023 and find out how they’re advising their portfolio companies: Han Kim, general partner, Altos Ventures Tim Chae, managing partner, 500 Global JP Lee, CEO and managing partner, SoftBank Ventures Asia Yeemin Chung, managing director, BRV Capital Management Eunse Lee, founder and managing partner, 541 Ventures Three more from the TC+ team: Pitch Deck Teardown: Faye's $10M Series A deck AI might be the least of edtech's worries Skyflow expands its regional footprint as it adds generative AI support to its data privacy tooling TechCrunch+ is our membership program that helps founders and startup teams get ahead of the pack. You can sign up here. Use code "DC" for a 15% discount on an annual subscription. Read More Image Credits: Bryce Durbin / TechCrunch

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Calling all early-stage startups! Apply to join the Startup Battlefield 200 cohort at TechCrunch Disrupt 2023. All finalists get expert training, VC networking, a booth at Disrupt, and the chance to compete for $100,000 in equity-free funds. Applications close May 31. Apply today! Read More

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Newest Jobs from Crunchboard Sr. Systems Analyst - VMWare/Windows at El Dorado County (Placerville, CA, USA) Manager of Application Deployment at Orrick, Herrington & Sutcliffe LLP (Wheeling, WV, USA) Director of Engineering & Product at Everyday Speech (USA) Executive Director of Technology Services (IT) at Walla Walla Community College (Walla Walla, WA, USA) Lead Data Engineer at Brivo Systems LLC (Bethesda, MD, USA) See more jobs on CrunchBoard Post your tech jobs and reach millions of TechCrunch readers for only $200 per month.

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OpenAI rolls out ChatGPT app in 11 countries, says 'more to come soon’

TechCrunch Newsletter

By Christine Hall Thursday, May 25, 2023

To get a roundup of TechCrunch's biggest and most important stories delivered to your inbox every day at 3 p.m. PDT, subscribe here. If you can't get enough of ChatGPT, today is your lucky day. We also have a look at a new credit card that acts like a pawnshop and a banking executive departure. This is your Daily Crunch for Thursday. — Christine Boy, that was quick. After unveiling its mobile app for iOS in the U.S., OpenAI announced that it is now available in 11 more countries. We also learned that the new app was something that people were excited about: App downloads soared to over half a million in its first six days since launch. Our audience is pretty savvy when it comes to ChatGPT, but for those of you still scratching your head, we've got everything you need to know about the AI-powered chatbot. Now let's visit with a Stanford grad who has found a unique approach to extending credit by taking on pawnshops. Dig into the Q&A with Pesto’s founder James Savoldelli. Meanwhile, security researchers say the government of Azerbaijan used spyware to target many people in Armenia in what was reported to be "the first public cases where commercial spyware was used in the context of a war." Read more about who was targeted. Got breast milk?: BBy raised a small bit of capital as it "goes commercial" with its laser device that turns breast milk into powder. Read more. It's now "Tako" Thursday: Speaking of ChatGPT, TikTok is testing an in-app AI chatbot called "Tako" that will provide information on a particular video. Start asking questions. Know when to say when: "Anne Boden nearly lost a grip on Starling Bank years ago when the neobank was in the middle of a coup effort led by its CTO, but now it looks like Boden is doing the walking away." Find out more.  Losing the crown: The Internet and Mobile Association of India is bucking the trend of naming a Big Tech executive as its chairman…by not doing that. Read about who they appointed. Here’s a few more: Nymbus lands $70M to help banks digitally transform WhatsApp is working on introducing usernames to the app Google Play Games for PC is now rolling out to Europe and New Zealand Arc browser's new tool lets you remove some elements from a website Kapital gets more of its own capital to help LatAm businesses monitor cash flow Image Credits: sompong_tom / Getty Images

Guess who's back? Back again. MoviePass is back with a new style and a new attitude: "After years of rocky history, the company promised to return to the straight and narrow." Read more about the movie theater subscription company's new approach. And it looks like Terraform founder Do Kwon is going to spend more time in jail. A Montenegro court reportedly overturned Kwon's bail. Find out what happens now. "CosmicEnergy" has been discovered. No, it's not the name of a new band; it's new industrial control system malware discovered by security researchers. Read more about which country it's linked to. The world according to Sam Altman: OpenAI has a new grant program, while our crypto newsletter discusses Altman's Worldcoin crypto project. Still searching: Google users can easily get up to speed on a new or complicated topic with this update to Search. Let's give them something to talk about: Korean giants Kakao and Naver are backing NFT avatar enabler GoodGang, which is working on a way to make NFTs talk. Get the scoop. Gotta get that code: Checkmate brought in additional venture capital for its consumer savings platform. Read about which celebrity investors are backing it. Another handful: Generation Prime launches to make fertility services more accessible in Asia YouTube Stories are shutting down June 26 as company focuses on Shorts Vinfast recalls EVs sent to U.S. over a software glitch Twitter technical issues crash Ron DeSantis’s 2024 campaign announcement Image Credits: MoviePass

KPMG receives 2023 Red Hat Innovator of the Year Award Sponsored by KPMG US KPMG created an award-winning modern systems integration platform to help states improve outcomes for their citizens. We can help your organization navigate complex hybrid, multicloud environments so you can remain competitive, pursue change and become future-ready. Learn More

TechCrunch (virtually) in Atlanta On June 7, TechCrunch will host City Spotlight: Atlanta. We have a slate of amazing programming planned, including a fireside chat with Ryan Glover, the co-founder of the fintech Greenwood, as well as a panel that examines the venture ecosystem within the Atlanta region and identifies the best ways to raise and meet with local venture capitalists. But that's not all. If you are an early-stage Atlanta-based founder, apply to pitch to our panel of guest investors/judges for our live pitching competition; the winner gets a free booth at TechCrunch Disrupt this year to exhibit their company in our startup alley. Register here. Read More Image Credits: Bryce Durbin

Why aren't venture capitalists flocking to fund cybersecurity startups? The accelerated shift to digital has been great for mature cybersecurity companies: Palo Alto Networks, Scaler and CrowdStrike are each showing strong revenue multiples. But there doesn’t appear to be a halo effect for venture-backed cybersecurity startups. According to Crunchbase, funding for startups in this sector fell 58% in Q1 2023 compared to Q1 2022. “Given that valuations are down across the board, today's cybersecurity equity prices have been dramatically depressed, even if they remain more expensive than other tech subcategories,” writes Alex Wilhelm. Four more from the TC+ team: Profitability over growth: 5 investors explain their mantra for South Korean startups Starling's results are more proof that high interest rates could be a boon for fintech On the internet, nobody knows you're a bot Take a look at Wolf's first cohort of Bitcoin-driven startups TechCrunch+ is our membership program that helps founders and startup teams get ahead of the pack. You can sign up here. Use code "DC" for a 15% discount on an annual subscription. Read More Image Credits: RobertAx / Getty Images

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Newest Jobs from Crunchboard Manager of Application Deployment at Orrick, Herrington & Sutcliffe LLP (Wheeling, WV, USA) Director of Engineering & Product at Everyday Speech (USA) Executive Director of Technology Services (IT) at Walla Walla Community College (Walla Walla, WA, USA) Lead Data Engineer at Brivo Systems LLC (Bethesda, MD, USA) Lead Information Security Engineer at Brivo (Bethesda, MD, USA) See more jobs on CrunchBoard Post your tech jobs and reach millions of TechCrunch readers for only $200 per month.

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