Sunday, May 19, 2024

Does AI spell doom for the open web?

Sunday, May 19, 2024

Image Credits: Google

OpenAI and Google both made big announcements this week — announcements that could have big implications for our relationship with technology, and for the web as a whole.

On Monday, OpenAI unveiled its latest model, GPT-4o. The o stands for "omni," referring to its ability to process voice, text, and images. The company claimed GPT-4o will even be able to detect emotion in someone's voice and respond with emotion of its own, prompting The New York Times' Kevin Roose to suggest that the company's chatbot is becoming like a virtual assistant in the science-fiction movie "Her." (Defector's Albert Burneko did not agree.)

Then on Tuesday, Google kicked off its I/O developer conference with a barrage of AI-related announcements. Most notably, it's now rolling out AI Overviews into its search results for all users. This could become a huge deal for any publication or business on the web — Platformer's Casey Newton put it most dramatically, suggesting "the web as we know it is entering a period of managed decline."

Read on to see what TechCrunch has been covering this weekend.

Weekend news and opinion

Image Credits: Getty Images / Frederic Stevens

Can Melinda French Gates fix tech's "brilliant jerk" culture?: Melinda French Gates resigned this week from the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation, which she'd run with her ex-husband Bill Gates. Moving forward, she said she'll be spending billions on her "lifelong work on behalf of women and families." Julie Bort is hoping she works to combat tech's "bro culture" — for example, with an employee bill of rights. Read more

CAA is helping talent manage their AI likeness: As we saw in the recent writers' and actors' strikes, Hollywood is wrestling with how to react to the promise and threat of AI. Lauren Forristal looks at the CAA's initiative to create a virtual storage system where talent (e.g., actors, athletes, comedians, directors, musicians, etc.) can store digital assets that can be used to create an AI likeness. Read more

Not all self-driving startups need roads: Rebecca Bellan profiles Overland AI and Potential, two startups that are taking self-driving technology off-road. This environment presents additional challenges, such as limited training data and a lack of detailed maps. But it also presents big opportunities — Overland AI recently raised $10 million led by Point72 Ventures, while Potential raised $2 million CAD led by Brightspark Ventures. Read more

What else we're reading

Image Credits: Getty Images / PM Images

Fortune's Jessica Mathews offers a detailed breakdown of how self-driving company Cruise unraveled after one of its vehicles struck a woman in October 2023, and how Cruise's owner General Motors has been trying to save the company. It sounds like GM is now laying the groundwork for a relaunch. Read more

Also, Apple recently told its partners that it wants to change the way it pays Hollywood talent. According to Bloomberg, its proposed performance-based system would assign points based on the number of people who subscribe to Apple TV+ to watch a given show, the time spent viewing, and the program's cost relative to its viewership. Netflix and Amazon are also developing their own plans for performance-based compensation. Read more

Before you go

Amanda Silberling and I have taken over as hosts of the TechCrunch Minute. If you're interested in quick video summaries of the day's biggest tech news, check it out!