AI News & Artificial Intelligence | TechCrunch

Apple iOS 18.2 public beta arrives with new AI features, but some remain waitlisted

Sarah Perez — Wed, 06 Nov 2024 21:38:43 +0000

Apple has released the AI-powered version of its latest mobile operating system, iOS 18.2, to its public beta users. The update includes new features like an AI emoji generator app called Genmoji, an Image Playground AI image app, ChatGPT integration with Siri, and visual search using the iPhone 16 cameras, among other things. Previously, these […]

The other election night winner: Perplexity

Maxwell Zeff — Wed, 06 Nov 2024 19:54:10 +0000

On Tuesday, two AI startups tried convincing the world their AI chatbots were good enough to be an accurate, real-time source of information during a high-stakes presidential election: xAI and Perplexity. Elon Musk’s Grok failed almost instantly, offering wrong answers about races’ outcomes before the polls had even closed. On the other hand, Perplexity offered […]

OpenAI acquired Chat.com

Kyle Wiggers — Wed, 06 Nov 2024 19:11:11 +0000

OpenAI bought Chat.com, adding to its collection of high-profile domain names. As of this morning, Chat.com now redirects to OpenAI’s AI-powered chatbot, ChatGPT. An OpenAI spokesperson confirmed the acquisition via email. Chat.com is one of the older domains on the web, having been registered in September 1996. Last year, it was reported that HubSpot co-founder […]

What Trump’s win might mean for Elon Musk

Rebecca Bellan, Aria Alamalhodaei — Wed, 06 Nov 2024 18:51:03 +0000

Elon Musk — the billionaire CEO of Tesla, SpaceX, and xAI, and the owner of The Boring Company, Neuralink, and X — took a sharp swing to the right this election to support President-elect Donald Trump, using his vast wealth, influence, and megaphone on X to influence the outcome of the election. Musk’s support came […]

This Week in AI: It’s shockingly easy to make a Kamala Harris deepfake

Kyle Wiggers — Wed, 06 Nov 2024 18:05:00 +0000

Hiya, folks, welcome to TechCrunch’s regular AI newsletter. If you want this in your inbox every Wednesday, sign up here. It was shockingly easy to create a convincing Kamala Harris audio deepfake on Election Day. It cost me $5 and took less than two minutes, illustrating how cheap, ubiquitous generative AI has opened the floodgates to […]

What Trump’s victory could mean for AI regulation

Kyle Wiggers — Wed, 06 Nov 2024 17:39:22 +0000

A grueling election cycle has come to a close. Donald Trump will be the 47th president of the U.S., and, with Republicans in control of the Senate — and possibly the House — his allies are poised to bring sea change to the highest levels of government. The effects will be acutely felt in the […]

It’s Election Day, and all the AIs — but one — are acting responsibly

Kyle Wiggers — Wed, 06 Nov 2024 00:08:16 +0000

TechCrunch found that X's AI chatbot produced incorrect results about the U.S. presidential election, even as votes were still being cast.

Nvidia just became the world’s largest company amid AI boom

Brian Heater — Tue, 05 Nov 2024 23:18:10 +0000

Nvidia on Tuesday exceeded Apple’s market capitalization to become the world’s largest company, on the strength of a global AI push. As Bloomberg notes, the chipmaker has experienced an astronomical 850% growth since the tail end of 2022. Nvidia was valued at $3.43 trillion at the close of market, topping Apple’s $3.38 trillion. This isn’t […]

As generative AI gets better, what will happen to artists?

Amanda Silberling — Tue, 05 Nov 2024 20:22:00 +0000

Suno CEO Mikey Shulman found himself in an unlikely place for the founder of a generative AI music company: a songwriting class at Berklee College of Music. “It sounds like walking into the lion’s den,” Shulman said onstage at TechCrunch Disrupt 2024. “The approach of just walking in there and saying, ‘don’t worry, there’s no […]

Google is opening an AI hub in oil-rich Saudi Arabia

Tim De Chant — Tue, 05 Nov 2024 19:55:03 +0000

The new AI hub will support research into Arab language AI models and “Saudi-specific AI applications.”

Can Pictionary and Minecraft test AI models’ ingenuity?

Kyle Wiggers — Tue, 05 Nov 2024 14:30:00 +0000

Most AI benchmarks don’t tell us much. They ask questions that can be solved with rote memorization, or cover topics that aren’t relevant to the majority of users. So some AI enthusiasts are turning to games as a way to test AIs’ problem-solving skills. Paul Calcraft, a freelance AI developer, has built an app where […]

AI safety advocates tell founders to slow down

Amanda Silberling — Tue, 05 Nov 2024 14:15:00 +0000

“Move cautiously and red-team things” is sadly not as catchy as “move fast and break things.” But three AI safety advocates made it clear to startup founders that going too fast can lead to ethical issues in the long run. “We are at an inflection point where there are tons of resources being moved into […]

Amazon begins delivering select products via drone in Phoenix

Kyle Wiggers — Tue, 05 Nov 2024 14:01:03 +0000

A few months after ending its drone-based delivery program, Prime Air, in California, Amazon says that it’s begun making deliveries to select customers via drone in Phoenix, Arizona. Starting today, Amazon customers in the West Valley Phoenix Metro Area have access to a drone-deliverable selection from Amazon’s catalog, including household, beauty, office, health, and tech […]

Coatue is raising $1B for AI bets

Marina Temkin — Tue, 05 Nov 2024 00:52:54 +0000

Coatue Management, a hedge fund that invested heavily in tech startups during the pandemic-infused boom, is raising $1 billion to back AI-focused companies, Bloomberg reported on Monday. The funding, which will top up the firm’s flagship fund, will be raised primarily from institutional investors. However, high-net-worth individuals with accounts at the brokerage Raymond James & […]

Meta’s former hardware lead for Orion is joining OpenAI

Maxwell Zeff — Tue, 05 Nov 2024 00:30:47 +0000

The former head of Meta’s augmented reality glasses efforts announced on Monday she is joining OpenAI to lead robotics and consumer hardware, according to a post on LinkedIn. OpenAI confirmed to TechCrunch that Caitlin Kalinowski will be joining the startup. Kalinowski is a hardware executive who began leading Meta’s AR glasses team in March 2022. […]

Apple users can soon upgrade to ChatGPT Plus within the Settings app

Maxwell Zeff — Mon, 04 Nov 2024 22:18:02 +0000

Apple products are getting an integration with OpenAI’s ChatGPT in December when iOS 18.2 rolls out, which should supercharge Siri and a few other features with smarter AI. On Monday, iOS 18.2 beta testers got a taste of how OpenAI could profit off of its Apple partnership. Apple is including an option to upgrade to […]

Perplexity CEO offers AI company’s services to replace striking NYT staff

Devin Coldewey — Mon, 04 Nov 2024 21:43:30 +0000

The CEO of AI search company Perplexity, Aravind Srinivas, has offered to cross picket lines and provide services to mitigate the effect of a strike by New York Times tech workers. The NYT Tech Guild announced its strike Monday, after setting November 4 as its deadline months earlier. The workers represented provide software support and […]

Amazon brings generative AI-powered recaps to Prime Video

Lauren Forristal — Mon, 04 Nov 2024 19:07:09 +0000

Instead of scouring the internet for a summary of a TV show, which often risks unintentionally revealing major plot points, Prime Video’s latest feature aims to save viewers from encountering any spoilers. Amazon announced on Monday the launch of “X-Ray Recaps,” a generative AI-powered feature that creates concise summaries of entire seasons, single episodes, and […]

Regulators deliver successive blows to Amazon and Meta’s nuclear power ambitions

Tim De Chant — Mon, 04 Nov 2024 19:00:21 +0000

A series of recent rulings from regulators dashed the Big Tech companies' hopes of finding a quick fix for their electricity needs.

Anthropic hikes the price of its Haiku model

Kyle Wiggers — Mon, 04 Nov 2024 18:24:08 +0000

Anthropic’s newest AI model has arrived. But it’s pricier than the last generation, and unlike Anthropic’s other models, it can’t analyze images just yet. Claude 3.5 Haiku, which Anthropic announced last month, matches or bests the performance of Anthropic’s flagship model, Claude 3 Opus, on specific benchmarks. Available through Anthropic’s API and a number of […]