Author: Jason
-
AI agents could birth the first one-person unicorn — but at what societal cost?
Thanks to the advent of cloud computing and distributed digital infrastructure, the one-person micro-enterprise is far from a novel concept. Cheap on-demand compute, remote collaboration, payment processing APIs, social media, and e-commerce marketplaces have all made it easier to “go it alone” as an entrepreneur. But what about scaling that one-person business into something meatier… Read more
-
India pledges fresh billion for startups
India announced a new $1.15 billion Fund of Funds for startups on Saturday while unveiling sweeping regulatory reforms and an ambitious nuclear energy program, as New Delhi seeks to boost tech innovation and clean energy in the world’s fifth-largest economy. Finance Minister Nirmala Sitharaman, presenting the federal budget for 2025-26, said the fund builds on… Read more
-
Autonomous vehicle testing in California dropped 50%. Here’s why.
Tech companies developing self-driving vehicle technology have tapped the brakes on testing on California’s public roads, according to new data from the state’s Department of Motor Vehicles. The agency reported Friday a total of 4.5 million autonomous vehicle test miles were logged in 2024, a 50% drop from the previous year. That figure covers two… Read more
-
OpenAI used this subreddit to test AI persuasion
OpenAI used the subreddit, r/ChangeMyView, to create a test for measuring the persuasive abilities of its AI reasoning models. The company revealed this in a system card — a document outlining how an AI system works — that was released along with its new “reasoning” model, o3-mini, on Friday. Millions of Reddit users are members… Read more
-
Sam Altman: OpenAI has been on the ‘wrong side of history’ concerning open source
To cap off a day of product releases, OpenAI researchers, engineers, and executives, including OpenAI CEO Sam Altman, answered questions in a wide-ranging Reddit AMA on Friday. OpenAI the company finds itself in a bit of a precarious position. It’s battling the perception that it’s ceding ground in the AI race to Chinese companies like… Read more
-
Mistral board member and a16z VC Anjney Midha says DeepSeek won’t stop AI’s GPU hunger
Midha says R1 won’t stop AI from spending billions.It means they will do more with the compute power they can obtain. © 2024 TechCrunch. All rights reserved. For personal use only. Read more
-
MLCommons and Hugging Face team up to release massive speech data set for AI research
MLCommons, a nonprofit AI safety working group, has teamed up with AI dev platform Hugging Face to release one of the world’s largest collections of public domain voice recordings for AI research. The data set, called Unsupervised People’s Speech, contains more than a million hours of audio spanning at least 89 different languages. MLCommons says… Read more
-
‘Hundreds’ of companies are blocking DeepSeek over China data risks
Some companies are blocking DeepSeek over concerns their data will end up with the Chinese government. © 2024 TechCrunch. All rights reserved. For personal use only. Read more
-
Elon Musk is reportedly taking control of the inner workings of US government agencies
People working for, or with, Elon Musk are reportedly taking over the inner workings of multiple government agencies, including the Office of Personnel Management and the Treasury Department. The Washington Post reported Friday that the highest-ranking career official at Treasury is leaving the department after “a clash” with people working for Musk’s so-called Department of… Read more
-
Guo’s Conviction Partners adds Mike Vernal as GP, raises $230M fund
When in mid-2022 Sarah Guo left Greylock to launch her own AI-focused fund, Conviction Partners, she indicated that she was tagging the word “Partners” to the firm’s name because she would eventually bring on other GPs. Now, more than two years later, Guo is being joined by Mike Vernal, who was a partner at Sequoia… Read more