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Industry

AI funding rounds, acquisitions, partnerships and leadership changes, plus regulation, copyright lawsuits and big compute deals.

17 stories in the last 7 days

  1. Reach 39

    The U.S. government is going all-in on AI without a plan

    The U.S. Government Accountability Office (GAO) just warned that federal agencies are rapidly adopting AI across hundreds of use cases without unified safety and procurement standards. While agencies already use AI in over 200 operations, oversight officials found that regulatory guidelines are years behind schedule. Why it matters: Rushing deployment without shared rules leaves sensitive tools like facial recognition wide open to security gaps and civil liberties abuses.

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    FTC weighs antitrust probe into Microsoft's OpenAI deal

    The US Federal Trade Commission is reportedly considering an antitrust investigation into Microsoft's multi-billion-dollar investment in OpenAI. Microsoft has poured over $10 billion into the AI startup, though it insists it owns no actual equity and only holds profit share rights. Following a similar move by the UK's CMA, regulators are increasingly scrutinizing the alliance.

  3. Reach 39

    Microsoft teams up with America's largest labor union on AI

    Microsoft just struck a first-of-its-kind alliance with the AFL-CIO to bring workers' voices into AI development. The deal includes worker AI training sessions, direct feedback loops between labor leaders and engineers, and a neutrality pact for future unionizing. Why it matters: With 70% of workers fearing displacement, it is a rare collaborative effort to shape AI tools around employees instead of replacing them.

  4. Reach 43

    Your fast-food ‘AI’ drive-thru is actually humans in disguise

    Presto Automation pitched its AI drive-thru tech to major fast-food chains like Del Taco and Carl's Jr. as a labor-saving miracle, but SEC filings just revealed a wild reality: over 70% of orders are actually completed by human workers in the Philippines. The SEC has launched an investigation into the startup. Why it matters: It exposes an ongoing trend of companies rebranding low-cost offshore contractor work as magical artificial intelligence.

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    Europe agrees on world's first comprehensive AI Act

    EU negotiators just clinched a provisional deal on the Artificial Intelligence Act, setting the world's first comprehensive rules for AI. The legislation bans high-risk applications like social scoring and workplace emotion recognition, sets transparency guardrails for powerful foundation models, and introduces fines up to 7% of global annual turnover.

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    Google faked its most impressive Gemini demo

    Google just got caught exaggerating the coolest part of its Gemini launch. The viral hands-on video showing real-time, snappy multimodal interaction was actually stitched together using still image frames and hidden text prompts. Why it matters: Google needs a win against OpenAI, but staging demos only poisons trust in its real capabilities.

  7. Reach 40

    AMD takes on Nvidia with MI300 AI chips

    AMD just launched its Instinct MI300X accelerator and MI300A APU to challenge Nvidia’s dominance in large language model training and inference. The company claims the MI300X beats Nvidia’s H100 by 1.4x in Llama 2 inference, with Microsoft and Meta already lining up to deploy the hardware in cloud and data centers.

  8. Reach 41

    Sam Altman named TIME’s 2023 CEO of the year

    Sam Altman just won TIME’s 2023 CEO of the Year after surviving a wild boardroom coup that nearly tore OpenAI apart. Just a year after launching ChatGPT, Altman transformed OpenAI into an $80 billion juggernaut and the face of the AI boom. Why it matters: The reinstatement cements Altman's unchecked influence over the frontier AI race, even as lingering questions remain about safety and internal governance.

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    Elon Musk's xAI files to raise $1B in fresh equity

    Elon Musk's AI startup, xAI, just filed with the SEC to raise up to $1 billion in an equity offering, having already locked in $134.6 million from four investors. The company recently rolled out its cheeky chatbot Grok, and the massive cash infusion aims to secure the compute power needed to take on OpenAI.

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    McDonald's teams up with Google Cloud to bring AI to thousands of stores

    McDonald's just announced a multi-year global partnership with Google Cloud to deploy edge computing and generative AI across thousands of restaurants worldwide. The chain will install Google Distributed Cloud hardware and software locally to power its mobile app and self-service kiosks. Why it matters: running AI right on-site helps keep kitchen and ordering systems fast and resilient without relying purely on remote servers.

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    Mozilla wants to save AI like it saved the web

    Mozilla just released its State of Mozilla report, outlining a major push to steer AI in an open, human-centered direction just as it did with Firefox for the early web. The foundation is assembling a coalition of open-source developers and startups to counter Big Tech control. Why it matters: Mozilla wants to ensure the future internet stays decentralized.

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    OpenAI pushes GPT Store rollout to 2024

    OpenAI just delayed the launch of its GPT Store until next year after a chaotic couple of weeks dealing with Sam Altman's ouster and reinstatement. The marketplace will allow users to share and monetize custom chatbots, but the company says unexpected events kept it busy. In the meantime, OpenAI has rolled out a few usability updates to the custom GPT builder.

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    Chinese court grants copyright to AI-generated images

    A Chinese court just ruled that AI-generated images are entitled to copyright protection if they reflect human originality and creative input. The Beijing Internet Court stated that setting prompts, tuning parameters, and curating outputs is fundamentally creating with tools—marking a sharp contrast with Western rulings that reject AI copyrights.

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    Stability AI isn't looking for a buyer, CEO says

    Stability AI CEO Emad Mostaque just pushed back against acquisition rumors, stating the company has never reached out to anyone to be acquired. Mostaque highlighted that the startup maintains simple governance, works with multiple strategic partners with more announcements ahead, and gave shoutouts to Jasper and Cohere.

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    Jensen Huang puts AGI on a five-year clock

    Nvidia CEO Jensen Huang just predicted that artificial general intelligence could arrive within the next five years. Speaking at the DealBook Summit, Huang defined AGI as AI that can match normal human intelligence on standard tests, revealing that Nvidia's H-100 chips already require AI to design, though models still struggle with multi-step reasoning.

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    Stability AI explores a sale as investors push for CEO ouster

    Stability AI is reportedly shopping itself to buyers as pressure mounts from major investors. Coatue Management recently demanded CEO Emad Mostaque step down, pointing to burn rates around $8M a month against minimal revenue. The startup has approached firms like Cohere and Jasper, though company spokespeople deny an active sale process.

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    Sam Altman is officially back as OpenAI CEO

    Sam Altman just officially returned as CEO of OpenAI alongside Greg Brockman and Mira Murati, closing out days of unprecedented corporate turmoil. The company established a new initial board chaired by Bret Taylor, with Larry Summers joining and Microsoft securing a non-voting observer seat. Why it matters: OpenAI dodged an existential collapse, but now must overhaul its fragile governance structure.

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    How Amazon uses AI to speed up holiday deliveries

    Amazon just revealed how AI powers its holiday shopping operations behind the scenes. The retailer relies on deep learning to forecast demand for 400 million products daily, coordinates a fleet of 750,000 mobile robots alongside vision-enabled sorting arms, and runs over 20 machine learning models to dynamically optimize last-mile routes.

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    Pentagon fast-tracks thousands of autonomous drones as lethal AI looms

    The Pentagon is pushing to field thousands of cheap, AI-enabled autonomous drones by 2026 under its Replicator initiative to counter China. While officials maintain humans will stay in the loop, experts warn rapid machine speeds mean fully autonomous lethal weapons are quickly becoming an inevitable reality.

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    18 countries ink pact to make AI 'secure by design'

    The US, Britain, and 16 other nations just unveiled a 20-page international agreement urging tech companies to build AI that is 'secure by design.' The non-binding guidelines call for vetting software vendors, monitoring abuse, and running security tests before release—a first step toward prioritizing defense over speed to market.