Webdesk

Alongside bolstering its AI research talent pool, Meta seems to be keen to flesh out its consumer-facing AI features. The company is in discussions to acquire a voice-cloning startup called Play AI, Bloomberg reported, citing anonymous sources. The tech giant aims to buy the startup’s tech and bring on board some of its staff, the … Read more

Crossing Minds, a startup that provides AI recommendation systems to e-commerce businesses, said on Thursday that its team is joining OpenAI. The startup was backed by Index Ventures, Shopify, Plug and Play, and Radical Ventures, and had raised more than $13.5 million across multiple rounds, according to Crunchbase. Crossing Minds largely worked with e-commerce companies … Read more

A German data protection official has reported Chinese AI app DeepSeek to Apple and Google, saying the app transfers users’ information to China illegally. Meike Kamp, Berlin’s commissioner for data protection and freedom of information, told the companies that DeepSeek did not provide “convincing evidence” that users’ data was protected as required by EU laws. … Read more

The Danish government is working to change copyright law to give its citizens the right to their own body, facial features, and voice. The landmark law is designed to strengthen protections against the creation and dissemination of deepfakes, reports The Guardian. Denmark’s department of culture still needs to submit a proposal to amend current law, … Read more

This week, two major AI companies scored early wins in court, with federal judges siding with Meta and Anthropic in separate lawsuits over how their models were trained on copyrighted material. The decisions represent the first real legal validation of AI companies’ argument that training models on books, images, and other creative works can be … Read more

Facebook is asking users for access to their phone’s camera roll to automatically suggest AI-edited versions of their photos — including ones that haven’t been uploaded to Facebook yet. The feature is being suggested to Facebook users when they’re creating a new Story on the social networking app. Here, a screen pops up and asks … Read more

Meta is definitely offering hefty multimillion-dollar pay packages to AI researchers when wooing them to its new superintelligence lab. But no one is really getting a $100 million “signing bonus,” according to a poached researcher and comments from a leaked internal meeting. During a company-wide all-hands meeting on Thursday leaked to The Verge, some of … Read more

Silicon Valley has opined on the promise of generative AI to forge new career paths and economic opportunities – like the newly coveted solo unicorn startup. Banks and analysts have touted AI’s potential to boost GDP. But those gains are unlikely to be distributed equally in the face of what many expect to be widespread … Read more

A federal proposal that would ban states and local governments from regulating AI for 10 years could soon be signed into law, as Sen. Ted Cruz (R-TX) and other lawmakers work to secure its inclusion into a GOP megabill ahead of a key July 4 deadline.  Those in favor – including OpenAI’s Sam Altman, Anduril’s … Read more

For those of you wondering if AI agents can truly replace human workers, do yourself a favor and read the blog post that documents Anthropic’s “Project Vend.” Researchers at Anthropic and AI safety company Andon Labs put an instance of Claude Sonnet 3.7 in charge of an office vending machine, with a mission to make … Read more