X now formally allows porn

X has changed its rules to let users post adult and graphic content

View this email online in your browser By Rebecca Bellan Monday, June 3, 2024 Welcome to TechCrunch AM! We're starting this morning with some concern over the state of social media — X is now officially OK with porn, TikTok is increasingly being used to spread misinformation, and Trump has joined the fray on the short video app. In other news, we've got insights into the success behind VCs and startups, why AI shares are selling like hotcakes, and a vetoed crypto bill. To work!  — Rebecca TechCrunch Top 3 Image Credits: Wesley Chan 1. The road to VC isn't always smooth: Wesley Chan is popularly known as the co-founder and managing partner of FPV Ventures, and for investing in over 20 unicorns. But few know of his life growing up in an immigrant family, working 3 jobs in high school, and how that experience ultimately helped him become someone who could spot a diamond in the rough. TechCrunch has the inside story right here. Read More 2. X officially lets you post porn: In this week's episode of Late Stage Capitalist Hellscape, feat. Elon Musk, X has formally changed its rules to let users post adult and graphic content on the platform, as long as it's "consensually produced" – something that's really hard to prove — and labeled prominently. Read More 3. GenZ is hungry for nostalgia: French startup ten ten is taking off among teenagers in France thanks to its walkie-talkie app that lets you send voice memos to your friends even when their phone is locked. Anna Heim has the details on why this app is so hot among GenZ. Read More A MESSAGE FROM FINANCIAL TIMES AI's impact on jobs, from clean energy to healthcare Get a glimpse of the future job market across industries by reading Future of AI, a complimentary Financial Times report examining artificial intelligence's impact on businesses around the world. Download Here Morning Must Reads Image Credits: Brian Heater Inside Apple's recycling facility: TechCrunch's Brian Heater took a trip down to Austin to meet Daisy, Apple's new recycling robot that can disassemble 1.2 million iPhones per year and extract valuable materials for reuse. Now if only Apple would make it easier for people who own iPhones to disassemble and repair their own stuff. Read More The wild market of AI shares: VCs are willing to sell their first-borns to get stakes in hot AI companies like Anthropic and OpenAI, but it's a hard market to break into. Small, unknown investors, however, appear to be faring better: They're banding together to use special purpose vehicles, or SPVs, to buy stakes in all the sexy AI companies right now. Read More Unity's co-founder is gaming the climate crisis: David Helgason, co-founder of game engine Unity, has moved into the early-stage climate tech space. His firm, Transition Ventures, is fueled by his philosophy that legacy industries will be outpaced by more sustainable solutions. Read More   Biden vetoes crypto bill: U.S. president Joe Biden has vetoed a bill that would have overturned the SEC's current approach to banks and crypto, which is for banks to treat crypto assets as liabilities. Banks say this makes it prohibitively expensive for them to handle crypto, but regulators say it's necessary to protect investors. Read More Ashby brings AI to recruiting: Ashby wants to take the tedium out of recruiting by letting AI do all the boring work. The startup automates repetitive steps like creating job listings, sourcing candidates and sending calendar invites for interviews. Read More Explain AI like I'm 5: WTF even is AI?! And what about machine learning? What are LLMs? TechCrunch is here to help with this non-technical guide for understanding how and why today's AI works. Read More Spotify hikes subscription price in U.S.: Nevermind the fact that Spotify is crushing it with record-breaking profits, its users in the U.S. will now have to shell out more cash for access to the music-streaming service. I would hope some of that money is going back to musicians. Read More Kobo's new e-readers are OK: TechCrunch's Devin Coldewey reports that Kobo's new e-readers, which feature color e-paper displays, are cool, but sadly aren't vibrant enough to really get into those comics. Read More (Re)vive is a solution for fast fashion: Fast fashion dumped 9.5 billion pounds of returned items in landfill in 2022 alone. New York-based (Re)vive, which grew 10x last year, is taking on that problem to help companies find a better ending for their returned items. Read More Around the Web The chip accelerator space is heating up: Nvidia plans to upgrade its AI accelerators every year, reports Bloomberg. Methinks Nvidia is racing to maintain its top spot, especially as AI companies come together to build their own accelerators and reduce reliance on the chip giant. Read More FTX offloads remaining Anthropic shares: FTX sold its remaining 15 million Anthropic shares for about $30 each, bringing in over $450 million in proceeds — money that will have to go towards bankruptcy costs, reports The Block. VC fund G Squared was the top buyer. Read More TikTok is a misinformation vehicle now: And teens are apparently hopping on the wagon. In a report, BBC found that young people on TikTok are being exposed to misleading and divisive content around elections, and they're sharing it far and wide. Yet another reason media literacy should be taught in schools. Read More Before You Go Image Credits: Michael M. Santiago / Getty Images Trump is on TikTok now: The former U.S. president who was recently convicted in a hush money trial has garnered a following on TikTok, the app he once tried to ban. Tapping into his testosterone-fueled fanbase, Trump's first post is a video of UFC CEO Dana White declaring that the "The President is now on TikTok." Read More Has this been forwarded to you? Click here to subscribe to this newsletter. Got a tip? tips@techcrunch.com Question about our events? events@techcrunch.com Want to advertise on TechCrunch.com? advertise@techcrunch.com Interested in sponsoring live events? sponsors@techcrunch.com Update your preferences here at any time Copyright © 2024 TechCrunch, All rights reserved.Yahoo Inc. 110 5th St,San Francisco,CA Privacy Policy

Google tries to explain its AI stumbles

Also, inside Fisker's collapse and more

View this email online in your browser By Anthony Ha Sunday, June 2, 2024 Image Credits: Google It's been a couple weeks since Google began displaying AI-generated Overviews at the top of its search results, leading to some pretty embarrassing results — most famously, recommendations to add glue to pizza and eat "one small rock per day." Not exactly the kind of thing Google wants everyone to be talking about when it makes a big change to its core search experience! So on Thursday, the company published a blog post acknowledging that AI Overviews might need some work. Google claims they don't suffer from the hallucinations that afflict other large language models, and it argues that the product is bound to get better since "there's nothing quite like having millions of people using the feature with many novel searches." Will all this seem like a speed bump on the road to our glorious AI future? Maybe! Or if Google can't get its act together, maybe it will simply be left behind by competitors' AI chatbots, as Sarah Perez suggests.  For what it's worth, I'm still not convinced that AI-generated answers are necessarily better than boring old search — especially since AI simultaneously relies on and threatens a healthy web ecosystem full of accurate information. Read on to see what else TechCrunch has been covering this weekend. Weekend news and opinion Image Credits: Bryce Durbin What went wrong at EV startup Fisker: Sean O'Kane digs into what happened at a high-profile startup that, at various times, promised everything from an electric pickup to the next Popemobile. Instead, it's only gotten a single model to the assembly line, and it's now on the brink of bankruptcy. Read more Only Big Tech can afford the price tag for training data: Generative AI models are constantly hungry for more training data — in fact, an OpenAI researcher has suggested that data is what ultimately differentiates one model from another. Kyle Wiggers looks at why data is so crucial, and who will actually get access to that all-important data. Read more Is it time for humanoid robots? General-purpose humanoid robots may be a science-fiction fixture, but real-world technology has been largely limited to robots that specialize in doing one thing. Brian Heater talks to executives from Boston Dynamics, Agility, Neura, and Apptronik about whether that's going to change. Read more Unity's co-founder is tackling the climate crisis: Anna Heim interviews David Helgason, who stepped down as CEO of Unity in 2014 and now leads Transition Ventures. According to Helgason, "It's kind of embarrassing how fun the climate crisis is to work on." Read more What else we're reading Image Credits: Getty Images / PM Images OpenAI's latest model launched earlier this month with a flurry of impressive demos, including one where ChatGPT tutored a child working on a geometry problem. But The New York Times' Brian X. Chen suggests the demo was "essentially a bait and switch," as many of the promised features still aren't live yet — part of what he sees as a broader trend where AI companies "promise wild new features and deliver a half-baked product." Read more Also, The Wall Street Journal investigated the ties between Donald Trump and Elon Musk, with Musk potentially taking an advisory role with the Trump White House if the former president wins in November. Read more Before you go In this time of political divisiveness, it's nice to know that one thing can still bring us all together: The '90s X-Men theme song. Has this been forwarded to you? Click here to subscribe to this newsletter. Got a tip? tips@techcrunch.com Question about our events? events@techcrunch.com Want to advertise on TechCrunch.com? advertise@techcrunch.com Interested in sponsoring live events? sponsors@techcrunch.com Update your preferences here at any time Copyright © 2024 TechCrunch, All rights reserved.Yahoo Inc. 110 5th St,San Francisco,CA Privacy Policy