AI Safety and Fisker’s Bankruptcy: TechCrunch Week in Review
This week, TechCrunch’s newsletter covered a range of topics, including the launch of a new AI company, Safe Superintelligence Inc. (SSI), by Ilya Sutskever, who previously worked at OpenAI. Sutskever’s departure from OpenAI was due to a disagreement over AI safety. Alongside Sutskever, Jan Leike also left OpenAI after the falling-out with leadership.
In EV news, Fisker, an electric vehicle company, filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy protection. This comes after months of issues with their Ocean SUV, including recalls and lemon law lawsuits. This is not the first time Henrik Fisker has seen one of his vehicle companies go bankrupt, as his previous effort in 2007 also faced the same fate in 2013.
Another major news item this week was the confirmation from Change Healthcare that a ransomware attack in February resulted in the theft of medical records affecting a “substantial proportion” of Americans. Change Healthcare is responsible for processing patient insurance and billing for numerous healthcare facilities, making them a target for hackers.
In terms of acquisitions, OpenAI announced that it has acquired Rockset, a company specializing in real-time search and data analytics. This acquisition aligns with OpenAI’s focus on investing in its enterprise sales and tech organizations.
On the consumer tech front, Clicks released a phone case that adds a physical keyboard to iPhones, reminiscent of old BlackBerry devices. Additionally, Butterflies, a social network, aims to create more creative relationships between humans and AI through posts, comments, and DMs.
There were also some notable developments in the tech industry this week. Apple discontinued its Pay Later feature and instead partnered with third-party app Affirm to offer loans to Apple Pay users. Outlook users were warned about a bug that allows impersonation of Microsoft corporate email accounts, making phishing attempts more convincing. The AI-powered search startup Perplexity now displays results for factual queries directly through cards, providing quick and accurate information. Runway unveiled its latest AI model, Gen-3, which improves the speed and control over generated videos.
The analysis section of the newsletter delves into interesting topics. One article explores different approaches to representing AI in user interfaces, highlighting the consensus that non-threatening, abstract avatars are preferred. Another article discusses the failure of Fisker and argues that the fundamental problem lies in the company’s inability to address flaws in their products before bringing them to market. Lastly, the article explores the cultural biases in AI models and showcases Black-owned chatbots and ChatGPT versions that cater specifically to communities of color.
Overall, this week’s newsletter covered a diverse range of topics, from AI safety and EV bankruptcies to cybersecurity issues and new tech developments. It provided valuable insights into the current landscape of the tech industry and highlighted important discussions surrounding AI representation and cultural biases in AI models.