Tesla is reportedly abandoning its plan to build a lower-cost EV thought to cost around $25,000, according to Reuters, despite that vehicle’s status as a pivotal product for the company’s overall growth.
The company will instead focus its efforts on a planned robotaxi that is being built on the same small EV platform that was also supposed to power the lower-cost vehicle.
Tesla CEO Elon Musk claimed, without proof, that Reuters is “lying” in a post on his social media platform, X, and did not dispute any specific details.
He also responded with an eyes emoji to another post that effectively summed up the Reuters report in different words.
Tesla was reportedly targeting a price of around $25,000 for the next-generation EV.
According to the Form S-1, the new AI governance committee includes managers from Rubrik’s engineering, product, legal and information security teams.
Here’s why having AI governance could become the new normal.
“Aside from its strategic role to devise and oversee an AI governance program, from an operational perspective, AI governance committees are a key tool in addressing and minimizing risks,” he said.
The EU AI Act has teeth, and “the penalties for non-compliance with the AI Act are significant,” British-American law firm Norton Rose Fulbright noted.
Establishing AI governance committees likely will be at least one way to try to help on the trust front.
What a week, everyone.
Two full days of Y Combinator demo day activity kept us busy, but the latest accelerator cohort’s launch was far from the only big story in startup-land.
Then to close out, we chatted through the impending Ibotta and Rubrik IPOs.
The latter deal could provide a fascinating heat-check for unprofitable unicorns that need to find some sort of exit, and quickly.
All told we chatted through startups from their very earliest form all the way through their most mature.
The cross-border payments market is forecasted to reach over $250 trillion by 2027, according to the Bank of England.
So it’s no surprise that one of the trends among Y Combinator’s Winter 2024 batch of nearly 30 fintech startups is how to more easily move money globally.
Users get a U.S. bank account and access to low-cost local payment rails.
InfinityWhat it does: Cross-border banking for small businesses in IndiaWe heard from a lot of childhood friends during the past two days, so it was refreshing to see two siblings form a company.
Businesses in India account for $700 billion in cross-border trades per year, and Infinity makes 1% from those transactions.
Get ready for an electrifying showdown as the “So You Think You Can Pitch” startup pitch competition at TechCrunch Early Stage 2024 is set to be judged by an esteemed panel of industry experts.
We’ve already announced the startup finalists, and now you can meet our expert judges!
Joining her is Paris Heymann, partner at Index Ventures, whose deep understanding of software, data, and AI companies has positioned him as a sought-after adviser in the tech ecosystem.
With a background that spans prestigious firms like Bain Capital and Arena Holdings, Paris brings a strategic perspective honed by years of hands-on investment experience.
With judges of this caliber, the startup pitch competition at TechCrunch Early Stage 2024 is sure to be a thrilling showcase of innovation and entrepreneurial talent.
Dubbed ‘Caracal,’ this new release emphasizes new features for hosting AI and high-performance computing (HPC) workloads.
Indeed, as the OpenInfra Foundation announced this week, its newest Platinum Member is Okestro, a South Korean cloud provider with a heavy focus on AI.
But Europe, with its strong data sovereignty laws, has also been a growth market and the UK’s Dawn AI supercomputer runs OpenStack, for example.
“All the things are lining up for a big upswing and open-source adoption for infrastructure,” OpenInfra Foundation COO Mark Collier told TechCrunch.
That’s in addition to networking updates to better support HPC workloads and a slew of other updates.
When it comes to funding, the fintech sector didn’t have a very good start to the year.
Fintech funding slid by 16% quarter-over-quarter during the three-month period, according to CB Insights’ Q1 2024 State of Venture Report.
But even more troubling than the double-digit dip was the fact that the $7.3 billion raised globally by fintech startups in the three-month period marked the lowest level the sector has seen since early 2017, according to the report.
During the three-month period, 904 investments were made into fintech startups.
Dollars raised and deal count is also down compared to the fourth quarter of 2023, when 786 fintech startups raised $8.7 billion.
Such is the case with Anthropic and its latest research which demonstrates an interesting vulnerability in current LLM technology.
Of course given progress in open-source AI technology, you can spin up your own LLM locally and just ask it whatever you want, but for more consumer-grade stuff this is an issue worth pondering.
But the closer we get to more generalized AI intelligence, the more it should resemble a thinking entity, and not a computer that we can program, right?
If so, we might have a harder time nailing down edge cases to the point when that work becomes unfeasible?
Anyway, let’s talk about what Anthropic recently shared.
Five months ago, Rooms, a 3D design platform made by ex-Google employees, launched its beta version on the App Store.
Rooms is an interior decorating app that falls under the cozy game category.
Players can build and code intricate 3D rooms and mini-games using a library of over 7,500 digital items.
The majority of the updates are on the iOS app, but Rooms is adding the new categories and speed improvements to its web version.
However, in the future, Rooms may offer a premium subscription offering but the company is waiting until the app gets more traction.
IBM has pledged to skill 2 million people in AI by 2030; Intel has said it’ll upskill over 30 million with AI in the same timeframe.
Yet it’s not clear how many AI roles will be available then.
According to a recent analysis by Lightcast, a labor market analytics firm, the demand for AI roles is decreasing, not increasing.
“Consortium members commit to developing worker pathways particularly in job sectors that will increasingly integrate artificial intelligence technology,” the spokesperson said.
Big Tech has big promises to keep, particularly where it concerns the future of work and the tech industry’s role in shaping it.
