Tech sovereignty has become a looming priority for a number of nations these days, and now a startup working in semiconductors has received a major boost in aid of that effort for Germany and Europe.
The sum is one of the largest to date raised by a European startup working in semiconductors.
Black is a spin-out from the University of Aachen co-founded by brothers Daniel and Sebastian Schall (respectively the CEO and CFO).
The funding, a Series A, is important not just for its size but also because of the intention behind it.
Porsche Ventures and Project A Ventures are co-leads, with participation from Scania Growth, Capnamic, Tech Vision Fonds, and NRW.BANK.
Don’t blame MKBHD for the fate of Humane AI and Fisker Famed YouTuber Marques Brownlee makes a splash not for what he said — but for howHumane AI raised more than $230 million before it even shipped a product.
“It was really hard to come up with a title for this video,” Brownlee says in the video itself, which currently has over 5 million views.
The actual review was fair and balanced.”An underdog worth $800 millionCritics of MKBHD’s video are operating as though Humane AI is an underdog in the space.
In the month preceding the MKBHD review, federal safety regulators began investigating the Fisker Ocean for complaints about the brakes not working well.
The Humane AI pin was widely panned across the tech review board, but the only person receiving outsized and long-lasting criticism for his review is MKBHD, a Black man.
Beyoncé’s “Cowboy Carter” has been out for only a few days, yet it’s already obvious that we’ll be talking about it for years to come — it’s breaking records across streaming platforms, and the artist herself calls it “the best music [she’s] ever made.” But in the middle of the press release for “Cowboy Carter,” Beyoncé made an unexpected statement against the growing presence of AI in music.
Some of the best-known AI companies, like Open AI and Stability AI, use datasets that include copyrighted artworks without consent.
Beyoncé’s stance makes even more sense in the context of “Cowboy Carter” itself.
Though it does not explicitly discuss AI, “Cowboy Carter” already addresses the theft and appropriation of artworks without consent.
Even the title “Cowboy Carter” nods to the appropriation of Black music for white people’s gain.
Venture capital funding has never been robust for women or Black and brown founders.
Read about funding for Black foundersFunding to Black founders has been on a steady decline since 2021, implying that investors have either lost interest or focus on backing Black founders.
This is a big deal because after the murder of George Floyd, the venture and startup ecosystem made promises to better support Black founders.
Since 2022, TechCrunch has been speaking with experts to find out what is needed to help boost funding to Black founders.
To help gather data, last year, Crunchbase announced it would officially start tracking the amount of venture capital dollars allocated to LGBTQ+ founders.
Black Tech Nation Ventures launched in 2021 to address the funding gap for Black founders amid a wave of venture diversity initiatives after the murder of George Floyd in 2020.
Three years later, amongst growing backlash against DEI and diversity-focused investments, the firm’s mission may be more important now than when it started.
The firm found initial fundraising success in 2021, and held a first close on $25 million that year, he explained.
“We have seen funding to diverse founders and Black-led venture funds decline rapidly.
The firm will also collaborate with Black Tech Nation, the nonprofit that is run by BTNV general partner Kelauni Jasmyn that created a digital network of Black tech professionals, when it can.
BLKFAM considers its platform the first and only Black-owned and Black-focused family streaming service.
The company’s goal is to serve Black audiences who often feel misrepresented/underrepresented in mainstream media even though it’s the demographic that watches the most TV.
According to Nielsen, Black audiences consume over 81 hours of media on a weekly basis.
BLKFAM aims to release content that “entertains, educates, and celebrates Black American family-friendly content,” the company wrote in its press release.
BLKFAM is now available on Amazon Prime Video Channels, Amazon Fire TV, Apple TV, Roku, YouTube TV, Samsung Smart TVs, Vizio, LG, and iOS and Android devices.
This week in AI, Google paused its AI chatbot Gemini’s ability to generate images of people after a segment of users complained about historical inaccuracies.
Google’s ginger treatment of race-based prompts in Gemini didn’t avoid the issue, per se — but disingenuously attempted to conceal the worst of the model’s biases.
Yes, the data sets used to train image generators generally contain more white people than Black people, and yes, the images of Black people in those data sets reinforce negative stereotypes.
That’s why image generators sexualize certain women of color, depict white men in positions of authority and generally favor wealthy Western perspectives.
Whether they tackle — or choose not to tackle — models’ biases, they’ll be criticized.
We’ll publish several pieces throughout the year as the AI boom continues, highlighting key work that often goes unrecognized.
Mutale Nkonde is the founding CEO of the nonprofit AI For the People (AFP), which seeks to increase the amount of Black voices in tech.
It established AI for the People as a key thought leader around how to develop protocols to guide the design, deployment, and governance of AI systems that comply with local nondiscrimination laws.
There is so much work to be done on reskilling our workforce for a time when AI systems do low-stakes labor-saving tasks.
What information can they give us about how AI systems work and do not work from them, and how can we use these insights to make sure AI truly is for the People?
Creative ad agency McKinney developed a quiz game called “Are You Blacker than ChatGPT?” to shine a light on AI bias.
The game tests a person’s knowledge of Black culture against what ChatGPT has been trained to know about the Black community.
Woods said the idea for the quiz came last year during a creative brainstorm at McKinney.
Woods said it doesn’t seem like ChatGPT is learning from the quiz, either, based on the fact that it keeps getting the same answers wrong in many cases.
Carter said that ChatGPT could work better for more cultures with better sourcing and having more inclusive data collection.
OpenAI has responded to a letter sent by the Congressional Black Caucus that flagged the lack of diversity on its board.
OpenAI’s response letter, which TechCrunch saw, was dated January 5 and signed by CEO Sam Altman and Chairman of the Board Bret Taylor.
The OpenAI board has received criticism for its lack of gender and racial diversity since its reconfiguration after Altman’s ousting and prompt return in November.
In mid-December, CBC Chairs Rep. Emanuel Cleaver and Rep. Barbara Lee sent a letter to OpenAI, asking it to “move expeditiously” in diversifying its board.
OpenAI did not immediately respond to TechCrunch’s request for comment regarding its response letter or its plans to diversify its board.
