Elon Musk is planning to charge new X users a small fee to enable posting on the social network and to curb the bot problem.
Earlier this month, X said that the platform was starting a major purge of spam accounts, warning users that their follower count might be affected.
However, with a plan to charge new users, the social media company seemingly aims to tackle the bot problem better.
Earlier this month, xAI made its Grok chatbot available to Premium users of X, who pay $8 per month.
Last week, Fortune reported that X plans to make Grok available to users to compose posts.
Tesla has slashed the price of its Full Self-Driving (FSD) software subscription to $99 per month, down from $199 per month, as the electric vehicle maker aims to boost adoption of its advanced driver assistance system ahead of first-quarter earnings.
The price cut comes a couple of weeks after Tesla launched a free one-month trial of FSD for every customer in the U.S. with a compatible Tesla.
The FSD price cut comes the same week that Tesla released more tweaks to its latest V12 version of the software to certain users.
More drivers with FSD doesn’t only mean more money for Tesla.
Tesla might also be angling for more training data so it can meet CEO Elon Musk’s promise to unveil a Tesla robotaxi in August.
“Our goal over time is to make a Llama-powered Meta AI be the most useful assistant in the world,” said Joelle Pineau, Vice President AI Research.
Most notably, Meta’s Llama families, built as open-source products, represent a different philosophical approach to how AI should develop as a wider technology.
But Meta is also playing it more cautiously, it seems, especially when it comes to other generative AI beyond text generation.
Ironically — or perhaps predictably (heh) — even as Meta works to launch Llama 3, it does have some significant generative AI skeptics in the house.
It’s not generative AI,” he said.
Social network X is rolling out access to xAI’s Grok chatbot to Premium tier subscribers after Elon Musk announced the expansion to more paid users last month.
The company said on its support page that only Premium and Premium+ users can interact with the chatbot in select regions.
Last year, after Musk’s xAI announced Grok, it made the chatbot available to Premium+ users — people who are paying $16 per month or a $168 per year subscription fee.
Earlier this week, X rolled out a new explore view inside Grok where the chatbot summarizes trending news stories.
Last month, xAI open-sourced Grok but without any training data details.
Climate change.
The UK will be even better off, gaining 40 outdoor days by the end of the century.
Illinois will lose more than a month of outdoor days by the 2080s as the summers grow unbearably hot.
Nigeria’s summers will grow even hotter and longer, lopping off nearly two months of outdoor days.
Both Nigeria and India would only lose one month of outdoor days, and more northerly regions retain some of their added outdoor days.
Welcome to Startups Weekly — your weekly recap of everything you can’t miss from the world of startups.
For the low, low price of being a Robinhood Gold member (because who doesn’t want to pay $5 a month for the privilege of spending more money?
Robinhood unveiled its Gold Card, a credit card so packed with features it might just make Apple Card users pause for a hot second.
For the low, low price of being a Robinhood Gold member (because who doesn’t want to pay $5 a month for the privilege of spending more money?
Trend of the week: Transportation troubleThe New York Stock Exchange has given EV startup Fisker the boot, citing its “abnormally low” stock prices.
Social network X (formerly Twitter) launched new top-up packs for its developer API program on Tuesday.
Last year, Elon Musk curtailed free API access and released new paid tiers with the basic level starting at $100 per month.
With the new top-up launch, the social network said that there are also limits to the number of upgrades developers can purchase.
Developers with basic tier are capped at 10 top-ups and developers with pro tier are capped at 5 top-ups per month.
The company’s alternations to its API rules also impacted researchers and their ability to study the platform’s data.
Miami-based Onyx Private, a Y Combinator-backed digital bank that provided banking and investment services for high-earning Millennials and Gen Zers, is terminating its bank operations.
Y Combinator has listed the company as “inactive” on its on its website, something Santos could not explain.
Santos claimed that Onyx had been exploring the idea over the past year and had made developments with some partners.
Santos today declined to disclose how many banking customers Onyx had.
Although a source told TechCrunch that regulatory issues may have played a part in this decision, Santos dismissed that, telling us that no regulatory issues caused the startup to shut down its direct-to-consumer banking operations.
India is walking back on a recent AI advisory after receiving criticism from many local and global entrepreneurs and investors.
The Ministry of Electronics and IT shared an updated AI advisory with industry stakeholders on Friday that no longer asked them to take the government approval before launching or deploying an AI model to users in the South Asian market.
Under the revised guidelines, firms are instead advised to label under-tested and unreliable AI models to inform users of their potential fallibility or unreliability.
The revision follows India’s IT ministry receiving severe criticism earlier this month from many high-profile individuals.
Less than a year ago, the ministry had declined to regulate AI growth, identifying the sector as vital to India’s strategic interests.
Paramount Global has reached a binding agreement to sell its stake in Reliance-controlled Indian media house Viacom18 to Reliance for $517 million, both companies said Wednesday.
The deal will increase Reliance’s stake in Viacom18, which operates dozens of TV channels as well as streaming service JioCinema, to 70.49%, Reliance said in its disclosure.
Law firm JSA Associates said late last month that it was advising the two firms for the deal.
The move follows Disney announcing plans to merge its India business with Viacom18 late last month.
Viacom18 also counts Bodhi Tree, an investment firm run by James Murdoch and Uday Shankar, among its backers.
