The U.S. Federal Trade Commission will examine the rise of AI technology across all fronts, said FTC Chair Lina Khan, speaking at TechCrunch’s StrictlyVC event in Washington, D.C., on Tuesday.
In fact, it’s already seeing an uptick in consumer complaint cases in some areas, like voice cloning fraud, Khan said.
Asked what areas of AI the FTC was watching, Khan explained that it was everything.
Of course, policing AI comes with its challenges, despite the number of technologists the FTC has hired to help in this area.
Another area of focus for the FTC is the focus on what openness really means in the AI context, Khan explained.
The U.S. Federal Trade Commission is focusing its efforts on going after Big Tech, according to FTC Chair Lina Khan, who spoke at TechCrunch’s Strictly VC event in Washington, D.C., on Tuesday.
Khan said the agency is focused on going after the players that are doing the biggest harm, as opposed to just increasing the number of cases that it brings forward.
“One thing that’s been important for me is to make sure that we’re actually looking at where we see the biggest harm,” Khan said.
The FTC and the Department of Justice have struck a deal to investigate Microsoft, Open AI and Nvidia over potential antitrust violations, according to The New York Times.
The types of cases that the FTC selects can act as a deterrent, she said, noting that the FTC is already seeing that happen.
Moonlight is a free online tarot platform, where you can draw tarot cards on your own, do a reading in a multiplayer room or even book a session with a vetted tarot professional (that’s where the SaaS part comes in).
It was at one of these lessons that Baskin first imagined what an online tarot platform could look like.
As she was building out the idea for Moonlight, Baskin teamed up with Caroline Hermans, a game designer and former UX engineer at Google.
“I was worried that investors might think I’m a prankster — will that hurt me in actually making a business?
We’re all using technology, and I think they’re excited that someone’s making a platform who’s a tarot person, too.”
Conservative think tank The Heritage Foundation said on Friday that it experienced a cyberattack earlier this week.
A person with knowledge of the cyberattack told TechCrunch that efforts at Heritage were underway to remediate the cyberattack, but said that it wasn’t immediately known what, if any, data was taken.
Politico, which first reported the news of the cyberattack on Friday, cited a Heritage official as saying the organization “shut down its network to prevent any further malicious activity while we investigate the incident.”The news outlet quoted the Heritage official as saying that the cyberattack likely came from nation-state hackers, but did not provide evidence of the claim.
Founded in 1973, Heritage is based in Washington DC, and supports and lobbies on conservative issues.
Heritage was hit by a cyberattack in 2015 in which hackers stole internal emails and the personal information of its donors.
Verod-Kepple Africa Ventures (VKAV) plans to back up to 21 growth-stage companies across the continent after closing its first fund at $60 million.
The pan-African VC hit the milestone following fresh backing from Nigeria’s SCM Capital formerly Sterling Capital Markets Limited, and the only non-Japanese investor.
Verod-Kepple is the latest African VC to get capitalized, amid an ongoing investment downturn, allowing it to provide much-needed capital to series A and B startups even as local capital pools for growth-stage companies remain limited.
We think there’s still a need for more growth stage capital with locally based investors,” she said.
How VKAV makes investmentsThe VKAV fund backs startups that are building infrastructure for the digital economy, solving inefficiencies encountered by businesses, and market creators for the emerging consumer population.
Was the fundraising process any more or less difficult this time given the market?
If you really rewind the clock, back in 2018 when we raised our sixteenth fund, it was a “normal” environment.
There’s obviously a valuation reset going on for every company seemingly that’s not a large language model company, which is a lot of companies.
I’d guess that gives you easier access to top companies, but also hurts some of your existing portfolio companies.
I don’t think anyone has ever reached a great venture outcome feeling like, ‘Man, I got a steal on that deal.’ You always feel slightly uncomfortable.
At one point, Levin asked what Pichai tried to do to keep a company of 200,000 people innovative against all the startups battling to disrupt its business.
So I think, I think how do you as a company move fast?
“We recently said, we went back to a notion we had in early Google of Google Labs.
How do you allow people to prototype more easily internally and get it out to people?”Later, Levin asked what advances Pichai was most excited about this year.
Levin and Pichai start around 1 hour and 18 minutes in.
Cynicism is a quality taken almost for granted in tech journalism, and certainly we are as guilty as the next publication.
“A Brief History of the Future,” hosted by Ari Wallach, also has the compelling quality of, as a PBS production, being completely free.
But now we’re at a point that if we continually do that, we’re going to we’re going to lose the thread.
And everyone seems to be relieved to be able to talk about the promise of the future rather than the threat of it.
In case you’re wondering what moneyed special interest is trying to placate you with this beneficent presentation of a kindlier, wiser future… don’t worry, I asked.
We’ll publish several pieces throughout the year as the AI boom continues, highlighting key work that often goes unrecognized.
Kristine Gloria leads the Aspen Institute’s Emergent and Intelligent Technologies Initiative — the Aspen Institute being the Washington, D.C.-headquartered think tank focused on values-based leadership and policy expertise.
What are some issues AI users should be aware of?
What is the best way to responsibly build AI?
How can investors better push for responsible AIOne specific task, which I admire Mozilla Ventures for requiring in its diligence, is an AI model card.
Footage obtained by TechCrunch shows the catastrophic ending that Astra’s Rocket 3.0 suffered during prelaunch testing in March 2020.
“I can confirm we had an anomaly on the launch pad,” Alaska Aerospace CEO Mark Lester told local reporters at the time.
At the time, Astra was taking such failures in stride.
The deal is expected to close sometime this quarter, at which time Astra will cease trading on the Nasdaq.
Astra did not return a request for comment on the 2020 launch failure.
