This week in AI, Apple stole the spotlight.
At the company’s Worldwide Developers Conference (WWDC) in Cupertino, Apple unveiled Apple Intelligence, its long-awaited, ecosystem-wide push into generative AI.
The company promised Apple Intelligence is being built with safety at its core, along with highly personalized experiences.
Apple revealed in a blog post that it trains the AI models that power Apple Intelligence on a combination of licensed datasets and the public web.
Grab bagThis week marked the sixth anniversary of the release of GPT-1, the progenitor of GPT-4o, OpenAI’s latest flagship generative AI model.
A big shoutout to the early-stage founders who missed the application window for the Startup Battlefield 200 (SB 200) at TechCrunch Disrupt.
Extended Startup Battlefield 200 deadlineIt’s time to stop kicking this task-can down the road.
You have one extra week to apply to Startup Battlefield 200.
A shot at $100,000: TechCrunch editors will select 20 startups from the SB 200 to be Startup Battlefield finalists.
Apply to the Startup Battlefield 200 by June 17 at 11:59 p.m. PDT.
This week at WWDC 2024, that prize went to Apple Intelligence.
It’s something that I’ve been requesting from Apple for several years, fueled by my own health struggles and the fact that I’ve somehow managed to contract COVID four times so far.
The ability to pause your activity rings is a minor feature update for most, but for those of us who obsess about such things to an unhealthy degree, it’s the best Apple Watch update in years.
There are several options for pausing: You can do it for one day, by day of the week or for entire months at a time.
Once entered, this will be the goal for that day of the week until it’s changed again.
Hello and welcome back to TechCrunch Space.
In the same seven-day period, we watched Boeing’s Starliner launch astronauts to space for the first time, and then we got to watch those two astronauts dock with the International Space Station.
And we also got to see SpaceX launch Starship for the fourth time ever — and then bring it back home.
I think I’m not alone in thinking that some of the most spectacular images in the history of rocketry were generated during that flight.
Of course, the mission isn’t over yet: After around a week aboard the station, the two astronauts will re-board Starliner and use it to get back home.
Your usual host Kirsten Korosec is taking a much deserved vacation, so I’ll be walking you through this week’s transportation news.
A little birdImage Credits: Bryce DurbinA lot of little birds have been talking to senior reporter Sean O’Kane about what is going on behind EV startup Fisker.
Other deals that got my attention …Euler Motors, an Indian manufacturer of commercial EVs, raised $24 million in a Series C extension.
Gireve, a French B2B platform for EV charging, raised €20 million to expand further in Europe and internationally and develop new services.
Zoox plans to test its robotaxis in Austin and Miami this summer, making them the Amazon-backed company’s fourth and fifth test cities.
With the launch of TC’s AI newsletter, we’re sunsetting This Week in AI, the semiregular column previously known as Perceptron.
But you’ll find all the analysis we brought to This Week in AI and more, including a spotlight on noteworthy new AI models, right here.
The group published an open letter on Tuesday calling for leading AI companies, including OpenAI, to establish greater transparency and more protections for whistleblowers.
(Reward models are specialized models to evaluate the outputs of AI models, in this case math-related outputs from GPT-4.)
Should generative AI replace most knowledge workers within three years (which seems unrealistic to me given AI’s many unsolved technical problems), economic collapse could well ensue.
The weather’s getting hotter — but not quite as hot as the generative AI space, which saw a slew of new models released this week, including Meta’s Llama 3.
In other AI news, Hyundai-owned robotics company Boston Dynamics unveiled an electric-powered humanoid follow-up to its long-running Atlas robot, which it recently retired.
And Rebecca and Sean report on layoffs at Tesla , which they say hit high performers and gutted some departments.
AnalysisGoogle Cloud bets on generative AI: Ron writes about how Google Cloud is investing heavily in generative AI, as evidenced by the string of announcements during Google’s Cloud Next conference earlier in the month.
Generative AI in health: Generative AI is coming for healthcare — but not everyone’s thrilled.
How many AI models is too many?
We’re seeing a proliferation of models large and small, from niche developers to large, well-funded ones.
And let’s be clear, this is not all of the models released or previewed this week!
Other large language models like LLaMa or OLMo, though technically speaking they share a basic architecture, don’t actually fill the same role.
The other side of this story is that we were already in this stage long before ChatGPT and the other big models came out.
It’s been more than a minute since Tesla went public, but the EV company was inescapable on TechCrunch this week.
From layoffs to pricing changes and more, it was a week dyed deeply in Tesla colors so we had to chat through the latest.
But that was just one element of what we got into on Equity this week.
We also dug into Mary Ann’s reporting about Ramp’s latest round — and up valuation — that fit neatly next to Rippling’s own impending fundraise.
Equity is back tomorrow with a special interview between Mary Ann and Notable Capital’s Hans Tung, so stay tuned!
Last week, Meta started testing its AI chatbot in India across WhatsApp, Instagram, and Messenger.
Meta confirmed that it is restricting certain election-related keywords for AI in the test phase.
When you ask Meta AI about specific politicians, candidates, officeholders, and certain other terms, it will redirect you to the Election Commission’s website.
But just like other AI-powered systems, Meta AI has some inconsistencies.
This week, the company rolled out a new Llama-3-powered Meta AI chatbot in more than a dozen countries, including the U.S., but India was missing from the list.
