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Concerns Arise About Inadequate AI Policy from Unreliable Congress, Says Helen Toner

Helen Toner Strictlyvc
Earlier that same year, the National Institute of Standards and Technology, which establishes federal technology standards, published a roadmap for identifying and mitigating the emerging risks of AI. But Congress has yet to pass legislation on AI — or even propose any law as comprehensive as regulations like the EU’s recently enacted AI Act. Colorado recently approved a measure that requires AI companies to use “reasonable care” while developing the tech to avoid discrimination. Consider this example: in many state laws regulating AI, “automated decision making” — a term broadly referring to AI algorithms making some sort of decision, like whether a business receives a loan — is defined differently. Toner thinks that even a high-level federal mandate would be preferable to the current state of affairs.

Join the Fun: 2023 TechCrunch Pub Quiz (Round 2)

Pub Quiz 2023 Pt1
It’s round two of our Pub Quiz! If you didn’t do too well on our first one, no worries — New Year’s Eve is around the corner, so we’ve created a second game to help you kick off the night. Good luck, and Happy New Year! (P.S: Remember to click the box and scroll.)

The Troubled Split: What the Adobe-Figma Breakup Tells us About Startup M&A in the Future

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Venture capitalists and founders were already worried about exits after Visa’s $5.6 billion acquisition of Plaid in 2020 was canceled after a tough battle with regulators. Still, Figma and Plaid are only two examples of startups being impacted by antitrust and competition regulations in recent history. Yet, since the Adobe-Figma news broke this morning, discourse is already leaning towards how this will hurt startup liquidity; some VCs are even saying that large startup acquisitions are going to be off the table. But if you look at the data around startup M&A, that sentiment feels more like fear mongering than an actual reflection of what the startup exit market looks like. In fact, the vast majority of startup deals look nothing like the Figma or Plaid deals.