A research institute connected to the United Nations has created two AI-powered avatars designed to teach people about refugee issues. 404 Media wrote about an experiment conducted by a class at the United Nations University Center for Policy Research that resulted in the creation of two AI agents or avatars — Amina, a fictional woman…
Venture capitalist Marc Andreessen sharply criticized universities including Stanford and MIT, along with the National Science Foundation, in a group chat with AI scientists and Trump administration officials, according to screenshots viewed by the Washington Post. According to the Post, Andreessen described MIT and Stanford (which I attended two decades ago) as “mainly political operations…
In a series of posts on X, the AI chatbot Grok apologized for what it admitted was “horrific behavior.” The posts appear to be an official statement from xAI, the Elon Musk-led company behind Grok, as opposed to an AI-generated explanation for Grok’s posts. (xAI recently acquired X, where Grok is prominently featured.) Grok’s latest…
Welcome back to Week in Review! We’ve got tons of news for you this week, including a shakeup at X, Hugging Face’s new robot, new phones from Nothing and Samsung, and a whole lot more. Have a great weekend! Off to do something else: X CEO Linda Yaccarino stepped down this week after a tumultuous…
Medium CEO Tony Stubblebine announced on Friday that the publishing platform has remained profitable since August of last year, when it first achieved this milestone. In the post, Stubblebine detailed what it took to achieve this goal, which involved a combination of product changes, an investor restructuring, renegotiated loans, unloading office space, layoffs, and other…
Cognition’s AI coding agent Devin has scored a major customer: Goldman Sachs, the bank’s CIO, Marco Argenti, told CNBC. “We’re going to start augmenting our workforce with Devin, which is going to be like our new employee,” Argenti told the outlet, adding that it plans to roll out hundreds of instances of Devin, potentially growing…
Sarah Smith, founder and managing partner of the eponymous Sarah Smith Fund, announced Thursday the final closing of a $16 million Fund I. Smith launched her fund in 2022 after spending seven years as an investor with Bain Capital Ventures and is a solo GP. She said she’s “stunned” by what AI can unlock for…
In only 3 days, founders, investors, and operators will flood into the SoWa Power Station in Boston for TechCrunch All Stage 2025 — and if you haven’t grabbed your pass yet, this is your final window to lock in the lowest prices available and save up to $475. Whether you’re a first-time founder or a…
Welcome back to TechCrunch Mobility, your central hub for news and insights on the future of transportation. Sign up here for free — just click TechCrunch Mobility! In case you missed my announcement last week, TechCrunch Mobility is moving to the Beehiiv publishing platform. The launch is scheduled for July 18. Beehiiv provides lots of…
France is launching a criminal investigation into Elon Musk’s X over alleged instances of algorithm manipulation for foreign interference purposes. The national gendarmerie will be tasked with the investigation, the Paris prosecutor’s office announced. In a statement, Paris prosecutor Laure Beccuau said that the investigation is looking at X as a legal entity as well…
