Anthropic CEO goes full techno-optimist in 15,000-word paean to AI

Anthropic CEO Dario Amodei wants you to know he’s not an AI “doomer.” At least, that’s my read of the “mic drop” of a ~15,000 word essay Amodei published to his blog late Friday. (I tried asking Anthropic’s Claude chatbot whether it concurred, but alas, t

Researchers question AI’s ‘reasoning’ ability as models stumble on math problems with trivial changes

How do machine learning models do what they do? And are they really “thinking” or “reasoning” the way we understand those things? This is a philosophical question as much as a practical one, but a new paper making the rounds Friday suggests that the answer is, at least for n

Hit by hurricanes? FCC says you qualify for internet and mobile service subsidies

As hurricanes batter the Atlantic and Gulf coasts of the United States, many people’s livelihoods are on hold and they’re struggling to make ends meet. The Federal Communications Commission (FCC) just decided that anyone affected by a natural disaster can get a break on broadband and mo

Fearless Fund has made a big deal since settling its controversial lawsuit

Fearless Fund has made a big move since it settled a lawsuit with the American Alliance for Equal Rights (AAER).  The firm announced on Thursday a seven-figure investment into the e-commerce platform Zimi, co-founded by Audrey Djiya and Peter Nsaka. Zimi offers inventory management, handling and

New rounds will help startups challenge well-funded rivals

Welcome to Startups Weekly — your weekly recap of everything you can't miss from the world of startups. Want it in your inbox every Friday? Sign up here. It was once again the private market that generated the most funding-related news in the startup world this week, both for companies and f

Silicon Valley is debating if AI weapons should be allowed to decide to kill

In late September, Shield AI co-founder Brandon Tseng swore that weapons in the U.S. would never be fully autonomous — meaning an AI algorithm would make the final decision to kill someone. “Congress doesn't want that,” the defense tech founder told technewss. “No one wants that.”&nb

HubSpot acquires Cacheflow, a platform that helps close software sales

HubSpot has acquired Cacheflow, a startup building tools for the software sales closing process, for an undisclosed amount. HubSpot CEO Yamini Rangan says that Cacheflow — which will become a wholly owned subsidiary of HubSpot once the deal closes — will expand HubSpot’s Commerce Hub sui

Temu gets more questions from the EU about illegal product risks

The European Union has dialed up scrutiny of Chinese e-commerce marketplace Temu, asking for more information about its compliance with multiple provisions of the bloc’s online governance framework, the Digital Services Act (DSA), including in relation to how it prevents the sale of illegal g

Anthony Levandowski buys Elon Musk’s vision for the future

"">Anthony Levandowski, the engineer who co-founded Google's self-driving car program (now known as Waymo) and has gone on to start an off-road AV startup, hopped on the phone with me after Tesla's big Robotaxi reveal to share his thoughts. He is bullish on Elon Musk's vision for Tesla&

Aktiia trained AI on 11 billion data points of blood pressure, and now a clinically certified app is coming

As well as being a major cause of premature death worldwide, hypertension, also known as high blood pressure, is a major risk factor for stroke, coronary artery disease, and heart failure, and is a contributing factor to dementia. It also affects an estimated 1.3 billion people; up to 95% of cases

Xbox will soon let players buy games directly in its Android app following Google antitrust ruling

Xbox president Sarah Bond announced that players will soon be able to play and purchase Xbox games directly from the Xbox app on Android. The announcement comes as a U.S. judge ordered Google to stop forcing developers to use Google Play's billing system on Monday. The ruling forces Googl

Elon Musk unveils the Robovan: the biggest surprise from Tesla’s We, Robot event

Elon Musk unveiled a prototype of Tesla’s Robovan on Thursday night during the company’s We, Robot event in Los Angeles. The Robovan will be an electric, autonomous vehicle roughly the size of a bus, designed for transporting people around high density areas. It will carry up to 20 peop

Tesla reveals 20 Cybercabs at We, Robot event, says you’ll be able to buy one for less than $30,000

Tesla has finally revealed its Cybercab, and it looks like a smaller, sleeker, two-seater Cybertruck. And while many were expecting there to be at least one prototype of a robotaxi with no steering wheel or pedals, Tesla CEO Elon Musk delighted his fans with a lineup of 20 vehicles. The flashy “

Babbel co-founder Markus Witte will once again run the company, replacing CEO Arne Schepker

Arne Schepker, the CEO of the popular Berlin-based language learning platform Babbel, is stepping down, and the company’s co-founder and former CEO Markus Witte is stepping back in to lead the company “into a new phase while searching for Arne's successor with patience,”