Author: Becky Anderson
Signal President Meredith Whittaker warned Friday that agentic AI could come with a risk to user privacy. Speaking onstage at the SXSW conference in Austin, Texas, the advocate for secure communications referred to the use of AI agents as “putting your brain in a jar,” and cautioned that this new paradigm of computing — where AI performs tasks on users’ behalf — has a “profound issue” with both privacy and security. Whittaker explained how AI agents are being marketed as a way to add value to your life by handling various online tasks for the user. For instance, AI agents…
Just over two months into 2025, the number of pending AI bills in the U.S. has grown to 781, according to an online tracking tool. The tool, maintained by consulting firm MultiState, shows that the number of pending U.S. bills pertaining to AI now exceeds the total number of AI bills proposed in all of 2024 (743). In 2023, state and federal lawmakers proposed fewer than 200 AI-related bills. A few recently proposed laws include Maryland’s H.B. 1331, a bill regulating the development and use of high-risk AI in consequential decisions; Texas’ expansive Texas Responsible AI Governance Act; and Massachusetts’…
Google on Friday added a new, experimental “embedding” model for text, Gemini Embedding, to its Gemini developer API. Embedding models translate text inputs like words and phrases into numerical representations, known as embeddings, that capture the semantic meaning of the text. Embeddings are used in a range of applications, such as document retrieval and classification, in part because they can reduce costs while improving latency. Companies including Amazon, Cohere, and OpenAI offer embedding models through their respective APIs. Google has offered embedding models before, but Gemini Embedding is its first trained on the Gemini family of AI models. “Trained on…
xAI, Elon Musk’s AI company, has acquired a 1 million-square-foot property in Southwest Memphis to expand its AI data center footprint, according to a press release from the Memphis Chamber of Commerce. The new land will host infrastructure to complement xAI’s existing Memphis data center. “xAI’s acquisition of this property ensures we’ll remain at the forefront of AI innovation, right here in Memphis,” xAI senior site manager Brent Mayo said in a statement. It wasn’t immediately clear whether the expansion was related to a previously announced lease on a 522-acre site in Memphis. xAI is hungry for AI hardware. According…
On June 5, TechCrunch Sessions: AI will kick off — and you can be part of the industry-changing conversations that will be taking place. We have an open invitation for members of the AI community to lead breakout sessions and discussions with over 1,200 startup founders, VC leaders, and AI aficionados attending our newest event, which will be held in Zellerbach Hall at UC Berkeley. There’s just one catch: You have to apply by midnight tonight, March 7, to be considered as a speaker, so head right here to do so. You only have four days left to get your application…
On June 5, TechCrunch Sessions: AI will kick off — and you can be part of the industry-changing conversations that will be taking place. We have an open invitation for members of the AI community to lead breakout sessions and discussions with over 1,200 startup founders, VC leaders, and AI aficionados attending our newest event, which will be held in Zellerbach Hall at UC Berkeley. There’s just one catch: You have to apply by midnight tonight, March 7, to be considered as a speaker, so head right here to do so. You only have four days left to get your application…
Apple is delaying the rollout of the “more personalized Siri” experience it promised as part of its rollout of Apple Intelligence. According to a statement from the tech giant published on Friday by Apple blog Daring Fireball, the company admits it will “take us longer than we thought to deliver” on these new Siri features. Apple now anticipates rolling them out in the “coming year.” Announced at Apple’s Worldwide Developers Conference last year, the new, more personalized Siri was meant to upgrade the beleaguered digital assistant with the ability to understand your personal context, like your relationships, your communications, your…
California’s most controversial AI safety bill of 2024 might be dead, but its author isn’t backing down. State Senator Scott Wiener is back with SB 53, a new AI bill that strips away the most debated parts of last year’s failed legislation while keeping key whistleblower protections and a public cloud computing initiative called CalCompute. With the AI industry and even the federal government shifting away from AI safety regulation in favor of innovation, will the bill gain any traction? Today, on TechCrunch’s Equity podcast, hosts Kirsten Korosec, Max Zeff, and Anthony Ha are unpacking the latest moves in AI…
With the rise of AI companions who serve as online friends or romantic interests, experts are questioning how the technology affects our real-world social connections and relationships. According to Kasley Killam, author of the social health-focused book “The Art and Science of Connection: Why Social Health Is the Missing Key to Living Longer, Healthier, and Happier,” there may be some benefits to using AI as a tool to practice social interactions, but the technology should only be used to augment, not replace, our personal relationships and real-world connections. On Friday, the social health expert and graduate of the Harvard School…
DeepSeek has gone viral. Chinese AI lab DeepSeek broke into the mainstream consciousness this week after its chatbot app rose to the top of the Apple App Store charts (and Google Play, as well). DeepSeek’s AI models, which were trained using compute-efficient techniques, have led Wall Street analysts — and technologists — to question whether the U.S. can maintain its lead in the AI race and whether the demand for AI chips will sustain. But where did DeepSeek come from, and how did it rise to international fame so quickly? DeepSeek’s trader origins DeepSeek is backed by High-Flyer Capital Management, a Chinese quantitative hedge fund…