AI

ChatGPT’s newest feature lets users assign it traits like ‘chatty’ and ‘Gen Z’

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Update: OpenAI officially announced this feature one week after some users reported the arrival, and then disappearance, of the new options. It’s possible they went live prematurely. OpenAI is introducing a new way for users to customize their interactions with ChatGPT, the company’s AI-powered chatbot. On Friday, OpenAI announced it is rolling out a new […]

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Despite VCs investing $75B in Q4 , it’s still hard for startups to raise money, data proves

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After two years of relatively muted investment activity, it seems that VCs are starting to pour capital into startups at pandemic-era levels once again. But a closer look shows that they aren’t really. In the fourth quarter of last year, investors funneled $74.6 billion into U.S. startups, a substantial increase from the average of $42

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Mistral signs deal with AFP to offer up-to-date answers in Le Chat

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Just a day after Google inked a deal with The Associated Press, Mistral is also announcing a content deal with the Agence France-Presse (AFP) to improve the accuracy of answers in Le Chat, Mistral’s chatbot product. This is the first deal of this kind for the Paris-based artificial intelligence company. And it indicates that Mistral

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In AI copyright case, Zuckerberg turns to YouTube for his defense

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Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg appears to have used YouTube’s battle to remove pirated content to defend his own company’s use of a data set containing copyrighted e-books, reveals newly released snippets of a deposition he gave late last year. The deposition, which was part of a complaint submitted to the court by plaintiffs’ attorneys, is

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Chinese AI company MiniMax releases new models it claims are competitive with the industry’s best

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Chinese firms continue to release AI models that rival the capabilities of systems developed by OpenAI and other U.S.-based AI companies. This week, MiniMax, an Alibaba- and Tencent-backed startup that has raised around $850 million in venture capital and is valued at more than $2.5 billion, debuted three new models: MiniMax-Text-01, MiniMax-VL-01, and T2A-01-HD. MiniMax-Text-01

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TikTok owner ByteDance powered an e-reader’s unhinged AI assistant

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An uproar with a popular Kindle competitor e-reader has showcased how the use of Chinese AI models in US products could unwittingly spread Chinese propaganda. An LLM made by TikTok’s parent company ByteDance was used by an e-reader called Boox, according to screenshots about the AI shared on Reddit. When asked questions about China and

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OpenAI is bankrolling Axios’ expansion into four new markets

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OpenAI is getting into the local news game. Newsletter-based media organization Axios announced a partnership with OpenAI on Wednesday. As part of this three-year deal, the AI giant will fund Axios’ expansion of its local newsletters into four new cities: Pittsburgh; Kansas City, Missouri; Boulder, Colorado; and Huntsville, Alabama. While OpenAI has inked content-sharing and

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AI researcher François Chollet founds a new AI lab focused on AGI

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François Chollet, an influential AI researcher, is launching a new startup that aims to build frontier AI systems with novel designs. The startup, Ndea, will consist of an AI research and science lab. It’s looking to “develop and operationalize” AGI. AGI, which stands for “artificial general intelligence,” typically refers to AI that can perform any

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This Week in AI: Will Biden’s AI actions survive the Trump era?

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Hiya, folks, welcome to TechCrunch’s regular AI newsletter. If you want this in your inbox every Wednesday, sign up here. This week was something of a swan song for the Biden administration. On Monday, the White House announced sweeping new restrictions on exporting AI chips — restrictions that tech giants, including Nvidia, loudly criticized. (Nvidia’s business

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