‘Snoop Dogg’ wants to chat with you | Newsletter

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Quick Hits

Crypto clampdown: JPMorgan blocks U.K. customers from buying crypto.

Developer detente: Unity Software reverses price hike amid backlash.

Faster humans: South Korean researchers develop robotic exoskeleton.

Body double: Stanford researchers explain how digital doubles work.

I Spy AI:  CIA develops its own AI to sift through public information.

Fact check: X has the most number of disinformation posts, says EU.

Fairy tale’s over: Disney cracks down on password sharing.

Tight lips: Google erects wall of silence in antitrust suits.

Hard wear: Meta unveils mixed reality headset and ‘smart’ Ray-Bans.

Internet chat: ChatGPT can now browse the Internet.

AI on AWS: Amazon puts $4B on AI startup Anthropic.

Snoop Dogg is now a chat bot

Meta is unleashing celebrity AI chatbots. Snoop Dogg is “Dungeon Master,” assisting users to play adventure games; former NBA player Dwyane Wade is “Victor” and helps users work out. Kendall Jenner will be “Billie”, a “big sis” referred to as a “ride-or-die companion.”

Mistral offers free, unrestricted LLM

Paris-based Mistral released a free-to-use, open-source LLM to compete with more established tech giants months after raising $100M. The company claims it outperforms Llama 2 and requires 50% less compute power.

Social renaissance

Social apps are blending A.I. with image creation, sparking a fun, creative renaissance in online sharing. Facebook, TikTok and Snapchat allow users to create images from posts, driven by innovation from upstarts like BeFake that are making the AI-generated selfie trend stick.

Self-regulated AI

Microsoft, OpenAI, Google, Meta, Amazon, Anthropic and Inflection AI are committing to allow external scrutiny of their AI products by “domain experts” and to share information with each other and the federal government about risks and vulnerabilities.

The Weekly Pulse

Marketers adopt generative AI

A Gartner survey reveals 63% of marketing leaders plan to invest in generative AI within 24 months amid declining martech utilization, which stands at 33% in 2023. Despite only 56% seeing more reward than risk in generative AI, the shift aims to overcome the challenges posed by the current complex martech ecosystem.

Poll of the Week

Recently Funded

• Evvy, a NYC-based healthtech focused on women’s health, raised a $14M Series A.

• Apron, a London-based small business fintech platform, raised $15M in Series A funding.

• Midi Health, a Palo Alto, CA-based women’s midlife healthcare company, raised a $25M Series A.

• Invoke AI, a generative AI software maker for artist and creative teams, raised a $3.75M seed.

• Mesh, a crypto startup facilitating the transfer of digital assets, raised a $5M seed.

• PortX secured $16.5M and formed a subsidiary targeting credit unions.

• Medeloop.ai raised an $8M seed fund to advance medical research.

Post of the Week

What We’re Reading

Having a hard time finding Clorox wipes? Blame it on a cyberattack (NPR)

The video game industry is in uproar over a software pricing change. Here's why (NPR)

Why the AI Race Is Getting Weird (The Information)

Startups Hiring Now

Contentful: Leading content platform for digital-first business | 26 open roles

SingleStore: One platform for all data | 30 open roles

Tendo: Reimagine what’s possible in healthcare | 28 open roles

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