Techmeme
May 27, 2024, 11:40 AM

Top News

x.ai:
xAI raised a $6B Series B from Valor, Vy Capital, a16z, Sequoia, Saudi Arabia's Kingdom Holding, and others, Elon Musk says at a pre-money valuation of $18B  —  xAI is pleased to announce our series B funding round of $6 billion.  —  xAI is pleased to announce...
Axios:
Elon Musk says all of the $6B in xAI's Series B is new money rather than shares “given” to investors in Musk's takeover of Twitter  —  - That said, there's plenty of overlap in the investor list, and it's unclear if the original Twitter/X backers also received additional equity in xAI …
Mark Gurman / Bloomberg:
A closer look at Apple's AI strategy: Project Greymatter, local and cloud LLM data processing, Siri, sealing a chatbot partnership deal with OpenAI, and more  —  Though Apple's first set of modern AI features won't be as impressive as rival offerings, the company is betting that its massive customer base can give it an edge.
Michael Nuñez / VentureBeat:
Researchers find that GPT-4 can outperform human analysts in predicting the direction of future corporate earnings even when given only financial statements  —  Researchers from the University of Chicago have demonstrated that large language models (LLMs) can conduct financial statement analysis …
Lulu Garcia-Navarro / New York Times:
Q&A with Netflix's Ted Sarandos on the state of Hollywood, shifting US tastes, programming strategy, ads, corporate activism, YouTube, live events, AI, and more  —  Devin Oktar Yalkin for The New York Times  —  If you're anything like me, you probably spent some large portion of this week sitting on your couch watching Netflix.
Wall Street Journal:
An analysis of ChatGPT, Claude, Copilot, Gemini, and Perplexity's responses to some real-life questions and everyday tasks: Perplexity ranked first overall  —  We tested OpenAI's ChatGPT against Microsoft's Copilot and Google's Gemini, along with Perplexity and Anthropic's Claude.  Here's how they ranked.
Reuters:
China set up a new ~$47.5B state-backed investment fund on May 24 as the third and largest phase of its Big Fund to boost the country's semiconductor industry  —  China has set up a new state-backed investment fund with registered capital of 344 billion yuan ($47.5 billion) to boost the country's semiconductor industry.
Louise Matsakis / Big Technology:
How Shein and Temu, which are spending billions on digital ads and offering steep discounts or free products, have become big threats to Amazon in the US  —  In the fall of 2020, Amazon looked unstoppable.  The pandemic lockdowns had supercharged its e-commerce business …
TIME:
LLMs aren't sentient; they lack the physiological states required for sensations like hunger and pain, and thus can't have subjective experiences of such states  —  Artificial general intelligence (AGI) is the term used to describe an artificial agent that is at least as intelligent as a human …

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Featured Podcasts

Channels with Peter Kafka:
Ronan Farrow and Andrew Marantz on Sam Altman's Trust Problem
Media and tech aren't just intersecting - they're fully intertwined. To understand how those worlds work, Peter Kafka talks to industry leaders, upstarts and observers.
Subscribe to Channels with Peter Kafka.
Acquired:
Ferrari
Learn the playbooks that built the world's greatest companies - and how you can apply them as a founder, operator, or investor.
Subscribe to Acquired.
Lenny's Podcast:
Hard truths about building in the AI era | Keith Rabois (Khosla Ventures)
Interviews with world-class product leaders and growth experts to uncover actionable advice to help you build, launch, and grow your own product.
Subscribe to Lenny's Podcast.
Big Technology Podcast:
Anthropic's Mythos Dilemma, Violence Against AI, Tokenmaxxing at Meta
The Big Technology Podcast takes you behind the scenes in the tech world featuring interviews with plugged-in insiders and outside agitators.
Subscribe to Big Technology Podcast.
Hard Fork:
Anthropic's Cybersecurity Shock Wave + Ronan Farrow and Andrew Marantz on Their Sam Altman Investigation + One Good Thing
The future is already here. Each week, journalists Kevin Roose and Casey Newton explore and make sense of the latest in the rapidly changing world of tech.
Subscribe to Hard Fork.
Tools and Weapons with Brad Smith:
Ryan Roslansky: Turning AI Anxiety into Skills for the Future of Work
Microsoft Vice Chair and President Brad Smith speaks with leaders in government, business, and culture to explore the most critical challenges at the intersection of technology and society.
Subscribe to Tools and Weapons with Brad Smith.
 

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More News

Nikkei Asia:
Zack Whittaker / TechCrunch:
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Earlier Picks

Viola Zhou / Rest of World:
Will Knight / Wired:
Washington Post: