Techmeme: After Elon Musk promises to give $1M to one swing state voter per day who signs his PAC's petition, PA's governor says “law enforcement could take a look” (Alexandra Marquez/NBC News)

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October 21, 2024, 4:05 AM

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Alexandra Marquez / NBC News:

After Elon Musk promises to give $1M to one swing state voter per day who signs his PAC's petition, PA's governor says “law enforcement could take a look” — Musk announced Saturday that every day until Election Day, he would give $1 million to a randomly selected voter who signs a petition circulated by his super PAC.

More: Talking Points Memo, Election Law Blog, Disconnect, The Verge, The Daily Beast, BBC, CNBC, Reuters, Rolling Stone, Pittsburgh Post-Gazette, The Daily Caller, The Guardian, The Gateway Pundit, New York Post, Washington Examiner, Associated Press, The Indian Express, Mother Jones, Fortune, Benzinga, Financial Times, The Information, Global News, NPR, New York Times, Breitbart, KTVU-TV, and The Mirror

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LinkedIn: Paris Marx and Hans Lak

Wall Street Journal:

Sources: Perplexity is looking to raise ~$500M to double its valuation to $8B or more; Perplexity's annualized revenue is ~$50M, up from ~$10M in March 2024 — Search-based chatbot seeks to raise about $500 million in what would be its fourth funding round in a year

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X: @berber_jin1, @benfritz, and @wsj

Mark Gurman / Bloomberg:

Sources: some at Apple think it is over two years behind the leaders in generative AI; a closer look at changes in Apple's HR and hardware engineering groups — Apple's new iPad mini highlights the company's secret advantage in artificial intelligence. Also: Sonos weighs a headphone reboot …

More: Cult of Mac, 9to5Mac, Neowin, Thurrott, Wccftech, iPhone in Canada Blog, AppleInsider, Patently Apple, Digital Trends, On my Om, The Mac Observer, Forbes, PhoneArena, and Hindustan Times

Threads: @markgurman and @carnage4life

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Forums: Hacker News, r/sonos, and r/apple

Nicholas Fearn / Financial Times:

ABI expects there to be 8,400 global data centers by 2030, as investors capitalize on the AI boom; Statista projects the industry will be worth $624B by 2029 — The assets offer consistent returns but come with risks including a high environmental impact — Spending time in a warm …

Bloomberg:

Tracxn: Indian health tech-related startups raised $3.7B since 2022, about half of the $7.4B raised in the sector across the Asia Pacific region — - Hospitals often understaffed with overworked doctors, nurses — Covid spawned startups facilitating e-services, not all lasted

Cristina Criddle / Financial Times:

How OpenAI, Google, and Anthropic are using differing approches to improve “model behavior”, an emerging field shaping AI systems' responses and characteristics — Leading artificial intelligence companies that are racing to develop the cutting-edge technology are tackling …

More: Cryptopolitan. X: @cristinacriddle

Wired:

At a San Francisco protest, blind Uber and Lyft users say the companies aren't doing enough to stop drivers from turning away passengers with visual impairments — At a protest in San Francisco, blind Uber and Lyft users claim that the ride-hailing companies aren't doing enough to prevent drivers from turning them away.

More: TechCrunch. X: @nfb_voice. Forums: r/Blind

Washington Post:

A look at the Harris campaign's outreach to the tech sector, as it tries to convince companies that she'll chart her own course while avoiding policy specifics — The Democratic candidate is pulling out the stops to signal a less confrontational stance toward the tech sector, and it appears to be paying off.

More: Washington Examiner. X: @adamkovac, @omid, @skupor, @wendyranderson, @katrinanation, @aaschapiro, @scribe_light, and @jason_kint

Lisa Bonos / Washington Post:

Polymarket users have bet ~$2B on predicting the next US president; Polymarket has excluded US users since 2022 as part of a settlement with federal regulators — SAN FRANCISCO — Scott Owens, an amateur watchmaker in Madison, Wis., waited years for a chance to legally bet money on U.S. politics.

More: Polymarket, Gizmodo, International Business Times, Cointelegraph, Polymarket, IJR, ZeroHedge News, The Independent, The Crypto Times, Reuters, and Blockworks

X: @nic__carter, @matthew_d_green, @nope_its_lily, and @carlquintanilla

Bloomberg:

Students, academics, and developers say AI writing detectors are most likely to falsely flag essays written in a more generic manner as written by AI tools — About two-thirds of teachers report regularly using tools for detecting AI-generated content. At that scale, even tiny error rates can add up quickly.

More: Windows Copilot News and Chalkbeat

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LinkedIn: Adriana Alba, Adam Garry, NS Ramnath, Darren Coxon, Szymon Machajewski, and Jackie Davalos

Forums: Hacker News, r/technology, r/Professors, and r/OpenAI

Anthropic:

Anthropic evaluates four “sabotage” threat vectors for its Claude 3 Opus and Claude 3.5 Sonnet models and finds that “minimal mitigations are sufficient” — Any industry where there are potential harms needs evaluations. Nuclear power stations have continuous radiation monitoring …

More: TechCrunch, Anthropic, WinBuzzer, and Cointelegraph

X: @anthropicai and @anthropicai

Forums: Hacker News and r/singularity

Daysia Tolentino / NBC News:

After allegations of poor working conditions on MrBeast's Amazon Studios show Beast Games, industry insiders call for more safety oversight on creator-run sets — YouTube channels are gaining more mainstream attention — but some in the digital entertainment industry think growth should require better oversight.

Mastodon: @carnage4life@mas.to. X: @nbcwashington. Forums: r/television

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