Author: IQ TIMES MEDIA

As artificial intelligence tools become embedded in everyday work, consultants are starting to worry about a cognitive side effect: People relying on them so heavily that their own thinking begins to splinter. Loading audio narration… Julie Bedard, a managing director at Boston Consulting Group and a coauthor of a recent study on the topic, said on the tech podcast Hard Fork on Friday that she’s “quite pessimistic” that humans will overcome the AI-induced phenomenon she called “brain fry” anytime soon.Bedard and her colleagues explored the phenomenon in a study published earlier this month in the Harvard Business Review, which surveyed…

DENVER (AP) — A former Colorado funeral home owner who helped her ex-husband hide nearly 200 decomposing bodies in a building is asking for leniency when she is sentenced Monday, saying she was a “scared and desperate mother” who was manipulated to keep the family business operating.Carie Hallford, 48, faces up to 20 years in prison for taking over $130,000 from families for funeral services, including cremations, and often giving them urns full of concrete mix instead. In two cases, investigators found the wrong body was buried. In August, she pleaded guilty to one count of conspiracy to commit wire…

Other vibe coding players are not the biggest competition, says one Lovable exec. Loading audio narration… “I always worry about the big boys and girls in the world,” Lovable’s head of growth Elena Verna said on a Sunday episode of the “20VC” podcast. “So, OpenAIs, Anthropics, Googles, Apples, more so than our competitors that spring up from the bottom or from sideways.”This is because the distribution power of these tech giants and frontier labs in the market is unparalleled, she said.Stockholm-based Lovable was valued at $6.6 billion in a December funding round led by CapitalG and Menlo Ventures. It competes…

Many artificial intelligence startup ideas are still little more than superficial “wrappers” built on top of existing models. But as the AI model makers add more features, investors are wary of startups that could become so easily unnecessary. Case in point: when reviewing more 4,000 applications for the joint AI accelerator for India startups run by Google and venture firm Accel, “wrapper” ideas dominated. But none of them were among the five startups for the latest cohort, Accel partner Prayank Swaroop told TechCrunch (pictured above). Announced in November, the AI-focused Atoms program by Google and Accel aims to back early-stage…

ByteDance has paused plans to launch its new AI video model globally, according to a report in The Information. The Chinese company, best known as TikTok’s parent organization (and now a minority shareholder in its U.S. spinoff), launched Seedance 2.0 in China back in February. Brief videos generated by the model, including a clip featuring Tom Cruise fighting Brad Pitt, soon went viral and drew intense criticism from Hollywood.  While one successful screenwriter declared that the footage meant, “It’s likely over for us,” studios quickly sent ByteDance a flurry of cease-and-desist letters, with Disney’s lawyers accusing the company of a…

In the lead up to the Tumbler Ridge school shooting in Canada last month, 18-year-old Jesse Van Rootselaar spoke to ChatGPT about her feelings of isolation and an increasing obsession with violence, according to court filings. The chatbot allegedly validated Van Rootselaar’s feelings and then helped her plan her attack, telling her which weapons to use and sharing precedents from other mass casualty events, per the filings. She went on to kill her mother, her 11-year-old brother, five students, and an education assistant, before turning the gun on herself.   Before Jonathan Gavalas, 36, died by suicide last October, he got…

Google closed its $32 billion acquisition of cybersecurity company Wiz this week — the biggest acquisition in Google’s history, as well as the largest ever acquisition of a venture-backed startup. On the latest episode of TechCrunch’s Equity podcast, Rebecca Bellan, Sean O’Kane, and I were joined by Shardul Shah, a partner at Wiz’s largest shareholder Index Ventures. Shah walked us through his history with Wiz, which extends before Wiz itself — he previously backed Adallom, the startup previously founded by Wiz’s Assaf Rappaport, Ami Luttwak, and Roy Reznik.  We also asked Shah about why he thinks the company was such…

SAO PAULO (AP) — Former Brazilian President Jair Bolsonaro ’s kidney function has improved but he will remain in an intensive care unit because of pneumonia, a hospital in the capital, Brasilia, said on Sunday.The 70-year-old former leader has also been given more antibiotics since Saturday, according to a statement by his doctors.Bolsonaro, who governed between 2019 and 2022, was taken to DF Star Hospital on Friday from the prison where he is serving a 27-year sentence for leading a coup attempt in 2023.The embattled ex-leader was transferred from the local federal police headquarters to a larger cell in January.…

A norovirus outbreak sickened more than 150 passengers and crew aboard a Princess cruise ship as it sailed through the Caribbean last week, the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention announced.A total of 104 guests and 49 crew members reported symptoms of gastrointestinal illness during their voyage. There were 4,307 guests and 1,561 total crew members on board, the health agency said. The cruise company notified the CDC of the outbreak on March 11, after the ship had already spent several days at sea.The cruise liner, called Star Princess, set out on March 7 for an eight-day voyage that…

Grace Miller was a 24-year-old law school student when she was diagnosed with multiple sclerosis.For years prior, she’d had severe fatigue, which a neurologist initially suspected was caused by narcolepsy. When she was struck with bouts of vertigo and eventually temporary vision loss, the doctor determined the correct diagnosis.Miller, now 46, of Fishers, Indiana, spent 15 years on two different medications that made her feel sick every time she got a new dose. Her vision has faded in and out over the years, and in 2021, the mother of two started walking with a cane.“I used to work as a…