Author: IQ TIMES MEDIA

OpenAI is losing two of the architects of its most ambitious moonshots. Kevin Weil, who led the company’s science research initiative, and Bill Peebles, the researcher behind AI video tool Sora, both announced their departures on Friday. The exits come as OpenAI consolidates around enterprise AI and its forthcoming “superapp.” The departures follow OpenAI’s decision to cut back on “side quests,” including customer-facing bets like Sora and OpenAI for Science. Sora, which was losing an estimated $1 million per day in compute costs, was shut down last month. OpenAI for Science was the internal research group behind Prism, an AI-powered…

Anthropic says its new AI model, Opus 4.7, should feel “more intelligent, agentic, and precise.” Some users aren’t feeling the joy. Loading audio narration… The backlash to the new Claude model — a relatively rare occurrence for an AI product many view as the gold standard in AI — has gained traction on social media.Anthropic is coming off months of widespread public celebration. The technical chops of Claude Code and Claude Cowork have boosted the company’s image, and chatbot fans have long admired Claude’s writing abilities. After the company’s fight with the Department of Defense, Claude went No. 1 in…

OnlyFans is an internet business marvel: low costs, huge profits, nonstop growth. But every time it goes looking for mainstream capital, it runs into the same problem: Investors are scared of buying into a porn company. Loading audio narration… Our newest reminder of this tension comes from the Financial Times, which reports that OnlyFans’ parent company is close to an investment deal with Architect Capital that would value it north of $3 billion — down meaningfully from previous targets.It’s one of a series of data points about OnlyFans’ difficulty in attracting investors. In 2022, it took a run at going…

AI coding startup Cursor is nearing new funding in which the four-year-old company would raise at least $2 billion in fresh capital, according to four sources familiar with the matter. Returning investors Thrive and Andreessen Horowitz are expected to lead the financing at a $50 billion valuation, prior to the new capital injection, the people said. Battery Ventures, a new investor, may also participate in the financing, according to two sources. Strategic investor Nvidia is also expected to write a check, one person said. Although the round is already oversubscribed, the deal terms are not final and may still change.…

There’s an old saw in management: What you measure matters. And, typically, you get more of whatever you’re measuring. Software engineers have debated productivity metrics for decades, starting with lines of code. But as the new generation of AI coding agents delivers more code than ever, what their managers ought to be measuring is less clear. Enormous token budgets — essentially, the amount of AI processing power a developer is authorized to consume — have become a badge of honor among Silicon Valley developers, but that’s a very weird way to think about productivity. Measuring an input to the process…

Under the cherry blossoms lining NYC’s City Hall Park, a new metal-and-glass structure stands. Loading audio narration… It’s called the City Hall Deliverista Hub — a first-of-its-kind rest stop for the roughly 80,000 delivery workers who zip through the city, transporting lunches, Amazon packages, and other online orders. Worker advocates hope it’s the first of many.It’s a few blocks from Business Insider’s newsroom, so I went to see it the day after a much-ballyhooed April 7 ribbon-cutting, hoping to interview delivery drivers about their first impressions.It was locked. I went back on April 15. Still locked. I returned on April…

At least one person in Trump world believes Anthropic was correct to reject a deal with the Pentagon. Loading audio narration… “I think Anthropic had it right,” former White House chief strategist Steve Bannon said during the Semafor World Economy Summit in Washington, D.C., on Thursday.Bannon said allowing the Pentagon to operate Anthropic’s frontier model — Claude — with little guardrails is “too dangerous.”Bannon, who’s criticized the development of superintelligent AI, said there needs to be greater transparency about how weapons manufacturers will use AI.”The central thing is what is happening in the weapons lab with AI,” Bannon said. “We…

Conferences are fun for journalists because the private chatter flows. Business Insider’s The Long Play in San Francisco was no exception. Loading audio narration… Biohacker Bryan Johnson urged founders to bang, not build. Carina Hong dished on the AI talent wars. Joanna Strober reflected on her late, great friend Susan Wojcicki. Jason Blum described the horror of making AI movie shorts with Meta. That’s what we reported from the stage. Here’s what else I heard:A tech CEO recalled being interviewed last year by a big newspaper about a possible AI bubble. She gave a nuanced answer and didn’t make it…

Elon Musk thinks he has a solution to AI-driven job losses: the government pays for everyone to live well. Loading audio narration… “Universal HIGH INCOME via checks issued by the Federal government is the best way to deal with unemployment caused by AI,” the Tesla and SpaceX CEO said in a late Thursday post on X.”AI/robotics will produce goods & services far in excess of the increase in the money supply, so there will not be inflation,” he added.Universal HIGH INCOME via checks issued by the Federal government is the best way to deal with unemployment caused by AI. AI/robotics…

After three decades at Apple, one exec’s last day included checking items off his corporate bucket list. Loading audio narration… Stan Ng oversaw marketing for iconic products such as the Apple Watch, AirPods, and Apple’s home and health offerings. He said Thursday was his last day at the tech giant, and it looks like he spent it exactly as he wanted.Ng described his final shift as an Apple employee in a LinkedIn post.”After 31 years at Apple, today was my last day,” he wrote. “I think I got in everything I wanted to do on my last day before retiring.”He…