Author: IQ TIMES MEDIA

Venture capitalist Bill Gurley says he’s come up with a scarier theory than the idea that Anthropic wants to stifle its competition.”The more I dig, I’ve met people who I dare say think it’s their responsibility and they’re excited about building a species that’s superior to humans,” Gurley said during a recent episode of the “All-In Podcast.”Gurley, who said he spent a month reading everything he could about Anthropic, said he came away convinced that one of the leading AI startups wants to create a God-like system to rule humanity.”I don’t think they think they’re writing software. I think they’re…

OpenAI and its CEO, Sam Altman, were sued by the Florida attorney general on Monday, in a first-of-its-kind state litigation effort over ChatGPT’s alleged links to a number of violent incidents. The lawsuit accuses OpenAI of looking the other way on safety concerns as it has sought to prioritize winning “the AI arms race and amass large fortunes.” “Today, we announced the first-in-the-nation state-led lawsuit against OpenAI and its CEO, Sam Altman,” said Florida Attorney General James Uthmeier. “OpenAI and Altman ignored internal and external safety warnings, put children at great risk, and allowed a dangerous product to reach millions of Floridians.”…

OpenAI CEO Sam Altman is backing a stealthy physical AI startup run by former Tesla and Meta employees, in the latest sign that investors are rushing into robotics.The startup, called Alfred, is also being funded by Khosla Ventures, SV Angel, Chapter One, and others, according to internal documents reviewed by Business Insider. The startup is aiming to raise at a $40 million valuation, co-founder Ankit Ukil told Business Insider.Aflred is run by Ukil, a former Tesla designer, and Dömötör Gulyas, a former engineer at Meta Reality Labs.Alfred is emerging as investors pour money into physical AI, a category built around…

Microsoft employees are feeling more “energized” and “empowered” to do meaningful work, and worse about coaching, feedback, and motivation from managers.That’s according to a recent internal memo that highlights the results of the company’s latest employee surveys.In the memo, Microsoft Chief People Officer Amy Coleman shared what she called the “top strengths” and “top opportunities” from employee surveys.The company has increased performance pressure on staff in recent quarters. It’s also overhauled the HR organization responsible for pay and promotion policies, and offered a buyout for some employees who want to retire.”While much of this feedback is encouraging, I also know…

Gabriel Petersson said he doesn’t think young workers need to avoid the dreaded “job-hopper” label.In several X posts on Sunday, the OpenAI researcher said young tech workers should test out different teams before anchoring themselves to one company.His view: early-career engineers need data points — on research projects, culture, and their own market value — before making a long-term bet. He called the traditional stay-put advice “braindead.””Please don’t take the advice that you should stay at a company long and ‘not hop around’ for your first jobs,” he wrote.please don’t take the advice that you should stay at a company…

Nico Laqua said he’d rather shave years off his life than see his startup fail.He cofounded Corgi, an AI insurance company, in 2024. Corgi became a unicorn in May, raising its Series B at a $1.3 billion valuation — before raising a Series B1 round at a $2.6 billion valuation three weeks later.To reach such heights, Laqua said he keeps an unusually strict schedule, where he works seven days a week, sleeps in the office, and gets around three hours of shut-eye.On an episode of the “20VC” podcast released Saturday, host Harry Stebbings asked Laqua: “Would you rather Corgi was…

SpaceX has added new language to its IPO filing that warns prospective investors about the company’s access to a potentially scarce resource: water. The company, which now includes Elon Musk’s AI company, xAI, wrote in an amended version of the filing on Monday that access to water — required to cool its data centers — is just as important as SpaceX’s ability to secure power, processors, and other critical resources. The addition comes amid an ever-evolving debate about how much water data centers use, and whether that usage is contributing to localized droughts that are being made worse by climate…

Anthropic, the AI lab behind Claude, has filed confidentially for an initial public offering, the company said in a blog post Monday. The company, which is valued at close to $1 trillion, submitted a draft registration statement to the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission for a proposed initial public offering. Anthropic has yet to list the number of shares or set the price. Anthropic said the proposed initial public offering will depend on market conditions and other factors. The filing comes less than a week after Anthropic raised $65 billion in a Series H funding round that pushed its valuation to…

A new AI weather forecasting tool released today by the startup WindBorne Systems offers more frequent and accurate predictions on key variables than the world-leading system developed by European governments, thanks to advancements in how sensor readings are fed into deep learning models. Founded by a group of Stanford students in 2019, WindBorne began by building a better weather balloon, with the idea of selling weather data. But the arrival of the weather-forecasting deep learning models in 2022, the team realized they could capture more value by building their own model as well. WindBorne says the new version of its…

As its traffic continues to climb, alternative search engine DuckDuckGo is leaning into anti-AI sentiment with the launch of new browser extensions that allow users to set its no-AI search experience, noai.duckduckgo.com, as their default search engine. Once enabled, users will be directed to DuckDuckGo’s AI-free search page, where there are no AI-assisted answers, no chat prompts, and fewer AI images in the search results, the company claims. The extensions are currently available for Chrome and Firefox users. Meanwhile, people who have switched to the DuckDuckGo web browser already have their AI settings preserved, even if they clear their browser…