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xAI’s promised safety report is MIA

​Elon Musk’s AI company, xAI, has missed a self-imposed deadline to publish a finalized AI safety framework, as noted by watchdog group The Midas Project. xAI isn’t exactly known for its strong commitments to AI safety as it’s commonly understood. A recent report found that the company’s AI chatbot, Grok, would undress photos of women when […]  

New York-focused VC Work-Bench has raised a fresh $160M

New York-focused VC Work-Bench has raised a fresh $160M

​Work-Bench, whose portfolio includes unicorns Spring Health and Socure, just raised a $160 million Fund IV to quadruple down on backing companies in New York City. The firm announced the raise in a blog post on Monday, saying the latest fund will support seed-stage founders building enterprise software. Checks will range from $2 million to […]  

NFT phenom CryptoPunks was just sold to a nonprofit

​Yuga Labs, known as the creator of Bored Ape Yacht Club and other notable NFTs, sold its iconic CryptoPunks to the nonprofit NODE Foundation, which focuses on preserving digital art. The deal details are undisclosed, and a representative declined to comment. Back in April, NODE announced it received a $25 million grant to “build the […]  

Anthropic, Google score win by nabbing OpenAI-backed Harvey as a user

​Popular legal AI tool Harvey will now be using leading foundation models from Anthropic and Google, moving beyond strictly using OpenAI’s, Harvey announced in a blog post on Tuesday. This is noteworthy because Harvey is one of the OpenAI Startup Fund’s most successful early-backed portfolio companies. The OpenAI Startup Fund is an OpenAI-associated fund to […]  

AWS enters into ‘strategic partnership’ with Saudi Arabia-backed Humain

​Amazon says it will work with Humain, the AI company recently launched by Saudi Arabia’s ruler, Mohammed bin Salman, to invest “$5 billion-plus” in a strategic partnership to build an “AI Zone” in Saudi Arabia. The AI Zone will include dedicated Amazon Web Services (AWS) AI infrastructure, servers, networks, and training and certification programs, according […]  

TikTok launches TikTok AI Alive, a new image-to-video tool

​TikTok is launching its first image-to-video AI feature, the company announced on Tuesday. The new feature is called “TikTok AI Alive” and allows users to turn static photos into videos within TikTok Stories. The feature is only accessible via TikTok’s Story Camera and uses AI to create short-form videos with “movement, atmospheric and creative effects,” […]  

Elon Musk’s The Boring Company might be in line for an Amtrak contract

​Federal railroad regulators are in talks with Elon Musk’s tunneling firm, The Boring Company (TBC), over a multi-billion Amtrak project, according to The New York Times.  Citing sources familiar with the matter, the NYT reports that Federal Railroad Administration officials have spoken with TBC to learn whether the Musk-owned company could save the agency money […]