Startups Weekly: It’s the dawning of the age of AI — plus, Musk is raging against the machine

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Welcome to Startups Weekly — Haje‘s weekly recap of everything you can’t miss from the world of startups. Sign up here to get it in your inbox every Friday.
We’ve been drowning in AI news this week. Google’s I/O set the pace: At its keynote, the word “AI” came up on average once per minute throughout its two-hour keynote. Yowzers! Here’s the DL on Google’s AI plans.
OpenAI just dropped GPT-4o — the AI model that’s ChatGPT on steroids. This new “omni” wonder-child can handle text, speech, and video like a multitasking prodigy hopped up on espresso shots. Also, OpenAI’s co-founder and chief scientist Ilya Sutskever decided to jump ship. The guy who basically helped build the brain of our future AI overlords is off to chase some “personally meaningful” rainbows.
Meanwhile, OpenAI is now considering AI-generated porn. Yes, you read that right — it seems like our future involves robots with an artistic flair for NSFW content. The company wants to “responsibly” generate explicit images and text without violating laws or rights. Between you and me, letting Skynet dabble in adult entertainment seems anything but responsible, but I guess you’ll have to stay tuned for more updates on this roller-coaster ride because it seems we’re hurtling toward an X-rated tech dystopia faster than you can say “algo-rotica.”
Oh, and it’s also worth noting that Anthropic has let kids join the AI party, but only if developers play by the company’s rules. Teens can access third-party apps using Anthropic’s AI — just not Anthropic’s own apps — provided these apps include safety features like age verification and content filtering and a wall of “comply with COPPA” signs plastered to every surface.
Did anything happen outside of AI land? Sure, let’s take a look …
Ready to hand over your love life to a robot? Bumble’s Whitney Wolfe Herd thinks it’s time for bots to date other bots, all in the name of fostering “healthy and equitable relationships.” Picture this: An AI “dating concierge” critiques your insecurities and then sends its own bot on a test run with another bot. If sparks fly, maybe you get a match! It’s basically Tinder meets “Black Mirror” episode “Hang the DJ” minus the dystopian charm. While some folks are snickering, others are wondering if living vicariously through digital avatars is any worse than swiping right on someone because they have a cute dog in their profile pic. Truly, the modernest of romances.
Ever lost a bet and ended up founding a company? Nicholas Johnson has, and now he’s here to save apartment-dwelling EV owners from the slow death of 120-volt outlets. Enter Orange Charger, peddling $750 smart outlets that’ll juice up your ride without landlords breaking into cold sweats over installation costs. The company raised a $6.5 million oversubscribed seed round
In a plot twist straight out of Silicon Valley’s soap opera, Permira is taking Squarespace private in a $6.9 billion cash deal. The website builder you probably used to start your probably-now-abandoned blog just got snapped up by some very serious people with very deep pockets. After riding the roller coaster of public trading and seeing its stock yo-yo like it was auditioning for Cirque du Soleil, Squarespace will be tucked away from prying market eyes once more.
In the latest episode of “Elon Musk Does Whatever He Wants,” the social media platform formerly known as Twitter now flags the words “cis” and “cisgender” as slurs. Yes, really. While actual hate speech targeting marginalized groups skates by unscathed, using a term recognized by medical and government authorities will get you a full-screen warning. It’s almost like Elon is trying to make X a hostile environment for anyone who isn’t aligned with his new extremist fanbase. Never mind that the vast majority of people on the platform are cisgender — if you use the word (or just enjoy basic human decency), consider this your cue to exit stage left.
Oh, and apropos Musk doing whatever he damn well pleases … Guess what happens when you put Elon Musk and a profitable division in the same room? You fire it, of course! Tesla’s Supercharger network — an EV owner’s dream with its 50,000+ global charging ports — is now in complete disarray after Musk axed the entire team.
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