Mindblown: a blog about philosophy.
EU fines Google $3.5B over adtech ‘abuse’
The European Commission announced this week that it’s fining Google €2.95 billion (just under $3.5 billion). The commission found that Google had violated European Union antitrust rules by favoring its own advertising services. Specifically, the commission said Google “abused” its “dominant positions” by favoring its ad exchange AdX in both its publisher ad server and…
Why is an Amazon-backed AI startup making Orson Welles fan fiction?
On Friday, a startup called Fable announced an ambitious, if head-scratching, plan to recreate the lost 43 minutes of Orson Welles’ classic film “The Magnificent Ambersons.” Why is a startup that bills itself as the “Netflix of AI,” and that recently raised money from Amazon’s Alexa Fund, talking about remaking a movie that was first…
Personalized AI companion app Dot is shutting down
Dot, an AI companion app that aimed to be a friend and confidante, is shutting down, the company announced on Friday. On a message published on its website, the startup behind Dot, New Computer, said that the product will remain operational until October 5, giving users time to download their data. Launched in 2024 by…
Musk’s $1T pay package is full of watered-down versions of his own broken promises
Tesla has proposed a massive new $1 trillion compensation package for its CEO Elon Musk, and many of the benchmarks he needs to hit are simply watered-down versions of promises he’s spent years making about the company. That’s not the picture Tesla’s board of directors paints in the company’s annual proxy statement, where they revealed…
Screw the money — Anthropic’s $1.5B copyright settlement sucks for writers
Around half a million writers will be eligible for a payday of at least $3,000, thanks to a historic $1.5 billion settlement in a class action lawsuit that a group of authors brought against Anthropic. This landmark settlement marks the largest payout in the history of U.S. copyright law, but this isn’t a victory for…
OpenAI reorganizes research team behind ChatGPT’s personality
OpenAI is reorganizing its Model Behavior team, a small but influential group of researchers who shape how the company’s AI models interact with people, TechCrunch has learned. In an August memo to staff seen by TechCrunch, OpenAI’s chief research officer Mark Chen said the Model Behavior team — which consists of roughly 14 researchers —…
Your last chance to exhibit at Disrupt 2025 is today
If you’re a founder who planned to wait until the last minute … this is it. Today is the final day to secure your exhibit table at TechCrunch Disrupt 2025. If you want to get in front of more than 10,000 startup and VC leaders, connect with media, and generate a nonstop pipeline this October, you…
Snapchat’s new Lens lets you create AI images using text prompts
Snapchat is launching a new Lens that lets users create and edit images using a text-to-image AI generator, the company told TechCrunch exclusively. The new “Imagine Lens” is available to Snapchat+ Platinum and Lens+ subscribers. Imagine Lens allows users to create, edit, and recreate Snaps by entering their own prompts. They can then share the…
Rivian makes its second small workforce cut of the year ahead of R2 SUV launch
Rivian is laying off around 150 workers — its second small staff cut in a matter of months — as the company readies itself for the all-important launch of its more-affordable R2 SUV next year. The company confirmed to TechCrunch that the new cuts were mostly to its “commercial” team, which deals with sales and…
Bret Taylor’s Sierra raises $350M at a $10B valuation
Investors are clearly bullish about former Salesforce co-CEO Bret Taylor’s AI agent startup Sierra. Sierra, which helps enterprises build customer service AI agents, announced it raised a $350 million funding round on Thursday. The round, led by earlier investor Greenoaks Capital, values the startup at $10 billion, according to a company blog post that confirmed…
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