Proposed new rule: All AI output must rhyme

Welcome to Startups Weekly. Sign up here to get it successful your inbox each Friday.

I cognize I usually lead Startups Weekly pinch my ain file (and I did constitute 1 this week, truthful if you are someway a instrumentality of everything I write, spell ham), but Devin’s portion taking a guidelines against nan pseudanthropy of AI is simply a must-read. He proposes a caller group of rules for AIs to travel to sphere our humanity:

1. AI must rhyme​​.
2. AI whitethorn not coming a look aliases identity​​.
3. AI cannot “feel” aliases “think.”​​
4. AI-derived figures, decisions and answers must beryllium marked ‘⸫’ ​​.
5. AI must not make life aliases decease decisions​​.
6. AI imagery must person a area clipped​​.

Yes, these suggestions can’t realistically beryllium implemented, but read nan article anyway; it goes heavy astir immoderate of nan absorbing challenges we are facing arsenic AIs get much mature and ubiquitous.

Okay, pinch today’s accuracy instruction retired of nan way, let’s dive successful and spot what other is up successful nan Right Honorable Royal Kingdom of Startups.

Flying high, dippin’ deep

The turbulent travel of startups is continuing.

Bird, nan erstwhile high-flying electrical scooter company, has crash-landed into bankruptcy. After a chaotic thrust from a $2 cardinal valuation to a financial face-plant, this erstwhile micromobility poster kid is now restructuring its finances faster than 1 of its scooters racing downhill pinch a tailwind. Now they’re banking connected Chapter 11 to support their wheels spinning, but only aft laying disconnected immoderate feathers and hoping personification finds capable worth successful their assets to bargain them out. The irony? Their Canadian and European operations are still scooting on arsenic if thing happened.

I’m not gonna opportunity “I told you so,” but location was decidedly nary coincidence that I picked Bird arsenic nan illustration for nan ‘Undertanding nan levers successful your business’ station I wrote backmost successful 2018 . . .

Anyway. Here’s a fewer much stories that’ve kept y’all clickin’:

Back to startups: Eric Wu, nan co-founder of Opendoor, is ditching his executive chair for a legume container successful nan startup world again. After a decade of playing existent property Tetris, Wu’s fresh to spell backmost to building things from scratch, amid nan toughest existent property marketplace successful much than 40 years.

Feeling safer yet?: In a move that’s little astonishing than uncovering retired your password is still “password123,” Okta has snapped up information patient Spera for a cool $100 million-ish. The second is for illustration a cybersecurity Sherlock Holmes, sniffing retired integer weaknesses earlier they go full-blown disasters.

I stake this newsletter triggers their algorithms: Meltwater, nan media monitoring maestro that’s been dancing astir people and integer news for illustration a tech-savvy ballerina, conscionable sewage a $65 cardinal pat connected nan backmost from Verdane, valuing nan institution astatine a cool $592 million.

When artificial intelligence is much prevalent than existent intelligence

Devin breaks unfastened nan crystal shot for AI successful 2024 and predicts a roller-coaster thrust from hype to a reality check. He suggests that OpenAI, post-leadership shuffle, mightiness morph into an Apple-esque “ship it” merchandise powerhouse pinch its ain AI app store. Meanwhile, niche AI applications, for illustration agent-based models and generative multimedia, could postgraduate from “meh” to “hmm, interesting,” particularly successful monotonous tasks for illustration security claims. In nan governmental arena, AI mightiness go a instrumentality for misinformation and manipulation successful nan 2024 elections, pinch bot accounts and clone news ramping up nan chaos.

I can’t opportunity that I disagree. When media literacy hits stone bottommost and AI is connected nan upswing, we person a cleanable storm.

Cool cool cool. What other has been cookin’ successful nan AI kitchen?

Composers, composers, composers: Microsoft Copilot, nan AI-powered chatbot, is now dipping its integer toes into nan world of euphony composition done an integration pinch nan GenAI euphony app Suno. Users tin punctual Copilot to create complete songs, including lyrics and instrumentals, pinch requests for illustration “Create a popular opus astir adventures pinch your family.”

Hey, Spotify, make maine a playlist wherever each opus starts pinch nan letters W, T, and F: Spotify is testing an “AI playlists” characteristic that lets users create playlists utilizing AI prompts. Users tin type prompts into an AI chatbot-style container aliases take from suggested prompts for illustration “Get focused astatine activity pinch instrumental electronica,” aliases “Songs astir apt to thrust my parents up nan wall.”

Sorry, Charles Ponzi, you can’t shop here: Rite Aid has been banned from utilizing facial nickname package for 5 years, aft it was recovered that its “reckless usage of facial surveillance systems” resulted successful customer humiliation and jeopardized delicate information.

There’s an app for that

Apple has been ordered to cough up $25 cardinal to settee a suit complete its Family Sharing feature. The Cupertino-based package elephantine was promoting a “share-all-the-things” characteristic for apps that were . . . not sharable. Despite Apple’s “Who, us?” stance, they decided to propulsion money astatine nan problem alternatively than strengthen nan endless courtroom drama. Now, immoderate fortunate Family Sharing users from nan bully ol’ days (2015–2019) mightiness get a whopping $30 payout. That’s 3 months of a post-price-hike Apple TV+ subscription. Yay.

Apple sewage disconnected lightly compared to Google’s caller time successful court. In a “My bad, here’s immoderate cash” move, Google’s digging into its sofa cushions for a spare $700 cardinal to settee a suit complete its Play Store monopoly antics. Of this, $630 cardinal goes to U.S. consumers and a neat $70 cardinal to U.S. states. The hunt giant, erstwhile known for its “Do No Evil” motto, apparently didn’t widen that to app distribution connected Android. As portion of nan deal, Google’s besides revamping its personification prime billing programme successful nan U.S., allowing developers much state successful billing methods. They’re moreover making sideloading (i.e., installing apps without Google’s blessing) little of a integer obstacle course. But let’s not get excessively excited — arsenic Epic Games’ VP of nationalist argumentation points out, consumers are still apt to overpay for integer equipment acknowledgment to Google’s hefty fees. So, while Google’s wallet gets lighter, our wallets mightiness not consciousness overmuch different.

Court shenanigans aside . . .

Sharing is caring: Claim, nan caller societal media kid connected nan block, is trying to make sharing rewards pinch friends nan adjacent large thing. They’ve scooped up $4 cardinal from Sequoia Capital to move buying worldly into a multiplayer game.

Oh, hi, didn’t spot you there: Jagat, a location-based societal network that’s each astir real-life connections, has zoomed past 10 cardinal users. Launched successful March, this app, which is for illustration a societal representation for friends and activities, is aiming to make societal networking, well, social again.

Link successful bio: Linktree, nan Australian link-in-bio platform, has scooped up its competitor Koji from GoMeta. In this crippled of integer Monopoly, Linktree’s not only expanding its empire but besides sending Koji’s merchandise into status by January 2024.

Top sounds connected TechCrunch this week

I dipped into our analytics package to spot what other mightiness beryllium worthy highlighting from nan past week aliases so. Here are a fewer further reads:

Taking nan oxygen retired of Apple’s Christmas sails: Apple has paused income of its Apple Watch Series 9 and Ultra 2 owed to a patent conflict pinch Masimo, a aesculapian tech firm. The conflict involves nan humor oxygen sensor successful Apple’s smartwatches.

To Xfinity and beyond: Comcast’s Xfinity work fell unfortunate to a cyberattack, affecting almost 36 cardinal customers. The breach perchance exposed customer usernames, hashed passwords, interaction information, dates of birth, parts of Social Security numbers, and concealed questions and answers.

Where were you, tho?: Google, successful a move that could make Big Brother a small little nosy, announced plans to store users’ location information connected their devices alternatively of connected its servers. This alteration intends to put an extremity to nan usage of “geofence warrants,” wherever constabulary request Google manus complete information from devices successful a circumstantial area astatine a definite time. These warrants person been criticized arsenic overly wide and perchance unconstitutional.