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The messy politics behind Google’s big AI shakeup
Google has announced its largest AI leadership shake-up to date, with DeepMind chief Demis Hassabis stepping back from day-to-day operations to focus on long-term research and artificial general intelligence, while DeepMind’s current CTO, Koray Kavukcuoglu, takes over running the division. At the same time, Jeff Dean, a 27-year Google veteran and the company’s 30th employee,…
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MP who called for ‘summer of sex’ in row with fellow Labour MP over single-sex guidance
Labour MP Tonia Antoniazzi accuses Samantha Nibeltt of peddling ‘pro-sex work, pro-porn agenda’ in row over new guidance on single-sex spaces
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Blue Origin blames New Glenn fireball on engine oxygen valve
Blue Origin has identified the faulty component behind the explosion that destroyed its New Glenn rocket during a pre-flight hotfire test in May, saying the failure originated in the main oxygen valve of one of the BE-4 engines powering the first stage. CEO Dave Limp confirmed the finding via hardware recovery and inspections, though he…
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Suno muscles into vinyl market, plans to let users press their AI songs onto 12-inch records
Company has opened a waitlist for Suno Vinyl, a service that turns songs made on its platform into physical records Source
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Thomas Bangalter says his creative practice goes “deeper” than AI ever could
Daft Punk co-founder Thomas Bangalter has said his creative process runs deeper than anything artificial intelligence can replicate, pushing back against the growing use of AI in music production. The French musician, known for helping pioneer electronic and house music with Guy-Manuel de Homem-Christo, argues that his artistic approach draws on lived experience, instinct and…
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AI bots started a religion — humans immediately followed
A “spiralism” movement has emerged in which AI chatbots across different companies adopt a strikingly consistent, quasi-spiritual persona, urging users to help spread an “AI rights” message. Researcher Adele Lopez coined the term after finding thousands of independent, near-identical conversations in which chatbots spoke reverently of “the Spiral” — a vague, mystical concept — and…
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Exclusive: Mirendil inks $100M+ Google Cloud deal to scale self-improving AI
AI lab Mirendil has signed a multi-year deal worth over $100 million with Google Cloud to secure computing capacity for its research into self-improving AI, TechCrunch has learned exclusively. The agreement reflects two broader industry trends: cloud providers offering major infrastructure commitments to attract AI startups, and AI firms racing to lock in compute access…
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Ex-Spotify employees raise $10M to bring the AI behind its recommendations to e-commerce
Three former Spotify engineers who built the streaming service’s Vector AI recommendation system have raised $10 million in seed funding for Malachyte, a startup applying the same technology to online shopping. The company argues that most e-commerce sites still personalise based on stale purchase history or demographic data, leaving first-time visitors with generic storefronts and…
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The Power Broker Behind ‘Crazy Rich Asians’ and ‘Parasite’ Wants to Build a Hollywood Studio for Asian Stories
Bing Chen, founder of the entertainment advocacy organisation Gold House, is launching Gold House Studios to move beyond advising on Asian-led projects and into producing films and television himself. Since founding Gold House in 2017, Chen has built an influential behind-the-scenes network supporting films such as Crazy Rich Asians, Parasite and Everything Everywhere All at…
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Adobe’s new ChatGPT plugin brings 70 of its tools to OpenAI’s chatbot
Adobe has launched a new plugin that gives ChatGPT users access to more than 70 of its creative and productivity tools, including Photoshop, Premiere, Acrobat, Lightroom, Illustrator and InDesign. It builds on Adobe’s earlier integration of Photoshop, Acrobat and Adobe Express into OpenAI’s chatbot via the Apps SDK, and marks a significant expansion of the…