(TechCrunch) Keeping up with an industry as fast-moving as AI is a tall order. So until an AI can do it for you, here’s a handy roundup of recent stories in the world of machine learning, along with notable research and experiments we didn’t cover on their own. Last week, Midjourney, the AI startup building image (and…

(Financial Times) On the morning of August 12 2020, the day he decided to fight the Uber Eats algorithm, Armin Samii woke earlier than usual. He dressed, made coffee and sat down at his computer where he remained for the next 16 hours, coding a web application and filming videos to show other couriers how…

(NYT) Romeo Chicco’s auto insurance rate doubled because of information about his speeding, braking and acceleration, according to his complaint. Read more here.

(The Information) In the past year, major technology firms have championed generative artificial intelligence as the next big thing, boosting the stock market to new highs. But behind the scenes, representatives of major cloud providers and other firms that sell the technology are tempering expectations with their salespeople, saying the hype about the technology has gotten…

(TechCrunch) Should artists whose work was used to train generative AI like ChatGPT be compensated for their contributions? Peter Deng, VP of consumer product at OpenAI — the maker of ChatGPT — was loath to give an answer when asked on SXSW’s main stage this afternoon. Read more here.

(Washington Post) I felt relieved when I started writing about technology full time more than 12 years ago. Many industries and people were still reeling from and angry about the Great Recession. The technology industry felt like an island of bubbly optimism about its future and ours. Faith in the magic of technology was painfully…

(WSJ) An artificial intelligence engineer at said the company’s AI image tool generated violent and sexual images that could pose a danger to society. In letters to the Federal Trade Commission and to Microsoft’s board on Wednesday, Shane Jones, a principal software engineering manager, addressed concerns he said he has about the tech giant’s “approach to responsible…

(The Atlantic) One scorching day this past September, I made the dangerous decision to try to circumnavigate some data centers. The ones I chose sit between a regional airport and some farm fields in Goodyear, Arizona, half an hour’s drive west of downtown Phoenix. When my Uber pulled up beside the unmarked buildings, the temperature was…

(Crunchbase) Venture funding to Black-founded U.S. startups last year totaled only $705 million — marking the first time since 2016 that the figure failed to even reach $1 billion, Crunchbase data shows. The decline in capital to Black-founded companies greatly outpaces the overall decline in startup funding. While total venture dollars in the U.S. fell 37% last year,…

(Bloomberg) There are lies, damned lies and statistics – and then there’s IRR. The internal rate of return metric used by private-capital managers has long had critics in finance and academia because it is easily manipulated and hard to compare with the transparent returns of, say, stocks and bonds. Still, it survives because there is…