Author: TechBrunch

It's official: the European Union's risk-based regulation of the application of artificial intelligence comes into force on Thursday, August 1, 2024. This kicks off a rolling countdown of compliance deadlines that will apply to different types of AI developers and applications, with most provisions being fully enforced by mid-2026. However, the first deadlines for a small number of prohibited uses of AI in certain circumstances, such as the use of remote biometric authentication by law enforcement in public places, will come into effect in just six months. Under the European Union's approach, most applications of AI are deemed to pose…

Healx, a UK startup that uses AI to discover new medicines for rare diseases, has raised $47 million in a Series C funding round co-led by Europe's Atomico and Silicon Valley-based R42. The company also announced that it has received regulatory approval to begin Phase 2 clinical trials of the drug in the United States later this year. Healx describes itself as a “drug discovery pipeline” that identifies hidden links between existing compounds (such as drugs or medicines at various stages of the development cycle) and rare diseases. It does this by collating a myriad of public and proprietary data…

Meta, which develops Llama, the largest open source large-scale language model, believes that training models in the future will require much more computing power. Mark Zuckerberg said during Meta's second-quarter earnings call on Tuesday that training Llama 4 will require 10 times the computing power that was needed to train Llama 3. But rather than falling behind its competitors, he wants Meta to build up its capacity to train models. “The amount of compute required to train Llama 4 will likely be almost 10 times what we used to train Llama 3, and future models will continue to grow beyond…

The challenge of integrating renewable energy sources onto the power grid is a burgeoning startup opportunity. UK-based Axle Energy founded the company early last year to jump on the chance to accelerate the decarbonization of the power grid. The idea to build software to support the energy transition came about because of the high global energy prices caused by the war in Ukraine, says CEO and co-founder Karl Bach (pictured above, left, with co-founder and CTO Archie de Barker). The growing adoption of renewable energy was also a big catalyst in the decision. Before becoming entrepreneurs, the pair worked for…

OpenAI CEO Sam Altman said the company is working with the National AI Safety Institute, a federal agency whose mission is to assess and address risks to AI platforms, and has a contract to provide early access to its next major generative AI model for safety testing. The announcement, which Altman posted to X late Thursday night, didn't go into much detail, but along with a similar agreement it struck with the UK's AI Safety Agency in June, appears intended to counter the perception that OpenAI is neglecting its AI safety efforts in the pursuit of more capable and powerful…

WhatsApp's massive user base of 500 million in India is fueling Meta's AI ambitions. Meta CFO Susan Lee said on Wednesday that India is the largest market when it comes to usage of Meta AI, a notable milestone given that the product was launched in India only a few months ago. Since launch, people have used Meta AI for billions of queries, Li said during Meta's second-quarter earnings call. “WhatsApp is seeing particularly encouraging signs around user retention and engagement, which coincides with India becoming our largest market for use of Meta AI,” she noted. Meta first launched Meta AI…

While venture capitalists and other tech professionals are vacationing or attending the Paris Olympics, the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission and its lawyers have been busy this summer. This is the second time this week and at least the fourth time in the past few months that the SEC has filed fraud charges against a venture capital-backed founder. The SEC on Wednesday announced charges against Abraham Shafi, founder and former CEO of the social media startup known as IRL, accusing him of misleading investors. The SEC said Shafi made false and misleading statements about the company's growth and concealed his…

Google has released three new “open” generative AI models that it claims are “safer,” “smaller,” and “more transparent” than most others out there. Bold claims, to be sure. These are additions to Google's Gemma 2 family of generative models that debuted in May. The new models — Gemma 2 2B, ShieldGemma and Gemma Scope — are designed for slightly different applications and use cases but share a common focus on safety. Google's Gemma series model differs from the Gemini model in that Google has not released the Gemini source code, which is not only open to developers but is also…

As the generative AI boom continues, and in an election year that could impact future AI regulation, AI lobbying at the US federal level is intensifying. According to new data from OpenSecrets, a nonprofit that tracks and publishes metrics on campaign finance and lobbying, the number of groups lobbying the federal government on AI-related issues increased to 556 in the first half of 2024 (January-July) from 459 in 2023. At the same time, top AI startups are stepping up their lobbying efforts, the OpenSecrets data found. OpenAI, the developer of ChatGPT, has significantly increased its lobbying spending, spending $800,000 in…

The U.S. Copyright Office has released the first part of a report on how AI will impact the sector, and its first recommendation is that new laws must be enacted immediately to define and combat AI-based spoofing. “Our findings make clear that the distribution of unauthorized digital copies poses a serious threat not only to the entertainment and political spheres, but also to ordinary citizens,” agency director Shira Perlmutter said in a statement accompanying the report. “We believe that effective nationwide protection against harm to reputations and lives is urgently needed.” The report itself is the first of a series…