Reading List

The most recent articles from a list of feeds I subscribe to.

Anthropic tested Claude's ability to manage a physical "storefront" to mixed results, as the AI struggled with pricing strategy and inventory management (Ryan Daws/AI News)

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On the a16z podcast, Bryan Kim said a16z backed Cluely because speed in marketing and building beats crafting a perfect "artisan" product due to AI competition (Marina Temkin/TechCrunch)

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A group of 17 GOP governors write to Senate majority leader and House speaker urging for the state AI bill moratorium to be removed from the reconciliation bill (Ashley Gold/Axios)

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Sources: OpenAI is not releasing an internal paper on AI stages as it may complicate OpenAI's ability to declare AGI and block Microsoft from its tech (Kylie Robison/Wired)

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Source: OpenAI recently began renting Google's TPUs to power ChatGPT, marking its first significant use of non-Nvidia chips; Meta also considered using TPUs (The Information)

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Sources: Meta is looking to raise $3B in equity and $26B in debt, from private capital firms, including Apollo Global and KKR, to fund its data center build out (Financial Times)

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UK retailers are building an arsenal of anti-theft tech powered by AI, computer vision, and facial recognition, as organized crime fuels a shoplifting epidemic (Laura Onita/Financial Times)

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Trump says the US is "terminating all discussions on trade with Canada" in response to Canada's decision to impose a digital services tax on US tech firms (Kevin Breuninger/CNBC)

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Trump's tax bill expands Qualified Small Business Stock benefits for VCs, founders, startup staff, including increasing maximum tax-free gains from $10M to $15M (Ben Steverman/Bloomberg)

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Anthropic launches the Anthropic Economic Futures Program to bolster research on the impacts of AI and encourage new proposals on how to mitigate the downsides (Reed Albergotti/Semafor)

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Denmark plans to clamp down on AI-generated deepfakes by changing copyright law to give its citizens rights to their own body, facial features, and voice (Miranda Bryant/The Guardian)

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SCOTUS upholds a broadband subsidy program for low-income users, schools, and others, rejecting claims that its funding mechanism is unconstitutional (Lauren Feiner/The Verge)

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SCOTUS upholds a Texas law that requires porn websites to verify that their visitors are 18 or older, rejecting a First Amendment challenge to the law (Josh Gerstein/Politico)

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Alibaba unveils text-to-image and image-to-image generation model Qwen VLo, with progressive generation tech, which shows the image creation process (Luz Ding/Bloomberg)

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Sources: Trump is planning EOs on July 23 to help US AI growth, including easing grid access for new power projects and offering federal land for data centers (Reuters)

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OpenAI hires the team behind Crossing Minds, which raised $13.5M and works with e-commerce companies to improve their personalization and recommendation systems (Ivan Mehta/TechCrunch)

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Sources: mass production of Microsoft's next AI chip is delayed to 2026 and is expected to underperform Nvidia's Blackwell chip, released in late 2024 (The Information)

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PitchBook: US VC investment in AI startups rose 33% QoQ to $65B in Q1, up 550% from the quarter prior to ChatGPT's 2022 release (Cade Metz/New York Times)

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Sources: Shein plans to file confidentially for a Hong Kong IPO; filing confidentially remains relatively rare in Hong Kong (Reuters)

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Sources: executives in Meta's AI division discussed "de-investing" in Llama and also discussed using models from competitors like OpenAI and Anthropic (New York Times)

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