Last yr, Sound venturesThe nine-year-old Beverly Hills, California-based enterprise capital firm, led by general partners Ashton Kutcher, Guy Oseary and Effie Epstein, announced a brand new $265 million artificial intelligence fund that might bet on large language model firms, including OpenAI, Anthropic and Hugging Face.

In fact, the plan was to speculate in just six firms – a dangerous but potentially lucrative assumption for the team’s vision for a future through which – because of the technical talent required and the capital needed to cover computational costs – the most important winners in AI can be few and far between. mass.

Since then, Sound has raised more cash for a similar fund. It also appears to have stuck to its mission, judging by the few deals it has publicly disclosed in 2024, and we’re excited to be hosting all three of them at TechCrunch Disrupt 2024 to speak about their strategy — together with the trends they’re tracking well Now.

Kutcher has arguably managed to transition between the worlds of acting and investing more easily than anyone else in Hollywood, launching his profession in 2010 with the discharge of the film Class A investments with talent manager and business partner Guy Oseary, whose early bets on Airbnb and Uber helped cement their reputations for striking the suitable deal at the suitable time.

The two, who founded Sound Ventures in 2014, brought Epstein on board just a few years later to round out their skills. Epstein previously led global strategy at Marsh & McLennan’s subsidiary, Marsh. She also served as vice chairman of planning and head of investor relations at iHeartMedia and previously worked in business development at Clear.

Epstein also previously worked in investment banking within the energy sector, bringing a wide range of experience and contacts to his firm.

You definitely don’t need to miss this bonfire on the Disrupt Stage, where you may be amongst 10,000 tech leaders, startups and VCs attending Disrupt 2024. Register today to secure your ticket price before it goes up.

Cloud service providers are chasing AI unicorns, and the latest is Fei-Fei Li’s World Labs. The startup just chosen Google Cloud as its primary computing provider for training artificial intelligence models, a move that could possibly be value a whole lot of hundreds of thousands of dollars. But the company said Li’s tenure as Google Cloud’s chief artificial intelligence scientist was irrelevant.

During the company’s Google Cloud Startup Summit on Tuesday announced World Labs will devote a big portion of its funds to licensing GPU servers on the Google Cloud Platform and ultimately to training “spatially intelligent” artificial intelligence models.

A handful of well-funded startups constructing basic AI models are in high demand in the world of cloud services. The largest deals include OpenAI, which exclusively trains and runs AI models on Microsoft Azure, and Anthropic, which uses AWS and Google Cloud. These corporations often pay hundreds of thousands of dollars for computing services, and sooner or later they could need much more as they scale their artificial intelligence models. This makes them beneficial customers for Google, Microsoft, and AWS to construct relationships with from the starting.

World Labs is definitely constructing unique, multimodal AI models with significant computational needs. The startup just raised $230 million at a valuation of over $1 billion, in a deal led by A16Z, to construct global artificial intelligence models. Google Cloud’s general manager of startups and AI, James Lee, tells TechCrunch that World Labs’ AI models will sooner or later have the ability to process, generate and interact with video and geospatial data. World Labs calls these AI models “spatial intelligence.”

Li has deep ties to Google Cloud, having led the company’s artificial intelligence efforts in 2018. However, Google denies that this deal is a result of this relationship and rejects the concept that cloud services are only a commodity. Instead, Lee said the greater factor is services, such as a high-performance toolkit for scaling AI workloads and a big supply of AI chips.

“Fei-Fei is obviously a friend of GCP,” Lee said in an interview. “GCP wasn’t the only option they were considering. But for all the reasons we talked about – our AI-optimized infrastructure and ability to meet their scalability needs – they ultimately came to us.”

Google Cloud offers AI startups a alternative between proprietary AI chips, tensor processing units or TPUs, and Nvidia GPUs, which Google buys and that are in additional limited supply. Google Cloud is attempting to persuade more startups to coach AI models on TPUs, mainly to cut back dependence on Nvidia. All cloud service providers today are limited by the shortage of Nvidia GPUs, so many are constructing their very own AI chips to satisfy demand. Google Cloud says some startups are training and inferring exclusively on TPUs, but GPUs remain the industry’s favorite AI training chips.

As part of this agreement, World Labs has chosen to coach its artificial intelligence models on GPUs. However, Google Cloud didn’t say what prompted this decision.

“We had been working with Fei-Fei and her product team, and at this point in the product roadmap it made more sense for them to work with us on the GPU platform,” Lee said in an interview. “But that doesn’t necessarily mean it’s a permanent decision… Sometimes (startups) move to other platforms like TPU.”

Lee didn’t reveal how large World Labs’ GPU cluster is, but cloud providers often devote huge supercomputers to startups training artificial intelligence models. Google Cloud promised one other startup training basic AI models, Magic, a cluster with “tens of thousands of Blackwell GPUs,” each with more power than a high-end gaming PC.

These clusters are easier to vow than to deliver. According to reports, Microsoft is a competitor to Google’s cloud services struggles to satisfy insane computational demands OpenAI, forcing the startup to make use of other computing power options.

World Labs’ contract with Google Cloud is non-exclusive, which suggests the startup can still strike deals with other cloud service providers. Google Cloud, nevertheless, says most of its operations will proceed.

Written by April Walker

Politics and Technology: Undeniable Union

In the trendy era, the intersection of politics and technology has change into an undeniable unity, shaping the way in which all societies function and the course of political processes. The rapid advances in technology haven’t only transformed communication and the dissemination of knowledge, but in addition redefined political engagement, campaigning and management. Given the political climate we face today, combined with the sphere of artificial intelligence and the countless communication platforms at our disposal, let’s explore the profound impact of technology on politics, specializing in the digitization of grassroots movements, the threats posed by hackers and deepfakes, the fight social media with traditional media and the long run of post-election politics.

Grassroots has gone digital

Historically, grassroots movements have relied on face-to-face interactions, community meetings, and physical rallies to mobilize support and drive change. However, the appearance of digital technology has revolutionized these movements, enabling them to achieve wider audiences with unprecedented speed and efficiency. Social media platforms, email campaigns and online petitions have change into powerful tools for local organizers. These digital tools enable the rapid dissemination of knowledge, real-time updates, and the flexibility to mobilize supporters across geographic boundaries. An example is that the 2024 presidential election saw unprecedented use of tools like Zoom to unite communities in support of United States Vice President and presidential candidate Kamala Harris to lift multimillion-dollar donations for her campaign. Demonstrating a robust fundraising forum, Zoom calls that began with black women beginning to support “white dudes” and every little thing in between, now we have witnessed how in a really short time frame these communities haven’t only raised an enormous sum of money, but in addition helped empower her message and consistently refuting the disinformation and lies spread by her opponent.

This shouldn’t be the primary time that the facility of social media in organizing protests and gathering international support has been demonstrated, for instance throughout the Arab Spring in 2010–2011. Platforms similar to Twitter (today referred to as X) and Facebook played a key role in coordinating demonstrations and sharing real-time updates, which ultimately contributed to significant political changes within the region. Similarly, contemporary movements similar to Black Lives Matter have harnessed the facility of digital technology to amplify their message, organize protests, and raise awareness on a worldwide scale.

Hackers and Deepfakes

While technology has empowered political movements, it has also introduced latest threats to the integrity of political processes. Hackers and deepfakes pose two significant challenges on this regard. Cyberattacks on political parties, government institutions and electoral infrastructure have gotten more common, posing a threat to the safety and integrity of elections. In 2016, the Russian hack of the Democratic National Committee (DNC) highlighted the vulnerability of political organizations to cyber threats. Our current electoral process poses a fair more direct and immediate threat. Advances in artificial intelligence and the sheer proliferation of its use have created an increasingly sophisticated and complex network of “bad actors”, especially from other countries, who’re using the technology to attempt to influence the end result of the US presidential election.

Deepfakes, manipulated videos or audio recordings that appear authentic, present one other disturbing challenge. These sophisticated falsehoods can spread disinformation, discredit political opponents and manipulate public opinion. Just have a look at the recent use of AI-generated photos of music superstar Taylor Swift, who falsely claimed to support Republican presidential candidate Donald Trump when, in reality, Taylor publicly expressed her support for Kamala Harris. There is growing concern concerning the possibility that deepfakes could undermine trust in political leaders and institutions. As technology continues to advance, the flexibility to detect and address these threats becomes crucial to maintaining the integrity of democratic processes.

Social media versus traditional media

The development of social media has fundamentally modified the landscape of political communication. Traditional media similar to newspapers, television and radio used to have a monopoly on the dissemination of knowledge. However, social media platforms do democratized the flow of knowledge, enabling individuals to share newsFeedback and updates immediately. This change has each positive and negative policy implications.

The positive side of social media is that it allows politicians to speak directly with the general public, promoting transparency and consistent engagement. Politicians can use platforms like Instagram, TikTok, LinkedIn, Facebook and others to share their views, reply to voters and mobilize support, and in lots of cases, market-specific demographics which can be critical to closing the gap in areas requiring coordinated focus and attention. However, the unregulated nature of social media also enables the spread of disinformation, fake news and “echo chambers” where individuals are only exposed to information that reinforces their existing beliefs. If you are curious if that is true, take a have a look at the varied messages you read on platforms supporting each political parties – it’s amazing how starkly different these narratives will be.

With unwavering editorial standards and robust fact-checking processes, traditional media continues to play a key role in providing trusted information. However, it faces challenges in competing with the speed and global reach of social media. The coexistence of those two types of media creates a posh information ecosystem that requires critical considering, intentional skepticism and media literacy from society.

What’s next after the elections?

As we approach the upcoming Presidential Election Day, and for that matter even after that day, attention will shift to managing and implementing campaign guarantees. Technology continues to play a key role at this stage, with governments using digital tools to make sure effective administration, transparency and citizen engagement.

In my opinion, the post-election period and current policies could have to face the challenges posed by disinformation and cyber threats. Governments and organizations must comprehensively put money into cybersecurity measures, digital skills programs and regulatory frameworks to guard the integrity of political processes. As technology evolves at an especially rapid pace, the long run of politics will likely see a continued integration of its impact, emphasizing balancing its advantages with the necessity to protect democratic values, institutions and, most significantly, public trust! That said, we can’t be afraid of technology; we must seize this because innovations like artificial intelligence and GenAI are creating competitive opportunities for our country which can be unimaginably powerful and have the potential to positively change the course of humanity. During the Democratic National Convention, Vice President Kamala Harris noted during her ticket acceptance speech: “Once elected, I’ll make certain that we lead the world right into a future powered by space and artificial intelligence, that America, not China, wins elections in a twenty first century competition, and that we strengthen , and we are usually not giving up our global leadership.”