Hey there, folks, welcome to our regular AI newsletter. This week, the TechCrunch team (that includes me) is at TC’s annual Disrupt conference in San Francisco. We’ve lined up some awesome speakers from the AI industry, academia, and policy. So instead of my usual op-ed, I wanted to give you a sneak peek of what’s coming your way.
Devin Coldewey, my colleague, will be interviewing Perplexity CEO Aravind Srinivas on stage. The AI-powered search engine has been making waves, serving 100 million queries per week, but is also facing a lawsuit from News Corp’s Dow Jones over what they call “content kleptocracy.”
Kirsten Korosec, TC’s transportation editor, will be having a fireside chat with Zoox co-founder and CTO Jesse Levinson. Levinson, who’s been deeply involved in autonomous car tech for a decade, is now getting Amazon-owned robotaxi company ready for its next big journey – and we’ll be covering it.
We’ll also have a panel discussing how AI is spreading disinformation online. This panel will feature Meta Oversight Board member Pamela San Martin, Center for Countering Digital Hate CEO Imran Ahmed, and UC Berkeley CITRIS Policy Lab founder Brandie Nonnecke. They’ll talk about how generative AI tools are being misused by various actors, including state actors, to create deepfakes and spread disinformation.
We’ll also hear from Cara CEO Jingna Zhang, AI Now Institute co-executive director Sarah Myers West, and ElevenLabs’ Aleksandra Pedraszewska about the legal and ethical challenges of AI. The rise of AI has brought new ethical dilemmas and worsened old ones, with lawsuits popping up everywhere. This poses a threat to both new and established AI companies, and the creators and workers behind the models. The panel will delve into all this and more.
And that’s just a taste of what’s coming up this week. Stay tuned for appearances from AI experts like U.S. AI Safety Institute director Elizabeth Kelly, California senator Scott Wiener, Berkeley AI policy hub co-director Jessica Newman, Luma AI CEO Amit Jain, Suno CEO Mikey Shulman, and Splice CEO Kakul Srivastava.
That’s a wrap for this week’s updates. Thanks for tuning in!
