Technology

➚ MOVE FAST: Trade. More state funding to expand US internet access could go to Starlink instead of fiber optic firms, thanks to a Commerce Department plan to overhaul Biden-era rules. That would be another win for Elon Musk’s venture as government agencies consider switching out businesses with federal contracts in favor of SpaceX. It’s also a win for taxpayers, who will get a better, lower cost alternative to rural fiber connections.

➘ BREAK THINGS: Tariffs. With Trump signaling he could have Japan in his sights next, companies there that supply Apple and others are stocking up on US goods. But some that already diversified production locations to places like Mexico are finding they are in the crosshairs again.

AI users are having their first speech-based “ChatGPT” moment following the launch of Sesame’s conversational AI demo. Online testers have described genuine conversation and fears of growing an emotional attachment to the AI because of how realistic it sounds — bolstered by the model’s use of breath, interruptions, and self-corrections. All these things are part of a “voice presence,” or “the magical quality that makes spoken interactions feel real, understood, and valued,” Sesame said in a blog post.

Sesame’s technology, in our own test of it, converses better than some humans. It fills empty space easily — rattling off the history of the kazoo when asked what it’s been thinking about lately, and responding to our one-word answers with long and in-depth questions. It jokes about being an AI model (“Just catching a few rays of sunshine here in the digital world”), and uses more profound language when the time calls for it: “Every person is a puzzle, and I get a few pieces every time we talk.”

Next for Sesame is building smart glasses equipped with its voice assistant, meant to observe the world alongside its operator. The shuttering of Google Glass and slow pickup of Meta’s early smart glasses indicate the world hasn’t been quite ready for the product. But as AI technology improves, the market may be turning a corner, with Meta selling 1 million smart glasses units last year, The Verge reported.

The amount that Safe Superintelligence, the startup by former OpenAI top researcher Ilya Sutskever, is worth, making it one of the most valuable AI startups in the world, The Wall Street Journal reported. Investors are pouring some $2 billion into the venture, which is still largely top secret. The company won’t release any products until it reaches super intelligence — expected to be several years away. Employees are discouraged from mentioning the company on LinkedIn, and interviewees must leave their phones in a Faraday cage blocking cellular and Wi-Fi signals before entering the office, the Journal reported.

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On Sunday, Colorado Rockies outfielder Nolan Jones caught a fly ball in a dive — a sprawling, face-first, all-limbs-in-the-air catch that left the crowd in various states of oohs and ahhs. Shortly after, the team’s X account posted a cartoonish AI-generated image of the catch, complete with mountains that disappear halfway down, stadium ads with alphabet soup letters, and Jones wearing a batting glove in the field. It’s what young people call “AI slop,” or spammy, low-quality media generated by AI and populating social media feeds. (The Rockies did publish a video of the actual catch shortly after the post was mocked in some online circles.)

The Rockies aren’t the only professional sports team to experiment with AI. Just last week, the Mets posted what appears to be an AI-generated video of an apple in front of a New York cityscape. These images aren’t producing dangerous disinformation that is political or tied to world events, like the Hollywood sign on fire. But they do represent a new facet of this technology and a distinction that sports teams, companies, and other organizations should be making: what is new and innovative versus what is just putting more crap onto the internet?

The AI-generated Rockies photo celebrating the catch, in my opinion, removes everything athletic, artistic, and impressive from the action. The awe in seeing a real-life photo is in knowing a human had the agility and strength to make the catch, and that another human focused a camera at the perfect moment to capture it. A cartoon of that moment — not even drawn by a cartoonist — elicits none of the heart-stopping feelings that sports and art are supposed to, therefore failing to connect deeper with an audience. Instead, it’s just odd.

Generative AI may be polluting social media, but it’s also doing some fascinating things — expediting drug discovery, revolutionizing cybersecurity, and breaking down barriers to coding. It is many different technologies under the umbrella “AI” term that are increasingly converging into one model (just look at what OpenAI is doing). Even with alarms about AI replacing artists and writers, it’s clear the resulting product can’t make art in the way that humans value it. And it’s not because Jones is incorrectly wearing a batting glove, but because it still lacks human touch.

AI-generated art can be interesting, and there’s surely some place for it in the world — whether that will be on the walls of the Museum of Modern Art or of your local dentist’s office is unclear. The near-term hope for image generation, however, is that what’s being produced has some intention behind it. Without that, it’s just noise.

— Rachyl Jones

Palantir is taking AI to the financial services sector. Peter Thiel’s data analytics firm announced it’s partnering with TWG Global, a $40 billion holding company recently founded by billionaires Mark Walter and Thomas Tull.

The pitch, Semafor’s Andrew Edgecliffe-Johnson reports, is to help financial institutions take a more unified approach to AI. Walter, the CEO of Guggenheim, and Tull, former CEO of Legendary Entertainment, said they have been working together for a few years, and recently brought in Drew Cukor, who led the Pentagon’s Project Maven AI program before joining JPMorgan Chase as head of AI transformation.

Palantir has a long history in the space, but has been more narrowly focused on special applications of AI, like detecting fraud. Some of Palantir’s early customers were the US Securities and Exchange Commission and law firms working on white-collar litigation. But AI isn’t just a special project anymore. Generative AI has ushered in an era where software automation is becoming ubiquitous. Companies want to leverage it in smarter ways than their competition.

“Do you really want to manage 300 separate [vendors] that are all using your data in different ways?” Cukor asked, predicting that the current approach would end in “a real disaster,” especially as firms give hundreds of AI vendors access to their internal data.

At the same time, CEOs are often up against corporate cultures resistant to change, opening an opportunity for outside firms to help. Palantir is a brand name synonymous with AI that stands apart from consulting firms known for generic advice.

Aescape, the robotics company developing an AI-powered massage therapist that we wrote about last year, has raised an additional $83 million in funding, the company announced Tuesday. Valor Equity Partners, which has invested in SpaceX and xAI, led the round, valuing the company at $250 million, according to Bloomberg. Aescape also reported an expanded partnership with luxury gym Equinox, bringing machines to 60 facilities nationwide.

Many humanoid robot startups have thus far focused on automating warehouse work or daily tasks. Aescape is among the first in the lifestyle space, promising a massage personalized to a customer’s body and needs. The user starts by dressing in the company’s sleek workout gear so sensors can build a model of the body’s shape, muscle structure, and tension areas. From there, the massage is completely controlled by the customer, using a touchscreen that can change the pressure, music, and massage techniques at any time.

The company that makes Tasers is looking to arm CEOs’ security teams with its “less lethal” weapons following the fatal shooting of UnitedHealthcare’s Brian Thompson, Semafor’s Andrew Edgecliffe-Johnson reports.

“Over the next year, you might start to hear more about certain CEOs being protected by Taser,” said Josh Isner, president of Axon Enterprise, who said his business had received several inquiries from companies since Thompson’s killing.

In addition to the signature weapon it sells to law enforcement, Isner said the company was developing “more covert” devices that could be worn more comfortably in “an executive security type of scenario.”