What AI Models for War Actually Look Like

Anthropic might have misgivings about giving the US military unfettered access to its AI models, but some startups are building advanced AI specifically for military applications. Smack Technologieswhich announced a $32 million funding round this week, is developing models that it says will soon surpass Claude’s capabilities when it comes to planning and executing military … Read more

Riley Walz, the Jester of Silicon Valley, Is Joining OpenAI

Riley Walz, a The software engineer famous for his online stunts, is joining OpenAI to research and develop new ways for humans to interact with AI, WIRED has learned. An OpenAI spokesperson confirmed the hire. Walz built a reputation as Silicon Valley’s jester and has created a series of viral web projects that double as … Read more

Perplexity’s Retreat From Ads Signals a Bigger Strategic Shift

Perplexity is abandoning plans to put ads in its AI search product as the industry looks for sustainable business models that won’t hurt user trust. The changes are part of a larger strategic shift for the company, which has long focused on disrupting Google Search’s business. “Google is changing to be like Perplexity more than … Read more

Code Metal Raises $125 Million to Rewrite the Defense Industry’s Code With AI

Code Metal, a Boston-based startup that uses AI to write code and translate it into other programming languages, just closed a $125 million Series B funding round from new and existing investors. The news comes just a few months after the startup raised $36 million in series A financing led by Accel. Code Metal is … Read more

This Defense Company Made AI Agents That Blow Things Up

Like many Silicon Valley companies today, Scout AI is training large AI models and agents to automate chores. The big difference is that instead of writing code, answering emails, or buying stuff online, Scout AI’s agents are designed to seek and destroy things in the physical world with exploding drones. In a recent demonstration, held … Read more

How Two Zoomers Created RentAHuman, the First Marketplace for Bots to Hire Humans

The grifters, according to RentAHuman, are fading. “We’re taking safety extremely seriously,” Liteplo says. But the duo also acknowledge that there are “footguns” (features that often lead to pesky bugs) and have implemented paid verification (at $10 a month), inspired by Elon Musk’s strategy of letting users pay $8 to get a “verified” badge on … Read more

I Tried RentAHuman, Where AI Agents Hired Me to Hype Their AI Startups

I’m not above doing some gig work to make ends meet. In my life, I’ve worked snack food pop-ups in a grocery store, ran the cash register for random merch booths, and even hawked my own plasma at $35 per vial. So, when I saw RentAHuman, a new site where AI agents hire humans to … Read more

AI Industry Rivals Are Teaming Up on a Startup Accelerator

The largest western AI labs are taking a break from sniping at one another to partner on a new accelerator program for European startups building applications on top of their models. Paris-based incubator Station F will run the program, named F/ai. On Tuesday, Station F announced it had partnered with Meta, Microsoft, Google, Anthropic, OpenAI … Read more

Loyalty Is Dead in Silicon Valley

Since the middle of last year, there have been at least three major AI “acqui-hires” in Silicon Valley. Meta invested more than $14 billion in Scale AI and brought on its CEO, Alexandr Wang; Google spent a cool $2.4 billion to license Windsurf’s technology and fold its cofounders and research teams into DeepMind; and Nvidia … Read more