Generative AI has vastly expanded the toolkit available to hackers and other bad actors. It’s now possible to do everything from deepfaking a CEO to creating fake receipts.
OpenAI, the biggest generative AI startup of them all, knows this better than anyone. And it has just invested in another AI startup that helps companies defend against these kinds of attacks.
New York-based Adaptive Security has raised a $43 million Series A co-led by OpenAI’s startup fund and Andreessen Horowitz, it announced Wednesday. This marks OpenAI’s first investment in a cybersecurity startup, OpenAI confirmed to TechCrunch.
Adaptive Security simulates AI-generated “hacks” to train employees to spot these threats. You might pick up the phone to listen to the voice of your CTO asking for a verification code. That wouldn’t be your actual CTO, but a spoof generated by Adaptive Security.
Adaptive Security’s platform doesn’t just spoof phone calls: It also covers texts and emails, while scoring which parts of a company might be most vulnerable and training staff to spot the risks.
The startup focuses on hacks that require a human employee to do something they’re not supposed to, like click on a bad link. These kinds of “social engineering” hacks, while basic, have led to huge losses — think of Axie Infinity, which lost over $600 million due to a fake job offer for one of its developers in 2022.
AI tools have made social engineering hacks easier than ever, co-founder and CEO Brian Long told TechCrunch. Launched in 2023, Adaptive now has over 100 customers, with Long saying positive feedback from them helped attract OpenAI to the cap table.
It doesn’t hurt that Long is a veteran entrepreneur with two previous successes: mobile ad startup TapCommerce, which he sold to Twitter in 2014 (reportedly for over $100 million) and ad-tech firm Attentive, which was last valued at over $10 billion in 2021 according to one of its investors.
Long told TechCrunch that Adaptive Security will use its latest funding mostly on hiring engineers to build out its product and keep up in the AI “arms race” against bad actors.
Adaptive Security joins a long list of other cyber startups working on the boom in AI threats. Cyberhaven just raised $100 million at a $1 billion valuation to help stop staff from putting sensitive info in tools like ChatGPT, Forbes reported. There’s also Snyk, which partly credits the rise of insecure AI-generated code for helping push its ARR north of $300 million. And deepfake detection startup GetReal just raised $17.5 million last month.
As AI threats become more sophisticated, Long has one simple tip for company employees worried about getting their voice cloned by hackers. “Delete your voicemail,” he recommends.
Keep reading the article on Tech Crunch
When OpenAI debuted its image-generation feature in ChatGPT last week, social media exploded when users realized that they could make AI-generated images that looked like something out of an animated film from Studio Ghibli. Fans hoped that Studio Ghibli mastermind Hayao Miyazaki would take a stand, but the 84-year-old animator has remained silent. In the Ghibli fan subreddit, however, fans are enforcing a long-standing ban against AI art.
“I just noticed about a dozen different ‘BAN AI NOW’ posts here seemingly spurred on by an influx of AI Ghibli art on other sites,” a moderator posted to the Ghibli subreddit last week. “We don’t allow AI art. We haven’t allowed it basically since it became a thing.”
These fans don’t see the AI-generated copies as an homage to the iconic artist. Rather, these generative AI models are trained on copyrighted images from artists like Miyazaki, who never gave OpenAI or any of its competitors permission to use their work as such.
This issue is one that’s impacted other creators and writers, too. The New York Times and other publishers have sued OpenAI, alleging that the company used its copyrighted materials to train its models without payment or consent. Similar complaints have been filed against Meta and Midjourney.
The Ghibli situation struck a particularly strong nerve among fans since the studio’s mastermind, Hayao Miyazaki, has been vocal about his hatred for AI-generated artwork.
“I can’t watch this stuff and find it interesting,” Miyazaki said in documentary footage from 2016 in which he was shown AI-generated 3D animation. “Whoever creates this stuff has no idea what pain is whatsoever. I am utterly disgusted.”
People have also generated portraits in the style of Pixar movies and Dr. Seuss illustrations. Even the White House’s X account posted a Ghibli-style image, crudely mocking a woman for crying while being handcuffed by ICE.
As more “Ghiblified” images spread across the internet, fans of the legendary 84-year-old animator resurfaced his commentary to discourage others from imitating his work, but the damage had already been done. Of course, not all of these are Ghibli-style images, but the popularity of these images has stretched the AI company’s capacity.
OpenAI’s Brad Lightcap, who oversees day-to-day operations at the company, said that over 130 million users have generated more than 700 million images with this new ChatGPT feature.
“The range of visual creativity has been extremely inspiring,” Lightcap wrote.
Keep reading the article on Tech Crunch
OpenAI’s new image-generation feature is on track to be one of the company’s most popular product launches ever.
According to Brad Lightcap, who oversees day-to-day operations and global deployment at OpenAI, over 130 million users have generated more than 700 million images since the new image generator launched in ChatGPT last week.
“[W]e appreciate your patience as we try to serve everyone,” Lightcap wrote in a post on X on Thursday. “[The] team continues to work around the clock.”
Lightcap added that India is now the fastest-growing ChatGPT market.
OpenAI’s new image generator, which launched for all ChatGPT users earlier this week, went viral for its controversial ability to create realistic Ghibli-style photos. It’s been a mixed blessing for OpenAI, leading to millions of new signups for ChatGPT while also greatly straining the company’s capacity.
According to CEO Sam Altman, the popularity of the image generator has led to product delays and temporarily degraded services as OpenAI works to scale up infrastructure to meet demand.
Keep reading the article on Tech Crunch