Billionaire founder of Luminar replaced as CEO following ethics inquiry
Austin Russell, who became a billionaire after his lidar startup Luminar went public, appears to be out as CEO, according to the company’s board.
Luminar’s board announced Wednesday — the same day of its first-quarter earnings report — it had replaced Russell and appointed Paul Ricci to the role. Ricci is the former chairman and CEO of Nuance.
The press release states that Russell resigned as president and CEO and as the chairperson of the board, effective immediately. The board said in the press release the resignation followed a code of business conduct and ethics inquiry for the audit committee of Luminar’s board. Russell will remain on the board and be “available to the incoming Chief Executive Officer on transition and technology matters,” according to the release.
However, it’s not clear if Russell was forced out or if he resigned willingly. Russell could not be reached for comment. The board did not provide further details of this ethics inquiry except that it “does not impact any of the company’s financial results.”
In a further twist, the company’s earnings report and slide presentation makes no mention of the change of leadership. The first-quarter press release even includes an upbeat statement from Russell that outlines the company’s strategy to drive down cost with its new Halo product.
“In a world of macro uncertainty and adversity, we’re firing on all cylinders to ramp up production, ramp down costs, and capitalize on the future, as evidenced by our announcements today,” Russell said in the statement. “This kicks off our new operating plan for Luminar with a unified product platform, enabling radical focus and streamlining of the business, as well as unlocking value throughout our organization.”
Meanwhile, the press release from the board tells another story.
“We are excited to announce Paul as our next CEO,” board member Matt Simoncini said in a statement. “His track record speaks for itself. He is a visionary leader with a rare combination of technical insight and operational excellence. His commitment to innovation, his ability to scale organizations, and his instinct for anticipating where technology is heading make him the ideal person to lead us into our next chapter of growth. The Board has full confidence in his leadership, and we are excited about what lies ahead.”
Simonici, who retired as CEO of Lear in 2018, is chair of the board’s audit committee, which also includes Jun Hong Heng, who is the founder and chief investment officer of technology investment firm Crescent Cove Advisers, Evergreen Capital Partners founder Dominick Schiano, and Daniel Tempesta, who served as executive VP and CFO at Nuance.
Luminar burst onto the autonomous vehicle scene in April 2017 after operating for years in secrecy. Russell, who was just 22 years old at the time, was thrust into the spotlight and became a Silicon Valley success story. Luminar was founded by Russell in 2012, but it would be years before his company would be known by the public. He worked on the Luminar technology as a Thiel fellow, which gives young people $100,000 over two years to drop out of college and pursue their ideas.
In 2021, Luminar merged with special purpose acquisition company Gores Metropoulos Inc., with a post-deal market valuation of $3.4 billion. Luminar raised $250 million prior to the SPAC announcement.
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YouTube introduces an interactive product feed for shoppable TV ads
YouTube made its pitch to advertisers on Wednesday, accompanied by a flashy performance from Lady Gaga and special appearances from popular YouTubers like Brittany Broski and MrBeast.
During its Upfront presentation, YouTube executives introduced new ad formats coming to the platform, including an enhanced shoppable connected TV (CTV) offering that includes a new interactive product feed.
The move is strategic for YouTube, as it recognizes that viewers often watch videos on the big screen while also using their phones to scroll through social media or shop online.
The new shoppable format allows advertisers to display products on the right side of the TV screen during ads. The interactive feed acts as a storefront for brands where viewers can easily browse multiple products using their remotes. When a viewer selects an item, they’re prompted to scan a QR code with their smartphone to get a direct link for purchase.
Additionally, there’s a button for viewers to press and hold, allowing them to send the link to their phones to shop for all the products at once.
YouTube has become a dominant force in TV viewing. Nielsen reported that it has been the top platform for streaming watch time in the U.S. for over two years, surpassing streaming giants Netflix, Disney+, and Prime Video. In the first quarter of 2025, TVs were the primary device for YouTube viewing in the U.S., according to internal data from the company.
Notably, the company pointed to a Kantar survey, indicating that U.S. participants ranked YouTube as the No. 1 platform for seeking out information about brands. The company also said YouTube campaigns on CTV generated over 50 million monthly average conversions in the fourth quarter.
Shoppable ads have gained traction among streaming services and advertisers in recent years. Just this week, Amazon announced a new interactive shoppable ad format on Prime Video that highlights Amazon deals, user reviews, and Prime shipping details.
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YouTube targets TV dollars with NFL deal, bingeable ‘shows’ from creators
YouTube announced a range of initiatives designed to attract more TV ad dollars to its platform at Brandcast, its annual Upfront event for advertisers. Notably, the Google-owned video service is expanding its relationship with the NFL and plans to exclusively stream the NFL’s first Friday game of the 2025-2026 season. It’s also preparing to pilot a new way for creators to reach the audience that watches YouTube on TV through easily organized and bingeable TV shows.
The latter was first announced at YouTube’s Made On YouTube event last September, where CEO Neal Mohan explained that creators making a majority of their revenue on TV screens was up more than 30% year-over-year. A new feature being offered to select creators in the pilot program will allow them to organize their content into seasons and episodes — just like a “real” TV show.
In addition to new efforts around “shoppable TV” and tools that let advertisers target major cultural moments like awards season or The PGA Championship, for instance, the company is once again sending a message to advertisers that it’s not just an online video service, it’s actually the new way people watch “TV.”
As part of its NFL deal, YouTube says it will exclusively stream the first Friday game hosted in São Paulo, Brazil, to a worldwide audience. This marks the first time that YouTube has served as a live broadcaster for the NFL, it notes. (In the U.S., the game will be available to YouTube TV subscribers.) The company pointed out that users last year watched over 350 million hours of NFL content on the platform, according to its internal data, and had pulled in over 6 million live views when it streamed the NFL’s Super Bowl LIX Flag Football Game. Its expanded deal with the NFL will see it streaming that Flag Football game over multiple years to come.
For creators, YouTube’s pitch focuses on bringing their content to the living room.
Hundreds of creators will be a part of the initial pilot, expected to launch in the U.S. this summer, that will allow them to organize their content into a viewing experience designed for the big screen. Creators like Michelle Khare’s Challenge Accepted and Good Mythical Morning with Rhett & Link will use the new tools to turn their content into “seasons” and “episodes,” to make their content more bingeable on TV.
The company is also rolling out ways to shop from YouTube with QR codes and other send-to-phone functionality, and will look to Gemini AI to match ads to popular, relevant content.
During Brandcast, YouTube featured various case studies from brands like Volvo, Inspire Brands (Dunkin’), Hilton, and State Farm, that have used its advertiser tools to reach their audiences. It also reminded marketers that YouTube has been No. 1 in streaming watch time in the U.S. for more than two years, putting it ahead of Netflix, Disney, and Prime Video as of March 2025. The company also touted its more recent focus on podcasts, where it now sees over 1 billion monthly active podcast users.
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YouTube viewers will start seeing ads after ‘peak’ moments in videos
Imagine you’re watching a highly anticipated video from your favorite YouTube creator — perhaps the moment a famous couple finally gets engaged — when an ad pops up immediately after the clip. This is part of YouTube’s new ad format called “Peak Points.”
The company revealed the new ad format during its Upfront presentation on Wednesday in New York.
Peak Points leverages Google’s Gemini AI to analyze YouTube videos and identify moments it believes have the highest viewer engagement or are most emotionally impactful, and then suggests placing the ad right after it.
Point Peaks aims to benefit advertisers by using a tactic that aims to grab users’ attention right when they’re most invested in the content. This approach appears to be similar to a strategy called emotion-based targeting, where advertisers place ads that align with the emotions evoked by the video. It’s believed that when viewers experience heightened emotional states, it leads to better recall of the ads.
However, viewers may find these interruptions frustrating, especially when they’re deeply engaged in the emotional arc of a video and want the ad to be over quickly to resume watching.
In related news, YouTube announced another ad format that may be more appealing to users. The platform debuted a shoppable product feed where users can browse and purchase items during an ad.
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The latest Apple Maps update will bring out your bougie side
Apple Maps announced a collaboration with the MICHELIN Guide, The Infatuation, and Golf Digest to help users find recommended restaurants and golf courses in their area.
Starting in the U.S., users will be able to filter their Maps searches to see restaurants with MICHELIN ratings, which denote exceptional dining experiences. But if you’re on the go, you’re probably not making a last-minute MICHELIN booking — but options from The Infatuation, a restaurant recommendation website, can help fill in the gaps.
Though the MICHELIN Guide is most well-known for its dining expertise, it also offers hotel recommendations and booking services, which will also be available on Apple Maps.
The Golf Digest integration on Maps will function similarly, allowing users to filter their searches to find recommended golf courses — but we imagine more users will be looking for places to eat, rather than to tee off.
These partners will also contribute to Apple Maps’ curated guides, which can help travelers find their way to top destinations on a visit.
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Netflix adds more live TV to its lineup
Netflix is adding more live streaming content, the company announced at its Upfront presentation on Wednesday. The service, which now reaches over 94 million global monthly active users, has been steadily introducing live TV to its audience with sports content from WWE wrestling, comedy, and awards shows, and other special events (some of which definitely didn’t work out.)
According to Netflix Chief Content Officer Bela Bajaria, the company will be adding new programs, including the Katie Taylor vs. Amanda Serrano rematch fight on July 11. A new deal with the NFL will also see the company stream two Christmas Day matchups: the Dallas Cowboys at the Washington Commanders and the Detroit Lions at the Minnesota Vikings.
In addition, Netflix will live stream the 32nd Annual Screen Actors Guild Awards on March 1, 2026 and will stream its own “Netflix Tudum 2025: The Live Event” at the end of this month.
These will join the weekly streams of WWE events currently hosted on the service.
The company also pitched to advertisers its Netflix Ads Suite, which can now incorporate first-party data from either LiveRamp or Netflix itself (thanks to new first-party measurement solutions) and is expanding its programmatic ad buying options, among other things. One new ad format will also use generative AI to match ads to Netflix shows.
In addition to touting its lineup of new and returning shows and movies, the company also hyped its Gen Z and millennial reach to advertisers, noting that Netflix is watched by more 18- to 34-year-olds than any other U.S. broadcast or cable network, and that consumers on the U.S. ad-supported tier watch an average of 41 hours per month.
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Waymo recalls 1,200 robotaxis following low-speed collisions with gates and chains
Waymo issued a software recall on 1,200 self-driving vehicles after some of its robotaxis were involved in minor collisions with gates, chains, and other gate-like roadway objects.
The software update, which was first reported by Reuters, was conducted late last year, according to documents filed with the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration. The Alphabet-owned company said in the document that Waymo’s Safety Board decided to conduct a recall to that specific version of driverless software to “fulfill relevant regulatory reporting obligations.”
NHTSA opened a preliminary evaluation into Waymo’s automated driving system last May after learning of seven incidents in which robotaxis had collided with “stationary and semi-stationary objects such as gates and chains” between December 2022 and April 2024. None of these resulted in injury, according to NHTSA.
In November 2024, Waymo rolled out a software update to its fleet of robotaxis, which numbered 1,200 at the time. The software update significantly decreased the likelihood of these types of event, according to documents filed with NHTSA. Today, Waymo has 1,500 commercial robotaxis in operation in Austin, Los Angeles, Phoenix, and San Francisco.
Software updates were in progress at the time NHTSA’s examination began, according to the documents. The company had ongoing discussions with NHTSA regarding the evaluation of comparative risk for autonomous vehicles and provided the agency with information regarding 9 additional collisions with these kinds of barrieres, which occurred between February 2024 and December 2024.
Waymo has issued at least two other recalls. The company issued a software recall in June 2024 to its Jaguar I-Pace robotaxis after one of them collided with a telephone pole. Waymo also recalled previous software in February 2024 after two of its robotaxis crashed into the same pickup truck that was being towed by a tow truck.
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Grok is unpromptedly telling X users about South African ‘white genocide’
Elon Musk’s AI chatbot Grok appeared to experience a bug on Wednesday that caused it to reply to dozens of posts on X with information about “white genocide” in South Africa, even when the user didn’t ask anything about the subject.
The strange responses stem from the X account for Grok, which replies to users with AI-generated posts whenever a user tags @grok. When asked about unrelated topics, Grok repeatedly told users about a “white genocide,” as well as the anti-apartheid chant “kill the boer.”
Grok’s odd, unrelated replies are a reminder that AI chatbots are still a nascent technology, and may not always a reliable source for information. In recent months, AI model providers have struggled to moderate the responses of their AI chatbots, which have led to odd behaviors.
OpenAI recently was forced to roll back an update to ChatGPT that caused the AI chatbot to be overly sycophantic. Meanwhile, Google has faced problems with its Gemini chatbot refusing to answer, or giving misinformation, around political topics.
In one example of Grok’s misbehavior, a user asked Grok about a professional baseball player’s salary, and Grok responded that “The claim of ‘white genocide’ in South Africa is highly debated.”
Several users posted on X about their confusing, odd interactions with the Grok AI chatbot on Wednesday.
It’s unclear at this time what the cause of Grok’s odd answers are, but xAI’s chatbots have been manipulated in the past.
In February, Grok 3 appeared to have briefly censored unflattering mentions of Elon Musk and Donald Trump. At the time, xAI engineering lead Igor Babuschkin seemed to confirm that Grok was briefly instructed to do so, though the company quickly reversed the instruction after the backlash drew greater attention.
Whatever the cause of the bug may have been, Grok appears to be responding more normally to users now. A spokesperson for xAI did not immediately respond to TechCrunch’s request for comment.
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Foxconn gets nod for $435M project to make more of Apple chips in India, eventually
Foxconn, a key manufacturer for Apple, has received an approval from India’s cabinet to build a new 37 billion Indian rupees ($435 million) semiconductor plant in a joint venture with the country’s IT giant HCL Group. The deal is the latest move to reduce Apple’s reliance on China and produce more components in India.
The plant, which will be located near the Jewar airport in the northern state of Uttar Pradesh and is expected to start operating in 2027, will eventually manufacture display driver chips for mobile phones, laptops, automobiles, PCs, and other devices, India’s IT minister Ashwini Vaishnaw said at a press conference in New Delhi on Wednesday. Display driver chips handle how screens show images, text, and videos.
However, since India currently lacks advanced chip fabrication facilities, this plant will not do the chip fabrication immediately but will, at first, be used as a semiconductor assembly and test (OSAT) facility. That means it will be focused on providing packaging and testing services for chips that have been manufactured elsewhere, a senior official confirmed to TechCrunch.
Vaishnaw, however, is hopeful that this is a step towards India developing its own fabs for making the chips that could power Apple devices, starting with the display panel chips that this facility will be testing.
“Once this unit is there, the display panel [manufacturing] will also come to India,” Vaishnaw said, adding that it “will have a capacity of 20,000 wafers per month and can produce 36 million units monthly.”
Nevertheless, the deal is still another step towards Apple diversifying manufacturing away from China and deepening ties with India. This deal announcement has come just days after Apple CEO Tim Cook said one way Apple is handling the trade uncertainties between the U.S. and China was to have India do more manufacturing and assembly.
Cook at that time implied that deepening ties with India would mean that Apple would not be forced to raise prices on its devices due to tariffs, although the company is said to be considering weighing price increases anyway.
Apple has already doubled down on India for locally assembling iPhones that it exports to the U.S. and other markets. The company also plans to broaden its India manufacturing base by making other devices, including AirPods.
The minister did not confirm the specifics of the incentives the Indian government will offer Foxconn in this joint venture. Under the state-run semiconductor scheme, the Indian government provides fiscal support covering up to 50% of the capital expenditure for a company to set up facilities.
In January last year, Foxconn’s subsidiary Hon Hai Technology India Mega Development announced its plans to invest $37.2 million for a 40% stake in the joint venture with HCL.
The latest approval comes eight months after New Delhi greenlit a proposal by Kaynes Semicon, a subsidiary of Bengaluru’s Kaynes Technology, to set up a semiconductor facility in Sanand of the western state of Gujarat with a proposed investment of 33 billion Indian rupees ($386 million).
In February last year, the Indian government approved allocating up to 1.26 trillion Indian rupees ($15 billion) to build the first three semiconductor plants under its $10 billion incentive program announced in 2021, including its first semiconductor fab facility.
The industry is currently anticipating news on what the second phase of the Indian government’s semiconductor incentive program will involve, though Vaishnaw declined to share details on that at Wednesday’s press conference.
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The Kids Online Safety Act is back, with the potential to change the internet
The Kids Online Safety Act (KOSA) has been reintroduced into Congress. If passed into law, this bill could impose some of the most significant legislative changes that the internet has seen in the U.S. since the Children’s Online Privacy Protection Act (COPPA) of 1998.
As it currently stands, KOSA would be able to hold social media platforms legally accountable if it’s proven that these companies aren’t doing enough to protect minors from harm. The bill includes a long list of possible harms, such as eating disorders, sexual exploitation, substance abuse, and suicide. Though it overwhelmingly passed through the Senate last year, the bill was stifled in the House.
KOSA has faced much backlash since its introduction in 2022.
Human rights groups like the ACLU raised concerns that the bill could be weaponized as a tool for censorship and surveillance. While amendments to KOSA have mitigated some of these concerns, groups like the Electronic Frontier Foundation and Fight for the Future have remained against the bill.
“The bill’s authors have claimed over and over that this bill doesn’t impact speech. But the Duty of Care is about speech: it’s about blocking speech that the government believes is bad for kids,” Fight for the Future wrote in a statement. “And the people who will be determining what speech is harmful? They are the same ones using every tool to silence marginalized communities and attack those they perceive as enemies.”
However, KOSA has garnered support from companies like Microsoft, Snap, and X; X CEO Linda Yaccarino even worked with Senators Marsha Blackburn (R-TN) and Richard Blumenthal (D-CT) on the most recent draft of the bill. Google and Meta have remained opposed to the bill, but Apple announced today that it will support the legislation.
“Apple is pleased to offer our support for the Kids Online Safety Act (KOSA). Everyone has a part to play in keeping kids safe online, and we believe [this] legislation will have a meaningful impact on children’s online safety,” Timothy Powderly, Apple’s Senior Director of Government Affairs, said in a statement.
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OpenAI brings its GPT-4.1 models to ChatGPT
OpenAI is releasing its GPT-4.1 and GPT-4.1 mini AI models in ChatGPT, the company announced in a post on X Wednesday.
The GPT-4.1 models should help software engineers who are using ChatGPT to write or debug code, OpenAI spokesperson Shaokyi Amdo told TechCrunch. GPT-4.1 excels at coding and instruction following compared to GPT-4o, according to OpenAI, but is faster than its o-series of reasoning models.
The company says it’s now rolling out GPT-4.1 to subscribers to ChatGPT Plus, Pro, and Team. Meanwhile, OpenAI is releasing GPT-4.1 mini for free and paying users of ChatGPT. As a result of this update, OpenAI is removing GPT-4.0 mini from ChatGPT for all users, the company notes in GPT-4.1’s release notes.
OpenAI launched GPT-4.1 and GPT-4.1 mini in April, but only released the models through its developer-facing API. At the time, the company faced criticism from the AI research community for shipping GPT-4.1 without a safety report. These researchers claimed OpenAI was lowering its standards around transparency into its AI models. However, OpenAI argued at the time that — despite GPT-4.1’s improved performance and speed compared to GPT-4o — this model was not a frontier model, and thus did not require the same safety reporting that more capable models do.
“GPT-4.1 doesn’t introduce new modalities or ways of interacting with the model, and doesn’t surpass o3 in intelligence,” said OpenAI’s Head of Safety Systems Johannes Heidecke in a post on X Wednesday. “This means that the safety considerations here, while substantial, are different from frontier models.”
Now, OpenAI is releasing more information about GPT-4.1 and all its AI models. Earlier on Wednesday, OpenAI committed to publish the results of its internal AI model safety evaluations more frequently as part of an effort to increase transparency. Those results will live in OpenAI’s new Safety Evaluations Hub, which it launched on Wednesday.
The release of GPT-4.1 in ChatGPT comes at a time when there’s increased attention on AI coding tools. OpenAI is reportedly nearing the announcement of its $3 billion acquisition of Windsurf, one of the most popular AI coding tools on the market. Earlier on Wednesday, Google updated its Gemini chatbot to connect more easily to GitHub projects.
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White House scraps plan to block data brokers from selling Americans’ sensitive data
A senior Trump administration official has scrapped a plan that would have blocked data brokers from selling Americans’ personal and financial information, including Social Security numbers.
The Consumer Financial Protection Bureau (CFPB) said in December 2024 it planned to close a loophole under the Fair Credit Reporting Act, the federal law that protects Americans’ personal data collected by consumer reporting agencies, such as credit bureaus and renter-screening companies. The rule would have treated data brokers no differently than any other company covered under the federal law and would have required them to comply with the law’s privacy rules.
The rule was withdrawn early Tuesday, according to its listing in the Federal Register. The CFPB’s acting director, Russell Vought, who also serves as the director of the White House’s Office of Management and Budget, wrote that the rule is “not aligned with the Bureau’s current interpretation” of the Fair Credit Reporting Act.
Wired first reported the rule change on Wednesday.
Data brokers are part of a multibillion-dollar industry of companies that profit from collecting and selling access to vast amounts of Americans’ personal and financial information. This personal data is then sold to other companies, as well as law enforcement and intelligence agencies, often without the explicit permission of the individuals.
Collecting huge banks of data also comes with inherent risks. Over the past year, at least two data brokers were hacked, spilling millions of Social Security numbers online and exfiltrating a huge trove of user location data that tracked millions of people’s whereabouts.
In 2024 alone, the Federal Trade Commission banned several data brokers from collecting and sharing data on individuals without their permission, following allegations of unlawfully tracking people.
Privacy advocates have long called for the government to use the Fair Credit Reporting Act to rein in data brokers.
The decision by CFPB to cancel the rule comes days after the Financial Technology Association, an industry lobby group representing banking and fintech companies, wrote to Vought in his capacity as the White House’s budget director. The lobby group asked the administration to withdraw the CFPB’s rule, claiming it would be “harmful to financial institutions’ efforts to detect and prevent fraud.”
CFPB did not return a request for comment.
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How this VC spots the global game changers
Accel’s Sonali De Rycker chatted with TechCrunch’s Editor-in-Chief Connie Loizos about what it takes to spot and scale category-defining companies in today’s fast-evolving tech landscape. She shared perspectives on identifying early-stage bets and supporting global growth.
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The future of digital finance is customer-centric
TS Anil, Monzo’s CEO, discusses the company’s innovative approach to customer-centric banking, the strategic decisions that fueled its growth, and insights into the future of digital finance. He shares how he led the digital bank through a remarkable transformation, from early challenges to achieving its first annual profit in 2024.
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Scaling innovative companies at the intersection of cybersecurity, AI, and resilience
Paladin Capital Group’s Nazo Moosa sat down with Mike Butcher at StrictlyVC London to discuss scaling innovative companies at the intersection of cybersecurity, AI, and resilience. She discussed how she’s driving purposeful investments that shape a secure and sustainable digital future.
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Radiologists aren’t going anywhere
Nine years ago, AI pioneer Geoffrey Hinton sent shock waves through medicine by declaring it “just completely obvious” that AI would make radiologists extinct in short order. Fast-forward and the specialists — who do more than analyze images — are thriving, observes The New York Times. In fact, the field is experiencing explosive growth amid a looming workforce crisis. (According to projections from the Association of American Medical Colleges, the U.S. will face a staggering shortage of up to 42,000 radiologists and other physician specialists by 2033.)
Rather than stealing jobs, notes the piece, AI has become radiologists’ secret weapon, allowing them to instantly measure organs, automatically flag abnormalities, and even detect diseases years before conventional methods. At the Mayo Clinic, where radiologist numbers have skyrocketed by 55% since Hinton’s prediction, the radiology department has grown to include a 40-person team of AI scientists, researchers, analysts, and engineers who have licensed and developed more than 250 AI models, ranging from tissue analyzers to disease predictors.
“Five years from now, it will be malpractice not to use AI,” says John Halamka, president of the Mayo Clinic Platform, who oversees the health system’s digital initiatives, in the article.
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SoundCloud backtracks on AI-related terms-of-use updates
SoundCloud says it’s revising its terms after widespread backlash over a clause related to AI model training.
Earlier this year, SoundCloud quietly updated its usage policies, adding wording that many users interpreted as legal cover to allow the company to train AI on audio uploaded to its platform. SoundCloud was quick to assert that it wasn’t developing AI by using its users’ content, but the company’s PR statement didn’t allay fears that SoundCloud might do so in the future.
On Wednesday, SoundCloud CEO Eliah Seton published an open letter admitting that the wording of the changes to the company’s terms “was too broad and wasn’t clear enough.” The updates were intended to focus on other uses of AI internally at the company, Seton said — including recommendations and tools to help prevent fraud — but missed the mark.
SoundCloud has now revised its terms “to make it absolutely clear [that] SoundCloud will not use [user] content to train generative AI models that aim to replicate or synthesize [a] voice, music, or likeness,” said Seton.
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OpenAI pledges to publish AI safety test results more often
OpenAI is moving to publish the results of its internal AI model safety evaluations more regularly in what the outfit is saying is an effort to increase transparency.
On Wednesday, OpenAI launched the Safety evaluations hub, a web page showing how the company’s models score on various tests for harmful content generation, jailbreaks, and hallucinations. OpenAI says that it’ll use the hub to share metrics on an “ongoing basis” and that it intends to update the hub with “major model updates” going forward.
“As the science of AI evaluation evolves, we aim to share our progress on developing more scalable ways to measure model capability and safety,” wrote OpenAI in a blog post. “By sharing a subset of our safety evaluation results here, we hope this will not only make it easier to understand the safety performance of OpenAI systems over time, but also support community efforts to increase transparency across the field.”
OpenAI says that it may add additional evaluations to the hub over time.
In recent months, OpenAI has raised the ire of some ethicists for reportedly rushing the safety testing of certain flagship models and failing to release technical reports for others. The company’s CEO, Sam Altman, also stands accused of misleading OpenAI executives about model safety reviews prior to his brief ouster in November 2023.
Late last month, OpenAI was forced to roll back an update to the default model powering ChatGPT, GPT-4o, after users began reporting that it responded in an overly validating and agreeable way. X became flooded with screenshots of ChatGPT applauding all sorts of problematic, dangerous decisions and ideas.
OpenAI said that it would implement several fixes and changes to prevent future such incidents, including introducing an opt-in “alpha phase” for some models that would allow certain ChatGPT users to test the models and give feedback before launch.
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WWII Vet Destroys Tesla With a Tank: ‘We’ve Crushed Fascism Before and We’ll Crush it Again’
Tesla CEO Elon Musk gave two Nazi-style salutes the day President Donald Trump was inaugurated back in January, giving the public explicit confirmation of what everyone knew already. The billionaire oligarch was aligning himself with some of the most evil people in history. And a new viral video sends a hopeful message about who will ultimately land on top.
Ken Turner, a 98-year-old veteran of World War II, is featured in a new video showing exactly what he thinks of fascism. Turner served in the British Army and the video shows this hero rolling a Sherman tank over a Tesla.
“I’m old enough to have seen fascism the first time around, now it’s coming back,” Turner says in the video while sitting in the U.S.-made tank.
“Elon Musk, the richest man in the world, is using his immense power to support the far right in Europe and his money comes from Tesla cars,” Turner continued. “Well, I’ve got this message for Mr. Musk: We’ve crushed fascism before, and we’ll crush it again.”
The video, which was created by a British political group Led By Donkeys, is available on Bluesky and YouTube. The Tesla Model 3 has a license plate that reads “fascism” and gets absolutely crushed by the tank. It’s pretty satisfying to watch.
Hilariously, defenders of Musk and his companies seem to think the video demonstrates something positive for Tesla. Teslarati, a pro-Tesla blog, wrote that the video is actually good for Tesla. The website seems to think it demonstrates just how durable the vehicle is.
“As could be seen from the wreckage of the Tesla Model 3 after its Sherman encounter, only the glass roof and windows of the all-electric sedan were crushed,” Teslarati wrote. “Looking at the wreckage of the Model 3, it seemed like its doors could still be opened, and everything on its lower section looked intact.”
You’ll notice the website only focused on the durability of the Tesla without acknowledging Musk’s embrace of fascism. Because the billionaire oligarch not only spent a quarter of a billion dollars to help get Trump elected, he’s currently dismantling the government in the most corrupt power-grab of the modern era. And it’s really hard to deny that Musk is a far-right extremist.
Musk actually would eventually deny he was doing a Nazi salute on Jan. 20. But it was much, much later, coming only after he kept making Nazi jokes and embracing the attention he was getting online for his salutes. But we all knew what we saw.
The billionaire told podcaster Joe Rogan he was making a gesture meant to communicate, “My heart goes out to you.” But there’s no universe in which any reasonable person looks at the gesture Musk made and believes he was expressing love. That’s the look of a man determined to make a fascist salute.
Elon Musk appears to give one of two Nazi salutes on Jan. 20, 2025. © Photo by ANGELA WEISS/AFP via Getty Images
In fact, Musk didn’t do just one salute, which may have given him more plausible deniability. This guy did two Nazi-style salutes on that stage. As you can see by the expressions of the people behind him, everyone knew what was happening. And they loved it.
© Photo by Justin Sullivan/Getty Images
Even before Musk made his salutes, many politically middle-of-the-road people who had to serve under Trump understood what the MAGA movement stood for. Former Chairman of the Joint Chiefs, Gen. Mark Milley, was extremely worried about the possibility of Trump attempting a coup after he lost the 2020 election. Milley was correct, and Trump tried a self-coup on Jan. 6, 2021, when he instructed a mob to descend on the U.S. Capitol.
After Jan. 6, Milley held drills with top military and law enforcement officials in preparation for Joe Biden’s inauguration. It was their job to protect Washington D.C. if they tried it again.
“Here’s the deal, guys: These guys are Nazis, they’re boogaloo boys, they’re Proud Boys. These are the same people we fought in World War II. We’re going to put a ring of steel around this city and the Nazis aren’t getting in,” Milley was quoted as saying by CNN. Trump would later call for Milley to be executed for treason.
Most Americans hate what Musk is doing, and Tesla’s profits have plunged 71%, all because the world can see what he’s doing to advance the cause of fascism. And we can take at least one World War II vet’s word that all of this needs to be crushed immediately.
Elon Musk is a fascist. He’s spent hundreds of millions of dollars to further the MAGA cause, and he’s currently in the Middle East as an unelected representative of the U.S. government, getting lucrative deals with the leverage of a corrupt oligarch. None of this stops without Musk getting stripped of his power. And while the billionaire keeps saying he’ll leave government eventually, we’ll believe it when we actually see it (like we saw his salutes).
Stability AI releases an audio-generating model that can run on smartphones
AI startup Stability AI has released Stable Audio Open Small, a “stereo” audio-generating AI model that the company claims is the fastest on the market — and efficient enough to run on smartphones.
Stable Audio Open Small is the fruit of a collaboration between Stability AI and Arm, the chipmaker that produces many of the processors inside tablets, phones, and other mobile devices. While a number of AI-powered apps can generate audio, like Suno and Udio, most rely on cloud processing, meaning that they can’t be used offline.
Stability also claims that Stable Audio Open Small’s training set is made up entirely of songs from the royalty-free audio libraries Free Music Archive and Freesound. That’s as opposed to the training sets of the aforementioned Suno and Udio, which reportedly contain copyrighted content, posing an IP risk.
Stable Audio Open Small is 341 million parameters in size and optimized to run on Arm CPUs. (Parameters, sometimes referred to as weights, are the internal components of a model that guide its behavior.) Designed for quickly generating short audio samples and sound effects (e.g., drum and instrument riffs), Stable Audio Open Small can produce up to 11 seconds of audio on a smartphone in less than 8 seconds, claims Stability AI.
Here’s a sample generated by Stable Audio Open Small:
And here’s another one:
The model isn’t without its limitations. Stable Audio Open Small only supports prompts written in English, and Stability notes in its documentation that the model can’t generate realistic vocals or high-quality songs. The model also doesn’t perform equally well across musical styles, Stability warns — a consequence of its Western-biased training data.
In another potential wrinkle for devs, Stable Audio Open Small has somewhat restrictive usage terms. It’s free to use for researchers, hobbyists, and businesses with less than $1 million in annual revenue, but developers and organizations making over $1 million in revenue have to pay for Stability’s enterprise license.
Stability, the beleaguered firm behind the popular image generation model Stable Diffusion, raised new cash last year as investors, including Eric Schmidt and Napster founder Sean Parker, sought to turn the business around. Emad Mostaque, Stability’s co-founder and ex-CEO, reportedly mismanaged Stability into financial ruin, leading staff to resign, a partnership with Canva to fall through, and investors to grow concerned about the company’s prospects.
In the last few months, Stability has hired a new CEO, appointed Titanic director James Cameron to its board of directors, and released several new image generation models.
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