When DeepSeek, Alibaba, and other Chinese firms released their AI models, Western researchers quickly noticed they sidestepped questions critical of the Chinese Communist Party. U.S. officials later confirmed that these tools are engineered to reflect Beijing’s talking points, raising concerns about censorship and bias. American AI leaders like OpenAI have pointed to this as justification…
TechCrunch Disrupt 2025 is where breakthrough ideas meet the real-world challenges that define the future — and with over 10,000 startup and VC leaders converging, there’s no better place to have the hard conversations. One of the most urgent? How artificial intelligence is reshaping national defense, security, and critical infrastructure in real time. Enter AI…
Kesha – yes, brush my teeth with a bottle of Jack Kesha – is now a startup founder. But if you think her journey from raunchy pop star to CEO is unexpected, then you haven’t been paying attention. Kesha has always embraced contradictions. She exploded onto the pop scene in 2010 with irreverent ear candy…
Roblox announced Thursday that it’s launching new safeguards for people who are between the ages of 13 and 18. The company is introducing “Trusted Connections” to allows these users to connect more freely with people they know, alongside age estimation technology, more privacy tools, and insights for parents of teens. Roblox has come under fire…
The tech layoff wave is still kicking in 2025. Last year saw more than 150,000 job cuts across 549 companies, according to independent layoffs tracker Layoffs.fyi. So far this year, more than 22,000 workers have been the victim of reductions across the tech industry, with a staggering 16,084 cuts taking place in February alone. We’re…
The tech layoff wave is still kicking in 2025. Last year saw more than 150,000 job cuts across 549 companies, according to independent layoffs tracker Layoffs.fyi. So far this year, more than 22,000 workers have been the victim of reductions across the tech industry, with a staggering 16,084 cuts taking place in February alone. We’re…
AI researchers from OpenAI, Google DeepMind, Anthropic, and a broad coalition of companies and nonprofit groups, are calling for deeper investigation into techniques for monitoring the so-called thoughts of AI reasoning models in a position paper published Tuesday. A key feature of AI reasoning models, such as OpenAI’s o3 and DeepSeek’s R1, are their chains-of-thought…
Paragon, an Israeli spyware company that claims to operate as an “ethical” surveillance vendor, faced scrutiny when earlier this year Italy was caught using Paragon’s tools to spy on the phones of two journalists. Paragon responded by cutting Italy off from its surveillance products, becoming the first spyware company to ever publicly name one of…
Defense tech has gone from a no-go zone for VCs to a hot investment sector. However, dual use — meaning that the technology must also have civilian applications — is still a requirement for most of them, including the NATO Innovation Fund. Estonian VC firm Darkstar breaks from this trend by sometimes investing in purely…
As Rivian starts accepting orders for its 2026 Quad-Motor pickup truck and SUV, customers may initially be enticed by the power and tricks the four motors in these rebooted EVs can unleash. After all, four motors delivering a combined 1,025 horsepower and 1,198 pound-feet of torque — and the ability to accelerate from a standstill…
