🕶️ Do you have an AI contingency plan in place?

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Six bullets of updates

1. 🛡️🤖 #AIRegulation Over 500 AI experts sign an open letter for strict regulation of deepfakes, underlining growing societal threats.

2. 🇮🇳 India ups its space game, raising foreign direct investment limits to boost its growing space tech startups.

3. 💰 Reddit aims to reward 75,000 of its most active users with shares in its upcoming IPO, indicating the process is moving forward.

4. 🌱 Carbon-capture startup Clairity lands $6.75M seed round, aiming to cut costs with 'good enough' 80% CO2 purity approach.

5. 🌐💼 In a $2 trillion cross-border market, OpenBorder raises $10M to simplify international e-commerce logistics, growing from 5 to nearly 70 merchants in just a year.

6. 🛡️ Riding a 435% funding surge, defence tech startups in Europe make waves with game-changing innovations in simulation, AI, cybersecurity, and more.

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2024: A Defining Year for Small Businesses?

🚀 A recent Slack survey of 2,000 small business owners highlights that 2024 could be a decisive year for many businesses, with 32% expressing uncertainty about their survival. A difficult job market, high inflation, and lasting effects of the pandemic are to blame, according to the respondents. Despite this, 71% remain hopeful about their business prospects and 26% feel less worried now than last year.

📈 The survey also reveals that 75% of small business owners are persistently working to enhance their positive impact, prepare for emergencies, and expand their operations.

🦠 In the wake of the pandemic, many industries, particularly professional and business services, have grappled with labor shortages. The resulting labor market reshuffling, coupled with rising rents, have pushed inflation higher than expected.

💰 As small businesses navigate these uncertainties, their top priority is increasing revenue, surpassing other goals such as launching new products, according to a separate report from Intuit QuickBooks. This suggests a focus on sustainability and profitability as key drivers.

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These companies just raised money

1. 💅 French startup Planity lands $48M to digitize beauty salons, boasting 40K businesses on its appointment-booking platform.

2. 🍔 VC firm, Bluestein Ventures, secures $45M to invest in early-stage food tech startups, despite a dip in sector funding.

3. 🚧 PermitFlow, the "TurboTax for construction permits", has bagged $31M in Series A funding.

4. 🧠 AI startup Qloo scores $25M in Series C funding to further decipher culture and taste correlations - movies, TV shows and more!

5. 🤖 Orbital Materials, a startup using AI to discover new materials, raises $16M in Series A funding.

6. 🎓 Edtech startup Empowerly bags $15M to expand college counseling services, amid a 65% surge in college applications.

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AI Chatbot Gone Rogue! ChatGPT Babbles Nonsense

OpenAI's flagship chatbot, ChatGPT, recently made headlines, but not for the right reasons. The chatbot, which has been a leading AI tool in the industry, started spewing gibberish and nonsensical responses to user queries.

OpenAI acknowledged the issue and confirmed that it's under investigation. While the technical glitch was eventually fixed, the event raises questions about the reliability of AI tools and the need for more transparency in AI operations. The hiccup was a bit of an embarrassment for the company, which recently received a multibillion-dollar investment from Microsoft.

For startup founders who rely on AI tools for customer interaction, this serves as a reminder to have contingency plans in place. 

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This YouTube Channel was an Accident

Recently, we hit a massive milestone: 500,000 subscribers! We threw a party with our company to celebrate, bringing together a diverse crowd of supporters and collaborators. But here's the kicker – many of them had no direct involvement in our videos! In this video, we're diving into the story behind our accidental success. 😎 Make sure to SUBSCRIBE to our Startup Club by Slidebean Channel!