🕶️ Detective or deceptive? OpenAI's text tool dilemma

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Six bullets of updates

1. 🦄 Despite a tight VC market, 38 startups became unicorns in 2024, including Musk's xAI, valued at $24B.

2. 🧠 New Cog ADHD app offers a toolkit for managing ADHD, addressing issues like procrastination, affecting 2.5M people in the UK.

3. 📈 Canela Media's founder shares her journey, leading the fastest-growing Hispanic media co. with 50M monthly users.

4. 🖋️ Content creators, big or small, need legal protection to avoid costly issues like a cease and desist for copyright.

5. 🪫 AI trends are shifting from exponential growth to the Sigmoid Curve, revealing limits in data, energy, and costs.

6. 🦹 AWS unveils Mithra to combat malicious domains, protecting its vast network amidst growing cyber threats.

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OpenAI adopts cautious release of ChatGPT detection tools

OpenAI is taking a cautious approach to releasing tools designed to detect AI-generated content from ChatGPT. This move is amidst growing concerns over AI misuse, especially in academic settings. The deliberate pace may be due to the technical challenges of accurately identifying AI-generated text and the potential for false positives.

This highlights the importance of ethical AI deployment for startup founders. The stakes are significant for educators, tech companies, and policy-makers aiming to balance innovation with governance.

“The text watermarking method we’re developing is technically promising, but has important risks we’re weighing while we research alternatives, including susceptibility to circumvention by bad actors and the potential to impact groups like non-English speakers disproportionately,” an OpenAI spokesperson said.

According to The Wall Street Journal, the company is debating whether to release it. Read more.

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Startup Events and Deadlines

1. Crash Course in Financial Modeling | August 7 | Webinar

2. Financial modeling bootcamp for startup founders | August 12 -16 | online sessions

3. SaaStock: Dublin | August 14 | Conference

4. How to close a Funding Round (it’s not just the pitch deck) | August 14 | Webinar

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These companies just raised money

1. 🪴 Spring Health announces $100M in series E funding to accelerate growth and expand at a valuation of $3.3B.

2. 🍓 Los Angeles-based Agrovision raises $100M in equity round, leveraging tech to improve berry freshness.

3. 🧬 AIRNA (German-American company) raises $90M Series A to bring RNA editing therapies to the clinic

4. 🦠 Massachusetts-based Jade Biosciences raises $80M for patients with autoimmune diseases.

5. ⌨️ Protect AI raises $60M in series B financing to secure artificial intelligence and machine learning from unique security risks.

6. 🛡️ Gradient AI, the provider of proven AI solutions for the insurance sector, has raised $56.1M in Series C funding.

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EU: 'Minds aren't currency' as TikTok ends Lite Rewards

TikTok is ending its Lite Rewards program in the EU to comply with the Digital Services Act (DSA). The program, which incentivized user engagement with rewards like Amazon vouchers, raised concerns about its addictive nature, especially among minors. Launched in March in France and Spain, it faced regulatory scrutiny for not assessing risks pre-launch, as required by the DSA.

This decision highlights the EU's stringent content moderation rules and ongoing probes into TikTok's transparency and recommendation algorithms. Similar scrutiny is directed at other tech giants like Meta and AliExpress. 

*TikTok Lite is the app's data-light version designed for areas with slower internet speeds. Read more about this.

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There’s an algorithm behind your scrolling addiction 🫢

Have you ever considered the financial impact of your scrolling on tech companies' profits? This video delves into the intricacies of our online behaviors and examines the strategies employed to keep us hooked on social media platforms. Don’t forget to subscribe.