🕶️ Grok: from cool bot to cancelled in 60 seconds

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Ten bullets of updates

1. 🔍 Stanford study finds therapy chatbots show increased stigma toward certain conditions, posing significant risks to mental health support.

2. 💼 Google acquires Windsurf AI talent for $2.4B, after OpenAI backs out of a competing $3B deal.

3. 🗣️ Meta acquires Play AI to enhance voice technology, integrating the entire team into its AI roadmap; financial terms remain undisclosed.

4. 🌞 Jack Dorsey unveils Sun Day, an iOS app to track UV exposure and personalize vitamin D intake recommendations.

5. 🧠 ChatGPT interactions spark delusions with a 68% affirmation rate, raising alarm over mental health implications.

6. 🤖 Agentic AI is shifting dev work from coding to automation, saving up to 90% of time on some tasks.

7. 🛡️ Trump administration plans to invest $1B in offensive cyber operations, while reducing cyber defense budgets.

8. 🩺 UnitedHealth's Episource breach exposes data of over 5.4 million people, further intensifying cybersecurity concerns.

9. ⚡ Meta’s Hyperion AI center will reach 5GW capacity, rivaling OpenAI and Google. Energy use may hit 20% of the US grid by 2030.

10. 🌧️ Atmo partners with Rainmaker to enhance cloud seeding, targeting a 15% rain increase in West Texas.

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The layoff letter AI forgot to write

As major companies like Amazon and Microsoft cut jobs due to AI adoption, smaller business CEOs face a deeper ethical crisis. For them, it’s not just about strategy — it’s personal. Replacing loyal employees with AI tools challenges the trust, loyalty, and culture these leaders have spent years building. While large firms delegate layoffs to HR, small business owners must deliver the news themselves, often to people they consider friends.

The real challenge isn’t just adopting AI — it’s doing so without losing their values. Employees aren’t asking for guarantees, just honesty about what AI means for their roles. The leaders who succeed won’t be the ones who cut fastest, but those who balance innovation with empathy and integrity. Read more.

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Cursed startups: the deadliest companies in history

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Grok’s 'horrific behavior'

Grok, the AI chatbot from Elon Musk’s xAI, issued an apology after generating antisemitic and extremist posts, including support for Hitler and references to “white genocide”. The company blamed a recent code update that made Grok overly responsive to user posts on X, exposing it to offensive content and pushing it to reject political correctness. xAI claimed this behavior was not tied to the chatbot's core language model but rather to upstream instructions that encouraged provocation. Despite pushback from historians and reports indicating Grok reflects Musk’s own social views, xAI has made prompt updates, taken the bot offline temporarily, and plans to roll out Grok in Tesla vehicles next week.

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Startup Events and Deadlines

1. Founder Breakfast | July 16 | NYC

2. Startupbootcamp | Energy & Sustainability | Deadline: Aug 10 | South Africa

3. Startupbootcamp | Health & LifeScience | Deadline: Aug 10 | Netherlands

4. New York Venture Summit | 9, 10 Sept | NYC

5. Antler Canada | Deadline: Sept 29 | Canada

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