Google DeepMind launches institute to widen the AGI debate

Google and Google DeepMind researchers launched the DeepMind Institute on Wednesday to advance the conversation around artificial general intelligence (AGI). The institute lists DeepMind co-founder Shane Legg, Google executive James Manyika, and Google DeepMind chair Demis Hassabis as directors, with Legg serving as managing editor.  The new institute aims to surface differing views between Google, … Read more

Khosla-backed Mazama Energy just raised $135M to drill deeper into super-hot-rock geothermal

Geothermal startup Mazama Energy raised $135 million in an oversubscribed Series B, the startup said Thursday. The fresh funding will help the company develop horizontal wells in super-hot rocks capable of generating 15 megawatts of electricity per well. Mazama plans to start generating electricity sometime next year and said its first site in Oregon is … Read more

Crusoe raises $3.9B to build massive data centers and small modular “AI factories”

Data center developer Crusoe said Thursday it raised $3.9 billion in a Series F round that pushes its valuation to $30.9 billion. The massive round was co-led by Atreides Management, Mubadala Capital, and Valor Equity Partners. Founders Fund, GIC, Nvidia, Qatar Investment Authority (QIA), Radical Ventures, and TPG also participated, according to Crusoe. Crusoe also … Read more

The fix for rogue AI agents could be more AI

As companies hand off longer and more complex tasks to AI agents, they are running into an oversight problem: Agents can act faster, longer, and at greater volume than humans can realistically review. That issue reached a peak with the Hugging Face incident, which saw nearly 12,000 agents coordinating faster than human beings could track. … Read more

Is the AI safety debate about safety or control?

How should the tech industry approach the topic of AI safety? Increasingly, high-level executives are weighing in on this question, as a debate rages over whether incidents like the Hugging Face incident — in which an OpenAI agent hacked several different companies — suggest that AI is on the verge of throwing our world into … Read more

Pinterest teases a new ‘Restyle’ feature that lets you redesign your room with AI

Pinterest is turning to AI to help consumers move from searching for product inspiration to actually being able to imagine what it might be like to redesign a space or compare home decor options as they’d appear in their own rooms. On Thursday, the company said it’s launching a new consumer-facing feature called “Restyle” in … Read more