In today’s newsletter:

• News - 🚨 AI Takes the Lead as Funding Dips

• Productivity - ✏️ Canvas with ChatGPT

• Culture - 🚨 AI Deepfake Sparks Outrage in Baltimore

Check out our Meme of the Day at the bottom of the newsletter for your daily dose of AI-powered humor!

🚨 AI Takes the Lead as Funding Dips

Global venture funding dropped to $66.5 billion in Q3 2024, down 16% from the previous quarter and 15% year-over-year, marking one of the lowest quarters in recent memory. This decline, particularly evident in late-stage funding, reflects ongoing shifts in the venture capital landscape. Despite the drop, AI continues to dominate, with nearly $19 billion—or 28% of all venture funding—pouring into AI startups. This makes Q3 the second-largest quarter for AI investments since the release of ChatGPT in 2022, further solidifying AI's central role in venture capital​.

Late-stage investments saw the sharpest decline, with deals above $500 million dropping significantly. Still, major AI funding rounds kept the market active, including a $5 billion raise by Waymo, $1.5 billion for Anduril Industries, and $1 billion for Safe Superintelligence. As funding for sectors like healthcare and hardware lagged behind, AI continues to show resilience, demonstrating its lasting appeal to investors.

🗞️ In Other News…

• Meta's new Movie Gen model generates high-quality videos and audio from text prompts, offering advanced editing and personalized video creation for creators and professionals.

• Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg is now the world’s second-richest person, with his net worth rising to $206.2 billion in 2024, fueled by Meta’s strong financial performance and stock surge.

• Tesla is recalling 27,000 Cybertrucks due to a rearview camera delay, the fifth recall since its release last year, with a free software update provided to fix the issue.

• ByteDance unveiled two new AI video generators, PixelDance and Seaweed, offering lifelike animations and extended video capabilities, positioning the company as a strong competitor in the AI video generation space.

✏️ Canvas with ChatGPT

ChatGPT's new "Canvas" feature is designed for more advanced writing and coding projects, offering a collaborative interface that goes beyond traditional chat. Canvas opens a separate window, allowing users to work alongside ChatGPT by directly editing text or code and receiving inline feedback. This tool helps refine ideas, from adjusting writing length to debugging code, and even provides shortcuts for tasks like adding comments or polishing grammar. Available in beta for ChatGPT Plus and Team users, it will roll out to Free users once out of beta.

Canvas is especially helpful for iterative tasks, such as writing blog posts or improving code. It can understand broader project context and assist with targeted edits based on highlighted sections, making it a flexible tool for refining both text and programming projects.

🚨 AI Deepfake Sparks Outrage in Baltimore

An AI-generated deepfake of a local school principal in Baltimore recently caused a social media uproar, spreading racist and antisemitic remarks falsely attributed to the principal. The audio clip, designed to sound authentic, went viral and led to widespread outrage, including threats against the principal. Despite being exposed as fake, many community members still believed it was real, reflecting the profound impact misinformation can have, particularly when it plays on existing racial tensions and biases.

The deepfake highlights the darker side of AI technology, showing how easily it can be used to manipulate public perception and cause real-world harm. The episode led to an investigation, with the school’s athletics director charged for creating the fake recording. Even after the truth was revealed, the damage to both the community and the wrongly accused principal was lasting. This incident serves as a stark reminder of the ethical and social challenges AI technology can present, especially when it intersects with issues of race and trust in local communities.

VC Fundraising Rounds

• Kando, a data intelligence company supporting the water & public health sector, has raised $10M in its venture funding round. (10/4/24)

• Clout Kitchen, a platform that builds generation digital products with supercharged distribution, has raised $4.45M in its seed funding round. (10/4/24)

• Open AI has established a $4B line of credit from an array of banks, bringing its total liquidity to more than $10B. Creditors include Goldman Sachs, Morgan Stanley, and more. (10/3/24)

• Voyage AI, a company that develops models that improve retrieval quality for search and AI applications, has raised $20M in its Series A funding round. (10/3/24)

• Vieu, a comprehensive AI-generated execution strategy that offers prospecting to proposal to procurement, has raised $11M in its seed funding round. (10/3/24)

Meme of the Day

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