AI made headlines again this week.
In this Friday's episode of TechCrunch's Equity podcast, Kirsten Korosec, Mary Ann Azevedo, and Becca Szkutak discuss a bill that tries to govern AI at the model level. Some venture capitalists and founders, as well as students and academics, are understandably outraged. But we must ask: Is regulation in the interest of safety such a bad thing? Short answer: it varies.
The trio then discussed the week's developments, which included OpenAI's probable new investment in camera producer Opal. We also talked about some substantial changes at the leadership level at OpenAI, and what that might signify for what's going on internally. Becca launched why?!, a new firm formed by former Clubhouse workers that seeks to be a networking, messaging, and dating app all in one. Kirsten also went into detail about Lucid, an electric vehicle manufacturer, and its fresh $1.5 billion cash infusion from the Saudi wealth fund.
We then turned gears to discuss how many new unicorns had been born in the United States this year. Our takeaway: This fresh crop of unicorns represented a remarkable mix of sectors. Finally, we looked at a handful of major fintech M&A acquisitions, including one this week in which Payoneer paid $61 million for Skuad, a five-year-old Singaporean business, as well as Stripe's most recent acquisition.