Kylie Robison

In a long blog post, Anthropic CEO Dario Amodei considers the upside of artificial general intelligence (AGI, or as he prefers to call it, “powerful AI”). He pushed back on the idea that he’s a “pessimist” or “doomer” by outlining some grandiose claims for the future of AI:

I think that most people are underestimating just how radical the upside of AI could be, just as I think most people are underestimating how bad the risks could be.

I’d like to point out that the company is reportedly in talks to raise money at a $40 billion valuation.

I’m real excited for the weekend — we’re gearing up for Fleet Week here in San Francisco, so lots of rooftop shenanigans and a Blue Angels show. Until then, I cannot stop banging this song from Crowded House. I’ve probably looped it 20 times today.

I know, I know, I’m such a zoomer for this. It’s just so good.

Hearst, which owns a substantial portion of the media landscape, has just signed a deal with OpenAI to integrate Hearst content into its products (The Verge’s parent company Vox Media also partners with OpenAI).

Hearst owns 24 daily newspapers and 52 weekly newspapers, 175 websites and more than 200 magazine editions worldwide, making this one of OpenAI’s biggest media partnerships.

I’m coming to you live from my hot-as-hell apartment here in San Francisco. We’re facing a historic heat wave and none of us have apartment air conditioning.

Even funnier, the AC at OpenAI HQ is broken, according to an employee. The office is based in the Mission district, which tends to get hotter than the rest of the city. (One Google DeepMind staffer flaunted his working AC in reply: “We’re hiring!”)

OpenAI is slated to close the largest funding round in history at $6.5 billion next week, and as the Wall Street Journal reports, Apple has just pulled out of the round in the eleventh hour.

Apple’s involvement was already surprising—it’s rare for the iPhone maker to invest in external companies. The reporting of a potential investment came after Apple announced a ChatGPT integration into Siri.