No one stans Meta's AI standards

Internal Meta chatbot policy doc leaks: Reuters got a look at “GenAI: Content Risk Standards,” an internal list of chatbot “rules” that had apparently been approved by Meta’s legal, public policy, and engineering teams, along with the company’s “Chief Ethicist.” The doc contains some fairly disturbing standards for chatbot behavior, including that they’re allowed to comment on the attractiveness of children, so long as the discussions don’t become overtly sexual. As well, chatbots are permitted to help users construct racist arguments, so long as they are not excessively dehumanizing. Meta spokesperson Andy Stone confirmed that the document is authentic and added that the company is in the process of revising these standards.

xAI cofounder’s new project: Igor Babuschkin, who co-founded the AI giant alongside Elon Musk, announced his departure this week (on X, naturally). He’s launching a new investment firm, Babuschkin Ventures, which will focus exclusively on AI safety research and startups that “advance humanity and unlock the mysteries of our universe.” In his X post, Babuschkin cites Future of Life Institute founder Max Tegmark as posing the initial question that inspired the company: “How can we build AI safely to ensure that our children can flourish?”

Agrawal launches Parallel Web Systems: Another executive who goes way back with Elon Musk — former Twitter CEO Parag Agrawal — is also back in the news this week. After publicly dealing with Musk’s chaotic attempts to purchase and then potentially not-purchase Twitter, he exited the company (and, in some ways, the public sphere). Now, Agrawal is back with a new venture, Parallel Web Systems, aimed at building an infrastructure to support AI agents. So far, he’s amassed $30 million in funds (from investors including Khosla Ventures) for a 25-person team in Palo Alto.

RIVOS: According to The Information, the AI chip startup is seeking $500 million in fresh funding at a $2 billion valuation, bringing them to $870 million in total funding so far. They’re developing a type of processor called an “AI inferencing chip,” which is essential for quickly and efficiently training new models. (Rivos’ version is based on an open standard called RISC-V.) The chip is already in early production by Taiwan’s TSMC, and could hit the market as soon as next year. Could Rivos one day prove a genuine rival to $4 trillion mega-corp Nvidia? That’s certainly the dream.

COHERE: The Canadian LLM maker certainly isn’t a household name like, say, OpenAI, but that’s more a factor of exclusively serving enterprise clients rather than offering a consumer product. Behind the scenes, Cohere is already collaborating with major players like Dell, Oracle, Bell, and SAP. So it’s not shocking that the company’s latest $500 million round has been oversubscribed, bringing their total valuation up to a hefty $6.8 billion. Things are going SO well at Cohere, they’re actually poaching AI talent FROM Meta; the company recently brought on former Meta research head Joelle Pineau as their new chief AI officer.

KLARNA: It may soon be time to say goodbye to the Swedish fintech company and perennial TWiST 500 favorite, as they’re preparing for a long-awaited IPO that could arrive as soon as September. So let’s treasure these last few updates as they come! Since delaying their public debut back in the spring, Klarna’s been focusing on a move into more general banking services, and away from its image as primarily a “Buy Now Pay Later” offering. Very soon in the US, and this fall in Europe, Klarna is introducing branded debit cards, with a full suite of basic banking services to follow. Founder Sebastian Siemiatkowski tells Bloomberg that 1 million Klarna cards are already in customer hands, with the goal of 10 million cardholders by the year’s end. So very soon you can buy now AND ALSO PAY NOW. – Lon

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