Sandy Sholl and Adam Freede are no strangers to the world of fashion. They’ve been at the helm of MadaLuxe Group, a luxury distribution platform for fashion and accessories, since 1990.
Now they’re adding AI-powered virtual try-on and styling technology to the list. Today, the pair launched Zelig, offering personalized technology that will eventually enable consumers to upload a photo to visualize how clothes, shoes and accessories look on their body type as they shop online. At launch, consumers can choose between more than 40 models of diverse body types, skin tones and hair colors. Chinese Clothing Manufacturers
The technology uses a combination of artificial intelligence, machine learning and computer vision to do this. Zelig users can create different outfit combinations and then save them to their profile and even share them before purchasing complete looks.
The concept of virtual try-on is not new. Large enterprises, like Walmart, Google and Amazon, have invested in some kind of try-on technology. There are also a number of venture-backed startups in this sector, including Dia & Co., AIMIRR and Revery.ai, showing us how certain clothes might fit, while also attempting to reduce the number of returns.
Want to know how a dress looks on you? AIMIRR has your back … and front
Sholl told TechCrunch that Zelig is the first to offer this kind of “hyper-personalized online shopping experience” meant to mimic what you might find if you tried on clothes at a retailer.
She explained that nowhere else can a shopper see themselves through the entire shopping journey.
“So many people, when we did our UX testing, forgot why they even picked certain styles out at the very beginning by the time they’re finished with our shopping experience, so we thought that would be a really cool thing,” Sholl said. “We have created hyper personalization that is driven by your customers’ actual engagement. It’s a competitive advantage for today, but absolutely a necessity for tomorrow.”
Sholl likened Zelig’s potential to those of enterprise customer relationship management tools Snowflake and Salesforce, noting, “they’re basically just taking the data and putting it into reporting for tomorrow. We are willing to advance this technology into a visual reporting tool, and we think it’s just the wave of the future in the next decade.”
Sholl and Freede privately funded Zelig for the past three years, however, now they announce $15 million in Series A funding that values the pre-revenue company at $100 million. Financial services firm Hilco Global led the funding round, joined by global luxury investor Bezikian Zareh.
“Sandy Sholl and Adam Freede are innovators in the luxury fashion business with whom I’ve had success with on previous investments, and Hilco Global is proud to be partnering with them again,” Jeffrey Hecktman, CEO of Hilco Global, said in a written statement. “While many tech companies are building solutions for an industry they don’t know well, Zelig was founded by fashion experts with firsthand knowledge of how to solve the retail industry’s biggest challenges.”
Zelig intends to deploy the capital into technology development around its personalization capabilities and to build out additional features.
Sholl declined to name any brands with the launch of Zelig. However, with MadaLuxe repping merchandise from brands, including Versace, Gucci and Cartier, it’s probably not a stretch to suggest some of these retailers — or the large department stores where they are sold — are likely to sign on in the future.
Advances in fit technology could minimize those onerous online returns
This is what’s called being a single-issue voter, and while co-founder Ben Horowitz (who penned the blog post) seems to think announcing themselves as such gives their lobbying a child-like purity, it’s quite the opposite.<\/p>\n
The fact is that they are rich ideologues announcing their intent to pay any politician who will advance their agenda, whatever that politician’s other views. It really is that simple!<\/p>\n
That tech is more important than people is fundamental to their approach. They would argue that they’re pro-people by way of being pro-tech, for example as they write, “Artificial Intelligence has the potential to uplift all of humanity to an unprecedented quality of living.”<\/p>\n
Therefore, being pro-AI is being pro-people, right? And in fact, if you think about it, if AI could<\/em> lead to a 100x improvement in the human condition long term, it justifies taking actions that produce worse outcomes in the short term. For instance, supporting politicians who oppose basic civil rights just because they have a more hands-off tech regulation proposal.<\/p>\n Would Andreessen and Horowitz support a politician proposing a national abortion ban, for instance, or widespread banning of “woke agenda” books, if that person said they’d trust AI companies to do what’s best for everyone? Well, according to a16z’s statement of purpose here, that abortion stuff is none of their business! They’re “non-partisan, one issue voters.”<\/p>\n But that’s just bullshit, right?<\/p><\/div>\n In the first place, the idea that this one issue is non-partisan is risible. Forced-birth advocates would probably say they are non-partisan, one-issue voters too. It’s not about politics, it’s about the right to life, after all. That only one political party has cynically tied this and other “traditional values” to every other policy proposal for decades is irrelevant!<\/p>\n No, no \u2014 you don’t get to just declare<\/em> non-partisanship in a blog post. Tech regulation has become a partisan issue like everything else. The debates on net neutrality, on Section 230, on TikTok, on disinformation in social media, and on a16z’s pet techs AI, cryptocurrency and biotech \u2014 all partisan! That is simply the nature of politics now. Even not<\/em> participating in lobbying is in a way a partisan decision because it signals that you are not willing to take a side.<\/p>\n But that non-partisan language is just the usual dressing for this kind of announcement. Everyone claims it because it’s a meaningless quality and can’t be proved or disproved. The problem with a16z’s philosophy here is that it is a wolf in sheep’s clothing: a nakedly deregulatory and pro-capital agenda superficially draped with the language of empowerment.<\/p>\n You have to imagine that some cigarette industry executive wrote a similar blog post in the ’60s: We are a non-partisan, single-issue voter on the misguided regulatory regime unfairly preventing Americans from enjoying the great taste and health benefits of our all-natural tobacco products.<\/em><\/p>\n Same for plastics, food additives, leaded gas, everything else. All they cared about, and all Andreessen Horowitz cares about, is clearing the board of a troublesome obstacle to enrichment.<\/p>\n If they actually cared at all about people and how politics or this lobbying effort might affect them, “people” probably would have been mentioned as more than abstract concepts that might theoretically get “uplifted” or harmed in an imaginary future.<\/p>\n\n When was the last time Marc Andreessen talked to a poor person?<\/a><\/p><\/blockquote>\n <\/iframe><\/div>\n It’s unrealistic to think that by donating to a politician who supports their deregulatory vision, a16z will not also be supporting the other policies that people actually vote on right now. Things like voting rights, reproductive care, education. This obvious conflict of interests is conveniently avoided. Is any position, any proposal vile enough for them to withdraw support, or will they stick by their principles, if they can be described as such?<\/p>\n They can’t expect us to believe that their understanding of lobbying and politics is this naive. There are smart people at that firm. We must take their statement at face value that they truly don’t care about anything but growing the sector they invest in. But what they are declaring is not, as they suggest, an idealistic pro-humanity stance, but a cynical self-interested stance that is fundamentally anti-people.<\/p>\n But a16z does not care about people<\/em> \u2014 it cares about humanity<\/em>.<\/p>\n And humanity will surely be thankful when, as we enter this golden age of technology, we enter a dark age of civil and social policy, right? Women like Kate Cox may not have bodily autonomy<\/a>, but at least they will have the blockchain.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" Venture capital giant Andreessen Horowitz has announced its intent to begin lobbying the U.S. government, and their plan is as tone-deaf and obtuse as this summer’s dreadful “Techno-Optimist Manifesto.” Essentially, they will give to anyone \u2014 literally anyone \u2014 who “supports an optimistic technology-enabled future.” This is what’s called being a single-issue voter, and while […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":12084691,"featured_media":1774064,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"amp_status":"","relegenceEntities":[],"relegenceSubjects":[],"carmot_uuid":"5f134ae8-7510-31a0-8ff0-1ecf5dd4e008","footnotes":"","apple_news_api_created_at":"2023-12-14T19:56:19Z","apple_news_api_id":"620a6585-0419-427f-978a-90219c56182e","apple_news_api_modified_at":"2023-12-14T23:43:23Z","apple_news_api_revision":"AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAQ==","apple_news_api_share_url":"https:\/\/apple.news\/AYgplhQQZQn-XipAhnFYYLg","apple_news_coverimage":0,"apple_news_coverimage_caption":"","apple_news_is_hidden":false,"apple_news_is_paid":false,"apple_news_is_preview":false,"apple_news_is_sponsored":false,"apple_news_maturity_rating":"","apple_news_metadata":"\"\"","apple_news_pullquote":"","apple_news_pullquote_position":"","apple_news_slug":"","apple_news_sections":"\"\"","apple_news_suppress_video_url":false,"apple_news_use_image_component":false},"categories":[577047203,577065682,577030455],"tags":[22350935,449557088],"crunchbase_tag":[],"tc_stories_tax":[],"tc_ec_category":[],"tc_event":[],"tc_regions_tax":[],"yoast_head":"\na16z will give literally any politician money if they help deregulate tech | TechCrunch<\/title>\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\t\n\t\n\t\n\n\n\n\n\n\t\n\t\n\t\n
Would Andreessen and Horowitz support a politician proposing a national abortion ban, for instance, or widespread banning of “woke agenda” books, if that person said they’d trust AI companies to do what’s best for everyone? Well, according to a16z’s statement of purpose here, that abortion stuff is none of their business! They’re “non-partisan, one issue voters.”<\/p>\n
But that’s just bullshit, right?<\/p><\/div>\n In the first place, the idea that this one issue is non-partisan is risible. Forced-birth advocates would probably say they are non-partisan, one-issue voters too. It’s not about politics, it’s about the right to life, after all. That only one political party has cynically tied this and other “traditional values” to every other policy proposal for decades is irrelevant!<\/p>\n No, no \u2014 you don’t get to just declare<\/em> non-partisanship in a blog post. Tech regulation has become a partisan issue like everything else. The debates on net neutrality, on Section 230, on TikTok, on disinformation in social media, and on a16z’s pet techs AI, cryptocurrency and biotech \u2014 all partisan! That is simply the nature of politics now. Even not<\/em> participating in lobbying is in a way a partisan decision because it signals that you are not willing to take a side.<\/p>\n But that non-partisan language is just the usual dressing for this kind of announcement. Everyone claims it because it’s a meaningless quality and can’t be proved or disproved. The problem with a16z’s philosophy here is that it is a wolf in sheep’s clothing: a nakedly deregulatory and pro-capital agenda superficially draped with the language of empowerment.<\/p>\n You have to imagine that some cigarette industry executive wrote a similar blog post in the ’60s: We are a non-partisan, single-issue voter on the misguided regulatory regime unfairly preventing Americans from enjoying the great taste and health benefits of our all-natural tobacco products.<\/em><\/p>\n Same for plastics, food additives, leaded gas, everything else. All they cared about, and all Andreessen Horowitz cares about, is clearing the board of a troublesome obstacle to enrichment.<\/p>\n If they actually cared at all about people and how politics or this lobbying effort might affect them, “people” probably would have been mentioned as more than abstract concepts that might theoretically get “uplifted” or harmed in an imaginary future.<\/p>\n\n When was the last time Marc Andreessen talked to a poor person?<\/a><\/p><\/blockquote>\n <\/iframe><\/div>\n It’s unrealistic to think that by donating to a politician who supports their deregulatory vision, a16z will not also be supporting the other policies that people actually vote on right now. Things like voting rights, reproductive care, education. This obvious conflict of interests is conveniently avoided. Is any position, any proposal vile enough for them to withdraw support, or will they stick by their principles, if they can be described as such?<\/p>\n They can’t expect us to believe that their understanding of lobbying and politics is this naive. There are smart people at that firm. We must take their statement at face value that they truly don’t care about anything but growing the sector they invest in. But what they are declaring is not, as they suggest, an idealistic pro-humanity stance, but a cynical self-interested stance that is fundamentally anti-people.<\/p>\n But a16z does not care about people<\/em> \u2014 it cares about humanity<\/em>.<\/p>\n And humanity will surely be thankful when, as we enter this golden age of technology, we enter a dark age of civil and social policy, right? Women like Kate Cox may not have bodily autonomy<\/a>, but at least they will have the blockchain.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" Venture capital giant Andreessen Horowitz has announced its intent to begin lobbying the U.S. government, and their plan is as tone-deaf and obtuse as this summer’s dreadful “Techno-Optimist Manifesto.” Essentially, they will give to anyone \u2014 literally anyone \u2014 who “supports an optimistic technology-enabled future.” This is what’s called being a single-issue voter, and while […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":12084691,"featured_media":1774064,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"amp_status":"","relegenceEntities":[],"relegenceSubjects":[],"carmot_uuid":"5f134ae8-7510-31a0-8ff0-1ecf5dd4e008","footnotes":"","apple_news_api_created_at":"2023-12-14T19:56:19Z","apple_news_api_id":"620a6585-0419-427f-978a-90219c56182e","apple_news_api_modified_at":"2023-12-14T23:43:23Z","apple_news_api_revision":"AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAQ==","apple_news_api_share_url":"https:\/\/apple.news\/AYgplhQQZQn-XipAhnFYYLg","apple_news_coverimage":0,"apple_news_coverimage_caption":"","apple_news_is_hidden":false,"apple_news_is_paid":false,"apple_news_is_preview":false,"apple_news_is_sponsored":false,"apple_news_maturity_rating":"","apple_news_metadata":"\"\"","apple_news_pullquote":"","apple_news_pullquote_position":"","apple_news_slug":"","apple_news_sections":"\"\"","apple_news_suppress_video_url":false,"apple_news_use_image_component":false},"categories":[577047203,577065682,577030455],"tags":[22350935,449557088],"crunchbase_tag":[],"tc_stories_tax":[],"tc_ec_category":[],"tc_event":[],"tc_regions_tax":[],"yoast_head":"\na16z will give literally any politician money if they help deregulate tech | TechCrunch<\/title>\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\t\n\t\n\t\n\n\n\n\n\n\t\n\t\n\t\n
In the first place, the idea that this one issue is non-partisan is risible. Forced-birth advocates would probably say they are non-partisan, one-issue voters too. It’s not about politics, it’s about the right to life, after all. That only one political party has cynically tied this and other “traditional values” to every other policy proposal for decades is irrelevant!<\/p>\n
No, no \u2014 you don’t get to just declare<\/em> non-partisanship in a blog post. Tech regulation has become a partisan issue like everything else. The debates on net neutrality, on Section 230, on TikTok, on disinformation in social media, and on a16z’s pet techs AI, cryptocurrency and biotech \u2014 all partisan! That is simply the nature of politics now. Even not<\/em> participating in lobbying is in a way a partisan decision because it signals that you are not willing to take a side.<\/p>\n But that non-partisan language is just the usual dressing for this kind of announcement. Everyone claims it because it’s a meaningless quality and can’t be proved or disproved. The problem with a16z’s philosophy here is that it is a wolf in sheep’s clothing: a nakedly deregulatory and pro-capital agenda superficially draped with the language of empowerment.<\/p>\n You have to imagine that some cigarette industry executive wrote a similar blog post in the ’60s: We are a non-partisan, single-issue voter on the misguided regulatory regime unfairly preventing Americans from enjoying the great taste and health benefits of our all-natural tobacco products.<\/em><\/p>\n Same for plastics, food additives, leaded gas, everything else. All they cared about, and all Andreessen Horowitz cares about, is clearing the board of a troublesome obstacle to enrichment.<\/p>\n If they actually cared at all about people and how politics or this lobbying effort might affect them, “people” probably would have been mentioned as more than abstract concepts that might theoretically get “uplifted” or harmed in an imaginary future.<\/p>\n\n When was the last time Marc Andreessen talked to a poor person?<\/a><\/p><\/blockquote>\n <\/iframe><\/div>\n It’s unrealistic to think that by donating to a politician who supports their deregulatory vision, a16z will not also be supporting the other policies that people actually vote on right now. Things like voting rights, reproductive care, education. This obvious conflict of interests is conveniently avoided. Is any position, any proposal vile enough for them to withdraw support, or will they stick by their principles, if they can be described as such?<\/p>\n They can’t expect us to believe that their understanding of lobbying and politics is this naive. There are smart people at that firm. We must take their statement at face value that they truly don’t care about anything but growing the sector they invest in. But what they are declaring is not, as they suggest, an idealistic pro-humanity stance, but a cynical self-interested stance that is fundamentally anti-people.<\/p>\n But a16z does not care about people<\/em> \u2014 it cares about humanity<\/em>.<\/p>\n And humanity will surely be thankful when, as we enter this golden age of technology, we enter a dark age of civil and social policy, right? Women like Kate Cox may not have bodily autonomy<\/a>, but at least they will have the blockchain.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" Venture capital giant Andreessen Horowitz has announced its intent to begin lobbying the U.S. government, and their plan is as tone-deaf and obtuse as this summer’s dreadful “Techno-Optimist Manifesto.” Essentially, they will give to anyone \u2014 literally anyone \u2014 who “supports an optimistic technology-enabled future.” This is what’s called being a single-issue voter, and while […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":12084691,"featured_media":1774064,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"amp_status":"","relegenceEntities":[],"relegenceSubjects":[],"carmot_uuid":"5f134ae8-7510-31a0-8ff0-1ecf5dd4e008","footnotes":"","apple_news_api_created_at":"2023-12-14T19:56:19Z","apple_news_api_id":"620a6585-0419-427f-978a-90219c56182e","apple_news_api_modified_at":"2023-12-14T23:43:23Z","apple_news_api_revision":"AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAQ==","apple_news_api_share_url":"https:\/\/apple.news\/AYgplhQQZQn-XipAhnFYYLg","apple_news_coverimage":0,"apple_news_coverimage_caption":"","apple_news_is_hidden":false,"apple_news_is_paid":false,"apple_news_is_preview":false,"apple_news_is_sponsored":false,"apple_news_maturity_rating":"","apple_news_metadata":"\"\"","apple_news_pullquote":"","apple_news_pullquote_position":"","apple_news_slug":"","apple_news_sections":"\"\"","apple_news_suppress_video_url":false,"apple_news_use_image_component":false},"categories":[577047203,577065682,577030455],"tags":[22350935,449557088],"crunchbase_tag":[],"tc_stories_tax":[],"tc_ec_category":[],"tc_event":[],"tc_regions_tax":[],"yoast_head":"\na16z will give literally any politician money if they help deregulate tech | TechCrunch<\/title>\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\t\n\t\n\t\n\n\n\n\n\n\t\n\t\n\t\n
But that non-partisan language is just the usual dressing for this kind of announcement. Everyone claims it because it’s a meaningless quality and can’t be proved or disproved. The problem with a16z’s philosophy here is that it is a wolf in sheep’s clothing: a nakedly deregulatory and pro-capital agenda superficially draped with the language of empowerment.<\/p>\n
You have to imagine that some cigarette industry executive wrote a similar blog post in the ’60s: We are a non-partisan, single-issue voter on the misguided regulatory regime unfairly preventing Americans from enjoying the great taste and health benefits of our all-natural tobacco products.<\/em><\/p>\n Same for plastics, food additives, leaded gas, everything else. All they cared about, and all Andreessen Horowitz cares about, is clearing the board of a troublesome obstacle to enrichment.<\/p>\n If they actually cared at all about people and how politics or this lobbying effort might affect them, “people” probably would have been mentioned as more than abstract concepts that might theoretically get “uplifted” or harmed in an imaginary future.<\/p>\n\n When was the last time Marc Andreessen talked to a poor person?<\/a><\/p><\/blockquote>\n <\/iframe><\/div>\n It’s unrealistic to think that by donating to a politician who supports their deregulatory vision, a16z will not also be supporting the other policies that people actually vote on right now. Things like voting rights, reproductive care, education. This obvious conflict of interests is conveniently avoided. Is any position, any proposal vile enough for them to withdraw support, or will they stick by their principles, if they can be described as such?<\/p>\n They can’t expect us to believe that their understanding of lobbying and politics is this naive. There are smart people at that firm. We must take their statement at face value that they truly don’t care about anything but growing the sector they invest in. But what they are declaring is not, as they suggest, an idealistic pro-humanity stance, but a cynical self-interested stance that is fundamentally anti-people.<\/p>\n But a16z does not care about people<\/em> \u2014 it cares about humanity<\/em>.<\/p>\n And humanity will surely be thankful when, as we enter this golden age of technology, we enter a dark age of civil and social policy, right? Women like Kate Cox may not have bodily autonomy<\/a>, but at least they will have the blockchain.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" Venture capital giant Andreessen Horowitz has announced its intent to begin lobbying the U.S. government, and their plan is as tone-deaf and obtuse as this summer’s dreadful “Techno-Optimist Manifesto.” Essentially, they will give to anyone \u2014 literally anyone \u2014 who “supports an optimistic technology-enabled future.” This is what’s called being a single-issue voter, and while […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":12084691,"featured_media":1774064,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"amp_status":"","relegenceEntities":[],"relegenceSubjects":[],"carmot_uuid":"5f134ae8-7510-31a0-8ff0-1ecf5dd4e008","footnotes":"","apple_news_api_created_at":"2023-12-14T19:56:19Z","apple_news_api_id":"620a6585-0419-427f-978a-90219c56182e","apple_news_api_modified_at":"2023-12-14T23:43:23Z","apple_news_api_revision":"AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAQ==","apple_news_api_share_url":"https:\/\/apple.news\/AYgplhQQZQn-XipAhnFYYLg","apple_news_coverimage":0,"apple_news_coverimage_caption":"","apple_news_is_hidden":false,"apple_news_is_paid":false,"apple_news_is_preview":false,"apple_news_is_sponsored":false,"apple_news_maturity_rating":"","apple_news_metadata":"\"\"","apple_news_pullquote":"","apple_news_pullquote_position":"","apple_news_slug":"","apple_news_sections":"\"\"","apple_news_suppress_video_url":false,"apple_news_use_image_component":false},"categories":[577047203,577065682,577030455],"tags":[22350935,449557088],"crunchbase_tag":[],"tc_stories_tax":[],"tc_ec_category":[],"tc_event":[],"tc_regions_tax":[],"yoast_head":"\na16z will give literally any politician money if they help deregulate tech | TechCrunch<\/title>\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\t\n\t\n\t\n\n\n\n\n\n\t\n\t\n\t\n
Same for plastics, food additives, leaded gas, everything else. All they cared about, and all Andreessen Horowitz cares about, is clearing the board of a troublesome obstacle to enrichment.<\/p>\n
If they actually cared at all about people and how politics or this lobbying effort might affect them, “people” probably would have been mentioned as more than abstract concepts that might theoretically get “uplifted” or harmed in an imaginary future.<\/p>\n\n When was the last time Marc Andreessen talked to a poor person?<\/a><\/p><\/blockquote>\n <\/iframe><\/div>\n It’s unrealistic to think that by donating to a politician who supports their deregulatory vision, a16z will not also be supporting the other policies that people actually vote on right now. Things like voting rights, reproductive care, education. This obvious conflict of interests is conveniently avoided. Is any position, any proposal vile enough for them to withdraw support, or will they stick by their principles, if they can be described as such?<\/p>\n They can’t expect us to believe that their understanding of lobbying and politics is this naive. There are smart people at that firm. We must take their statement at face value that they truly don’t care about anything but growing the sector they invest in. But what they are declaring is not, as they suggest, an idealistic pro-humanity stance, but a cynical self-interested stance that is fundamentally anti-people.<\/p>\n But a16z does not care about people<\/em> \u2014 it cares about humanity<\/em>.<\/p>\n And humanity will surely be thankful when, as we enter this golden age of technology, we enter a dark age of civil and social policy, right? Women like Kate Cox may not have bodily autonomy<\/a>, but at least they will have the blockchain.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" Venture capital giant Andreessen Horowitz has announced its intent to begin lobbying the U.S. government, and their plan is as tone-deaf and obtuse as this summer’s dreadful “Techno-Optimist Manifesto.” Essentially, they will give to anyone \u2014 literally anyone \u2014 who “supports an optimistic technology-enabled future.” This is what’s called being a single-issue voter, and while […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":12084691,"featured_media":1774064,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"amp_status":"","relegenceEntities":[],"relegenceSubjects":[],"carmot_uuid":"5f134ae8-7510-31a0-8ff0-1ecf5dd4e008","footnotes":"","apple_news_api_created_at":"2023-12-14T19:56:19Z","apple_news_api_id":"620a6585-0419-427f-978a-90219c56182e","apple_news_api_modified_at":"2023-12-14T23:43:23Z","apple_news_api_revision":"AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAQ==","apple_news_api_share_url":"https:\/\/apple.news\/AYgplhQQZQn-XipAhnFYYLg","apple_news_coverimage":0,"apple_news_coverimage_caption":"","apple_news_is_hidden":false,"apple_news_is_paid":false,"apple_news_is_preview":false,"apple_news_is_sponsored":false,"apple_news_maturity_rating":"","apple_news_metadata":"\"\"","apple_news_pullquote":"","apple_news_pullquote_position":"","apple_news_slug":"","apple_news_sections":"\"\"","apple_news_suppress_video_url":false,"apple_news_use_image_component":false},"categories":[577047203,577065682,577030455],"tags":[22350935,449557088],"crunchbase_tag":[],"tc_stories_tax":[],"tc_ec_category":[],"tc_event":[],"tc_regions_tax":[],"yoast_head":"\na16z will give literally any politician money if they help deregulate tech | TechCrunch<\/title>\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\t\n\t\n\t\n\n\n\n\n\n\t\n\t\n\t\n
When was the last time Marc Andreessen talked to a poor person?<\/a><\/p><\/blockquote>\n <\/iframe><\/div>\n It’s unrealistic to think that by donating to a politician who supports their deregulatory vision, a16z will not also be supporting the other policies that people actually vote on right now. Things like voting rights, reproductive care, education. This obvious conflict of interests is conveniently avoided. Is any position, any proposal vile enough for them to withdraw support, or will they stick by their principles, if they can be described as such?<\/p>\n They can’t expect us to believe that their understanding of lobbying and politics is this naive. There are smart people at that firm. We must take their statement at face value that they truly don’t care about anything but growing the sector they invest in. But what they are declaring is not, as they suggest, an idealistic pro-humanity stance, but a cynical self-interested stance that is fundamentally anti-people.<\/p>\n But a16z does not care about people<\/em> \u2014 it cares about humanity<\/em>.<\/p>\n And humanity will surely be thankful when, as we enter this golden age of technology, we enter a dark age of civil and social policy, right? Women like Kate Cox may not have bodily autonomy<\/a>, but at least they will have the blockchain.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" Venture capital giant Andreessen Horowitz has announced its intent to begin lobbying the U.S. government, and their plan is as tone-deaf and obtuse as this summer’s dreadful “Techno-Optimist Manifesto.” Essentially, they will give to anyone \u2014 literally anyone \u2014 who “supports an optimistic technology-enabled future.” This is what’s called being a single-issue voter, and while […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":12084691,"featured_media":1774064,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"amp_status":"","relegenceEntities":[],"relegenceSubjects":[],"carmot_uuid":"5f134ae8-7510-31a0-8ff0-1ecf5dd4e008","footnotes":"","apple_news_api_created_at":"2023-12-14T19:56:19Z","apple_news_api_id":"620a6585-0419-427f-978a-90219c56182e","apple_news_api_modified_at":"2023-12-14T23:43:23Z","apple_news_api_revision":"AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAQ==","apple_news_api_share_url":"https:\/\/apple.news\/AYgplhQQZQn-XipAhnFYYLg","apple_news_coverimage":0,"apple_news_coverimage_caption":"","apple_news_is_hidden":false,"apple_news_is_paid":false,"apple_news_is_preview":false,"apple_news_is_sponsored":false,"apple_news_maturity_rating":"","apple_news_metadata":"\"\"","apple_news_pullquote":"","apple_news_pullquote_position":"","apple_news_slug":"","apple_news_sections":"\"\"","apple_news_suppress_video_url":false,"apple_news_use_image_component":false},"categories":[577047203,577065682,577030455],"tags":[22350935,449557088],"crunchbase_tag":[],"tc_stories_tax":[],"tc_ec_category":[],"tc_event":[],"tc_regions_tax":[],"yoast_head":"\na16z will give literally any politician money if they help deregulate tech | TechCrunch<\/title>\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\t\n\t\n\t\n\n\n\n\n\n\t\n\t\n\t\n
<\/iframe><\/div>\n It’s unrealistic to think that by donating to a politician who supports their deregulatory vision, a16z will not also be supporting the other policies that people actually vote on right now. Things like voting rights, reproductive care, education. This obvious conflict of interests is conveniently avoided. Is any position, any proposal vile enough for them to withdraw support, or will they stick by their principles, if they can be described as such?<\/p>\n They can’t expect us to believe that their understanding of lobbying and politics is this naive. There are smart people at that firm. We must take their statement at face value that they truly don’t care about anything but growing the sector they invest in. But what they are declaring is not, as they suggest, an idealistic pro-humanity stance, but a cynical self-interested stance that is fundamentally anti-people.<\/p>\n But a16z does not care about people<\/em> \u2014 it cares about humanity<\/em>.<\/p>\n And humanity will surely be thankful when, as we enter this golden age of technology, we enter a dark age of civil and social policy, right? Women like Kate Cox may not have bodily autonomy<\/a>, but at least they will have the blockchain.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" Venture capital giant Andreessen Horowitz has announced its intent to begin lobbying the U.S. government, and their plan is as tone-deaf and obtuse as this summer’s dreadful “Techno-Optimist Manifesto.” Essentially, they will give to anyone \u2014 literally anyone \u2014 who “supports an optimistic technology-enabled future.” This is what’s called being a single-issue voter, and while […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":12084691,"featured_media":1774064,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"amp_status":"","relegenceEntities":[],"relegenceSubjects":[],"carmot_uuid":"5f134ae8-7510-31a0-8ff0-1ecf5dd4e008","footnotes":"","apple_news_api_created_at":"2023-12-14T19:56:19Z","apple_news_api_id":"620a6585-0419-427f-978a-90219c56182e","apple_news_api_modified_at":"2023-12-14T23:43:23Z","apple_news_api_revision":"AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAQ==","apple_news_api_share_url":"https:\/\/apple.news\/AYgplhQQZQn-XipAhnFYYLg","apple_news_coverimage":0,"apple_news_coverimage_caption":"","apple_news_is_hidden":false,"apple_news_is_paid":false,"apple_news_is_preview":false,"apple_news_is_sponsored":false,"apple_news_maturity_rating":"","apple_news_metadata":"\"\"","apple_news_pullquote":"","apple_news_pullquote_position":"","apple_news_slug":"","apple_news_sections":"\"\"","apple_news_suppress_video_url":false,"apple_news_use_image_component":false},"categories":[577047203,577065682,577030455],"tags":[22350935,449557088],"crunchbase_tag":[],"tc_stories_tax":[],"tc_ec_category":[],"tc_event":[],"tc_regions_tax":[],"yoast_head":"\na16z will give literally any politician money if they help deregulate tech | TechCrunch<\/title>\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\t\n\t\n\t\n\n\n\n\n\n\t\n\t\n\t\n
It’s unrealistic to think that by donating to a politician who supports their deregulatory vision, a16z will not also be supporting the other policies that people actually vote on right now. Things like voting rights, reproductive care, education. This obvious conflict of interests is conveniently avoided. Is any position, any proposal vile enough for them to withdraw support, or will they stick by their principles, if they can be described as such?<\/p>\n
They can’t expect us to believe that their understanding of lobbying and politics is this naive. There are smart people at that firm. We must take their statement at face value that they truly don’t care about anything but growing the sector they invest in. But what they are declaring is not, as they suggest, an idealistic pro-humanity stance, but a cynical self-interested stance that is fundamentally anti-people.<\/p>\n
But a16z does not care about people<\/em> \u2014 it cares about humanity<\/em>.<\/p>\n And humanity will surely be thankful when, as we enter this golden age of technology, we enter a dark age of civil and social policy, right? Women like Kate Cox may not have bodily autonomy<\/a>, but at least they will have the blockchain.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" Venture capital giant Andreessen Horowitz has announced its intent to begin lobbying the U.S. government, and their plan is as tone-deaf and obtuse as this summer’s dreadful “Techno-Optimist Manifesto.” Essentially, they will give to anyone \u2014 literally anyone \u2014 who “supports an optimistic technology-enabled future.” This is what’s called being a single-issue voter, and while […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":12084691,"featured_media":1774064,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"amp_status":"","relegenceEntities":[],"relegenceSubjects":[],"carmot_uuid":"5f134ae8-7510-31a0-8ff0-1ecf5dd4e008","footnotes":"","apple_news_api_created_at":"2023-12-14T19:56:19Z","apple_news_api_id":"620a6585-0419-427f-978a-90219c56182e","apple_news_api_modified_at":"2023-12-14T23:43:23Z","apple_news_api_revision":"AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAQ==","apple_news_api_share_url":"https:\/\/apple.news\/AYgplhQQZQn-XipAhnFYYLg","apple_news_coverimage":0,"apple_news_coverimage_caption":"","apple_news_is_hidden":false,"apple_news_is_paid":false,"apple_news_is_preview":false,"apple_news_is_sponsored":false,"apple_news_maturity_rating":"","apple_news_metadata":"\"\"","apple_news_pullquote":"","apple_news_pullquote_position":"","apple_news_slug":"","apple_news_sections":"\"\"","apple_news_suppress_video_url":false,"apple_news_use_image_component":false},"categories":[577047203,577065682,577030455],"tags":[22350935,449557088],"crunchbase_tag":[],"tc_stories_tax":[],"tc_ec_category":[],"tc_event":[],"tc_regions_tax":[],"yoast_head":"\na16z will give literally any politician money if they help deregulate tech | TechCrunch<\/title>\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\t\n\t\n\t\n\n\n\n\n\n\t\n\t\n\t\n
And humanity will surely be thankful when, as we enter this golden age of technology, we enter a dark age of civil and social policy, right? Women like Kate Cox may not have bodily autonomy<\/a>, but at least they will have the blockchain.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" Venture capital giant Andreessen Horowitz has announced its intent to begin lobbying the U.S. government, and their plan is as tone-deaf and obtuse as this summer’s dreadful “Techno-Optimist Manifesto.” Essentially, they will give to anyone \u2014 literally anyone \u2014 who “supports an optimistic technology-enabled future.” This is what’s called being a single-issue voter, and while […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":12084691,"featured_media":1774064,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"amp_status":"","relegenceEntities":[],"relegenceSubjects":[],"carmot_uuid":"5f134ae8-7510-31a0-8ff0-1ecf5dd4e008","footnotes":"","apple_news_api_created_at":"2023-12-14T19:56:19Z","apple_news_api_id":"620a6585-0419-427f-978a-90219c56182e","apple_news_api_modified_at":"2023-12-14T23:43:23Z","apple_news_api_revision":"AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAQ==","apple_news_api_share_url":"https:\/\/apple.news\/AYgplhQQZQn-XipAhnFYYLg","apple_news_coverimage":0,"apple_news_coverimage_caption":"","apple_news_is_hidden":false,"apple_news_is_paid":false,"apple_news_is_preview":false,"apple_news_is_sponsored":false,"apple_news_maturity_rating":"","apple_news_metadata":"\"\"","apple_news_pullquote":"","apple_news_pullquote_position":"","apple_news_slug":"","apple_news_sections":"\"\"","apple_news_suppress_video_url":false,"apple_news_use_image_component":false},"categories":[577047203,577065682,577030455],"tags":[22350935,449557088],"crunchbase_tag":[],"tc_stories_tax":[],"tc_ec_category":[],"tc_event":[],"tc_regions_tax":[],"yoast_head":"\na16z will give literally any politician money if they help deregulate tech | TechCrunch<\/title>\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\t\n\t\n\t\n\n\n\n\n\n\t\n\t\n\t\n
Venture capital giant Andreessen Horowitz has announced its intent to begin lobbying the U.S. government, and their plan is as tone-deaf and obtuse as this summer’s dreadful “Techno-Optimist Manifesto.” Essentially, they will give to anyone \u2014 literally anyone \u2014 who “supports an optimistic technology-enabled future.” This is what’s called being a single-issue voter, and while […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":12084691,"featured_media":1774064,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"amp_status":"","relegenceEntities":[],"relegenceSubjects":[],"carmot_uuid":"5f134ae8-7510-31a0-8ff0-1ecf5dd4e008","footnotes":"","apple_news_api_created_at":"2023-12-14T19:56:19Z","apple_news_api_id":"620a6585-0419-427f-978a-90219c56182e","apple_news_api_modified_at":"2023-12-14T23:43:23Z","apple_news_api_revision":"AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAQ==","apple_news_api_share_url":"https:\/\/apple.news\/AYgplhQQZQn-XipAhnFYYLg","apple_news_coverimage":0,"apple_news_coverimage_caption":"","apple_news_is_hidden":false,"apple_news_is_paid":false,"apple_news_is_preview":false,"apple_news_is_sponsored":false,"apple_news_maturity_rating":"","apple_news_metadata":"\"\"","apple_news_pullquote":"","apple_news_pullquote_position":"","apple_news_slug":"","apple_news_sections":"\"\"","apple_news_suppress_video_url":false,"apple_news_use_image_component":false},"categories":[577047203,577065682,577030455],"tags":[22350935,449557088],"crunchbase_tag":[],"tc_stories_tax":[],"tc_ec_category":[],"tc_event":[],"tc_regions_tax":[],"yoast_head":"\na16z will give literally any politician money if they help deregulate tech | TechCrunch<\/title>\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\t\n\t\n\t\n\n\n\n\n\n\t\n\t\n\t\n
Devin Coldewey is a Seattle-based writer and photographer. He first wrote for TechCrunch in 2007. He has also written for MSNBC.com, NBC News, DPReview, The Economist\/GE's Look Ahead, and others.<\/p>\n\n
His personal website is coldewey.cc.<\/p>","cbAvatar":"https:\/\/techcrunch.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/01\/r4iwkrm6qsw3n2ximghe.jpg.jpg","twitter":"techcrunch","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/techcrunch.com\/wp-json\/tc\/v1\/users\/12084691"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/techcrunch.com\/wp-json\/tc\/v1\/users"}]}}],"author":[{"id":12084691,"name":"Devin Coldewey","url":"https:\/\/coldewey.cc","description":"","link":"https:\/\/techcrunch.com\/author\/devin-coldewey\/","slug":"devin-coldewey","avatar_urls":{"24":"https:\/\/secure.gravatar.com\/avatar\/69fae9a8a3933fa91e81c086b8eee14a?s=24&d=identicon&r=g","48":"https:\/\/secure.gravatar.com\/avatar\/69fae9a8a3933fa91e81c086b8eee14a?s=48&d=identicon&r=g","96":"https:\/\/secure.gravatar.com\/avatar\/69fae9a8a3933fa91e81c086b8eee14a?s=96&d=identicon&r=g"},"yoast_head":"\nDevin Coldewey, Author at TechCrunch<\/title>\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n
Devin Coldewey is a Seattle-based writer and photographer. He first wrote for TechCrunch in 2007. He has also written for MSNBC.com, NBC News, DPReview, The Economist\/GE's Look Ahead, and others.<\/p>\n\n
His personal website is coldewey.cc.<\/p>","cbAvatar":"https:\/\/techcrunch.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/01\/r4iwkrm6qsw3n2ximghe.jpg.jpg","twitter":"techcrunch","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/techcrunch.com\/wp-json\/tc\/v1\/users\/12084691"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/techcrunch.com\/wp-json\/tc\/v1\/users"}]}}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"id":1774064,"date":"2019-01-24T14:04:52","slug":"get-money-for-contrac-vector-illustration","type":"attachment","link":"https:\/\/techcrunch.com\/2019\/01\/24\/mortgage-loan-leak-gets-worse\/get-money-for-contrac-vector-illustration\/","title":{"rendered":"Get money for contrac, vector illustration"},"author":133574210,"jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"license":{"source_key":"getty images"},"authors":[133574210],"caption":{"rendered":"
Get money for contract, vector illustration<\/p>\n"},"alt_text":"Get money for contract, vector illustration","media_type":"image","mime_type":"image\/jpeg","media_details":{"width":5424,"height":3807,"file":"2019\/01\/GettyImages-644991352.jpg","sizes":{"thumbnail":{"file":"GettyImages-644991352.jpg?resize=150,105","width":150,"height":105,"filesize":982256,"mime_type":"image\/jpeg","source_url":"https:\/\/techcrunch.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/01\/GettyImages-644991352.jpg?w=150"},"medium":{"file":"GettyImages-644991352.jpg?resize=300,211","width":300,"height":211,"filesize":982256,"mime_type":"image\/jpeg","source_url":"https:\/\/techcrunch.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/01\/GettyImages-644991352.jpg?w=300"},"medium_large":{"file":"GettyImages-644991352.jpg?resize=768,539","width":768,"height":539,"filesize":982256,"mime_type":"image\/jpeg","source_url":"https:\/\/techcrunch.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/01\/GettyImages-644991352.jpg?w=1024"},"large":{"file":"GettyImages-644991352.jpg?resize=680,477","width":680,"height":477,"filesize":982256,"mime_type":"image\/jpeg","source_url":"https:\/\/techcrunch.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/01\/GettyImages-644991352.jpg?w=680"},"1536x1536":{"file":"GettyImages-644991352.jpg?resize=1536,1078","width":1536,"height":1078,"filesize":982256,"mime_type":"image\/jpeg","source_url":"https:\/\/techcrunch.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/01\/GettyImages-644991352.jpg?w=1536"},"2048x2048":{"file":"GettyImages-644991352.jpg?resize=2048,1437","width":2048,"height":1437,"filesize":982256,"mime_type":"image\/jpeg","source_url":"https:\/\/techcrunch.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/01\/GettyImages-644991352.jpg?w=2048"},"tc-social-image":{"file":"GettyImages-644991352.jpg?resize=1200,842","width":1200,"height":842,"filesize":982256,"mime_type":"image\/jpeg","source_url":"https:\/\/techcrunch.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/01\/GettyImages-644991352.jpg?w=1200"},"guest-author-32":{"file":"GettyImages-644991352.jpg?resize=32,32","width":32,"height":32,"filesize":982256,"mime_type":"image\/jpeg","source_url":"https:\/\/techcrunch.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/01\/GettyImages-644991352.jpg?w=32&h=32&crop=1"},"guest-author-50":{"file":"GettyImages-644991352.jpg?resize=50,50","width":50,"height":50,"filesize":982256,"mime_type":"image\/jpeg","source_url":"https:\/\/techcrunch.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/01\/GettyImages-644991352.jpg?w=50&h=50&crop=1"},"guest-author-64":{"file":"GettyImages-644991352.jpg?resize=64,64","width":64,"height":64,"filesize":982256,"mime_type":"image\/jpeg","source_url":"https:\/\/techcrunch.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/01\/GettyImages-644991352.jpg?w=64&h=64&crop=1"},"guest-author-96":{"file":"GettyImages-644991352.jpg?resize=96,96","width":96,"height":96,"filesize":982256,"mime_type":"image\/jpeg","source_url":"https:\/\/techcrunch.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/01\/GettyImages-644991352.jpg?w=96&h=96&crop=1"},"guest-author-128":{"file":"GettyImages-644991352.jpg?resize=128,128","width":128,"height":128,"filesize":982256,"mime_type":"image\/jpeg","source_url":"https:\/\/techcrunch.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/01\/GettyImages-644991352.jpg?w=128&h=128&crop=1"},"concierge-thumb":{"file":"GettyImages-644991352.jpg?resize=50,35","width":50,"height":35,"filesize":982256,"mime_type":"image\/jpeg","source_url":"https:\/\/techcrunch.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/01\/GettyImages-644991352.jpg?w=50"},"full":{"file":"GettyImages-644991352.jpg","width":1024,"height":719,"mime_type":"image\/jpeg","source_url":"https:\/\/techcrunch.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/01\/GettyImages-644991352.jpg"}},"image_meta":{"aperture":"0","credit":"Getty Images","camera":"","caption":"Get money for contrac, vector illustration","created_timestamp":"0","copyright":"","focal_length":"0","iso":"0","shutter_speed":"0","title":"Get money for contrac, vector illustration","orientation":"0","keywords":["payment"]},"filesize":982256},"source_url":"https:\/\/techcrunch.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/01\/GettyImages-644991352.jpg","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/techcrunch.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/1774064"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/techcrunch.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/techcrunch.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/attachment"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/techcrunch.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1774064"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/techcrunch.com\/wp-json\/tc\/v1\/users\/133574210"}]}}],"wp:term":[[{"id":577047203,"description":"News coverage on artificial intelligence and machine learning tech, the companies building them, and the ethical issues AI raises today. This encompasses generative AI, including large language models, text-to-image and text-to-video models; speech recognition and generation; and predictive analytics.","link":"https:\/\/techcrunch.com\/category\/artificial-intelligence\/","name":"AI","slug":"artificial-intelligence","taxonomy":"category","parent":0,"yoast_head":"\nAI News & Artificial Intelligence | TechCrunch<\/title>\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\t\n\t\n\t\n\n\n
While investors were preparing to go nuclear<\/a> after Sam Altman’s unceremonious ouster<\/a> from OpenAI and Altman was plotting his return<\/a> to the company, the members of OpenAI’s Superalignment<\/a> team were assiduously plugging along on the problem of how to control AI that’s smarter than humans.<\/p>\n Or at least, that’s the impression they’d like to give.<\/p>\n This week, I took a call with three of the Superalignment team’s members — Collin Burns, Pavel Izmailov and Leopold Aschenbrenner — who were in New Orleans at NeurIPS, the annual machine learning conference, <\/span>to present OpenAI’s newest work on ensuring that AI systems behave as intended.<\/span><\/p>\n OpenAI formed<\/a> the Superalignment team in July to develop ways to steer, regulate and govern “superintelligent” AI systems — that is, theoretical systems with intelligence far exceeding that of humans.<\/p>\n “Today, we can basically align models that are dumber than us, or maybe around human-level at most<\/em>,” Burns said. “<\/span>Aligning a model that’s actually smarter than us is much, much less obvious — how we can even do it?”<\/span><\/p>\n The Superalignment effort is being led by OpenAI co-founder and chief scientist Ilya Sutskever, which didn’t raise eyebrows in July — but certainly does now in light of the fact that Sutskever was among those<\/a> who initially pushed for Altman’s firing. While some reporting<\/a> suggests Sutskever is in a “state of limbo” following Altman’s return, OpenAI’s PR tells me that Sutskever is indeed — as of today, at least — still heading the Superalignment team.<\/p>\n Superalignment is a bit of a touchy subject within the AI research community. Some argue that the subfield is premature; others imply that it’s a red herring.<\/p><\/div>\n While Altman has invited comparisons between OpenAI and the Manhattan Project, going so far as to assemble a team<\/a> to probe AI models to protect against “catastrophic risks,” including chemical and nuclear threats, some experts say that there’s little evidence to suggest the startup’s technology will gain world-ending, human-outsmarting capabilities anytime soon — or ever. Claims of imminent superintelligence, these experts add, serve only to deliberately draw attention away from and distract from the pressing AI regulatory issues of the day, like algorithmic bias and AI’s tendency toward toxicity.<\/p>\n For what it’s worth, Sutskever appears to believe earnestly<\/a> that AI — not OpenAI’s per se, but some embodiment<\/i>\u00a0of it — could someday pose an existential threat. He reportedly went so far as to commission and burn<\/a> a wooden effigy at a company offsite to demonstrate his commitment to preventing AI harm from befalling humanity, and commands a meaningful amount of OpenAI’s compute — 20% of its existing computer chips — for the Superalignment team’s research.<\/p>\n “AI progress recently has been extraordinarily rapid, and I can assure you that it’s not slowing down,” Aschenbrenner said. “I think we’re going to reach human-level systems pretty soon, but it won’t stop there — we’re going to go right through to superhuman systems … So how do we align superhuman AI systems and make them safe? It’s really a problem for all of humanity — perhaps the most important unsolved technical problem of our time.”<\/p>\n The Superalignment team, currently, is attempting to build governance and control frameworks that might<\/em> apply well to future powerful AI systems. It’s not a straightforward task, considering that the definition of “superintelligence” — and whether a particular AI system has achieved it — is the subject of robust debate. But the approach the team’s settled on for now involves using a weaker, less-sophisticated AI model (e.g. GPT-2<\/a>) to guide a more advanced, sophisticated model (GPT-4<\/a>) in desirable directions — and away from undesirable ones.<\/p>\n A figure illustrating the Superalignment team’s AI-based analogy for aligning superintelligent systems. Image Credits:<\/strong> OpenAI<\/p><\/div><\/p>\n “A lot of what we’re trying to do is tell a model what to do and ensure it will do it,” Burns said. “How do we get a model to follow instructions and get a model to only help with things that are true and not make stuff up? How do we get a model to tell us if the code it generated is safe or egregious behavior? These are the types of tasks we want to be able to achieve with our research.”<\/p>\n But wait, you might say — what does AI guiding AI have to do with preventing humanity-threatening AI? Well, it’s an analogy: The weak model is meant to be a stand-in for human supervisors while the strong model represents superintelligent AI. Similar to humans who might not be able to make sense of a superintelligent AI system, the weak model can’t “understand” all the complexities and nuances of the strong model — making the setup useful for proving out superalignment hypotheses, the Superalignment team says.<\/p>\n “You can think of a sixth-grade student trying to supervise a college student,” Izmailov explained. “Let’s say the sixth grader is trying to tell the college student about a task that he kind of knows how to solve … Even though the supervision from the sixth grader can have mistakes in the details, there’s hope that the college student would understand the gist and would be able to do the task better than the supervisor.”<\/span><\/p>\n In the Superalignment team’s setup, a weak model fine-tuned on a particular task generates labels that are used to “communicate” the broad strokes of that task to the strong model. Given these labels, the strong model can generalize more or less correctly according to the weak model’s intent — even if the weak model’s labels contain errors and biases, the team found.<\/p>\n The weak-strong model approach might even lead to breakthroughs in the area of hallucinations, claims the team.<\/p>\n “Hallucinations are actually quite interesting, because internally, the model actually knows whether the thing it’s saying is fact or fiction,” Aschenbrenner said. “But the way these models are trained today, human supervisors reward them ‘thumbs up,’ ‘thumbs down’ for saying things. So sometimes, inadvertently, humans reward the model for saying things that are either false or that the model doesn’t actually know about and so on. If <\/span>we’re successful in our research, we should develop techniques where we can basically summon the model’s knowledge and we could apply that summoning on whether something is fact or fiction and use this to reduce hallucinations.”<\/p>\n But the analogy isn’t perfect. So OpenAI wants to crowdsource ideas.<\/p>\n To that end, OpenAI is launching a $10 million grant program to support technical research on superintelligent alignment, tranches of which will be reserved for academic labs, nonprofits, individual researchers and graduate students. OpenAI also plans to also host an academic conference on superalignment in early 2025, where it’ll share and promote the superalignment prize finalists’ work.<\/span><\/p>\n Curiously, a portion of funding for the grant will come from former Google CEO and chairman Eric Schmidt. Schmidt — an ardent supporter of Altman — is fast becoming a poster child for AI doomerism, asserting the arrival of dangerous AI systems is nigh and that regulators aren’t doing enough in preparation. It’s not out of a sense of altruism, necessarily — reporting in Protocol<\/a> and Wired<\/a> note that Schmidt, an active AI investor, stands to benefit enormously commercially if the U.S. government were to implement his proposed blueprint to bolster AI research.<\/p>\n The donation might be perceived as virtue signaling through a cynical lens, then. Schmidt’s personal fortune stands around an estimated $24 billion, and he’s poured hundreds of millions into other, decidedly less ethics-focused<\/a> AI ventures and funds<\/a> — including his own.<\/p>\n Schmidt denies this is the case, of course.<\/p>\n “AI and other emerging technologies are reshaping our economy and society,” he said in an emailed statement. “Ensuring they are aligned with human values is critical, and I am proud to support OpenAI\u2019s new [grants] to develop and control AI responsibly for public benefit.”<\/p>\n Indeed, the involvement of a figure with such transparent commercial motivations begs the question: Will OpenAI’s superalignment research as well as the research it’s encouraging the community to submit to its future conference be made available for anyone to use as they see fit?<\/p>\n The Superalignment team assured me that, yes, both OpenAI’s research — including code — and the work of others who receive grants and prizes from OpenAI on superalignment-related work will be shared publicly. We’ll hold the company to it.<\/p>\n “Contributing not just to the safety of our models but the safety of other labs’ models and advanced AI in general is a part of our mission,” Aschenbrenner said. “It’s really core to our mission of building [AI] for the benefit of all of humanity, safely. And we think that doing this research is absolutely essential for making it beneficial and making it safe.”<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" While investors were preparing to go nuclear after Sam Altman’s unceremonious ouster from OpenAI and Altman was plotting his return to the company, the members of OpenAI’s Superalignment team were assiduously plugging along on the problem of how to control AI that’s smarter than humans. Or at least, that’s the impression they’d like to give. […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":133574536,"featured_media":2631919,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"amp_status":"","relegenceEntities":[],"relegenceSubjects":[],"carmot_uuid":"ccb3a3fa-0e31-307c-93ff-e5eb4b7e7412","footnotes":"","apple_news_api_created_at":"2023-12-14T17:00:41Z","apple_news_api_id":"e758d680-4187-4ebb-855f-41fe9be5f2fb","apple_news_api_modified_at":"2023-12-14T22:55:40Z","apple_news_api_revision":"AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAw==","apple_news_api_share_url":"https:\/\/apple.news\/A51jWgEGHTruFX0H-m-Xy-w","apple_news_coverimage":0,"apple_news_coverimage_caption":"","apple_news_is_hidden":false,"apple_news_is_paid":false,"apple_news_is_preview":false,"apple_news_is_sponsored":false,"apple_news_maturity_rating":"","apple_news_metadata":"\"\"","apple_news_pullquote":"","apple_news_pullquote_position":"","apple_news_slug":"","apple_news_sections":"\"\"","apple_news_suppress_video_url":false,"apple_news_use_image_component":false},"categories":[577047203],"tags":[14067,421223872,668],"crunchbase_tag":[],"tc_stories_tax":[],"tc_ec_category":[],"tc_event":[],"tc_regions_tax":[],"yoast_head":"\nOpenAI thinks superhuman AI is coming -- and wants to build tools to control it | TechCrunch<\/title>\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\t\n\t\n\t\n\n\n\n\n\n\t\n\t\n\t\n
Or at least, that’s the impression they’d like to give.<\/p>\n
This week, I took a call with three of the Superalignment team’s members — Collin Burns, Pavel Izmailov and Leopold Aschenbrenner — who were in New Orleans at NeurIPS, the annual machine learning conference, <\/span>to present OpenAI’s newest work on ensuring that AI systems behave as intended.<\/span><\/p>\n OpenAI formed<\/a> the Superalignment team in July to develop ways to steer, regulate and govern “superintelligent” AI systems — that is, theoretical systems with intelligence far exceeding that of humans.<\/p>\n “Today, we can basically align models that are dumber than us, or maybe around human-level at most<\/em>,” Burns said. “<\/span>Aligning a model that’s actually smarter than us is much, much less obvious — how we can even do it?”<\/span><\/p>\n The Superalignment effort is being led by OpenAI co-founder and chief scientist Ilya Sutskever, which didn’t raise eyebrows in July — but certainly does now in light of the fact that Sutskever was among those<\/a> who initially pushed for Altman’s firing. While some reporting<\/a> suggests Sutskever is in a “state of limbo” following Altman’s return, OpenAI’s PR tells me that Sutskever is indeed — as of today, at least — still heading the Superalignment team.<\/p>\n Superalignment is a bit of a touchy subject within the AI research community. Some argue that the subfield is premature; others imply that it’s a red herring.<\/p><\/div>\n While Altman has invited comparisons between OpenAI and the Manhattan Project, going so far as to assemble a team<\/a> to probe AI models to protect against “catastrophic risks,” including chemical and nuclear threats, some experts say that there’s little evidence to suggest the startup’s technology will gain world-ending, human-outsmarting capabilities anytime soon — or ever. Claims of imminent superintelligence, these experts add, serve only to deliberately draw attention away from and distract from the pressing AI regulatory issues of the day, like algorithmic bias and AI’s tendency toward toxicity.<\/p>\n For what it’s worth, Sutskever appears to believe earnestly<\/a> that AI — not OpenAI’s per se, but some embodiment<\/i>\u00a0of it — could someday pose an existential threat. He reportedly went so far as to commission and burn<\/a> a wooden effigy at a company offsite to demonstrate his commitment to preventing AI harm from befalling humanity, and commands a meaningful amount of OpenAI’s compute — 20% of its existing computer chips — for the Superalignment team’s research.<\/p>\n “AI progress recently has been extraordinarily rapid, and I can assure you that it’s not slowing down,” Aschenbrenner said. “I think we’re going to reach human-level systems pretty soon, but it won’t stop there — we’re going to go right through to superhuman systems … So how do we align superhuman AI systems and make them safe? It’s really a problem for all of humanity — perhaps the most important unsolved technical problem of our time.”<\/p>\n The Superalignment team, currently, is attempting to build governance and control frameworks that might<\/em> apply well to future powerful AI systems. It’s not a straightforward task, considering that the definition of “superintelligence” — and whether a particular AI system has achieved it — is the subject of robust debate. But the approach the team’s settled on for now involves using a weaker, less-sophisticated AI model (e.g. GPT-2<\/a>) to guide a more advanced, sophisticated model (GPT-4<\/a>) in desirable directions — and away from undesirable ones.<\/p>\n A figure illustrating the Superalignment team’s AI-based analogy for aligning superintelligent systems. Image Credits:<\/strong> OpenAI<\/p><\/div><\/p>\n “A lot of what we’re trying to do is tell a model what to do and ensure it will do it,” Burns said. “How do we get a model to follow instructions and get a model to only help with things that are true and not make stuff up? How do we get a model to tell us if the code it generated is safe or egregious behavior? These are the types of tasks we want to be able to achieve with our research.”<\/p>\n But wait, you might say — what does AI guiding AI have to do with preventing humanity-threatening AI? Well, it’s an analogy: The weak model is meant to be a stand-in for human supervisors while the strong model represents superintelligent AI. Similar to humans who might not be able to make sense of a superintelligent AI system, the weak model can’t “understand” all the complexities and nuances of the strong model — making the setup useful for proving out superalignment hypotheses, the Superalignment team says.<\/p>\n “You can think of a sixth-grade student trying to supervise a college student,” Izmailov explained. “Let’s say the sixth grader is trying to tell the college student about a task that he kind of knows how to solve … Even though the supervision from the sixth grader can have mistakes in the details, there’s hope that the college student would understand the gist and would be able to do the task better than the supervisor.”<\/span><\/p>\n In the Superalignment team’s setup, a weak model fine-tuned on a particular task generates labels that are used to “communicate” the broad strokes of that task to the strong model. Given these labels, the strong model can generalize more or less correctly according to the weak model’s intent — even if the weak model’s labels contain errors and biases, the team found.<\/p>\n The weak-strong model approach might even lead to breakthroughs in the area of hallucinations, claims the team.<\/p>\n “Hallucinations are actually quite interesting, because internally, the model actually knows whether the thing it’s saying is fact or fiction,” Aschenbrenner said. “But the way these models are trained today, human supervisors reward them ‘thumbs up,’ ‘thumbs down’ for saying things. So sometimes, inadvertently, humans reward the model for saying things that are either false or that the model doesn’t actually know about and so on. If <\/span>we’re successful in our research, we should develop techniques where we can basically summon the model’s knowledge and we could apply that summoning on whether something is fact or fiction and use this to reduce hallucinations.”<\/p>\n But the analogy isn’t perfect. So OpenAI wants to crowdsource ideas.<\/p>\n To that end, OpenAI is launching a $10 million grant program to support technical research on superintelligent alignment, tranches of which will be reserved for academic labs, nonprofits, individual researchers and graduate students. OpenAI also plans to also host an academic conference on superalignment in early 2025, where it’ll share and promote the superalignment prize finalists’ work.<\/span><\/p>\n Curiously, a portion of funding for the grant will come from former Google CEO and chairman Eric Schmidt. Schmidt — an ardent supporter of Altman — is fast becoming a poster child for AI doomerism, asserting the arrival of dangerous AI systems is nigh and that regulators aren’t doing enough in preparation. It’s not out of a sense of altruism, necessarily — reporting in Protocol<\/a> and Wired<\/a> note that Schmidt, an active AI investor, stands to benefit enormously commercially if the U.S. government were to implement his proposed blueprint to bolster AI research.<\/p>\n The donation might be perceived as virtue signaling through a cynical lens, then. Schmidt’s personal fortune stands around an estimated $24 billion, and he’s poured hundreds of millions into other, decidedly less ethics-focused<\/a> AI ventures and funds<\/a> — including his own.<\/p>\n Schmidt denies this is the case, of course.<\/p>\n “AI and other emerging technologies are reshaping our economy and society,” he said in an emailed statement. “Ensuring they are aligned with human values is critical, and I am proud to support OpenAI\u2019s new [grants] to develop and control AI responsibly for public benefit.”<\/p>\n Indeed, the involvement of a figure with such transparent commercial motivations begs the question: Will OpenAI’s superalignment research as well as the research it’s encouraging the community to submit to its future conference be made available for anyone to use as they see fit?<\/p>\n The Superalignment team assured me that, yes, both OpenAI’s research — including code — and the work of others who receive grants and prizes from OpenAI on superalignment-related work will be shared publicly. We’ll hold the company to it.<\/p>\n “Contributing not just to the safety of our models but the safety of other labs’ models and advanced AI in general is a part of our mission,” Aschenbrenner said. “It’s really core to our mission of building [AI] for the benefit of all of humanity, safely. And we think that doing this research is absolutely essential for making it beneficial and making it safe.”<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" While investors were preparing to go nuclear after Sam Altman’s unceremonious ouster from OpenAI and Altman was plotting his return to the company, the members of OpenAI’s Superalignment team were assiduously plugging along on the problem of how to control AI that’s smarter than humans. Or at least, that’s the impression they’d like to give. […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":133574536,"featured_media":2631919,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"amp_status":"","relegenceEntities":[],"relegenceSubjects":[],"carmot_uuid":"ccb3a3fa-0e31-307c-93ff-e5eb4b7e7412","footnotes":"","apple_news_api_created_at":"2023-12-14T17:00:41Z","apple_news_api_id":"e758d680-4187-4ebb-855f-41fe9be5f2fb","apple_news_api_modified_at":"2023-12-14T22:55:40Z","apple_news_api_revision":"AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAw==","apple_news_api_share_url":"https:\/\/apple.news\/A51jWgEGHTruFX0H-m-Xy-w","apple_news_coverimage":0,"apple_news_coverimage_caption":"","apple_news_is_hidden":false,"apple_news_is_paid":false,"apple_news_is_preview":false,"apple_news_is_sponsored":false,"apple_news_maturity_rating":"","apple_news_metadata":"\"\"","apple_news_pullquote":"","apple_news_pullquote_position":"","apple_news_slug":"","apple_news_sections":"\"\"","apple_news_suppress_video_url":false,"apple_news_use_image_component":false},"categories":[577047203],"tags":[14067,421223872,668],"crunchbase_tag":[],"tc_stories_tax":[],"tc_ec_category":[],"tc_event":[],"tc_regions_tax":[],"yoast_head":"\nOpenAI thinks superhuman AI is coming -- and wants to build tools to control it | TechCrunch<\/title>\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\t\n\t\n\t\n\n\n\n\n\n\t\n\t\n\t\n
OpenAI formed<\/a> the Superalignment team in July to develop ways to steer, regulate and govern “superintelligent” AI systems — that is, theoretical systems with intelligence far exceeding that of humans.<\/p>\n “Today, we can basically align models that are dumber than us, or maybe around human-level at most<\/em>,” Burns said. “<\/span>Aligning a model that’s actually smarter than us is much, much less obvious — how we can even do it?”<\/span><\/p>\n The Superalignment effort is being led by OpenAI co-founder and chief scientist Ilya Sutskever, which didn’t raise eyebrows in July — but certainly does now in light of the fact that Sutskever was among those<\/a> who initially pushed for Altman’s firing. While some reporting<\/a> suggests Sutskever is in a “state of limbo” following Altman’s return, OpenAI’s PR tells me that Sutskever is indeed — as of today, at least — still heading the Superalignment team.<\/p>\n Superalignment is a bit of a touchy subject within the AI research community. Some argue that the subfield is premature; others imply that it’s a red herring.<\/p><\/div>\n While Altman has invited comparisons between OpenAI and the Manhattan Project, going so far as to assemble a team<\/a> to probe AI models to protect against “catastrophic risks,” including chemical and nuclear threats, some experts say that there’s little evidence to suggest the startup’s technology will gain world-ending, human-outsmarting capabilities anytime soon — or ever. Claims of imminent superintelligence, these experts add, serve only to deliberately draw attention away from and distract from the pressing AI regulatory issues of the day, like algorithmic bias and AI’s tendency toward toxicity.<\/p>\n For what it’s worth, Sutskever appears to believe earnestly<\/a> that AI — not OpenAI’s per se, but some embodiment<\/i>\u00a0of it — could someday pose an existential threat. He reportedly went so far as to commission and burn<\/a> a wooden effigy at a company offsite to demonstrate his commitment to preventing AI harm from befalling humanity, and commands a meaningful amount of OpenAI’s compute — 20% of its existing computer chips — for the Superalignment team’s research.<\/p>\n “AI progress recently has been extraordinarily rapid, and I can assure you that it’s not slowing down,” Aschenbrenner said. “I think we’re going to reach human-level systems pretty soon, but it won’t stop there — we’re going to go right through to superhuman systems … So how do we align superhuman AI systems and make them safe? It’s really a problem for all of humanity — perhaps the most important unsolved technical problem of our time.”<\/p>\n The Superalignment team, currently, is attempting to build governance and control frameworks that might<\/em> apply well to future powerful AI systems. It’s not a straightforward task, considering that the definition of “superintelligence” — and whether a particular AI system has achieved it — is the subject of robust debate. But the approach the team’s settled on for now involves using a weaker, less-sophisticated AI model (e.g. GPT-2<\/a>) to guide a more advanced, sophisticated model (GPT-4<\/a>) in desirable directions — and away from undesirable ones.<\/p>\n A figure illustrating the Superalignment team’s AI-based analogy for aligning superintelligent systems. Image Credits:<\/strong> OpenAI<\/p><\/div><\/p>\n “A lot of what we’re trying to do is tell a model what to do and ensure it will do it,” Burns said. “How do we get a model to follow instructions and get a model to only help with things that are true and not make stuff up? How do we get a model to tell us if the code it generated is safe or egregious behavior? These are the types of tasks we want to be able to achieve with our research.”<\/p>\n But wait, you might say — what does AI guiding AI have to do with preventing humanity-threatening AI? Well, it’s an analogy: The weak model is meant to be a stand-in for human supervisors while the strong model represents superintelligent AI. Similar to humans who might not be able to make sense of a superintelligent AI system, the weak model can’t “understand” all the complexities and nuances of the strong model — making the setup useful for proving out superalignment hypotheses, the Superalignment team says.<\/p>\n “You can think of a sixth-grade student trying to supervise a college student,” Izmailov explained. “Let’s say the sixth grader is trying to tell the college student about a task that he kind of knows how to solve … Even though the supervision from the sixth grader can have mistakes in the details, there’s hope that the college student would understand the gist and would be able to do the task better than the supervisor.”<\/span><\/p>\n In the Superalignment team’s setup, a weak model fine-tuned on a particular task generates labels that are used to “communicate” the broad strokes of that task to the strong model. Given these labels, the strong model can generalize more or less correctly according to the weak model’s intent — even if the weak model’s labels contain errors and biases, the team found.<\/p>\n The weak-strong model approach might even lead to breakthroughs in the area of hallucinations, claims the team.<\/p>\n “Hallucinations are actually quite interesting, because internally, the model actually knows whether the thing it’s saying is fact or fiction,” Aschenbrenner said. “But the way these models are trained today, human supervisors reward them ‘thumbs up,’ ‘thumbs down’ for saying things. So sometimes, inadvertently, humans reward the model for saying things that are either false or that the model doesn’t actually know about and so on. If <\/span>we’re successful in our research, we should develop techniques where we can basically summon the model’s knowledge and we could apply that summoning on whether something is fact or fiction and use this to reduce hallucinations.”<\/p>\n But the analogy isn’t perfect. So OpenAI wants to crowdsource ideas.<\/p>\n To that end, OpenAI is launching a $10 million grant program to support technical research on superintelligent alignment, tranches of which will be reserved for academic labs, nonprofits, individual researchers and graduate students. OpenAI also plans to also host an academic conference on superalignment in early 2025, where it’ll share and promote the superalignment prize finalists’ work.<\/span><\/p>\n Curiously, a portion of funding for the grant will come from former Google CEO and chairman Eric Schmidt. Schmidt — an ardent supporter of Altman — is fast becoming a poster child for AI doomerism, asserting the arrival of dangerous AI systems is nigh and that regulators aren’t doing enough in preparation. It’s not out of a sense of altruism, necessarily — reporting in Protocol<\/a> and Wired<\/a> note that Schmidt, an active AI investor, stands to benefit enormously commercially if the U.S. government were to implement his proposed blueprint to bolster AI research.<\/p>\n The donation might be perceived as virtue signaling through a cynical lens, then. Schmidt’s personal fortune stands around an estimated $24 billion, and he’s poured hundreds of millions into other, decidedly less ethics-focused<\/a> AI ventures and funds<\/a> — including his own.<\/p>\n Schmidt denies this is the case, of course.<\/p>\n “AI and other emerging technologies are reshaping our economy and society,” he said in an emailed statement. “Ensuring they are aligned with human values is critical, and I am proud to support OpenAI\u2019s new [grants] to develop and control AI responsibly for public benefit.”<\/p>\n Indeed, the involvement of a figure with such transparent commercial motivations begs the question: Will OpenAI’s superalignment research as well as the research it’s encouraging the community to submit to its future conference be made available for anyone to use as they see fit?<\/p>\n The Superalignment team assured me that, yes, both OpenAI’s research — including code — and the work of others who receive grants and prizes from OpenAI on superalignment-related work will be shared publicly. We’ll hold the company to it.<\/p>\n “Contributing not just to the safety of our models but the safety of other labs’ models and advanced AI in general is a part of our mission,” Aschenbrenner said. “It’s really core to our mission of building [AI] for the benefit of all of humanity, safely. And we think that doing this research is absolutely essential for making it beneficial and making it safe.”<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" While investors were preparing to go nuclear after Sam Altman’s unceremonious ouster from OpenAI and Altman was plotting his return to the company, the members of OpenAI’s Superalignment team were assiduously plugging along on the problem of how to control AI that’s smarter than humans. Or at least, that’s the impression they’d like to give. […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":133574536,"featured_media":2631919,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"amp_status":"","relegenceEntities":[],"relegenceSubjects":[],"carmot_uuid":"ccb3a3fa-0e31-307c-93ff-e5eb4b7e7412","footnotes":"","apple_news_api_created_at":"2023-12-14T17:00:41Z","apple_news_api_id":"e758d680-4187-4ebb-855f-41fe9be5f2fb","apple_news_api_modified_at":"2023-12-14T22:55:40Z","apple_news_api_revision":"AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAw==","apple_news_api_share_url":"https:\/\/apple.news\/A51jWgEGHTruFX0H-m-Xy-w","apple_news_coverimage":0,"apple_news_coverimage_caption":"","apple_news_is_hidden":false,"apple_news_is_paid":false,"apple_news_is_preview":false,"apple_news_is_sponsored":false,"apple_news_maturity_rating":"","apple_news_metadata":"\"\"","apple_news_pullquote":"","apple_news_pullquote_position":"","apple_news_slug":"","apple_news_sections":"\"\"","apple_news_suppress_video_url":false,"apple_news_use_image_component":false},"categories":[577047203],"tags":[14067,421223872,668],"crunchbase_tag":[],"tc_stories_tax":[],"tc_ec_category":[],"tc_event":[],"tc_regions_tax":[],"yoast_head":"\nOpenAI thinks superhuman AI is coming -- and wants to build tools to control it | TechCrunch<\/title>\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\t\n\t\n\t\n\n\n\n\n\n\t\n\t\n\t\n
“Today, we can basically align models that are dumber than us, or maybe around human-level at most<\/em>,” Burns said. “<\/span>Aligning a model that’s actually smarter than us is much, much less obvious — how we can even do it?”<\/span><\/p>\n The Superalignment effort is being led by OpenAI co-founder and chief scientist Ilya Sutskever, which didn’t raise eyebrows in July — but certainly does now in light of the fact that Sutskever was among those<\/a> who initially pushed for Altman’s firing. While some reporting<\/a> suggests Sutskever is in a “state of limbo” following Altman’s return, OpenAI’s PR tells me that Sutskever is indeed — as of today, at least — still heading the Superalignment team.<\/p>\n Superalignment is a bit of a touchy subject within the AI research community. Some argue that the subfield is premature; others imply that it’s a red herring.<\/p><\/div>\n While Altman has invited comparisons between OpenAI and the Manhattan Project, going so far as to assemble a team<\/a> to probe AI models to protect against “catastrophic risks,” including chemical and nuclear threats, some experts say that there’s little evidence to suggest the startup’s technology will gain world-ending, human-outsmarting capabilities anytime soon — or ever. Claims of imminent superintelligence, these experts add, serve only to deliberately draw attention away from and distract from the pressing AI regulatory issues of the day, like algorithmic bias and AI’s tendency toward toxicity.<\/p>\n For what it’s worth, Sutskever appears to believe earnestly<\/a> that AI — not OpenAI’s per se, but some embodiment<\/i>\u00a0of it — could someday pose an existential threat. He reportedly went so far as to commission and burn<\/a> a wooden effigy at a company offsite to demonstrate his commitment to preventing AI harm from befalling humanity, and commands a meaningful amount of OpenAI’s compute — 20% of its existing computer chips — for the Superalignment team’s research.<\/p>\n “AI progress recently has been extraordinarily rapid, and I can assure you that it’s not slowing down,” Aschenbrenner said. “I think we’re going to reach human-level systems pretty soon, but it won’t stop there — we’re going to go right through to superhuman systems … So how do we align superhuman AI systems and make them safe? It’s really a problem for all of humanity — perhaps the most important unsolved technical problem of our time.”<\/p>\n The Superalignment team, currently, is attempting to build governance and control frameworks that might<\/em> apply well to future powerful AI systems. It’s not a straightforward task, considering that the definition of “superintelligence” — and whether a particular AI system has achieved it — is the subject of robust debate. But the approach the team’s settled on for now involves using a weaker, less-sophisticated AI model (e.g. GPT-2<\/a>) to guide a more advanced, sophisticated model (GPT-4<\/a>) in desirable directions — and away from undesirable ones.<\/p>\n A figure illustrating the Superalignment team’s AI-based analogy for aligning superintelligent systems. Image Credits:<\/strong> OpenAI<\/p><\/div><\/p>\n “A lot of what we’re trying to do is tell a model what to do and ensure it will do it,” Burns said. “How do we get a model to follow instructions and get a model to only help with things that are true and not make stuff up? How do we get a model to tell us if the code it generated is safe or egregious behavior? These are the types of tasks we want to be able to achieve with our research.”<\/p>\n But wait, you might say — what does AI guiding AI have to do with preventing humanity-threatening AI? Well, it’s an analogy: The weak model is meant to be a stand-in for human supervisors while the strong model represents superintelligent AI. Similar to humans who might not be able to make sense of a superintelligent AI system, the weak model can’t “understand” all the complexities and nuances of the strong model — making the setup useful for proving out superalignment hypotheses, the Superalignment team says.<\/p>\n “You can think of a sixth-grade student trying to supervise a college student,” Izmailov explained. “Let’s say the sixth grader is trying to tell the college student about a task that he kind of knows how to solve … Even though the supervision from the sixth grader can have mistakes in the details, there’s hope that the college student would understand the gist and would be able to do the task better than the supervisor.”<\/span><\/p>\n In the Superalignment team’s setup, a weak model fine-tuned on a particular task generates labels that are used to “communicate” the broad strokes of that task to the strong model. Given these labels, the strong model can generalize more or less correctly according to the weak model’s intent — even if the weak model’s labels contain errors and biases, the team found.<\/p>\n The weak-strong model approach might even lead to breakthroughs in the area of hallucinations, claims the team.<\/p>\n “Hallucinations are actually quite interesting, because internally, the model actually knows whether the thing it’s saying is fact or fiction,” Aschenbrenner said. “But the way these models are trained today, human supervisors reward them ‘thumbs up,’ ‘thumbs down’ for saying things. So sometimes, inadvertently, humans reward the model for saying things that are either false or that the model doesn’t actually know about and so on. If <\/span>we’re successful in our research, we should develop techniques where we can basically summon the model’s knowledge and we could apply that summoning on whether something is fact or fiction and use this to reduce hallucinations.”<\/p>\n But the analogy isn’t perfect. So OpenAI wants to crowdsource ideas.<\/p>\n To that end, OpenAI is launching a $10 million grant program to support technical research on superintelligent alignment, tranches of which will be reserved for academic labs, nonprofits, individual researchers and graduate students. OpenAI also plans to also host an academic conference on superalignment in early 2025, where it’ll share and promote the superalignment prize finalists’ work.<\/span><\/p>\n Curiously, a portion of funding for the grant will come from former Google CEO and chairman Eric Schmidt. Schmidt — an ardent supporter of Altman — is fast becoming a poster child for AI doomerism, asserting the arrival of dangerous AI systems is nigh and that regulators aren’t doing enough in preparation. It’s not out of a sense of altruism, necessarily — reporting in Protocol<\/a> and Wired<\/a> note that Schmidt, an active AI investor, stands to benefit enormously commercially if the U.S. government were to implement his proposed blueprint to bolster AI research.<\/p>\n The donation might be perceived as virtue signaling through a cynical lens, then. Schmidt’s personal fortune stands around an estimated $24 billion, and he’s poured hundreds of millions into other, decidedly less ethics-focused<\/a> AI ventures and funds<\/a> — including his own.<\/p>\n Schmidt denies this is the case, of course.<\/p>\n “AI and other emerging technologies are reshaping our economy and society,” he said in an emailed statement. “Ensuring they are aligned with human values is critical, and I am proud to support OpenAI\u2019s new [grants] to develop and control AI responsibly for public benefit.”<\/p>\n Indeed, the involvement of a figure with such transparent commercial motivations begs the question: Will OpenAI’s superalignment research as well as the research it’s encouraging the community to submit to its future conference be made available for anyone to use as they see fit?<\/p>\n The Superalignment team assured me that, yes, both OpenAI’s research — including code — and the work of others who receive grants and prizes from OpenAI on superalignment-related work will be shared publicly. We’ll hold the company to it.<\/p>\n “Contributing not just to the safety of our models but the safety of other labs’ models and advanced AI in general is a part of our mission,” Aschenbrenner said. “It’s really core to our mission of building [AI] for the benefit of all of humanity, safely. And we think that doing this research is absolutely essential for making it beneficial and making it safe.”<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" While investors were preparing to go nuclear after Sam Altman’s unceremonious ouster from OpenAI and Altman was plotting his return to the company, the members of OpenAI’s Superalignment team were assiduously plugging along on the problem of how to control AI that’s smarter than humans. Or at least, that’s the impression they’d like to give. […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":133574536,"featured_media":2631919,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"amp_status":"","relegenceEntities":[],"relegenceSubjects":[],"carmot_uuid":"ccb3a3fa-0e31-307c-93ff-e5eb4b7e7412","footnotes":"","apple_news_api_created_at":"2023-12-14T17:00:41Z","apple_news_api_id":"e758d680-4187-4ebb-855f-41fe9be5f2fb","apple_news_api_modified_at":"2023-12-14T22:55:40Z","apple_news_api_revision":"AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAw==","apple_news_api_share_url":"https:\/\/apple.news\/A51jWgEGHTruFX0H-m-Xy-w","apple_news_coverimage":0,"apple_news_coverimage_caption":"","apple_news_is_hidden":false,"apple_news_is_paid":false,"apple_news_is_preview":false,"apple_news_is_sponsored":false,"apple_news_maturity_rating":"","apple_news_metadata":"\"\"","apple_news_pullquote":"","apple_news_pullquote_position":"","apple_news_slug":"","apple_news_sections":"\"\"","apple_news_suppress_video_url":false,"apple_news_use_image_component":false},"categories":[577047203],"tags":[14067,421223872,668],"crunchbase_tag":[],"tc_stories_tax":[],"tc_ec_category":[],"tc_event":[],"tc_regions_tax":[],"yoast_head":"\nOpenAI thinks superhuman AI is coming -- and wants to build tools to control it | TechCrunch<\/title>\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\t\n\t\n\t\n\n\n\n\n\n\t\n\t\n\t\n
The Superalignment effort is being led by OpenAI co-founder and chief scientist Ilya Sutskever, which didn’t raise eyebrows in July — but certainly does now in light of the fact that Sutskever was among those<\/a> who initially pushed for Altman’s firing. While some reporting<\/a> suggests Sutskever is in a “state of limbo” following Altman’s return, OpenAI’s PR tells me that Sutskever is indeed — as of today, at least — still heading the Superalignment team.<\/p>\n Superalignment is a bit of a touchy subject within the AI research community. Some argue that the subfield is premature; others imply that it’s a red herring.<\/p><\/div>\n While Altman has invited comparisons between OpenAI and the Manhattan Project, going so far as to assemble a team<\/a> to probe AI models to protect against “catastrophic risks,” including chemical and nuclear threats, some experts say that there’s little evidence to suggest the startup’s technology will gain world-ending, human-outsmarting capabilities anytime soon — or ever. Claims of imminent superintelligence, these experts add, serve only to deliberately draw attention away from and distract from the pressing AI regulatory issues of the day, like algorithmic bias and AI’s tendency toward toxicity.<\/p>\n For what it’s worth, Sutskever appears to believe earnestly<\/a> that AI — not OpenAI’s per se, but some embodiment<\/i>\u00a0of it — could someday pose an existential threat. He reportedly went so far as to commission and burn<\/a> a wooden effigy at a company offsite to demonstrate his commitment to preventing AI harm from befalling humanity, and commands a meaningful amount of OpenAI’s compute — 20% of its existing computer chips — for the Superalignment team’s research.<\/p>\n “AI progress recently has been extraordinarily rapid, and I can assure you that it’s not slowing down,” Aschenbrenner said. “I think we’re going to reach human-level systems pretty soon, but it won’t stop there — we’re going to go right through to superhuman systems … So how do we align superhuman AI systems and make them safe? It’s really a problem for all of humanity — perhaps the most important unsolved technical problem of our time.”<\/p>\n The Superalignment team, currently, is attempting to build governance and control frameworks that might<\/em> apply well to future powerful AI systems. It’s not a straightforward task, considering that the definition of “superintelligence” — and whether a particular AI system has achieved it — is the subject of robust debate. But the approach the team’s settled on for now involves using a weaker, less-sophisticated AI model (e.g. GPT-2<\/a>) to guide a more advanced, sophisticated model (GPT-4<\/a>) in desirable directions — and away from undesirable ones.<\/p>\n A figure illustrating the Superalignment team’s AI-based analogy for aligning superintelligent systems. Image Credits:<\/strong> OpenAI<\/p><\/div><\/p>\n “A lot of what we’re trying to do is tell a model what to do and ensure it will do it,” Burns said. “How do we get a model to follow instructions and get a model to only help with things that are true and not make stuff up? How do we get a model to tell us if the code it generated is safe or egregious behavior? These are the types of tasks we want to be able to achieve with our research.”<\/p>\n But wait, you might say — what does AI guiding AI have to do with preventing humanity-threatening AI? Well, it’s an analogy: The weak model is meant to be a stand-in for human supervisors while the strong model represents superintelligent AI. Similar to humans who might not be able to make sense of a superintelligent AI system, the weak model can’t “understand” all the complexities and nuances of the strong model — making the setup useful for proving out superalignment hypotheses, the Superalignment team says.<\/p>\n “You can think of a sixth-grade student trying to supervise a college student,” Izmailov explained. “Let’s say the sixth grader is trying to tell the college student about a task that he kind of knows how to solve … Even though the supervision from the sixth grader can have mistakes in the details, there’s hope that the college student would understand the gist and would be able to do the task better than the supervisor.”<\/span><\/p>\n In the Superalignment team’s setup, a weak model fine-tuned on a particular task generates labels that are used to “communicate” the broad strokes of that task to the strong model. Given these labels, the strong model can generalize more or less correctly according to the weak model’s intent — even if the weak model’s labels contain errors and biases, the team found.<\/p>\n The weak-strong model approach might even lead to breakthroughs in the area of hallucinations, claims the team.<\/p>\n “Hallucinations are actually quite interesting, because internally, the model actually knows whether the thing it’s saying is fact or fiction,” Aschenbrenner said. “But the way these models are trained today, human supervisors reward them ‘thumbs up,’ ‘thumbs down’ for saying things. So sometimes, inadvertently, humans reward the model for saying things that are either false or that the model doesn’t actually know about and so on. If <\/span>we’re successful in our research, we should develop techniques where we can basically summon the model’s knowledge and we could apply that summoning on whether something is fact or fiction and use this to reduce hallucinations.”<\/p>\n But the analogy isn’t perfect. So OpenAI wants to crowdsource ideas.<\/p>\n To that end, OpenAI is launching a $10 million grant program to support technical research on superintelligent alignment, tranches of which will be reserved for academic labs, nonprofits, individual researchers and graduate students. OpenAI also plans to also host an academic conference on superalignment in early 2025, where it’ll share and promote the superalignment prize finalists’ work.<\/span><\/p>\n Curiously, a portion of funding for the grant will come from former Google CEO and chairman Eric Schmidt. Schmidt — an ardent supporter of Altman — is fast becoming a poster child for AI doomerism, asserting the arrival of dangerous AI systems is nigh and that regulators aren’t doing enough in preparation. It’s not out of a sense of altruism, necessarily — reporting in Protocol<\/a> and Wired<\/a> note that Schmidt, an active AI investor, stands to benefit enormously commercially if the U.S. government were to implement his proposed blueprint to bolster AI research.<\/p>\n The donation might be perceived as virtue signaling through a cynical lens, then. Schmidt’s personal fortune stands around an estimated $24 billion, and he’s poured hundreds of millions into other, decidedly less ethics-focused<\/a> AI ventures and funds<\/a> — including his own.<\/p>\n Schmidt denies this is the case, of course.<\/p>\n “AI and other emerging technologies are reshaping our economy and society,” he said in an emailed statement. “Ensuring they are aligned with human values is critical, and I am proud to support OpenAI\u2019s new [grants] to develop and control AI responsibly for public benefit.”<\/p>\n Indeed, the involvement of a figure with such transparent commercial motivations begs the question: Will OpenAI’s superalignment research as well as the research it’s encouraging the community to submit to its future conference be made available for anyone to use as they see fit?<\/p>\n The Superalignment team assured me that, yes, both OpenAI’s research — including code — and the work of others who receive grants and prizes from OpenAI on superalignment-related work will be shared publicly. We’ll hold the company to it.<\/p>\n “Contributing not just to the safety of our models but the safety of other labs’ models and advanced AI in general is a part of our mission,” Aschenbrenner said. “It’s really core to our mission of building [AI] for the benefit of all of humanity, safely. And we think that doing this research is absolutely essential for making it beneficial and making it safe.”<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" While investors were preparing to go nuclear after Sam Altman’s unceremonious ouster from OpenAI and Altman was plotting his return to the company, the members of OpenAI’s Superalignment team were assiduously plugging along on the problem of how to control AI that’s smarter than humans. Or at least, that’s the impression they’d like to give. […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":133574536,"featured_media":2631919,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"amp_status":"","relegenceEntities":[],"relegenceSubjects":[],"carmot_uuid":"ccb3a3fa-0e31-307c-93ff-e5eb4b7e7412","footnotes":"","apple_news_api_created_at":"2023-12-14T17:00:41Z","apple_news_api_id":"e758d680-4187-4ebb-855f-41fe9be5f2fb","apple_news_api_modified_at":"2023-12-14T22:55:40Z","apple_news_api_revision":"AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAw==","apple_news_api_share_url":"https:\/\/apple.news\/A51jWgEGHTruFX0H-m-Xy-w","apple_news_coverimage":0,"apple_news_coverimage_caption":"","apple_news_is_hidden":false,"apple_news_is_paid":false,"apple_news_is_preview":false,"apple_news_is_sponsored":false,"apple_news_maturity_rating":"","apple_news_metadata":"\"\"","apple_news_pullquote":"","apple_news_pullquote_position":"","apple_news_slug":"","apple_news_sections":"\"\"","apple_news_suppress_video_url":false,"apple_news_use_image_component":false},"categories":[577047203],"tags":[14067,421223872,668],"crunchbase_tag":[],"tc_stories_tax":[],"tc_ec_category":[],"tc_event":[],"tc_regions_tax":[],"yoast_head":"\nOpenAI thinks superhuman AI is coming -- and wants to build tools to control it | TechCrunch<\/title>\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\t\n\t\n\t\n\n\n\n\n\n\t\n\t\n\t\n
Superalignment is a bit of a touchy subject within the AI research community. Some argue that the subfield is premature; others imply that it’s a red herring.<\/p><\/div>\n While Altman has invited comparisons between OpenAI and the Manhattan Project, going so far as to assemble a team<\/a> to probe AI models to protect against “catastrophic risks,” including chemical and nuclear threats, some experts say that there’s little evidence to suggest the startup’s technology will gain world-ending, human-outsmarting capabilities anytime soon — or ever. Claims of imminent superintelligence, these experts add, serve only to deliberately draw attention away from and distract from the pressing AI regulatory issues of the day, like algorithmic bias and AI’s tendency toward toxicity.<\/p>\n For what it’s worth, Sutskever appears to believe earnestly<\/a> that AI — not OpenAI’s per se, but some embodiment<\/i>\u00a0of it — could someday pose an existential threat. He reportedly went so far as to commission and burn<\/a> a wooden effigy at a company offsite to demonstrate his commitment to preventing AI harm from befalling humanity, and commands a meaningful amount of OpenAI’s compute — 20% of its existing computer chips — for the Superalignment team’s research.<\/p>\n “AI progress recently has been extraordinarily rapid, and I can assure you that it’s not slowing down,” Aschenbrenner said. “I think we’re going to reach human-level systems pretty soon, but it won’t stop there — we’re going to go right through to superhuman systems … So how do we align superhuman AI systems and make them safe? It’s really a problem for all of humanity — perhaps the most important unsolved technical problem of our time.”<\/p>\n The Superalignment team, currently, is attempting to build governance and control frameworks that might<\/em> apply well to future powerful AI systems. It’s not a straightforward task, considering that the definition of “superintelligence” — and whether a particular AI system has achieved it — is the subject of robust debate. But the approach the team’s settled on for now involves using a weaker, less-sophisticated AI model (e.g. GPT-2<\/a>) to guide a more advanced, sophisticated model (GPT-4<\/a>) in desirable directions — and away from undesirable ones.<\/p>\n A figure illustrating the Superalignment team’s AI-based analogy for aligning superintelligent systems. Image Credits:<\/strong> OpenAI<\/p><\/div><\/p>\n “A lot of what we’re trying to do is tell a model what to do and ensure it will do it,” Burns said. “How do we get a model to follow instructions and get a model to only help with things that are true and not make stuff up? How do we get a model to tell us if the code it generated is safe or egregious behavior? These are the types of tasks we want to be able to achieve with our research.”<\/p>\n But wait, you might say — what does AI guiding AI have to do with preventing humanity-threatening AI? Well, it’s an analogy: The weak model is meant to be a stand-in for human supervisors while the strong model represents superintelligent AI. Similar to humans who might not be able to make sense of a superintelligent AI system, the weak model can’t “understand” all the complexities and nuances of the strong model — making the setup useful for proving out superalignment hypotheses, the Superalignment team says.<\/p>\n “You can think of a sixth-grade student trying to supervise a college student,” Izmailov explained. “Let’s say the sixth grader is trying to tell the college student about a task that he kind of knows how to solve … Even though the supervision from the sixth grader can have mistakes in the details, there’s hope that the college student would understand the gist and would be able to do the task better than the supervisor.”<\/span><\/p>\n In the Superalignment team’s setup, a weak model fine-tuned on a particular task generates labels that are used to “communicate” the broad strokes of that task to the strong model. Given these labels, the strong model can generalize more or less correctly according to the weak model’s intent — even if the weak model’s labels contain errors and biases, the team found.<\/p>\n The weak-strong model approach might even lead to breakthroughs in the area of hallucinations, claims the team.<\/p>\n “Hallucinations are actually quite interesting, because internally, the model actually knows whether the thing it’s saying is fact or fiction,” Aschenbrenner said. “But the way these models are trained today, human supervisors reward them ‘thumbs up,’ ‘thumbs down’ for saying things. So sometimes, inadvertently, humans reward the model for saying things that are either false or that the model doesn’t actually know about and so on. If <\/span>we’re successful in our research, we should develop techniques where we can basically summon the model’s knowledge and we could apply that summoning on whether something is fact or fiction and use this to reduce hallucinations.”<\/p>\n But the analogy isn’t perfect. So OpenAI wants to crowdsource ideas.<\/p>\n To that end, OpenAI is launching a $10 million grant program to support technical research on superintelligent alignment, tranches of which will be reserved for academic labs, nonprofits, individual researchers and graduate students. OpenAI also plans to also host an academic conference on superalignment in early 2025, where it’ll share and promote the superalignment prize finalists’ work.<\/span><\/p>\n Curiously, a portion of funding for the grant will come from former Google CEO and chairman Eric Schmidt. Schmidt — an ardent supporter of Altman — is fast becoming a poster child for AI doomerism, asserting the arrival of dangerous AI systems is nigh and that regulators aren’t doing enough in preparation. It’s not out of a sense of altruism, necessarily — reporting in Protocol<\/a> and Wired<\/a> note that Schmidt, an active AI investor, stands to benefit enormously commercially if the U.S. government were to implement his proposed blueprint to bolster AI research.<\/p>\n The donation might be perceived as virtue signaling through a cynical lens, then. Schmidt’s personal fortune stands around an estimated $24 billion, and he’s poured hundreds of millions into other, decidedly less ethics-focused<\/a> AI ventures and funds<\/a> — including his own.<\/p>\n Schmidt denies this is the case, of course.<\/p>\n “AI and other emerging technologies are reshaping our economy and society,” he said in an emailed statement. “Ensuring they are aligned with human values is critical, and I am proud to support OpenAI\u2019s new [grants] to develop and control AI responsibly for public benefit.”<\/p>\n Indeed, the involvement of a figure with such transparent commercial motivations begs the question: Will OpenAI’s superalignment research as well as the research it’s encouraging the community to submit to its future conference be made available for anyone to use as they see fit?<\/p>\n The Superalignment team assured me that, yes, both OpenAI’s research — including code — and the work of others who receive grants and prizes from OpenAI on superalignment-related work will be shared publicly. We’ll hold the company to it.<\/p>\n “Contributing not just to the safety of our models but the safety of other labs’ models and advanced AI in general is a part of our mission,” Aschenbrenner said. “It’s really core to our mission of building [AI] for the benefit of all of humanity, safely. And we think that doing this research is absolutely essential for making it beneficial and making it safe.”<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" While investors were preparing to go nuclear after Sam Altman’s unceremonious ouster from OpenAI and Altman was plotting his return to the company, the members of OpenAI’s Superalignment team were assiduously plugging along on the problem of how to control AI that’s smarter than humans. Or at least, that’s the impression they’d like to give. […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":133574536,"featured_media":2631919,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"amp_status":"","relegenceEntities":[],"relegenceSubjects":[],"carmot_uuid":"ccb3a3fa-0e31-307c-93ff-e5eb4b7e7412","footnotes":"","apple_news_api_created_at":"2023-12-14T17:00:41Z","apple_news_api_id":"e758d680-4187-4ebb-855f-41fe9be5f2fb","apple_news_api_modified_at":"2023-12-14T22:55:40Z","apple_news_api_revision":"AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAw==","apple_news_api_share_url":"https:\/\/apple.news\/A51jWgEGHTruFX0H-m-Xy-w","apple_news_coverimage":0,"apple_news_coverimage_caption":"","apple_news_is_hidden":false,"apple_news_is_paid":false,"apple_news_is_preview":false,"apple_news_is_sponsored":false,"apple_news_maturity_rating":"","apple_news_metadata":"\"\"","apple_news_pullquote":"","apple_news_pullquote_position":"","apple_news_slug":"","apple_news_sections":"\"\"","apple_news_suppress_video_url":false,"apple_news_use_image_component":false},"categories":[577047203],"tags":[14067,421223872,668],"crunchbase_tag":[],"tc_stories_tax":[],"tc_ec_category":[],"tc_event":[],"tc_regions_tax":[],"yoast_head":"\nOpenAI thinks superhuman AI is coming -- and wants to build tools to control it | TechCrunch<\/title>\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\t\n\t\n\t\n\n\n\n\n\n\t\n\t\n\t\n
While Altman has invited comparisons between OpenAI and the Manhattan Project, going so far as to assemble a team<\/a> to probe AI models to protect against “catastrophic risks,” including chemical and nuclear threats, some experts say that there’s little evidence to suggest the startup’s technology will gain world-ending, human-outsmarting capabilities anytime soon — or ever. Claims of imminent superintelligence, these experts add, serve only to deliberately draw attention away from and distract from the pressing AI regulatory issues of the day, like algorithmic bias and AI’s tendency toward toxicity.<\/p>\n For what it’s worth, Sutskever appears to believe earnestly<\/a> that AI — not OpenAI’s per se, but some embodiment<\/i>\u00a0of it — could someday pose an existential threat. He reportedly went so far as to commission and burn<\/a> a wooden effigy at a company offsite to demonstrate his commitment to preventing AI harm from befalling humanity, and commands a meaningful amount of OpenAI’s compute — 20% of its existing computer chips — for the Superalignment team’s research.<\/p>\n “AI progress recently has been extraordinarily rapid, and I can assure you that it’s not slowing down,” Aschenbrenner said. “I think we’re going to reach human-level systems pretty soon, but it won’t stop there — we’re going to go right through to superhuman systems … So how do we align superhuman AI systems and make them safe? It’s really a problem for all of humanity — perhaps the most important unsolved technical problem of our time.”<\/p>\n The Superalignment team, currently, is attempting to build governance and control frameworks that might<\/em> apply well to future powerful AI systems. It’s not a straightforward task, considering that the definition of “superintelligence” — and whether a particular AI system has achieved it — is the subject of robust debate. But the approach the team’s settled on for now involves using a weaker, less-sophisticated AI model (e.g. GPT-2<\/a>) to guide a more advanced, sophisticated model (GPT-4<\/a>) in desirable directions — and away from undesirable ones.<\/p>\n A figure illustrating the Superalignment team’s AI-based analogy for aligning superintelligent systems. Image Credits:<\/strong> OpenAI<\/p><\/div><\/p>\n “A lot of what we’re trying to do is tell a model what to do and ensure it will do it,” Burns said. “How do we get a model to follow instructions and get a model to only help with things that are true and not make stuff up? How do we get a model to tell us if the code it generated is safe or egregious behavior? These are the types of tasks we want to be able to achieve with our research.”<\/p>\n But wait, you might say — what does AI guiding AI have to do with preventing humanity-threatening AI? Well, it’s an analogy: The weak model is meant to be a stand-in for human supervisors while the strong model represents superintelligent AI. Similar to humans who might not be able to make sense of a superintelligent AI system, the weak model can’t “understand” all the complexities and nuances of the strong model — making the setup useful for proving out superalignment hypotheses, the Superalignment team says.<\/p>\n “You can think of a sixth-grade student trying to supervise a college student,” Izmailov explained. “Let’s say the sixth grader is trying to tell the college student about a task that he kind of knows how to solve … Even though the supervision from the sixth grader can have mistakes in the details, there’s hope that the college student would understand the gist and would be able to do the task better than the supervisor.”<\/span><\/p>\n In the Superalignment team’s setup, a weak model fine-tuned on a particular task generates labels that are used to “communicate” the broad strokes of that task to the strong model. Given these labels, the strong model can generalize more or less correctly according to the weak model’s intent — even if the weak model’s labels contain errors and biases, the team found.<\/p>\n The weak-strong model approach might even lead to breakthroughs in the area of hallucinations, claims the team.<\/p>\n “Hallucinations are actually quite interesting, because internally, the model actually knows whether the thing it’s saying is fact or fiction,” Aschenbrenner said. “But the way these models are trained today, human supervisors reward them ‘thumbs up,’ ‘thumbs down’ for saying things. So sometimes, inadvertently, humans reward the model for saying things that are either false or that the model doesn’t actually know about and so on. If <\/span>we’re successful in our research, we should develop techniques where we can basically summon the model’s knowledge and we could apply that summoning on whether something is fact or fiction and use this to reduce hallucinations.”<\/p>\n But the analogy isn’t perfect. So OpenAI wants to crowdsource ideas.<\/p>\n To that end, OpenAI is launching a $10 million grant program to support technical research on superintelligent alignment, tranches of which will be reserved for academic labs, nonprofits, individual researchers and graduate students. OpenAI also plans to also host an academic conference on superalignment in early 2025, where it’ll share and promote the superalignment prize finalists’ work.<\/span><\/p>\n Curiously, a portion of funding for the grant will come from former Google CEO and chairman Eric Schmidt. Schmidt — an ardent supporter of Altman — is fast becoming a poster child for AI doomerism, asserting the arrival of dangerous AI systems is nigh and that regulators aren’t doing enough in preparation. It’s not out of a sense of altruism, necessarily — reporting in Protocol<\/a> and Wired<\/a> note that Schmidt, an active AI investor, stands to benefit enormously commercially if the U.S. government were to implement his proposed blueprint to bolster AI research.<\/p>\n The donation might be perceived as virtue signaling through a cynical lens, then. Schmidt’s personal fortune stands around an estimated $24 billion, and he’s poured hundreds of millions into other, decidedly less ethics-focused<\/a> AI ventures and funds<\/a> — including his own.<\/p>\n Schmidt denies this is the case, of course.<\/p>\n “AI and other emerging technologies are reshaping our economy and society,” he said in an emailed statement. “Ensuring they are aligned with human values is critical, and I am proud to support OpenAI\u2019s new [grants] to develop and control AI responsibly for public benefit.”<\/p>\n Indeed, the involvement of a figure with such transparent commercial motivations begs the question: Will OpenAI’s superalignment research as well as the research it’s encouraging the community to submit to its future conference be made available for anyone to use as they see fit?<\/p>\n The Superalignment team assured me that, yes, both OpenAI’s research — including code — and the work of others who receive grants and prizes from OpenAI on superalignment-related work will be shared publicly. We’ll hold the company to it.<\/p>\n “Contributing not just to the safety of our models but the safety of other labs’ models and advanced AI in general is a part of our mission,” Aschenbrenner said. “It’s really core to our mission of building [AI] for the benefit of all of humanity, safely. And we think that doing this research is absolutely essential for making it beneficial and making it safe.”<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" While investors were preparing to go nuclear after Sam Altman’s unceremonious ouster from OpenAI and Altman was plotting his return to the company, the members of OpenAI’s Superalignment team were assiduously plugging along on the problem of how to control AI that’s smarter than humans. Or at least, that’s the impression they’d like to give. […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":133574536,"featured_media":2631919,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"amp_status":"","relegenceEntities":[],"relegenceSubjects":[],"carmot_uuid":"ccb3a3fa-0e31-307c-93ff-e5eb4b7e7412","footnotes":"","apple_news_api_created_at":"2023-12-14T17:00:41Z","apple_news_api_id":"e758d680-4187-4ebb-855f-41fe9be5f2fb","apple_news_api_modified_at":"2023-12-14T22:55:40Z","apple_news_api_revision":"AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAw==","apple_news_api_share_url":"https:\/\/apple.news\/A51jWgEGHTruFX0H-m-Xy-w","apple_news_coverimage":0,"apple_news_coverimage_caption":"","apple_news_is_hidden":false,"apple_news_is_paid":false,"apple_news_is_preview":false,"apple_news_is_sponsored":false,"apple_news_maturity_rating":"","apple_news_metadata":"\"\"","apple_news_pullquote":"","apple_news_pullquote_position":"","apple_news_slug":"","apple_news_sections":"\"\"","apple_news_suppress_video_url":false,"apple_news_use_image_component":false},"categories":[577047203],"tags":[14067,421223872,668],"crunchbase_tag":[],"tc_stories_tax":[],"tc_ec_category":[],"tc_event":[],"tc_regions_tax":[],"yoast_head":"\nOpenAI thinks superhuman AI is coming -- and wants to build tools to control it | TechCrunch<\/title>\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\t\n\t\n\t\n\n\n\n\n\n\t\n\t\n\t\n
For what it’s worth, Sutskever appears to believe earnestly<\/a> that AI — not OpenAI’s per se, but some embodiment<\/i>\u00a0of it — could someday pose an existential threat. He reportedly went so far as to commission and burn<\/a> a wooden effigy at a company offsite to demonstrate his commitment to preventing AI harm from befalling humanity, and commands a meaningful amount of OpenAI’s compute — 20% of its existing computer chips — for the Superalignment team’s research.<\/p>\n “AI progress recently has been extraordinarily rapid, and I can assure you that it’s not slowing down,” Aschenbrenner said. “I think we’re going to reach human-level systems pretty soon, but it won’t stop there — we’re going to go right through to superhuman systems … So how do we align superhuman AI systems and make them safe? It’s really a problem for all of humanity — perhaps the most important unsolved technical problem of our time.”<\/p>\n The Superalignment team, currently, is attempting to build governance and control frameworks that might<\/em> apply well to future powerful AI systems. It’s not a straightforward task, considering that the definition of “superintelligence” — and whether a particular AI system has achieved it — is the subject of robust debate. But the approach the team’s settled on for now involves using a weaker, less-sophisticated AI model (e.g. GPT-2<\/a>) to guide a more advanced, sophisticated model (GPT-4<\/a>) in desirable directions — and away from undesirable ones.<\/p>\n A figure illustrating the Superalignment team’s AI-based analogy for aligning superintelligent systems. Image Credits:<\/strong> OpenAI<\/p><\/div><\/p>\n “A lot of what we’re trying to do is tell a model what to do and ensure it will do it,” Burns said. “How do we get a model to follow instructions and get a model to only help with things that are true and not make stuff up? How do we get a model to tell us if the code it generated is safe or egregious behavior? These are the types of tasks we want to be able to achieve with our research.”<\/p>\n But wait, you might say — what does AI guiding AI have to do with preventing humanity-threatening AI? Well, it’s an analogy: The weak model is meant to be a stand-in for human supervisors while the strong model represents superintelligent AI. Similar to humans who might not be able to make sense of a superintelligent AI system, the weak model can’t “understand” all the complexities and nuances of the strong model — making the setup useful for proving out superalignment hypotheses, the Superalignment team says.<\/p>\n “You can think of a sixth-grade student trying to supervise a college student,” Izmailov explained. “Let’s say the sixth grader is trying to tell the college student about a task that he kind of knows how to solve … Even though the supervision from the sixth grader can have mistakes in the details, there’s hope that the college student would understand the gist and would be able to do the task better than the supervisor.”<\/span><\/p>\n In the Superalignment team’s setup, a weak model fine-tuned on a particular task generates labels that are used to “communicate” the broad strokes of that task to the strong model. Given these labels, the strong model can generalize more or less correctly according to the weak model’s intent — even if the weak model’s labels contain errors and biases, the team found.<\/p>\n The weak-strong model approach might even lead to breakthroughs in the area of hallucinations, claims the team.<\/p>\n “Hallucinations are actually quite interesting, because internally, the model actually knows whether the thing it’s saying is fact or fiction,” Aschenbrenner said. “But the way these models are trained today, human supervisors reward them ‘thumbs up,’ ‘thumbs down’ for saying things. So sometimes, inadvertently, humans reward the model for saying things that are either false or that the model doesn’t actually know about and so on. If <\/span>we’re successful in our research, we should develop techniques where we can basically summon the model’s knowledge and we could apply that summoning on whether something is fact or fiction and use this to reduce hallucinations.”<\/p>\n But the analogy isn’t perfect. So OpenAI wants to crowdsource ideas.<\/p>\n To that end, OpenAI is launching a $10 million grant program to support technical research on superintelligent alignment, tranches of which will be reserved for academic labs, nonprofits, individual researchers and graduate students. OpenAI also plans to also host an academic conference on superalignment in early 2025, where it’ll share and promote the superalignment prize finalists’ work.<\/span><\/p>\n Curiously, a portion of funding for the grant will come from former Google CEO and chairman Eric Schmidt. Schmidt — an ardent supporter of Altman — is fast becoming a poster child for AI doomerism, asserting the arrival of dangerous AI systems is nigh and that regulators aren’t doing enough in preparation. It’s not out of a sense of altruism, necessarily — reporting in Protocol<\/a> and Wired<\/a> note that Schmidt, an active AI investor, stands to benefit enormously commercially if the U.S. government were to implement his proposed blueprint to bolster AI research.<\/p>\n The donation might be perceived as virtue signaling through a cynical lens, then. Schmidt’s personal fortune stands around an estimated $24 billion, and he’s poured hundreds of millions into other, decidedly less ethics-focused<\/a> AI ventures and funds<\/a> — including his own.<\/p>\n Schmidt denies this is the case, of course.<\/p>\n “AI and other emerging technologies are reshaping our economy and society,” he said in an emailed statement. “Ensuring they are aligned with human values is critical, and I am proud to support OpenAI\u2019s new [grants] to develop and control AI responsibly for public benefit.”<\/p>\n Indeed, the involvement of a figure with such transparent commercial motivations begs the question: Will OpenAI’s superalignment research as well as the research it’s encouraging the community to submit to its future conference be made available for anyone to use as they see fit?<\/p>\n The Superalignment team assured me that, yes, both OpenAI’s research — including code — and the work of others who receive grants and prizes from OpenAI on superalignment-related work will be shared publicly. We’ll hold the company to it.<\/p>\n “Contributing not just to the safety of our models but the safety of other labs’ models and advanced AI in general is a part of our mission,” Aschenbrenner said. “It’s really core to our mission of building [AI] for the benefit of all of humanity, safely. And we think that doing this research is absolutely essential for making it beneficial and making it safe.”<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" While investors were preparing to go nuclear after Sam Altman’s unceremonious ouster from OpenAI and Altman was plotting his return to the company, the members of OpenAI’s Superalignment team were assiduously plugging along on the problem of how to control AI that’s smarter than humans. Or at least, that’s the impression they’d like to give. […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":133574536,"featured_media":2631919,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"amp_status":"","relegenceEntities":[],"relegenceSubjects":[],"carmot_uuid":"ccb3a3fa-0e31-307c-93ff-e5eb4b7e7412","footnotes":"","apple_news_api_created_at":"2023-12-14T17:00:41Z","apple_news_api_id":"e758d680-4187-4ebb-855f-41fe9be5f2fb","apple_news_api_modified_at":"2023-12-14T22:55:40Z","apple_news_api_revision":"AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAw==","apple_news_api_share_url":"https:\/\/apple.news\/A51jWgEGHTruFX0H-m-Xy-w","apple_news_coverimage":0,"apple_news_coverimage_caption":"","apple_news_is_hidden":false,"apple_news_is_paid":false,"apple_news_is_preview":false,"apple_news_is_sponsored":false,"apple_news_maturity_rating":"","apple_news_metadata":"\"\"","apple_news_pullquote":"","apple_news_pullquote_position":"","apple_news_slug":"","apple_news_sections":"\"\"","apple_news_suppress_video_url":false,"apple_news_use_image_component":false},"categories":[577047203],"tags":[14067,421223872,668],"crunchbase_tag":[],"tc_stories_tax":[],"tc_ec_category":[],"tc_event":[],"tc_regions_tax":[],"yoast_head":"\nOpenAI thinks superhuman AI is coming -- and wants to build tools to control it | TechCrunch<\/title>\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\t\n\t\n\t\n\n\n\n\n\n\t\n\t\n\t\n
“AI progress recently has been extraordinarily rapid, and I can assure you that it’s not slowing down,” Aschenbrenner said. “I think we’re going to reach human-level systems pretty soon, but it won’t stop there — we’re going to go right through to superhuman systems … So how do we align superhuman AI systems and make them safe? It’s really a problem for all of humanity — perhaps the most important unsolved technical problem of our time.”<\/p>\n
The Superalignment team, currently, is attempting to build governance and control frameworks that might<\/em> apply well to future powerful AI systems. It’s not a straightforward task, considering that the definition of “superintelligence” — and whether a particular AI system has achieved it — is the subject of robust debate. But the approach the team’s settled on for now involves using a weaker, less-sophisticated AI model (e.g. GPT-2<\/a>) to guide a more advanced, sophisticated model (GPT-4<\/a>) in desirable directions — and away from undesirable ones.<\/p>\n A figure illustrating the Superalignment team’s AI-based analogy for aligning superintelligent systems. Image Credits:<\/strong> OpenAI<\/p><\/div><\/p>\n “A lot of what we’re trying to do is tell a model what to do and ensure it will do it,” Burns said. “How do we get a model to follow instructions and get a model to only help with things that are true and not make stuff up? How do we get a model to tell us if the code it generated is safe or egregious behavior? These are the types of tasks we want to be able to achieve with our research.”<\/p>\n But wait, you might say — what does AI guiding AI have to do with preventing humanity-threatening AI? Well, it’s an analogy: The weak model is meant to be a stand-in for human supervisors while the strong model represents superintelligent AI. Similar to humans who might not be able to make sense of a superintelligent AI system, the weak model can’t “understand” all the complexities and nuances of the strong model — making the setup useful for proving out superalignment hypotheses, the Superalignment team says.<\/p>\n “You can think of a sixth-grade student trying to supervise a college student,” Izmailov explained. “Let’s say the sixth grader is trying to tell the college student about a task that he kind of knows how to solve … Even though the supervision from the sixth grader can have mistakes in the details, there’s hope that the college student would understand the gist and would be able to do the task better than the supervisor.”<\/span><\/p>\n In the Superalignment team’s setup, a weak model fine-tuned on a particular task generates labels that are used to “communicate” the broad strokes of that task to the strong model. Given these labels, the strong model can generalize more or less correctly according to the weak model’s intent — even if the weak model’s labels contain errors and biases, the team found.<\/p>\n The weak-strong model approach might even lead to breakthroughs in the area of hallucinations, claims the team.<\/p>\n “Hallucinations are actually quite interesting, because internally, the model actually knows whether the thing it’s saying is fact or fiction,” Aschenbrenner said. “But the way these models are trained today, human supervisors reward them ‘thumbs up,’ ‘thumbs down’ for saying things. So sometimes, inadvertently, humans reward the model for saying things that are either false or that the model doesn’t actually know about and so on. If <\/span>we’re successful in our research, we should develop techniques where we can basically summon the model’s knowledge and we could apply that summoning on whether something is fact or fiction and use this to reduce hallucinations.”<\/p>\n But the analogy isn’t perfect. So OpenAI wants to crowdsource ideas.<\/p>\n To that end, OpenAI is launching a $10 million grant program to support technical research on superintelligent alignment, tranches of which will be reserved for academic labs, nonprofits, individual researchers and graduate students. OpenAI also plans to also host an academic conference on superalignment in early 2025, where it’ll share and promote the superalignment prize finalists’ work.<\/span><\/p>\n Curiously, a portion of funding for the grant will come from former Google CEO and chairman Eric Schmidt. Schmidt — an ardent supporter of Altman — is fast becoming a poster child for AI doomerism, asserting the arrival of dangerous AI systems is nigh and that regulators aren’t doing enough in preparation. It’s not out of a sense of altruism, necessarily — reporting in Protocol<\/a> and Wired<\/a> note that Schmidt, an active AI investor, stands to benefit enormously commercially if the U.S. government were to implement his proposed blueprint to bolster AI research.<\/p>\n The donation might be perceived as virtue signaling through a cynical lens, then. Schmidt’s personal fortune stands around an estimated $24 billion, and he’s poured hundreds of millions into other, decidedly less ethics-focused<\/a> AI ventures and funds<\/a> — including his own.<\/p>\n Schmidt denies this is the case, of course.<\/p>\n “AI and other emerging technologies are reshaping our economy and society,” he said in an emailed statement. “Ensuring they are aligned with human values is critical, and I am proud to support OpenAI\u2019s new [grants] to develop and control AI responsibly for public benefit.”<\/p>\n Indeed, the involvement of a figure with such transparent commercial motivations begs the question: Will OpenAI’s superalignment research as well as the research it’s encouraging the community to submit to its future conference be made available for anyone to use as they see fit?<\/p>\n The Superalignment team assured me that, yes, both OpenAI’s research — including code — and the work of others who receive grants and prizes from OpenAI on superalignment-related work will be shared publicly. We’ll hold the company to it.<\/p>\n “Contributing not just to the safety of our models but the safety of other labs’ models and advanced AI in general is a part of our mission,” Aschenbrenner said. “It’s really core to our mission of building [AI] for the benefit of all of humanity, safely. And we think that doing this research is absolutely essential for making it beneficial and making it safe.”<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" While investors were preparing to go nuclear after Sam Altman’s unceremonious ouster from OpenAI and Altman was plotting his return to the company, the members of OpenAI’s Superalignment team were assiduously plugging along on the problem of how to control AI that’s smarter than humans. Or at least, that’s the impression they’d like to give. […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":133574536,"featured_media":2631919,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"amp_status":"","relegenceEntities":[],"relegenceSubjects":[],"carmot_uuid":"ccb3a3fa-0e31-307c-93ff-e5eb4b7e7412","footnotes":"","apple_news_api_created_at":"2023-12-14T17:00:41Z","apple_news_api_id":"e758d680-4187-4ebb-855f-41fe9be5f2fb","apple_news_api_modified_at":"2023-12-14T22:55:40Z","apple_news_api_revision":"AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAw==","apple_news_api_share_url":"https:\/\/apple.news\/A51jWgEGHTruFX0H-m-Xy-w","apple_news_coverimage":0,"apple_news_coverimage_caption":"","apple_news_is_hidden":false,"apple_news_is_paid":false,"apple_news_is_preview":false,"apple_news_is_sponsored":false,"apple_news_maturity_rating":"","apple_news_metadata":"\"\"","apple_news_pullquote":"","apple_news_pullquote_position":"","apple_news_slug":"","apple_news_sections":"\"\"","apple_news_suppress_video_url":false,"apple_news_use_image_component":false},"categories":[577047203],"tags":[14067,421223872,668],"crunchbase_tag":[],"tc_stories_tax":[],"tc_ec_category":[],"tc_event":[],"tc_regions_tax":[],"yoast_head":"\nOpenAI thinks superhuman AI is coming -- and wants to build tools to control it | TechCrunch<\/title>\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\t\n\t\n\t\n\n\n\n\n\n\t\n\t\n\t\n
A figure illustrating the Superalignment team’s AI-based analogy for aligning superintelligent systems. Image Credits:<\/strong> OpenAI<\/p><\/div><\/p>\n “A lot of what we’re trying to do is tell a model what to do and ensure it will do it,” Burns said. “How do we get a model to follow instructions and get a model to only help with things that are true and not make stuff up? How do we get a model to tell us if the code it generated is safe or egregious behavior? These are the types of tasks we want to be able to achieve with our research.”<\/p>\n But wait, you might say — what does AI guiding AI have to do with preventing humanity-threatening AI? Well, it’s an analogy: The weak model is meant to be a stand-in for human supervisors while the strong model represents superintelligent AI. Similar to humans who might not be able to make sense of a superintelligent AI system, the weak model can’t “understand” all the complexities and nuances of the strong model — making the setup useful for proving out superalignment hypotheses, the Superalignment team says.<\/p>\n “You can think of a sixth-grade student trying to supervise a college student,” Izmailov explained. “Let’s say the sixth grader is trying to tell the college student about a task that he kind of knows how to solve … Even though the supervision from the sixth grader can have mistakes in the details, there’s hope that the college student would understand the gist and would be able to do the task better than the supervisor.”<\/span><\/p>\n In the Superalignment team’s setup, a weak model fine-tuned on a particular task generates labels that are used to “communicate” the broad strokes of that task to the strong model. Given these labels, the strong model can generalize more or less correctly according to the weak model’s intent — even if the weak model’s labels contain errors and biases, the team found.<\/p>\n The weak-strong model approach might even lead to breakthroughs in the area of hallucinations, claims the team.<\/p>\n “Hallucinations are actually quite interesting, because internally, the model actually knows whether the thing it’s saying is fact or fiction,” Aschenbrenner said. “But the way these models are trained today, human supervisors reward them ‘thumbs up,’ ‘thumbs down’ for saying things. So sometimes, inadvertently, humans reward the model for saying things that are either false or that the model doesn’t actually know about and so on. If <\/span>we’re successful in our research, we should develop techniques where we can basically summon the model’s knowledge and we could apply that summoning on whether something is fact or fiction and use this to reduce hallucinations.”<\/p>\n But the analogy isn’t perfect. So OpenAI wants to crowdsource ideas.<\/p>\n To that end, OpenAI is launching a $10 million grant program to support technical research on superintelligent alignment, tranches of which will be reserved for academic labs, nonprofits, individual researchers and graduate students. OpenAI also plans to also host an academic conference on superalignment in early 2025, where it’ll share and promote the superalignment prize finalists’ work.<\/span><\/p>\n Curiously, a portion of funding for the grant will come from former Google CEO and chairman Eric Schmidt. Schmidt — an ardent supporter of Altman — is fast becoming a poster child for AI doomerism, asserting the arrival of dangerous AI systems is nigh and that regulators aren’t doing enough in preparation. It’s not out of a sense of altruism, necessarily — reporting in Protocol<\/a> and Wired<\/a> note that Schmidt, an active AI investor, stands to benefit enormously commercially if the U.S. government were to implement his proposed blueprint to bolster AI research.<\/p>\n The donation might be perceived as virtue signaling through a cynical lens, then. Schmidt’s personal fortune stands around an estimated $24 billion, and he’s poured hundreds of millions into other, decidedly less ethics-focused<\/a> AI ventures and funds<\/a> — including his own.<\/p>\n Schmidt denies this is the case, of course.<\/p>\n “AI and other emerging technologies are reshaping our economy and society,” he said in an emailed statement. “Ensuring they are aligned with human values is critical, and I am proud to support OpenAI\u2019s new [grants] to develop and control AI responsibly for public benefit.”<\/p>\n Indeed, the involvement of a figure with such transparent commercial motivations begs the question: Will OpenAI’s superalignment research as well as the research it’s encouraging the community to submit to its future conference be made available for anyone to use as they see fit?<\/p>\n The Superalignment team assured me that, yes, both OpenAI’s research — including code — and the work of others who receive grants and prizes from OpenAI on superalignment-related work will be shared publicly. We’ll hold the company to it.<\/p>\n “Contributing not just to the safety of our models but the safety of other labs’ models and advanced AI in general is a part of our mission,” Aschenbrenner said. “It’s really core to our mission of building [AI] for the benefit of all of humanity, safely. And we think that doing this research is absolutely essential for making it beneficial and making it safe.”<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" While investors were preparing to go nuclear after Sam Altman’s unceremonious ouster from OpenAI and Altman was plotting his return to the company, the members of OpenAI’s Superalignment team were assiduously plugging along on the problem of how to control AI that’s smarter than humans. Or at least, that’s the impression they’d like to give. […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":133574536,"featured_media":2631919,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"amp_status":"","relegenceEntities":[],"relegenceSubjects":[],"carmot_uuid":"ccb3a3fa-0e31-307c-93ff-e5eb4b7e7412","footnotes":"","apple_news_api_created_at":"2023-12-14T17:00:41Z","apple_news_api_id":"e758d680-4187-4ebb-855f-41fe9be5f2fb","apple_news_api_modified_at":"2023-12-14T22:55:40Z","apple_news_api_revision":"AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAw==","apple_news_api_share_url":"https:\/\/apple.news\/A51jWgEGHTruFX0H-m-Xy-w","apple_news_coverimage":0,"apple_news_coverimage_caption":"","apple_news_is_hidden":false,"apple_news_is_paid":false,"apple_news_is_preview":false,"apple_news_is_sponsored":false,"apple_news_maturity_rating":"","apple_news_metadata":"\"\"","apple_news_pullquote":"","apple_news_pullquote_position":"","apple_news_slug":"","apple_news_sections":"\"\"","apple_news_suppress_video_url":false,"apple_news_use_image_component":false},"categories":[577047203],"tags":[14067,421223872,668],"crunchbase_tag":[],"tc_stories_tax":[],"tc_ec_category":[],"tc_event":[],"tc_regions_tax":[],"yoast_head":"\nOpenAI thinks superhuman AI is coming -- and wants to build tools to control it | TechCrunch<\/title>\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\t\n\t\n\t\n\n\n\n\n\n\t\n\t\n\t\n
A figure illustrating the Superalignment team’s AI-based analogy for aligning superintelligent systems. Image Credits:<\/strong> OpenAI<\/p><\/div><\/p>\n “A lot of what we’re trying to do is tell a model what to do and ensure it will do it,” Burns said. “How do we get a model to follow instructions and get a model to only help with things that are true and not make stuff up? How do we get a model to tell us if the code it generated is safe or egregious behavior? These are the types of tasks we want to be able to achieve with our research.”<\/p>\n But wait, you might say — what does AI guiding AI have to do with preventing humanity-threatening AI? Well, it’s an analogy: The weak model is meant to be a stand-in for human supervisors while the strong model represents superintelligent AI. Similar to humans who might not be able to make sense of a superintelligent AI system, the weak model can’t “understand” all the complexities and nuances of the strong model — making the setup useful for proving out superalignment hypotheses, the Superalignment team says.<\/p>\n “You can think of a sixth-grade student trying to supervise a college student,” Izmailov explained. “Let’s say the sixth grader is trying to tell the college student about a task that he kind of knows how to solve … Even though the supervision from the sixth grader can have mistakes in the details, there’s hope that the college student would understand the gist and would be able to do the task better than the supervisor.”<\/span><\/p>\n In the Superalignment team’s setup, a weak model fine-tuned on a particular task generates labels that are used to “communicate” the broad strokes of that task to the strong model. Given these labels, the strong model can generalize more or less correctly according to the weak model’s intent — even if the weak model’s labels contain errors and biases, the team found.<\/p>\n The weak-strong model approach might even lead to breakthroughs in the area of hallucinations, claims the team.<\/p>\n “Hallucinations are actually quite interesting, because internally, the model actually knows whether the thing it’s saying is fact or fiction,” Aschenbrenner said. “But the way these models are trained today, human supervisors reward them ‘thumbs up,’ ‘thumbs down’ for saying things. So sometimes, inadvertently, humans reward the model for saying things that are either false or that the model doesn’t actually know about and so on. If <\/span>we’re successful in our research, we should develop techniques where we can basically summon the model’s knowledge and we could apply that summoning on whether something is fact or fiction and use this to reduce hallucinations.”<\/p>\n But the analogy isn’t perfect. So OpenAI wants to crowdsource ideas.<\/p>\n To that end, OpenAI is launching a $10 million grant program to support technical research on superintelligent alignment, tranches of which will be reserved for academic labs, nonprofits, individual researchers and graduate students. OpenAI also plans to also host an academic conference on superalignment in early 2025, where it’ll share and promote the superalignment prize finalists’ work.<\/span><\/p>\n Curiously, a portion of funding for the grant will come from former Google CEO and chairman Eric Schmidt. Schmidt — an ardent supporter of Altman — is fast becoming a poster child for AI doomerism, asserting the arrival of dangerous AI systems is nigh and that regulators aren’t doing enough in preparation. It’s not out of a sense of altruism, necessarily — reporting in Protocol<\/a> and Wired<\/a> note that Schmidt, an active AI investor, stands to benefit enormously commercially if the U.S. government were to implement his proposed blueprint to bolster AI research.<\/p>\n The donation might be perceived as virtue signaling through a cynical lens, then. Schmidt’s personal fortune stands around an estimated $24 billion, and he’s poured hundreds of millions into other, decidedly less ethics-focused<\/a> AI ventures and funds<\/a> — including his own.<\/p>\n Schmidt denies this is the case, of course.<\/p>\n “AI and other emerging technologies are reshaping our economy and society,” he said in an emailed statement. “Ensuring they are aligned with human values is critical, and I am proud to support OpenAI\u2019s new [grants] to develop and control AI responsibly for public benefit.”<\/p>\n Indeed, the involvement of a figure with such transparent commercial motivations begs the question: Will OpenAI’s superalignment research as well as the research it’s encouraging the community to submit to its future conference be made available for anyone to use as they see fit?<\/p>\n The Superalignment team assured me that, yes, both OpenAI’s research — including code — and the work of others who receive grants and prizes from OpenAI on superalignment-related work will be shared publicly. We’ll hold the company to it.<\/p>\n “Contributing not just to the safety of our models but the safety of other labs’ models and advanced AI in general is a part of our mission,” Aschenbrenner said. “It’s really core to our mission of building [AI] for the benefit of all of humanity, safely. And we think that doing this research is absolutely essential for making it beneficial and making it safe.”<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" While investors were preparing to go nuclear after Sam Altman’s unceremonious ouster from OpenAI and Altman was plotting his return to the company, the members of OpenAI’s Superalignment team were assiduously plugging along on the problem of how to control AI that’s smarter than humans. Or at least, that’s the impression they’d like to give. […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":133574536,"featured_media":2631919,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"amp_status":"","relegenceEntities":[],"relegenceSubjects":[],"carmot_uuid":"ccb3a3fa-0e31-307c-93ff-e5eb4b7e7412","footnotes":"","apple_news_api_created_at":"2023-12-14T17:00:41Z","apple_news_api_id":"e758d680-4187-4ebb-855f-41fe9be5f2fb","apple_news_api_modified_at":"2023-12-14T22:55:40Z","apple_news_api_revision":"AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAw==","apple_news_api_share_url":"https:\/\/apple.news\/A51jWgEGHTruFX0H-m-Xy-w","apple_news_coverimage":0,"apple_news_coverimage_caption":"","apple_news_is_hidden":false,"apple_news_is_paid":false,"apple_news_is_preview":false,"apple_news_is_sponsored":false,"apple_news_maturity_rating":"","apple_news_metadata":"\"\"","apple_news_pullquote":"","apple_news_pullquote_position":"","apple_news_slug":"","apple_news_sections":"\"\"","apple_news_suppress_video_url":false,"apple_news_use_image_component":false},"categories":[577047203],"tags":[14067,421223872,668],"crunchbase_tag":[],"tc_stories_tax":[],"tc_ec_category":[],"tc_event":[],"tc_regions_tax":[],"yoast_head":"\nOpenAI thinks superhuman AI is coming -- and wants to build tools to control it | TechCrunch<\/title>\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\t\n\t\n\t\n\n\n\n\n\n\t\n\t\n\t\n
“A lot of what we’re trying to do is tell a model what to do and ensure it will do it,” Burns said. “How do we get a model to follow instructions and get a model to only help with things that are true and not make stuff up? How do we get a model to tell us if the code it generated is safe or egregious behavior? These are the types of tasks we want to be able to achieve with our research.”<\/p>\n
But wait, you might say — what does AI guiding AI have to do with preventing humanity-threatening AI? Well, it’s an analogy: The weak model is meant to be a stand-in for human supervisors while the strong model represents superintelligent AI. Similar to humans who might not be able to make sense of a superintelligent AI system, the weak model can’t “understand” all the complexities and nuances of the strong model — making the setup useful for proving out superalignment hypotheses, the Superalignment team says.<\/p>\n
“You can think of a sixth-grade student trying to supervise a college student,” Izmailov explained. “Let’s say the sixth grader is trying to tell the college student about a task that he kind of knows how to solve … Even though the supervision from the sixth grader can have mistakes in the details, there’s hope that the college student would understand the gist and would be able to do the task better than the supervisor.”<\/span><\/p>\n In the Superalignment team’s setup, a weak model fine-tuned on a particular task generates labels that are used to “communicate” the broad strokes of that task to the strong model. Given these labels, the strong model can generalize more or less correctly according to the weak model’s intent — even if the weak model’s labels contain errors and biases, the team found.<\/p>\n The weak-strong model approach might even lead to breakthroughs in the area of hallucinations, claims the team.<\/p>\n “Hallucinations are actually quite interesting, because internally, the model actually knows whether the thing it’s saying is fact or fiction,” Aschenbrenner said. “But the way these models are trained today, human supervisors reward them ‘thumbs up,’ ‘thumbs down’ for saying things. So sometimes, inadvertently, humans reward the model for saying things that are either false or that the model doesn’t actually know about and so on. If <\/span>we’re successful in our research, we should develop techniques where we can basically summon the model’s knowledge and we could apply that summoning on whether something is fact or fiction and use this to reduce hallucinations.”<\/p>\n But the analogy isn’t perfect. So OpenAI wants to crowdsource ideas.<\/p>\n To that end, OpenAI is launching a $10 million grant program to support technical research on superintelligent alignment, tranches of which will be reserved for academic labs, nonprofits, individual researchers and graduate students. OpenAI also plans to also host an academic conference on superalignment in early 2025, where it’ll share and promote the superalignment prize finalists’ work.<\/span><\/p>\n Curiously, a portion of funding for the grant will come from former Google CEO and chairman Eric Schmidt. Schmidt — an ardent supporter of Altman — is fast becoming a poster child for AI doomerism, asserting the arrival of dangerous AI systems is nigh and that regulators aren’t doing enough in preparation. It’s not out of a sense of altruism, necessarily — reporting in Protocol<\/a> and Wired<\/a> note that Schmidt, an active AI investor, stands to benefit enormously commercially if the U.S. government were to implement his proposed blueprint to bolster AI research.<\/p>\n The donation might be perceived as virtue signaling through a cynical lens, then. Schmidt’s personal fortune stands around an estimated $24 billion, and he’s poured hundreds of millions into other, decidedly less ethics-focused<\/a> AI ventures and funds<\/a> — including his own.<\/p>\n Schmidt denies this is the case, of course.<\/p>\n “AI and other emerging technologies are reshaping our economy and society,” he said in an emailed statement. “Ensuring they are aligned with human values is critical, and I am proud to support OpenAI\u2019s new [grants] to develop and control AI responsibly for public benefit.”<\/p>\n Indeed, the involvement of a figure with such transparent commercial motivations begs the question: Will OpenAI’s superalignment research as well as the research it’s encouraging the community to submit to its future conference be made available for anyone to use as they see fit?<\/p>\n The Superalignment team assured me that, yes, both OpenAI’s research — including code — and the work of others who receive grants and prizes from OpenAI on superalignment-related work will be shared publicly. We’ll hold the company to it.<\/p>\n “Contributing not just to the safety of our models but the safety of other labs’ models and advanced AI in general is a part of our mission,” Aschenbrenner said. “It’s really core to our mission of building [AI] for the benefit of all of humanity, safely. And we think that doing this research is absolutely essential for making it beneficial and making it safe.”<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" While investors were preparing to go nuclear after Sam Altman’s unceremonious ouster from OpenAI and Altman was plotting his return to the company, the members of OpenAI’s Superalignment team were assiduously plugging along on the problem of how to control AI that’s smarter than humans. Or at least, that’s the impression they’d like to give. […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":133574536,"featured_media":2631919,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"amp_status":"","relegenceEntities":[],"relegenceSubjects":[],"carmot_uuid":"ccb3a3fa-0e31-307c-93ff-e5eb4b7e7412","footnotes":"","apple_news_api_created_at":"2023-12-14T17:00:41Z","apple_news_api_id":"e758d680-4187-4ebb-855f-41fe9be5f2fb","apple_news_api_modified_at":"2023-12-14T22:55:40Z","apple_news_api_revision":"AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAw==","apple_news_api_share_url":"https:\/\/apple.news\/A51jWgEGHTruFX0H-m-Xy-w","apple_news_coverimage":0,"apple_news_coverimage_caption":"","apple_news_is_hidden":false,"apple_news_is_paid":false,"apple_news_is_preview":false,"apple_news_is_sponsored":false,"apple_news_maturity_rating":"","apple_news_metadata":"\"\"","apple_news_pullquote":"","apple_news_pullquote_position":"","apple_news_slug":"","apple_news_sections":"\"\"","apple_news_suppress_video_url":false,"apple_news_use_image_component":false},"categories":[577047203],"tags":[14067,421223872,668],"crunchbase_tag":[],"tc_stories_tax":[],"tc_ec_category":[],"tc_event":[],"tc_regions_tax":[],"yoast_head":"\nOpenAI thinks superhuman AI is coming -- and wants to build tools to control it | TechCrunch<\/title>\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\t\n\t\n\t\n\n\n\n\n\n\t\n\t\n\t\n
In the Superalignment team’s setup, a weak model fine-tuned on a particular task generates labels that are used to “communicate” the broad strokes of that task to the strong model. Given these labels, the strong model can generalize more or less correctly according to the weak model’s intent — even if the weak model’s labels contain errors and biases, the team found.<\/p>\n
The weak-strong model approach might even lead to breakthroughs in the area of hallucinations, claims the team.<\/p>\n
“Hallucinations are actually quite interesting, because internally, the model actually knows whether the thing it’s saying is fact or fiction,” Aschenbrenner said. “But the way these models are trained today, human supervisors reward them ‘thumbs up,’ ‘thumbs down’ for saying things. So sometimes, inadvertently, humans reward the model for saying things that are either false or that the model doesn’t actually know about and so on. If <\/span>we’re successful in our research, we should develop techniques where we can basically summon the model’s knowledge and we could apply that summoning on whether something is fact or fiction and use this to reduce hallucinations.”<\/p>\n But the analogy isn’t perfect. So OpenAI wants to crowdsource ideas.<\/p>\n To that end, OpenAI is launching a $10 million grant program to support technical research on superintelligent alignment, tranches of which will be reserved for academic labs, nonprofits, individual researchers and graduate students. OpenAI also plans to also host an academic conference on superalignment in early 2025, where it’ll share and promote the superalignment prize finalists’ work.<\/span><\/p>\n Curiously, a portion of funding for the grant will come from former Google CEO and chairman Eric Schmidt. Schmidt — an ardent supporter of Altman — is fast becoming a poster child for AI doomerism, asserting the arrival of dangerous AI systems is nigh and that regulators aren’t doing enough in preparation. It’s not out of a sense of altruism, necessarily — reporting in Protocol<\/a> and Wired<\/a> note that Schmidt, an active AI investor, stands to benefit enormously commercially if the U.S. government were to implement his proposed blueprint to bolster AI research.<\/p>\n The donation might be perceived as virtue signaling through a cynical lens, then. Schmidt’s personal fortune stands around an estimated $24 billion, and he’s poured hundreds of millions into other, decidedly less ethics-focused<\/a> AI ventures and funds<\/a> — including his own.<\/p>\n Schmidt denies this is the case, of course.<\/p>\n “AI and other emerging technologies are reshaping our economy and society,” he said in an emailed statement. “Ensuring they are aligned with human values is critical, and I am proud to support OpenAI\u2019s new [grants] to develop and control AI responsibly for public benefit.”<\/p>\n Indeed, the involvement of a figure with such transparent commercial motivations begs the question: Will OpenAI’s superalignment research as well as the research it’s encouraging the community to submit to its future conference be made available for anyone to use as they see fit?<\/p>\n The Superalignment team assured me that, yes, both OpenAI’s research — including code — and the work of others who receive grants and prizes from OpenAI on superalignment-related work will be shared publicly. We’ll hold the company to it.<\/p>\n “Contributing not just to the safety of our models but the safety of other labs’ models and advanced AI in general is a part of our mission,” Aschenbrenner said. “It’s really core to our mission of building [AI] for the benefit of all of humanity, safely. And we think that doing this research is absolutely essential for making it beneficial and making it safe.”<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" While investors were preparing to go nuclear after Sam Altman’s unceremonious ouster from OpenAI and Altman was plotting his return to the company, the members of OpenAI’s Superalignment team were assiduously plugging along on the problem of how to control AI that’s smarter than humans. Or at least, that’s the impression they’d like to give. […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":133574536,"featured_media":2631919,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"amp_status":"","relegenceEntities":[],"relegenceSubjects":[],"carmot_uuid":"ccb3a3fa-0e31-307c-93ff-e5eb4b7e7412","footnotes":"","apple_news_api_created_at":"2023-12-14T17:00:41Z","apple_news_api_id":"e758d680-4187-4ebb-855f-41fe9be5f2fb","apple_news_api_modified_at":"2023-12-14T22:55:40Z","apple_news_api_revision":"AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAw==","apple_news_api_share_url":"https:\/\/apple.news\/A51jWgEGHTruFX0H-m-Xy-w","apple_news_coverimage":0,"apple_news_coverimage_caption":"","apple_news_is_hidden":false,"apple_news_is_paid":false,"apple_news_is_preview":false,"apple_news_is_sponsored":false,"apple_news_maturity_rating":"","apple_news_metadata":"\"\"","apple_news_pullquote":"","apple_news_pullquote_position":"","apple_news_slug":"","apple_news_sections":"\"\"","apple_news_suppress_video_url":false,"apple_news_use_image_component":false},"categories":[577047203],"tags":[14067,421223872,668],"crunchbase_tag":[],"tc_stories_tax":[],"tc_ec_category":[],"tc_event":[],"tc_regions_tax":[],"yoast_head":"\nOpenAI thinks superhuman AI is coming -- and wants to build tools to control it | TechCrunch<\/title>\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\t\n\t\n\t\n\n\n\n\n\n\t\n\t\n\t\n
But the analogy isn’t perfect. So OpenAI wants to crowdsource ideas.<\/p>\n
To that end, OpenAI is launching a $10 million grant program to support technical research on superintelligent alignment, tranches of which will be reserved for academic labs, nonprofits, individual researchers and graduate students. OpenAI also plans to also host an academic conference on superalignment in early 2025, where it’ll share and promote the superalignment prize finalists’ work.<\/span><\/p>\n Curiously, a portion of funding for the grant will come from former Google CEO and chairman Eric Schmidt. Schmidt — an ardent supporter of Altman — is fast becoming a poster child for AI doomerism, asserting the arrival of dangerous AI systems is nigh and that regulators aren’t doing enough in preparation. It’s not out of a sense of altruism, necessarily — reporting in Protocol<\/a> and Wired<\/a> note that Schmidt, an active AI investor, stands to benefit enormously commercially if the U.S. government were to implement his proposed blueprint to bolster AI research.<\/p>\n The donation might be perceived as virtue signaling through a cynical lens, then. Schmidt’s personal fortune stands around an estimated $24 billion, and he’s poured hundreds of millions into other, decidedly less ethics-focused<\/a> AI ventures and funds<\/a> — including his own.<\/p>\n Schmidt denies this is the case, of course.<\/p>\n “AI and other emerging technologies are reshaping our economy and society,” he said in an emailed statement. “Ensuring they are aligned with human values is critical, and I am proud to support OpenAI\u2019s new [grants] to develop and control AI responsibly for public benefit.”<\/p>\n Indeed, the involvement of a figure with such transparent commercial motivations begs the question: Will OpenAI’s superalignment research as well as the research it’s encouraging the community to submit to its future conference be made available for anyone to use as they see fit?<\/p>\n The Superalignment team assured me that, yes, both OpenAI’s research — including code — and the work of others who receive grants and prizes from OpenAI on superalignment-related work will be shared publicly. We’ll hold the company to it.<\/p>\n “Contributing not just to the safety of our models but the safety of other labs’ models and advanced AI in general is a part of our mission,” Aschenbrenner said. “It’s really core to our mission of building [AI] for the benefit of all of humanity, safely. And we think that doing this research is absolutely essential for making it beneficial and making it safe.”<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" While investors were preparing to go nuclear after Sam Altman’s unceremonious ouster from OpenAI and Altman was plotting his return to the company, the members of OpenAI’s Superalignment team were assiduously plugging along on the problem of how to control AI that’s smarter than humans. Or at least, that’s the impression they’d like to give. […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":133574536,"featured_media":2631919,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"amp_status":"","relegenceEntities":[],"relegenceSubjects":[],"carmot_uuid":"ccb3a3fa-0e31-307c-93ff-e5eb4b7e7412","footnotes":"","apple_news_api_created_at":"2023-12-14T17:00:41Z","apple_news_api_id":"e758d680-4187-4ebb-855f-41fe9be5f2fb","apple_news_api_modified_at":"2023-12-14T22:55:40Z","apple_news_api_revision":"AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAw==","apple_news_api_share_url":"https:\/\/apple.news\/A51jWgEGHTruFX0H-m-Xy-w","apple_news_coverimage":0,"apple_news_coverimage_caption":"","apple_news_is_hidden":false,"apple_news_is_paid":false,"apple_news_is_preview":false,"apple_news_is_sponsored":false,"apple_news_maturity_rating":"","apple_news_metadata":"\"\"","apple_news_pullquote":"","apple_news_pullquote_position":"","apple_news_slug":"","apple_news_sections":"\"\"","apple_news_suppress_video_url":false,"apple_news_use_image_component":false},"categories":[577047203],"tags":[14067,421223872,668],"crunchbase_tag":[],"tc_stories_tax":[],"tc_ec_category":[],"tc_event":[],"tc_regions_tax":[],"yoast_head":"\nOpenAI thinks superhuman AI is coming -- and wants to build tools to control it | TechCrunch<\/title>\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\t\n\t\n\t\n\n\n\n\n\n\t\n\t\n\t\n
Curiously, a portion of funding for the grant will come from former Google CEO and chairman Eric Schmidt. Schmidt — an ardent supporter of Altman — is fast becoming a poster child for AI doomerism, asserting the arrival of dangerous AI systems is nigh and that regulators aren’t doing enough in preparation. It’s not out of a sense of altruism, necessarily — reporting in Protocol<\/a> and Wired<\/a> note that Schmidt, an active AI investor, stands to benefit enormously commercially if the U.S. government were to implement his proposed blueprint to bolster AI research.<\/p>\n The donation might be perceived as virtue signaling through a cynical lens, then. Schmidt’s personal fortune stands around an estimated $24 billion, and he’s poured hundreds of millions into other, decidedly less ethics-focused<\/a> AI ventures and funds<\/a> — including his own.<\/p>\n Schmidt denies this is the case, of course.<\/p>\n “AI and other emerging technologies are reshaping our economy and society,” he said in an emailed statement. “Ensuring they are aligned with human values is critical, and I am proud to support OpenAI\u2019s new [grants] to develop and control AI responsibly for public benefit.”<\/p>\n Indeed, the involvement of a figure with such transparent commercial motivations begs the question: Will OpenAI’s superalignment research as well as the research it’s encouraging the community to submit to its future conference be made available for anyone to use as they see fit?<\/p>\n The Superalignment team assured me that, yes, both OpenAI’s research — including code — and the work of others who receive grants and prizes from OpenAI on superalignment-related work will be shared publicly. We’ll hold the company to it.<\/p>\n “Contributing not just to the safety of our models but the safety of other labs’ models and advanced AI in general is a part of our mission,” Aschenbrenner said. “It’s really core to our mission of building [AI] for the benefit of all of humanity, safely. And we think that doing this research is absolutely essential for making it beneficial and making it safe.”<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" While investors were preparing to go nuclear after Sam Altman’s unceremonious ouster from OpenAI and Altman was plotting his return to the company, the members of OpenAI’s Superalignment team were assiduously plugging along on the problem of how to control AI that’s smarter than humans. Or at least, that’s the impression they’d like to give. […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":133574536,"featured_media":2631919,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"amp_status":"","relegenceEntities":[],"relegenceSubjects":[],"carmot_uuid":"ccb3a3fa-0e31-307c-93ff-e5eb4b7e7412","footnotes":"","apple_news_api_created_at":"2023-12-14T17:00:41Z","apple_news_api_id":"e758d680-4187-4ebb-855f-41fe9be5f2fb","apple_news_api_modified_at":"2023-12-14T22:55:40Z","apple_news_api_revision":"AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAw==","apple_news_api_share_url":"https:\/\/apple.news\/A51jWgEGHTruFX0H-m-Xy-w","apple_news_coverimage":0,"apple_news_coverimage_caption":"","apple_news_is_hidden":false,"apple_news_is_paid":false,"apple_news_is_preview":false,"apple_news_is_sponsored":false,"apple_news_maturity_rating":"","apple_news_metadata":"\"\"","apple_news_pullquote":"","apple_news_pullquote_position":"","apple_news_slug":"","apple_news_sections":"\"\"","apple_news_suppress_video_url":false,"apple_news_use_image_component":false},"categories":[577047203],"tags":[14067,421223872,668],"crunchbase_tag":[],"tc_stories_tax":[],"tc_ec_category":[],"tc_event":[],"tc_regions_tax":[],"yoast_head":"\nOpenAI thinks superhuman AI is coming -- and wants to build tools to control it | TechCrunch<\/title>\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\t\n\t\n\t\n\n\n\n\n\n\t\n\t\n\t\n
The donation might be perceived as virtue signaling through a cynical lens, then. Schmidt’s personal fortune stands around an estimated $24 billion, and he’s poured hundreds of millions into other, decidedly less ethics-focused<\/a> AI ventures and funds<\/a> — including his own.<\/p>\n Schmidt denies this is the case, of course.<\/p>\n “AI and other emerging technologies are reshaping our economy and society,” he said in an emailed statement. “Ensuring they are aligned with human values is critical, and I am proud to support OpenAI\u2019s new [grants] to develop and control AI responsibly for public benefit.”<\/p>\n Indeed, the involvement of a figure with such transparent commercial motivations begs the question: Will OpenAI’s superalignment research as well as the research it’s encouraging the community to submit to its future conference be made available for anyone to use as they see fit?<\/p>\n The Superalignment team assured me that, yes, both OpenAI’s research — including code — and the work of others who receive grants and prizes from OpenAI on superalignment-related work will be shared publicly. We’ll hold the company to it.<\/p>\n “Contributing not just to the safety of our models but the safety of other labs’ models and advanced AI in general is a part of our mission,” Aschenbrenner said. “It’s really core to our mission of building [AI] for the benefit of all of humanity, safely. And we think that doing this research is absolutely essential for making it beneficial and making it safe.”<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" While investors were preparing to go nuclear after Sam Altman’s unceremonious ouster from OpenAI and Altman was plotting his return to the company, the members of OpenAI’s Superalignment team were assiduously plugging along on the problem of how to control AI that’s smarter than humans. Or at least, that’s the impression they’d like to give. […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":133574536,"featured_media":2631919,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"amp_status":"","relegenceEntities":[],"relegenceSubjects":[],"carmot_uuid":"ccb3a3fa-0e31-307c-93ff-e5eb4b7e7412","footnotes":"","apple_news_api_created_at":"2023-12-14T17:00:41Z","apple_news_api_id":"e758d680-4187-4ebb-855f-41fe9be5f2fb","apple_news_api_modified_at":"2023-12-14T22:55:40Z","apple_news_api_revision":"AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAw==","apple_news_api_share_url":"https:\/\/apple.news\/A51jWgEGHTruFX0H-m-Xy-w","apple_news_coverimage":0,"apple_news_coverimage_caption":"","apple_news_is_hidden":false,"apple_news_is_paid":false,"apple_news_is_preview":false,"apple_news_is_sponsored":false,"apple_news_maturity_rating":"","apple_news_metadata":"\"\"","apple_news_pullquote":"","apple_news_pullquote_position":"","apple_news_slug":"","apple_news_sections":"\"\"","apple_news_suppress_video_url":false,"apple_news_use_image_component":false},"categories":[577047203],"tags":[14067,421223872,668],"crunchbase_tag":[],"tc_stories_tax":[],"tc_ec_category":[],"tc_event":[],"tc_regions_tax":[],"yoast_head":"\nOpenAI thinks superhuman AI is coming -- and wants to build tools to control it | TechCrunch<\/title>\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\t\n\t\n\t\n\n\n\n\n\n\t\n\t\n\t\n
Schmidt denies this is the case, of course.<\/p>\n
“AI and other emerging technologies are reshaping our economy and society,” he said in an emailed statement. “Ensuring they are aligned with human values is critical, and I am proud to support OpenAI\u2019s new [grants] to develop and control AI responsibly for public benefit.”<\/p>\n
Indeed, the involvement of a figure with such transparent commercial motivations begs the question: Will OpenAI’s superalignment research as well as the research it’s encouraging the community to submit to its future conference be made available for anyone to use as they see fit?<\/p>\n
The Superalignment team assured me that, yes, both OpenAI’s research — including code — and the work of others who receive grants and prizes from OpenAI on superalignment-related work will be shared publicly. We’ll hold the company to it.<\/p>\n
“Contributing not just to the safety of our models but the safety of other labs’ models and advanced AI in general is a part of our mission,” Aschenbrenner said. “It’s really core to our mission of building [AI] for the benefit of all of humanity, safely. And we think that doing this research is absolutely essential for making it beneficial and making it safe.”<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
While investors were preparing to go nuclear after Sam Altman’s unceremonious ouster from OpenAI and Altman was plotting his return to the company, the members of OpenAI’s Superalignment team were assiduously plugging along on the problem of how to control AI that’s smarter than humans. Or at least, that’s the impression they’d like to give. […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":133574536,"featured_media":2631919,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"amp_status":"","relegenceEntities":[],"relegenceSubjects":[],"carmot_uuid":"ccb3a3fa-0e31-307c-93ff-e5eb4b7e7412","footnotes":"","apple_news_api_created_at":"2023-12-14T17:00:41Z","apple_news_api_id":"e758d680-4187-4ebb-855f-41fe9be5f2fb","apple_news_api_modified_at":"2023-12-14T22:55:40Z","apple_news_api_revision":"AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAw==","apple_news_api_share_url":"https:\/\/apple.news\/A51jWgEGHTruFX0H-m-Xy-w","apple_news_coverimage":0,"apple_news_coverimage_caption":"","apple_news_is_hidden":false,"apple_news_is_paid":false,"apple_news_is_preview":false,"apple_news_is_sponsored":false,"apple_news_maturity_rating":"","apple_news_metadata":"\"\"","apple_news_pullquote":"","apple_news_pullquote_position":"","apple_news_slug":"","apple_news_sections":"\"\"","apple_news_suppress_video_url":false,"apple_news_use_image_component":false},"categories":[577047203],"tags":[14067,421223872,668],"crunchbase_tag":[],"tc_stories_tax":[],"tc_ec_category":[],"tc_event":[],"tc_regions_tax":[],"yoast_head":"\nOpenAI thinks superhuman AI is coming -- and wants to build tools to control it | TechCrunch<\/title>\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\t\n\t\n\t\n\n\n\n\n\n\t\n\t\n\t\n
Kyle Wiggers is a senior reporter at TechCrunch with a special interest in artificial intelligence. His writing has appeared in VentureBeat and Digital Trends, as well as a range of gadget blogs including Android Police, Android Authority, Droid-Life, and XDA-Developers. He lives in Brooklyn with his partner, a piano educator, and dabbles in piano himself occasionally -- if mostly unsuccessfully.<\/p>","cbAvatar":"https:\/\/techcrunch.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2022\/03\/Kyle-Wiggers.jpg","twitter":"kyle_l_wiggers","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/techcrunch.com\/wp-json\/tc\/v1\/users\/133574536"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/techcrunch.com\/wp-json\/tc\/v1\/users"}]}}],"author":[{"id":133574536,"name":"Kyle Wiggers","url":"","description":"Kyle Wiggers is a senior reporter at TechCrunch with a special interest in artificial intelligence. His writing has appeared in VentureBeat and Digital Trends, as well as a range of gadget blogs including Android Police, Android Authority, Droid-Life, and XDA-Developers. He lives in Brooklyn with his partner, a piano educator, and dabbles in piano himself. occasionally -- if mostly unsuccessfully.","link":"https:\/\/techcrunch.com\/author\/kyle-wiggers\/","slug":"kyle-wiggers","avatar_urls":{"24":"https:\/\/secure.gravatar.com\/avatar\/c444ee74e16b994683cd9c6497173dda?s=24&d=identicon&r=g","48":"https:\/\/secure.gravatar.com\/avatar\/c444ee74e16b994683cd9c6497173dda?s=48&d=identicon&r=g","96":"https:\/\/secure.gravatar.com\/avatar\/c444ee74e16b994683cd9c6497173dda?s=96&d=identicon&r=g"},"yoast_head":"\nKyle Wiggers, Author at TechCrunch<\/title>\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n
Kyle Wiggers is a senior reporter at TechCrunch with a special interest in artificial intelligence. His writing has appeared in VentureBeat and Digital Trends, as well as a range of gadget blogs including Android Police, Android Authority, Droid-Life, and XDA-Developers. He lives in Brooklyn with his partner, a piano educator, and dabbles in piano himself occasionally -- if mostly unsuccessfully.<\/p>","cbAvatar":"https:\/\/techcrunch.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2022\/03\/Kyle-Wiggers.jpg","twitter":"kyle_l_wiggers","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/techcrunch.com\/wp-json\/tc\/v1\/users\/133574536"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/techcrunch.com\/wp-json\/tc\/v1\/users"}]}}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"id":2631919,"date":"2023-11-20T16:17:42","slug":"openai-pattern-04","type":"attachment","link":"https:\/\/techcrunch.com\/openai-pattern-04\/","title":{"rendered":"openAI-pattern-04"},"author":24893112,"jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"license":{"source_key":"other","source":"TechCrunch","person":"Bryce Durbin"},"authors":[24893112],"caption":{"rendered":"
Image Credits: Bryce Durbin \/ TechCrunch<\/p>\n"},"alt_text":"pattern of openAI logo","media_type":"image","mime_type":"image\/jpeg","media_details":{"width":1920,"height":1080,"file":"2023\/11\/openAI-pattern-04.jpg","filesize":131841,"sizes":{"thumbnail":{"file":"openAI-pattern-04.jpg?resize=150,84","width":150,"height":84,"filesize":131841,"mime_type":"image\/jpeg","source_url":"https:\/\/techcrunch.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2023\/11\/openAI-pattern-04.jpg?w=150"},"medium":{"file":"openAI-pattern-04.jpg?resize=300,169","width":300,"height":169,"filesize":131841,"mime_type":"image\/jpeg","source_url":"https:\/\/techcrunch.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2023\/11\/openAI-pattern-04.jpg?w=300"},"medium_large":{"file":"openAI-pattern-04.jpg?resize=768,432","width":768,"height":432,"filesize":131841,"mime_type":"image\/jpeg","source_url":"https:\/\/techcrunch.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2023\/11\/openAI-pattern-04.jpg?w=1024"},"large":{"file":"openAI-pattern-04.jpg?resize=680,383","width":680,"height":383,"filesize":131841,"mime_type":"image\/jpeg","source_url":"https:\/\/techcrunch.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2023\/11\/openAI-pattern-04.jpg?w=680"},"1536x1536":{"file":"openAI-pattern-04.jpg?resize=1536,864","width":1536,"height":864,"filesize":131841,"mime_type":"image\/jpeg","source_url":"https:\/\/techcrunch.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2023\/11\/openAI-pattern-04.jpg?w=1536"},"tc-social-image":{"file":"openAI-pattern-04.jpg?resize=1200,675","width":1200,"height":675,"filesize":131841,"mime_type":"image\/jpeg","source_url":"https:\/\/techcrunch.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2023\/11\/openAI-pattern-04.jpg?w=1200"},"guest-author-32":{"file":"openAI-pattern-04.jpg?resize=32,32","width":32,"height":32,"filesize":131841,"mime_type":"image\/jpeg","source_url":"https:\/\/techcrunch.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2023\/11\/openAI-pattern-04.jpg?w=32&h=32&crop=1"},"guest-author-50":{"file":"openAI-pattern-04.jpg?resize=50,50","width":50,"height":50,"filesize":131841,"mime_type":"image\/jpeg","source_url":"https:\/\/techcrunch.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2023\/11\/openAI-pattern-04.jpg?w=50&h=50&crop=1"},"guest-author-64":{"file":"openAI-pattern-04.jpg?resize=64,64","width":64,"height":64,"filesize":131841,"mime_type":"image\/jpeg","source_url":"https:\/\/techcrunch.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2023\/11\/openAI-pattern-04.jpg?w=64&h=64&crop=1"},"guest-author-96":{"file":"openAI-pattern-04.jpg?resize=96,96","width":96,"height":96,"filesize":131841,"mime_type":"image\/jpeg","source_url":"https:\/\/techcrunch.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2023\/11\/openAI-pattern-04.jpg?w=96&h=96&crop=1"},"guest-author-128":{"file":"openAI-pattern-04.jpg?resize=128,128","width":128,"height":128,"filesize":131841,"mime_type":"image\/jpeg","source_url":"https:\/\/techcrunch.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2023\/11\/openAI-pattern-04.jpg?w=128&h=128&crop=1"},"concierge-thumb":{"file":"openAI-pattern-04.jpg?resize=50,28","width":50,"height":28,"filesize":131841,"mime_type":"image\/jpeg","source_url":"https:\/\/techcrunch.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2023\/11\/openAI-pattern-04.jpg?w=50"},"full":{"file":"openAI-pattern-04.jpg","width":1024,"height":576,"mime_type":"image\/jpeg","source_url":"https:\/\/techcrunch.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2023\/11\/openAI-pattern-04.jpg"}},"image_meta":{"aperture":"0","credit":"","camera":"","caption":"","created_timestamp":"0","copyright":"","focal_length":"0","iso":"0","shutter_speed":"0","title":"","orientation":"0","keywords":[]}},"source_url":"https:\/\/techcrunch.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2023\/11\/openAI-pattern-04.jpg","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/techcrunch.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/2631919"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/techcrunch.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/techcrunch.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/attachment"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/techcrunch.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=2631919"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/techcrunch.com\/wp-json\/tc\/v1\/users\/24893112"}]}}],"wp:term":[[{"id":577047203,"description":"News coverage on artificial intelligence and machine learning tech, the companies building them, and the ethical issues AI raises today. This encompasses generative AI, including large language models, text-to-image and text-to-video models; speech recognition and generation; and predictive analytics.","link":"https:\/\/techcrunch.com\/category\/artificial-intelligence\/","name":"AI","slug":"artificial-intelligence","taxonomy":"category","parent":0,"yoast_head":"\nAI News & Artificial Intelligence | TechCrunch<\/title>\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\t\n\t\n\t\n\n\n
Select Waymo One riders can now get picked up or dropped off<\/a> by the company’s robotaxis curbside at Phoenix Sky Harbor International Airport.<\/p>\n Waymo became the first autonomous vehicle operator in the U.S. to launch a paid robotaxi service to and from the airport in November 2022.<\/a> The service went to an airport shuttle stop at the 44th Street Sky Train station. Navigating the hectic crush of the terminal curbs will be a whole new challenge, but Waymo is starting out with limited hours, from 10 p.m. to 6 a.m., and only at Terminals 3 and 4, in order to safely deploy and learn.<\/p>\n Waymo has already completed “tens of thousands of airport trips to date” and is serving over a thousand rides each week, according to the company<\/a>. The average trip rating for its airport trips has been about 4.7 out of 5 stars, Waymo says.<\/p>\n The expansion of Waymo’s airport service comes as its erstwhile competitor Cruise lays off nearly a quarter<\/a> of its staff and dismisses a handful of executives<\/a> in the aftermath of an October 2 incident<\/a> that left a pedestrian stuck under and then dragged by one of its robotaxis.<\/p>\n Waymo’s new airport service, which is fully autonomous (meaning no human safety operator behind the wheel) will only be available to “a select cohort of active riders in Phoenix, not necessarily or exclusively to trusted testers,” Chris Bonelli, product communications manager at Waymo, told TechCrunch. Waymo’s trusted testers are riders who have been vetted by the company and have historically signed nondisclosure agreements. Waymo says it has lifted the NDA requirement across the board this year.<\/p>\n The Alphabet-owned company intends to open these pickup locations to all its riders and expand to 24\/7 service in “the coming months” as it gains more experience at the terminals.<\/p>\n \u201cLast year, we partnered with\u00a0Waymo to become the first airport in the world to offer travelers the ability to take an autonomous vehicle to the airport,” said Chad Makovsky, aviation director at Sky Harbor Airport, in a statement. “This partnership has allowed us to develop confidence in the technology, and we\u2019re excited to take the next step and safely expand this innovative service to our terminal curbs.\u201d<\/p><\/div>\n\n Waymo driverless vehicles are now available through Uber, starting first in Phoenix<\/a><\/p><\/blockquote>\n <\/iframe><\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" Select Waymo One riders can now get picked up or dropped off by the company’s robotaxis curbside at Phoenix Sky Harbor International Airport. Waymo became the first autonomous vehicle operator in the U.S. to launch a paid robotaxi service to and from the airport in November 2022. The service went to an airport shuttle stop […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":133574434,"featured_media":2642553,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"amp_status":"","relegenceEntities":[],"relegenceSubjects":[],"carmot_uuid":"78af2cb6-ce7e-3fe9-8b90-1eb459ce1970","footnotes":"","apple_news_api_created_at":"2023-12-14T20:54:53Z","apple_news_api_id":"1bfc0198-c20d-446b-90c8-9f62f86da685","apple_news_api_modified_at":"2023-12-14T23:01:53Z","apple_news_api_revision":"AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAA==","apple_news_api_share_url":"https:\/\/apple.news\/AG_wBmMINRGuQyJ9i-G2mhQ","apple_news_coverimage":0,"apple_news_coverimage_caption":"","apple_news_is_hidden":false,"apple_news_is_paid":false,"apple_news_is_preview":false,"apple_news_is_sponsored":false,"apple_news_maturity_rating":"","apple_news_metadata":"\"\"","apple_news_pullquote":"","apple_news_pullquote_position":"","apple_news_slug":"","apple_news_sections":"\"\"","apple_news_suppress_video_url":false,"apple_news_use_image_component":false},"categories":[2401],"tags":[449548419,576654085,449556932],"crunchbase_tag":[],"tc_stories_tax":[],"tc_ec_category":[],"tc_event":[],"tc_regions_tax":[],"yoast_head":"\nWaymo launches curbside robotaxi pickup at Phoenix airport | TechCrunch<\/title>\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\t\n\t\n\t\n\n\n\n\n\n\t\n\t\n\t\n
Waymo became the first autonomous vehicle operator in the U.S. to launch a paid robotaxi service to and from the airport in November 2022.<\/a> The service went to an airport shuttle stop at the 44th Street Sky Train station. Navigating the hectic crush of the terminal curbs will be a whole new challenge, but Waymo is starting out with limited hours, from 10 p.m. to 6 a.m., and only at Terminals 3 and 4, in order to safely deploy and learn.<\/p>\n Waymo has already completed “tens of thousands of airport trips to date” and is serving over a thousand rides each week, according to the company<\/a>. The average trip rating for its airport trips has been about 4.7 out of 5 stars, Waymo says.<\/p>\n The expansion of Waymo’s airport service comes as its erstwhile competitor Cruise lays off nearly a quarter<\/a> of its staff and dismisses a handful of executives<\/a> in the aftermath of an October 2 incident<\/a> that left a pedestrian stuck under and then dragged by one of its robotaxis.<\/p>\n Waymo’s new airport service, which is fully autonomous (meaning no human safety operator behind the wheel) will only be available to “a select cohort of active riders in Phoenix, not necessarily or exclusively to trusted testers,” Chris Bonelli, product communications manager at Waymo, told TechCrunch. Waymo’s trusted testers are riders who have been vetted by the company and have historically signed nondisclosure agreements. Waymo says it has lifted the NDA requirement across the board this year.<\/p>\n The Alphabet-owned company intends to open these pickup locations to all its riders and expand to 24\/7 service in “the coming months” as it gains more experience at the terminals.<\/p>\n \u201cLast year, we partnered with\u00a0Waymo to become the first airport in the world to offer travelers the ability to take an autonomous vehicle to the airport,” said Chad Makovsky, aviation director at Sky Harbor Airport, in a statement. “This partnership has allowed us to develop confidence in the technology, and we\u2019re excited to take the next step and safely expand this innovative service to our terminal curbs.\u201d<\/p><\/div>\n\n Waymo driverless vehicles are now available through Uber, starting first in Phoenix<\/a><\/p><\/blockquote>\n <\/iframe><\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" Select Waymo One riders can now get picked up or dropped off by the company’s robotaxis curbside at Phoenix Sky Harbor International Airport. Waymo became the first autonomous vehicle operator in the U.S. to launch a paid robotaxi service to and from the airport in November 2022. The service went to an airport shuttle stop […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":133574434,"featured_media":2642553,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"amp_status":"","relegenceEntities":[],"relegenceSubjects":[],"carmot_uuid":"78af2cb6-ce7e-3fe9-8b90-1eb459ce1970","footnotes":"","apple_news_api_created_at":"2023-12-14T20:54:53Z","apple_news_api_id":"1bfc0198-c20d-446b-90c8-9f62f86da685","apple_news_api_modified_at":"2023-12-14T23:01:53Z","apple_news_api_revision":"AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAA==","apple_news_api_share_url":"https:\/\/apple.news\/AG_wBmMINRGuQyJ9i-G2mhQ","apple_news_coverimage":0,"apple_news_coverimage_caption":"","apple_news_is_hidden":false,"apple_news_is_paid":false,"apple_news_is_preview":false,"apple_news_is_sponsored":false,"apple_news_maturity_rating":"","apple_news_metadata":"\"\"","apple_news_pullquote":"","apple_news_pullquote_position":"","apple_news_slug":"","apple_news_sections":"\"\"","apple_news_suppress_video_url":false,"apple_news_use_image_component":false},"categories":[2401],"tags":[449548419,576654085,449556932],"crunchbase_tag":[],"tc_stories_tax":[],"tc_ec_category":[],"tc_event":[],"tc_regions_tax":[],"yoast_head":"\nWaymo launches curbside robotaxi pickup at Phoenix airport | TechCrunch<\/title>\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\t\n\t\n\t\n\n\n\n\n\n\t\n\t\n\t\n
Waymo has already completed “tens of thousands of airport trips to date” and is serving over a thousand rides each week, according to the company<\/a>. The average trip rating for its airport trips has been about 4.7 out of 5 stars, Waymo says.<\/p>\n The expansion of Waymo’s airport service comes as its erstwhile competitor Cruise lays off nearly a quarter<\/a> of its staff and dismisses a handful of executives<\/a> in the aftermath of an October 2 incident<\/a> that left a pedestrian stuck under and then dragged by one of its robotaxis.<\/p>\n Waymo’s new airport service, which is fully autonomous (meaning no human safety operator behind the wheel) will only be available to “a select cohort of active riders in Phoenix, not necessarily or exclusively to trusted testers,” Chris Bonelli, product communications manager at Waymo, told TechCrunch. Waymo’s trusted testers are riders who have been vetted by the company and have historically signed nondisclosure agreements. Waymo says it has lifted the NDA requirement across the board this year.<\/p>\n The Alphabet-owned company intends to open these pickup locations to all its riders and expand to 24\/7 service in “the coming months” as it gains more experience at the terminals.<\/p>\n \u201cLast year, we partnered with\u00a0Waymo to become the first airport in the world to offer travelers the ability to take an autonomous vehicle to the airport,” said Chad Makovsky, aviation director at Sky Harbor Airport, in a statement. “This partnership has allowed us to develop confidence in the technology, and we\u2019re excited to take the next step and safely expand this innovative service to our terminal curbs.\u201d<\/p><\/div>\n\n Waymo driverless vehicles are now available through Uber, starting first in Phoenix<\/a><\/p><\/blockquote>\n <\/iframe><\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" Select Waymo One riders can now get picked up or dropped off by the company’s robotaxis curbside at Phoenix Sky Harbor International Airport. Waymo became the first autonomous vehicle operator in the U.S. to launch a paid robotaxi service to and from the airport in November 2022. The service went to an airport shuttle stop […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":133574434,"featured_media":2642553,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"amp_status":"","relegenceEntities":[],"relegenceSubjects":[],"carmot_uuid":"78af2cb6-ce7e-3fe9-8b90-1eb459ce1970","footnotes":"","apple_news_api_created_at":"2023-12-14T20:54:53Z","apple_news_api_id":"1bfc0198-c20d-446b-90c8-9f62f86da685","apple_news_api_modified_at":"2023-12-14T23:01:53Z","apple_news_api_revision":"AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAA==","apple_news_api_share_url":"https:\/\/apple.news\/AG_wBmMINRGuQyJ9i-G2mhQ","apple_news_coverimage":0,"apple_news_coverimage_caption":"","apple_news_is_hidden":false,"apple_news_is_paid":false,"apple_news_is_preview":false,"apple_news_is_sponsored":false,"apple_news_maturity_rating":"","apple_news_metadata":"\"\"","apple_news_pullquote":"","apple_news_pullquote_position":"","apple_news_slug":"","apple_news_sections":"\"\"","apple_news_suppress_video_url":false,"apple_news_use_image_component":false},"categories":[2401],"tags":[449548419,576654085,449556932],"crunchbase_tag":[],"tc_stories_tax":[],"tc_ec_category":[],"tc_event":[],"tc_regions_tax":[],"yoast_head":"\nWaymo launches curbside robotaxi pickup at Phoenix airport | TechCrunch<\/title>\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\t\n\t\n\t\n\n\n\n\n\n\t\n\t\n\t\n
The expansion of Waymo’s airport service comes as its erstwhile competitor Cruise lays off nearly a quarter<\/a> of its staff and dismisses a handful of executives<\/a> in the aftermath of an October 2 incident<\/a> that left a pedestrian stuck under and then dragged by one of its robotaxis.<\/p>\n Waymo’s new airport service, which is fully autonomous (meaning no human safety operator behind the wheel) will only be available to “a select cohort of active riders in Phoenix, not necessarily or exclusively to trusted testers,” Chris Bonelli, product communications manager at Waymo, told TechCrunch. Waymo’s trusted testers are riders who have been vetted by the company and have historically signed nondisclosure agreements. Waymo says it has lifted the NDA requirement across the board this year.<\/p>\n The Alphabet-owned company intends to open these pickup locations to all its riders and expand to 24\/7 service in “the coming months” as it gains more experience at the terminals.<\/p>\n \u201cLast year, we partnered with\u00a0Waymo to become the first airport in the world to offer travelers the ability to take an autonomous vehicle to the airport,” said Chad Makovsky, aviation director at Sky Harbor Airport, in a statement. “This partnership has allowed us to develop confidence in the technology, and we\u2019re excited to take the next step and safely expand this innovative service to our terminal curbs.\u201d<\/p><\/div>\n\n Waymo driverless vehicles are now available through Uber, starting first in Phoenix<\/a><\/p><\/blockquote>\n <\/iframe><\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" Select Waymo One riders can now get picked up or dropped off by the company’s robotaxis curbside at Phoenix Sky Harbor International Airport. Waymo became the first autonomous vehicle operator in the U.S. to launch a paid robotaxi service to and from the airport in November 2022. The service went to an airport shuttle stop […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":133574434,"featured_media":2642553,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"amp_status":"","relegenceEntities":[],"relegenceSubjects":[],"carmot_uuid":"78af2cb6-ce7e-3fe9-8b90-1eb459ce1970","footnotes":"","apple_news_api_created_at":"2023-12-14T20:54:53Z","apple_news_api_id":"1bfc0198-c20d-446b-90c8-9f62f86da685","apple_news_api_modified_at":"2023-12-14T23:01:53Z","apple_news_api_revision":"AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAA==","apple_news_api_share_url":"https:\/\/apple.news\/AG_wBmMINRGuQyJ9i-G2mhQ","apple_news_coverimage":0,"apple_news_coverimage_caption":"","apple_news_is_hidden":false,"apple_news_is_paid":false,"apple_news_is_preview":false,"apple_news_is_sponsored":false,"apple_news_maturity_rating":"","apple_news_metadata":"\"\"","apple_news_pullquote":"","apple_news_pullquote_position":"","apple_news_slug":"","apple_news_sections":"\"\"","apple_news_suppress_video_url":false,"apple_news_use_image_component":false},"categories":[2401],"tags":[449548419,576654085,449556932],"crunchbase_tag":[],"tc_stories_tax":[],"tc_ec_category":[],"tc_event":[],"tc_regions_tax":[],"yoast_head":"\nWaymo launches curbside robotaxi pickup at Phoenix airport | TechCrunch<\/title>\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\t\n\t\n\t\n\n\n\n\n\n\t\n\t\n\t\n
Waymo’s new airport service, which is fully autonomous (meaning no human safety operator behind the wheel) will only be available to “a select cohort of active riders in Phoenix, not necessarily or exclusively to trusted testers,” Chris Bonelli, product communications manager at Waymo, told TechCrunch. Waymo’s trusted testers are riders who have been vetted by the company and have historically signed nondisclosure agreements. Waymo says it has lifted the NDA requirement across the board this year.<\/p>\n
The Alphabet-owned company intends to open these pickup locations to all its riders and expand to 24\/7 service in “the coming months” as it gains more experience at the terminals.<\/p>\n
\u201cLast year, we partnered with\u00a0Waymo to become the first airport in the world to offer travelers the ability to take an autonomous vehicle to the airport,” said Chad Makovsky, aviation director at Sky Harbor Airport, in a statement. “This partnership has allowed us to develop confidence in the technology, and we\u2019re excited to take the next step and safely expand this innovative service to our terminal curbs.\u201d<\/p><\/div>\n\n Waymo driverless vehicles are now available through Uber, starting first in Phoenix<\/a><\/p><\/blockquote>\n <\/iframe><\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" Select Waymo One riders can now get picked up or dropped off by the company’s robotaxis curbside at Phoenix Sky Harbor International Airport. Waymo became the first autonomous vehicle operator in the U.S. to launch a paid robotaxi service to and from the airport in November 2022. The service went to an airport shuttle stop […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":133574434,"featured_media":2642553,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"amp_status":"","relegenceEntities":[],"relegenceSubjects":[],"carmot_uuid":"78af2cb6-ce7e-3fe9-8b90-1eb459ce1970","footnotes":"","apple_news_api_created_at":"2023-12-14T20:54:53Z","apple_news_api_id":"1bfc0198-c20d-446b-90c8-9f62f86da685","apple_news_api_modified_at":"2023-12-14T23:01:53Z","apple_news_api_revision":"AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAA==","apple_news_api_share_url":"https:\/\/apple.news\/AG_wBmMINRGuQyJ9i-G2mhQ","apple_news_coverimage":0,"apple_news_coverimage_caption":"","apple_news_is_hidden":false,"apple_news_is_paid":false,"apple_news_is_preview":false,"apple_news_is_sponsored":false,"apple_news_maturity_rating":"","apple_news_metadata":"\"\"","apple_news_pullquote":"","apple_news_pullquote_position":"","apple_news_slug":"","apple_news_sections":"\"\"","apple_news_suppress_video_url":false,"apple_news_use_image_component":false},"categories":[2401],"tags":[449548419,576654085,449556932],"crunchbase_tag":[],"tc_stories_tax":[],"tc_ec_category":[],"tc_event":[],"tc_regions_tax":[],"yoast_head":"\nWaymo launches curbside robotaxi pickup at Phoenix airport | TechCrunch<\/title>\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\t\n\t\n\t\n\n\n\n\n\n\t\n\t\n\t\n
Waymo driverless vehicles are now available through Uber, starting first in Phoenix<\/a><\/p><\/blockquote>\n <\/iframe><\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" Select Waymo One riders can now get picked up or dropped off by the company’s robotaxis curbside at Phoenix Sky Harbor International Airport. Waymo became the first autonomous vehicle operator in the U.S. to launch a paid robotaxi service to and from the airport in November 2022. The service went to an airport shuttle stop […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":133574434,"featured_media":2642553,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"amp_status":"","relegenceEntities":[],"relegenceSubjects":[],"carmot_uuid":"78af2cb6-ce7e-3fe9-8b90-1eb459ce1970","footnotes":"","apple_news_api_created_at":"2023-12-14T20:54:53Z","apple_news_api_id":"1bfc0198-c20d-446b-90c8-9f62f86da685","apple_news_api_modified_at":"2023-12-14T23:01:53Z","apple_news_api_revision":"AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAA==","apple_news_api_share_url":"https:\/\/apple.news\/AG_wBmMINRGuQyJ9i-G2mhQ","apple_news_coverimage":0,"apple_news_coverimage_caption":"","apple_news_is_hidden":false,"apple_news_is_paid":false,"apple_news_is_preview":false,"apple_news_is_sponsored":false,"apple_news_maturity_rating":"","apple_news_metadata":"\"\"","apple_news_pullquote":"","apple_news_pullquote_position":"","apple_news_slug":"","apple_news_sections":"\"\"","apple_news_suppress_video_url":false,"apple_news_use_image_component":false},"categories":[2401],"tags":[449548419,576654085,449556932],"crunchbase_tag":[],"tc_stories_tax":[],"tc_ec_category":[],"tc_event":[],"tc_regions_tax":[],"yoast_head":"\nWaymo launches curbside robotaxi pickup at Phoenix airport | TechCrunch<\/title>\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\t\n\t\n\t\n\n\n\n\n\n\t\n\t\n\t\n
<\/iframe><\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" Select Waymo One riders can now get picked up or dropped off by the company’s robotaxis curbside at Phoenix Sky Harbor International Airport. Waymo became the first autonomous vehicle operator in the U.S. to launch a paid robotaxi service to and from the airport in November 2022. The service went to an airport shuttle stop […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":133574434,"featured_media":2642553,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"amp_status":"","relegenceEntities":[],"relegenceSubjects":[],"carmot_uuid":"78af2cb6-ce7e-3fe9-8b90-1eb459ce1970","footnotes":"","apple_news_api_created_at":"2023-12-14T20:54:53Z","apple_news_api_id":"1bfc0198-c20d-446b-90c8-9f62f86da685","apple_news_api_modified_at":"2023-12-14T23:01:53Z","apple_news_api_revision":"AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAA==","apple_news_api_share_url":"https:\/\/apple.news\/AG_wBmMINRGuQyJ9i-G2mhQ","apple_news_coverimage":0,"apple_news_coverimage_caption":"","apple_news_is_hidden":false,"apple_news_is_paid":false,"apple_news_is_preview":false,"apple_news_is_sponsored":false,"apple_news_maturity_rating":"","apple_news_metadata":"\"\"","apple_news_pullquote":"","apple_news_pullquote_position":"","apple_news_slug":"","apple_news_sections":"\"\"","apple_news_suppress_video_url":false,"apple_news_use_image_component":false},"categories":[2401],"tags":[449548419,576654085,449556932],"crunchbase_tag":[],"tc_stories_tax":[],"tc_ec_category":[],"tc_event":[],"tc_regions_tax":[],"yoast_head":"\nWaymo launches curbside robotaxi pickup at Phoenix airport | TechCrunch<\/title>\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\t\n\t\n\t\n\n\n\n\n\n\t\n\t\n\t\n
Select Waymo One riders can now get picked up or dropped off by the company’s robotaxis curbside at Phoenix Sky Harbor International Airport. Waymo became the first autonomous vehicle operator in the U.S. to launch a paid robotaxi service to and from the airport in November 2022. The service went to an airport shuttle stop […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":133574434,"featured_media":2642553,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"amp_status":"","relegenceEntities":[],"relegenceSubjects":[],"carmot_uuid":"78af2cb6-ce7e-3fe9-8b90-1eb459ce1970","footnotes":"","apple_news_api_created_at":"2023-12-14T20:54:53Z","apple_news_api_id":"1bfc0198-c20d-446b-90c8-9f62f86da685","apple_news_api_modified_at":"2023-12-14T23:01:53Z","apple_news_api_revision":"AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAA==","apple_news_api_share_url":"https:\/\/apple.news\/AG_wBmMINRGuQyJ9i-G2mhQ","apple_news_coverimage":0,"apple_news_coverimage_caption":"","apple_news_is_hidden":false,"apple_news_is_paid":false,"apple_news_is_preview":false,"apple_news_is_sponsored":false,"apple_news_maturity_rating":"","apple_news_metadata":"\"\"","apple_news_pullquote":"","apple_news_pullquote_position":"","apple_news_slug":"","apple_news_sections":"\"\"","apple_news_suppress_video_url":false,"apple_news_use_image_component":false},"categories":[2401],"tags":[449548419,576654085,449556932],"crunchbase_tag":[],"tc_stories_tax":[],"tc_ec_category":[],"tc_event":[],"tc_regions_tax":[],"yoast_head":"\nWaymo launches curbside robotaxi pickup at Phoenix airport | TechCrunch<\/title>\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\t\n\t\n\t\n\n\n\n\n\n\t\n\t\n\t\n
Waymo One robotaxi sky harbor terminal phoenix curbside pickup<\/p>\n"},"alt_text":"A man stands behind a Waymo robotaxi with the trunk open. One hand goes to close the trunk, the other rests on his luggage.","media_type":"image","mime_type":"image\/jpeg","media_details":{"width":8192,"height":5464,"file":"2023\/12\/Sky-Harbor_Terminal_Waymo-1.jpg","filesize":13750699,"sizes":{"thumbnail":{"file":"Sky-Harbor_Terminal_Waymo-1.jpg?resize=150,100","width":150,"height":100,"filesize":13750699,"mime_type":"image\/jpeg","source_url":"https:\/\/techcrunch.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2023\/12\/Sky-Harbor_Terminal_Waymo-1.jpg?w=150"},"medium":{"file":"Sky-Harbor_Terminal_Waymo-1.jpg?resize=300,200","width":300,"height":200,"filesize":13750699,"mime_type":"image\/jpeg","source_url":"https:\/\/techcrunch.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2023\/12\/Sky-Harbor_Terminal_Waymo-1.jpg?w=300"},"medium_large":{"file":"Sky-Harbor_Terminal_Waymo-1.jpg?resize=768,512","width":768,"height":512,"filesize":13750699,"mime_type":"image\/jpeg","source_url":"https:\/\/techcrunch.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2023\/12\/Sky-Harbor_Terminal_Waymo-1.jpg?w=1024"},"large":{"file":"Sky-Harbor_Terminal_Waymo-1.jpg?resize=680,454","width":680,"height":454,"filesize":13750699,"mime_type":"image\/jpeg","source_url":"https:\/\/techcrunch.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2023\/12\/Sky-Harbor_Terminal_Waymo-1.jpg?w=680"},"1536x1536":{"file":"Sky-Harbor_Terminal_Waymo-1.jpg?resize=1536,1025","width":1536,"height":1025,"filesize":13750699,"mime_type":"image\/jpeg","source_url":"https:\/\/techcrunch.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2023\/12\/Sky-Harbor_Terminal_Waymo-1.jpg?w=1536"},"2048x2048":{"file":"Sky-Harbor_Terminal_Waymo-1.jpg?resize=2048,1366","width":2048,"height":1366,"filesize":13750699,"mime_type":"image\/jpeg","source_url":"https:\/\/techcrunch.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2023\/12\/Sky-Harbor_Terminal_Waymo-1.jpg?w=2048"},"tc-social-image":{"file":"Sky-Harbor_Terminal_Waymo-1.jpg?resize=1200,800","width":1200,"height":800,"filesize":13750699,"mime_type":"image\/jpeg","source_url":"https:\/\/techcrunch.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2023\/12\/Sky-Harbor_Terminal_Waymo-1.jpg?w=1200"},"guest-author-32":{"file":"Sky-Harbor_Terminal_Waymo-1.jpg?resize=32,32","width":32,"height":32,"filesize":13750699,"mime_type":"image\/jpeg","source_url":"https:\/\/techcrunch.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2023\/12\/Sky-Harbor_Terminal_Waymo-1.jpg?w=32&h=32&crop=1"},"guest-author-50":{"file":"Sky-Harbor_Terminal_Waymo-1.jpg?resize=50,50","width":50,"height":50,"filesize":13750699,"mime_type":"image\/jpeg","source_url":"https:\/\/techcrunch.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2023\/12\/Sky-Harbor_Terminal_Waymo-1.jpg?w=50&h=50&crop=1"},"guest-author-64":{"file":"Sky-Harbor_Terminal_Waymo-1.jpg?resize=64,64","width":64,"height":64,"filesize":13750699,"mime_type":"image\/jpeg","source_url":"https:\/\/techcrunch.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2023\/12\/Sky-Harbor_Terminal_Waymo-1.jpg?w=64&h=64&crop=1"},"guest-author-96":{"file":"Sky-Harbor_Terminal_Waymo-1.jpg?resize=96,96","width":96,"height":96,"filesize":13750699,"mime_type":"image\/jpeg","source_url":"https:\/\/techcrunch.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2023\/12\/Sky-Harbor_Terminal_Waymo-1.jpg?w=96&h=96&crop=1"},"guest-author-128":{"file":"Sky-Harbor_Terminal_Waymo-1.jpg?resize=128,128","width":128,"height":128,"filesize":13750699,"mime_type":"image\/jpeg","source_url":"https:\/\/techcrunch.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2023\/12\/Sky-Harbor_Terminal_Waymo-1.jpg?w=128&h=128&crop=1"},"concierge-thumb":{"file":"Sky-Harbor_Terminal_Waymo-1.jpg?resize=50,33","width":50,"height":33,"filesize":13750699,"mime_type":"image\/jpeg","source_url":"https:\/\/techcrunch.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2023\/12\/Sky-Harbor_Terminal_Waymo-1.jpg?w=50"},"full":{"file":"Sky-Harbor_Terminal_Waymo-1.jpg","width":1024,"height":683,"mime_type":"image\/jpeg","source_url":"https:\/\/techcrunch.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2023\/12\/Sky-Harbor_Terminal_Waymo-1.jpg"}},"image_meta":{"aperture":"2.8","credit":"","camera":"Canon EOS R5 C","caption":"","created_timestamp":"1701816848","copyright":"","focal_length":"25","iso":"4000","shutter_speed":"0.008","title":"","orientation":"1","keywords":[]}},"source_url":"https:\/\/techcrunch.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2023\/12\/Sky-Harbor_Terminal_Waymo-1.jpg","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/techcrunch.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/2642553"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/techcrunch.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/techcrunch.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/attachment"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/techcrunch.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=2642553"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/techcrunch.com\/wp-json\/tc\/v1\/users\/133574434"}]}}],"wp:term":[[{"id":2401,"description":"Transportation news includes all the present and future ways people and packages get from Point A to Point B. Coverage includes scooters and e-bikes to autonomous vehicles, EVs, transit, and evTOLs. We cover auto tech players big and small, from Tesla, GM, Uber, and Lyft, to small startups entering the automotive tech space.","link":"https:\/\/techcrunch.com\/category\/transportation\/","name":"Transportation","slug":"transportation","taxonomy":"category","parent":0,"yoast_head":"\nTransportation & Auto News | TechCrunch<\/title>\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\t\n\t\n\t\n\n\n
Earlier this week<\/span>, The Exchange argued that the PDD-Shein rivalry was worth keeping an eye on<\/a>. PDD is a Chinese company that owns the well-known Pinduoduo e-commerce business as well as Temu, a discount online retailer that has seen quick growth in the U.S. market in recent years.<\/p>\n\n The Exchange explores startups, markets and money. <\/em><\/strong><\/p>\n Read it every morning on TechCrunch+<\/a> or get The Exchange newsletter<\/a> every Saturday.<\/em><\/strong><\/p>\n\n Our post was well-timed. Two days after our short look into the rivalry, Temu filed suit<\/a> against Shein. It was not the first time the company has done so. Earlier this year, the two companies had sued each other only to dismiss the lawsuits in October<\/a>. Now Temu is back with a fresh lawsuit that alleges a battery of illegal acts by Shein.<\/p>\n How did we go from the two companies dropping their dueling lawsuits to yet another suit? Per the complaint, since the time when the first suits were dismissed, “Temu has discovered that Shein\u2019s anticompetitive behavior has not only persisted but intensified,” the company claims. It’d be useful to recall at this point that Temu’s parent company PDD recently overtook<\/a> Alibaba in market cap, and Shein wants to go public in the United States<\/a>.<\/p>\n A Shein spokesperson told TechCrunch+ that the company “believe[s] this lawsuit is without merit and will vigorously defend” itself.<\/p>\nWhat does Temu say Shein is up to?<\/h2>\n The suit’s claims are varied. Some deal with Temu’s view that Shein is filing a myriad of “dubious copyright infringement lawsuits” against it and alleges that the latter is issuing “voluminous, bad-faith DMCA takedown notices” against its rival.<\/p>\n But that’s just the start. Temu also alleges that Shein abuses its suppliers by leveraging what it considers a “monopoly power in the U.S. ultrafast fashion market” to enter into “Exclusive-Dealing Agreements with ultra-fast-fashion suppliers, and through those agreements Shein improperly seizes suppliers\u2019 IP rights” so that it can prevent suppliers from listing and selling similar products on Temu or other retail platforms.<\/div>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" Besides making allegations of abusing legal systems and agressive contracts, Temu’s lawsuit makes Shein’s business practices look like they’re from a mobster movie.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":428363,"featured_media":2569536,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"amp_status":"","relegenceEntities":[],"relegenceSubjects":[],"carmot_uuid":"42c75310-2b30-3cc6-9fa7-3c78887108d9","footnotes":"","apple_news_api_created_at":"","apple_news_api_id":"","apple_news_api_modified_at":"","apple_news_api_revision":"","apple_news_api_share_url":"","apple_news_coverimage":0,"apple_news_coverimage_caption":"","apple_news_is_hidden":false,"apple_news_is_paid":false,"apple_news_is_preview":false,"apple_news_is_sponsored":false,"apple_news_maturity_rating":"","apple_news_metadata":"\"\"","apple_news_pullquote":"","apple_news_pullquote_position":"","apple_news_slug":"","apple_news_sections":"\"\"","apple_news_suppress_video_url":false,"apple_news_use_image_component":false},"categories":[577052802],"tags":[576845137,576845141,576783294,577065032,576765839],"crunchbase_tag":[],"tc_stories_tax":[],"tc_ec_category":[576796356],"tc_event":[],"tc_regions_tax":[],"yoast_head":"\nTemu's latest lawsuit against Shein is wild | TechCrunch<\/title>\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\t\n\t\n\t\n\n\n\n\n\n\t\n\t\n\t\n
The Exchange explores startups, markets and money. <\/em><\/strong><\/p>\n Read it every morning on TechCrunch+<\/a> or get The Exchange newsletter<\/a> every Saturday.<\/em><\/strong><\/p>\n\n Our post was well-timed. Two days after our short look into the rivalry, Temu filed suit<\/a> against Shein. It was not the first time the company has done so. Earlier this year, the two companies had sued each other only to dismiss the lawsuits in October<\/a>. Now Temu is back with a fresh lawsuit that alleges a battery of illegal acts by Shein.<\/p>\n How did we go from the two companies dropping their dueling lawsuits to yet another suit? Per the complaint, since the time when the first suits were dismissed, “Temu has discovered that Shein\u2019s anticompetitive behavior has not only persisted but intensified,” the company claims. It’d be useful to recall at this point that Temu’s parent company PDD recently overtook<\/a> Alibaba in market cap, and Shein wants to go public in the United States<\/a>.<\/p>\n A Shein spokesperson told TechCrunch+ that the company “believe[s] this lawsuit is without merit and will vigorously defend” itself.<\/p>\nWhat does Temu say Shein is up to?<\/h2>\n The suit’s claims are varied. Some deal with Temu’s view that Shein is filing a myriad of “dubious copyright infringement lawsuits” against it and alleges that the latter is issuing “voluminous, bad-faith DMCA takedown notices” against its rival.<\/p>\n But that’s just the start. Temu also alleges that Shein abuses its suppliers by leveraging what it considers a “monopoly power in the U.S. ultrafast fashion market” to enter into “Exclusive-Dealing Agreements with ultra-fast-fashion suppliers, and through those agreements Shein improperly seizes suppliers\u2019 IP rights” so that it can prevent suppliers from listing and selling similar products on Temu or other retail platforms.<\/div>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" Besides making allegations of abusing legal systems and agressive contracts, Temu’s lawsuit makes Shein’s business practices look like they’re from a mobster movie.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":428363,"featured_media":2569536,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"amp_status":"","relegenceEntities":[],"relegenceSubjects":[],"carmot_uuid":"42c75310-2b30-3cc6-9fa7-3c78887108d9","footnotes":"","apple_news_api_created_at":"","apple_news_api_id":"","apple_news_api_modified_at":"","apple_news_api_revision":"","apple_news_api_share_url":"","apple_news_coverimage":0,"apple_news_coverimage_caption":"","apple_news_is_hidden":false,"apple_news_is_paid":false,"apple_news_is_preview":false,"apple_news_is_sponsored":false,"apple_news_maturity_rating":"","apple_news_metadata":"\"\"","apple_news_pullquote":"","apple_news_pullquote_position":"","apple_news_slug":"","apple_news_sections":"\"\"","apple_news_suppress_video_url":false,"apple_news_use_image_component":false},"categories":[577052802],"tags":[576845137,576845141,576783294,577065032,576765839],"crunchbase_tag":[],"tc_stories_tax":[],"tc_ec_category":[576796356],"tc_event":[],"tc_regions_tax":[],"yoast_head":"\nTemu's latest lawsuit against Shein is wild | TechCrunch<\/title>\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\t\n\t\n\t\n\n\n\n\n\n\t\n\t\n\t\n
Read it every morning on TechCrunch+<\/a> or get The Exchange newsletter<\/a> every Saturday.<\/em><\/strong><\/p>\n\n Our post was well-timed. Two days after our short look into the rivalry, Temu filed suit<\/a> against Shein. It was not the first time the company has done so. Earlier this year, the two companies had sued each other only to dismiss the lawsuits in October<\/a>. Now Temu is back with a fresh lawsuit that alleges a battery of illegal acts by Shein.<\/p>\n How did we go from the two companies dropping their dueling lawsuits to yet another suit? Per the complaint, since the time when the first suits were dismissed, “Temu has discovered that Shein\u2019s anticompetitive behavior has not only persisted but intensified,” the company claims. It’d be useful to recall at this point that Temu’s parent company PDD recently overtook<\/a> Alibaba in market cap, and Shein wants to go public in the United States<\/a>.<\/p>\n A Shein spokesperson told TechCrunch+ that the company “believe[s] this lawsuit is without merit and will vigorously defend” itself.<\/p>\nWhat does Temu say Shein is up to?<\/h2>\n The suit’s claims are varied. Some deal with Temu’s view that Shein is filing a myriad of “dubious copyright infringement lawsuits” against it and alleges that the latter is issuing “voluminous, bad-faith DMCA takedown notices” against its rival.<\/p>\n But that’s just the start. Temu also alleges that Shein abuses its suppliers by leveraging what it considers a “monopoly power in the U.S. ultrafast fashion market” to enter into “Exclusive-Dealing Agreements with ultra-fast-fashion suppliers, and through those agreements Shein improperly seizes suppliers\u2019 IP rights” so that it can prevent suppliers from listing and selling similar products on Temu or other retail platforms.<\/div>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" Besides making allegations of abusing legal systems and agressive contracts, Temu’s lawsuit makes Shein’s business practices look like they’re from a mobster movie.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":428363,"featured_media":2569536,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"amp_status":"","relegenceEntities":[],"relegenceSubjects":[],"carmot_uuid":"42c75310-2b30-3cc6-9fa7-3c78887108d9","footnotes":"","apple_news_api_created_at":"","apple_news_api_id":"","apple_news_api_modified_at":"","apple_news_api_revision":"","apple_news_api_share_url":"","apple_news_coverimage":0,"apple_news_coverimage_caption":"","apple_news_is_hidden":false,"apple_news_is_paid":false,"apple_news_is_preview":false,"apple_news_is_sponsored":false,"apple_news_maturity_rating":"","apple_news_metadata":"\"\"","apple_news_pullquote":"","apple_news_pullquote_position":"","apple_news_slug":"","apple_news_sections":"\"\"","apple_news_suppress_video_url":false,"apple_news_use_image_component":false},"categories":[577052802],"tags":[576845137,576845141,576783294,577065032,576765839],"crunchbase_tag":[],"tc_stories_tax":[],"tc_ec_category":[576796356],"tc_event":[],"tc_regions_tax":[],"yoast_head":"\nTemu's latest lawsuit against Shein is wild | TechCrunch<\/title>\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\t\n\t\n\t\n\n\n\n\n\n\t\n\t\n\t\n
Our post was well-timed. Two days after our short look into the rivalry, Temu filed suit<\/a> against Shein. It was not the first time the company has done so. Earlier this year, the two companies had sued each other only to dismiss the lawsuits in October<\/a>. Now Temu is back with a fresh lawsuit that alleges a battery of illegal acts by Shein.<\/p>\n How did we go from the two companies dropping their dueling lawsuits to yet another suit? Per the complaint, since the time when the first suits were dismissed, “Temu has discovered that Shein\u2019s anticompetitive behavior has not only persisted but intensified,” the company claims. It’d be useful to recall at this point that Temu’s parent company PDD recently overtook<\/a> Alibaba in market cap, and Shein wants to go public in the United States<\/a>.<\/p>\n A Shein spokesperson told TechCrunch+ that the company “believe[s] this lawsuit is without merit and will vigorously defend” itself.<\/p>\nWhat does Temu say Shein is up to?<\/h2>\n The suit’s claims are varied. Some deal with Temu’s view that Shein is filing a myriad of “dubious copyright infringement lawsuits” against it and alleges that the latter is issuing “voluminous, bad-faith DMCA takedown notices” against its rival.<\/p>\n But that’s just the start. Temu also alleges that Shein abuses its suppliers by leveraging what it considers a “monopoly power in the U.S. ultrafast fashion market” to enter into “Exclusive-Dealing Agreements with ultra-fast-fashion suppliers, and through those agreements Shein improperly seizes suppliers\u2019 IP rights” so that it can prevent suppliers from listing and selling similar products on Temu or other retail platforms.<\/div>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" Besides making allegations of abusing legal systems and agressive contracts, Temu’s lawsuit makes Shein’s business practices look like they’re from a mobster movie.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":428363,"featured_media":2569536,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"amp_status":"","relegenceEntities":[],"relegenceSubjects":[],"carmot_uuid":"42c75310-2b30-3cc6-9fa7-3c78887108d9","footnotes":"","apple_news_api_created_at":"","apple_news_api_id":"","apple_news_api_modified_at":"","apple_news_api_revision":"","apple_news_api_share_url":"","apple_news_coverimage":0,"apple_news_coverimage_caption":"","apple_news_is_hidden":false,"apple_news_is_paid":false,"apple_news_is_preview":false,"apple_news_is_sponsored":false,"apple_news_maturity_rating":"","apple_news_metadata":"\"\"","apple_news_pullquote":"","apple_news_pullquote_position":"","apple_news_slug":"","apple_news_sections":"\"\"","apple_news_suppress_video_url":false,"apple_news_use_image_component":false},"categories":[577052802],"tags":[576845137,576845141,576783294,577065032,576765839],"crunchbase_tag":[],"tc_stories_tax":[],"tc_ec_category":[576796356],"tc_event":[],"tc_regions_tax":[],"yoast_head":"\nTemu's latest lawsuit against Shein is wild | TechCrunch<\/title>\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\t\n\t\n\t\n\n\n\n\n\n\t\n\t\n\t\n
How did we go from the two companies dropping their dueling lawsuits to yet another suit? Per the complaint, since the time when the first suits were dismissed, “Temu has discovered that Shein\u2019s anticompetitive behavior has not only persisted but intensified,” the company claims. It’d be useful to recall at this point that Temu’s parent company PDD recently overtook<\/a> Alibaba in market cap, and Shein wants to go public in the United States<\/a>.<\/p>\n A Shein spokesperson told TechCrunch+ that the company “believe[s] this lawsuit is without merit and will vigorously defend” itself.<\/p>\nWhat does Temu say Shein is up to?<\/h2>\n The suit’s claims are varied. Some deal with Temu’s view that Shein is filing a myriad of “dubious copyright infringement lawsuits” against it and alleges that the latter is issuing “voluminous, bad-faith DMCA takedown notices” against its rival.<\/p>\n But that’s just the start. Temu also alleges that Shein abuses its suppliers by leveraging what it considers a “monopoly power in the U.S. ultrafast fashion market” to enter into “Exclusive-Dealing Agreements with ultra-fast-fashion suppliers, and through those agreements Shein improperly seizes suppliers\u2019 IP rights” so that it can prevent suppliers from listing and selling similar products on Temu or other retail platforms.<\/div>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" Besides making allegations of abusing legal systems and agressive contracts, Temu’s lawsuit makes Shein’s business practices look like they’re from a mobster movie.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":428363,"featured_media":2569536,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"amp_status":"","relegenceEntities":[],"relegenceSubjects":[],"carmot_uuid":"42c75310-2b30-3cc6-9fa7-3c78887108d9","footnotes":"","apple_news_api_created_at":"","apple_news_api_id":"","apple_news_api_modified_at":"","apple_news_api_revision":"","apple_news_api_share_url":"","apple_news_coverimage":0,"apple_news_coverimage_caption":"","apple_news_is_hidden":false,"apple_news_is_paid":false,"apple_news_is_preview":false,"apple_news_is_sponsored":false,"apple_news_maturity_rating":"","apple_news_metadata":"\"\"","apple_news_pullquote":"","apple_news_pullquote_position":"","apple_news_slug":"","apple_news_sections":"\"\"","apple_news_suppress_video_url":false,"apple_news_use_image_component":false},"categories":[577052802],"tags":[576845137,576845141,576783294,577065032,576765839],"crunchbase_tag":[],"tc_stories_tax":[],"tc_ec_category":[576796356],"tc_event":[],"tc_regions_tax":[],"yoast_head":"\nTemu's latest lawsuit against Shein is wild | TechCrunch<\/title>\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\t\n\t\n\t\n\n\n\n\n\n\t\n\t\n\t\n
A Shein spokesperson told TechCrunch+ that the company “believe[s] this lawsuit is without merit and will vigorously defend” itself.<\/p>\nWhat does Temu say Shein is up to?<\/h2>\n The suit’s claims are varied. Some deal with Temu’s view that Shein is filing a myriad of “dubious copyright infringement lawsuits” against it and alleges that the latter is issuing “voluminous, bad-faith DMCA takedown notices” against its rival.<\/p>\n But that’s just the start. Temu also alleges that Shein abuses its suppliers by leveraging what it considers a “monopoly power in the U.S. ultrafast fashion market” to enter into “Exclusive-Dealing Agreements with ultra-fast-fashion suppliers, and through those agreements Shein improperly seizes suppliers\u2019 IP rights” so that it can prevent suppliers from listing and selling similar products on Temu or other retail platforms.<\/div>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" Besides making allegations of abusing legal systems and agressive contracts, Temu’s lawsuit makes Shein’s business practices look like they’re from a mobster movie.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":428363,"featured_media":2569536,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"amp_status":"","relegenceEntities":[],"relegenceSubjects":[],"carmot_uuid":"42c75310-2b30-3cc6-9fa7-3c78887108d9","footnotes":"","apple_news_api_created_at":"","apple_news_api_id":"","apple_news_api_modified_at":"","apple_news_api_revision":"","apple_news_api_share_url":"","apple_news_coverimage":0,"apple_news_coverimage_caption":"","apple_news_is_hidden":false,"apple_news_is_paid":false,"apple_news_is_preview":false,"apple_news_is_sponsored":false,"apple_news_maturity_rating":"","apple_news_metadata":"\"\"","apple_news_pullquote":"","apple_news_pullquote_position":"","apple_news_slug":"","apple_news_sections":"\"\"","apple_news_suppress_video_url":false,"apple_news_use_image_component":false},"categories":[577052802],"tags":[576845137,576845141,576783294,577065032,576765839],"crunchbase_tag":[],"tc_stories_tax":[],"tc_ec_category":[576796356],"tc_event":[],"tc_regions_tax":[],"yoast_head":"\nTemu's latest lawsuit against Shein is wild | TechCrunch<\/title>\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\t\n\t\n\t\n\n\n\n\n\n\t\n\t\n\t\n
The suit’s claims are varied. Some deal with Temu’s view that Shein is filing a myriad of “dubious copyright infringement lawsuits” against it and alleges that the latter is issuing “voluminous, bad-faith DMCA takedown notices” against its rival.<\/p>\n
But that’s just the start. Temu also alleges that Shein abuses its suppliers by leveraging what it considers a “monopoly power in the U.S. ultrafast fashion market” to enter into “Exclusive-Dealing Agreements with ultra-fast-fashion suppliers, and through those agreements Shein improperly seizes suppliers\u2019 IP rights” so that it can prevent suppliers from listing and selling similar products on Temu or other retail platforms.<\/div>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" Besides making allegations of abusing legal systems and agressive contracts, Temu’s lawsuit makes Shein’s business practices look like they’re from a mobster movie.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":428363,"featured_media":2569536,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"amp_status":"","relegenceEntities":[],"relegenceSubjects":[],"carmot_uuid":"42c75310-2b30-3cc6-9fa7-3c78887108d9","footnotes":"","apple_news_api_created_at":"","apple_news_api_id":"","apple_news_api_modified_at":"","apple_news_api_revision":"","apple_news_api_share_url":"","apple_news_coverimage":0,"apple_news_coverimage_caption":"","apple_news_is_hidden":false,"apple_news_is_paid":false,"apple_news_is_preview":false,"apple_news_is_sponsored":false,"apple_news_maturity_rating":"","apple_news_metadata":"\"\"","apple_news_pullquote":"","apple_news_pullquote_position":"","apple_news_slug":"","apple_news_sections":"\"\"","apple_news_suppress_video_url":false,"apple_news_use_image_component":false},"categories":[577052802],"tags":[576845137,576845141,576783294,577065032,576765839],"crunchbase_tag":[],"tc_stories_tax":[],"tc_ec_category":[576796356],"tc_event":[],"tc_regions_tax":[],"yoast_head":"\nTemu's latest lawsuit against Shein is wild | TechCrunch<\/title>\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\t\n\t\n\t\n\n\n\n\n\n\t\n\t\n\t\n
Besides making allegations of abusing legal systems and agressive contracts, Temu’s lawsuit makes Shein’s business practices look like they’re from a mobster movie.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":428363,"featured_media":2569536,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"amp_status":"","relegenceEntities":[],"relegenceSubjects":[],"carmot_uuid":"42c75310-2b30-3cc6-9fa7-3c78887108d9","footnotes":"","apple_news_api_created_at":"","apple_news_api_id":"","apple_news_api_modified_at":"","apple_news_api_revision":"","apple_news_api_share_url":"","apple_news_coverimage":0,"apple_news_coverimage_caption":"","apple_news_is_hidden":false,"apple_news_is_paid":false,"apple_news_is_preview":false,"apple_news_is_sponsored":false,"apple_news_maturity_rating":"","apple_news_metadata":"\"\"","apple_news_pullquote":"","apple_news_pullquote_position":"","apple_news_slug":"","apple_news_sections":"\"\"","apple_news_suppress_video_url":false,"apple_news_use_image_component":false},"categories":[577052802],"tags":[576845137,576845141,576783294,577065032,576765839],"crunchbase_tag":[],"tc_stories_tax":[],"tc_ec_category":[576796356],"tc_event":[],"tc_regions_tax":[],"yoast_head":"\nTemu's latest lawsuit against Shein is wild | TechCrunch<\/title>\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\t\n\t\n\t\n\n\n\n\n\n\t\n\t\n\t\n
Alex Wilhelm is Editor In Chief of TechCrunch+. He previously worked for Crunchbase News as Editor in Chief as well as The Next Web, TechCrunch, and Mattermark.<\/p>","cbAvatar":"https:\/\/techcrunch.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/05\/Screen-Shot-2021-04-30-at-12.12.07-PM.png","twitter":"alex"}],"author":[{"id":428363,"name":"Alex Wilhelm","url":"","description":"","link":"https:\/\/techcrunch.com\/author\/alex-wilhelm\/","slug":"alex-wilhelm","avatar_urls":{"24":"https:\/\/secure.gravatar.com\/avatar\/cc9b583e483d57b5eb30b6b09baefa63?s=24&d=identicon&r=g","48":"https:\/\/secure.gravatar.com\/avatar\/cc9b583e483d57b5eb30b6b09baefa63?s=48&d=identicon&r=g","96":"https:\/\/secure.gravatar.com\/avatar\/cc9b583e483d57b5eb30b6b09baefa63?s=96&d=identicon&r=g"},"yoast_head":"\nAlex Wilhelm, Author at TechCrunch<\/title>\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n
Alex Wilhelm is Editor In Chief of TechCrunch+. He previously worked for Crunchbase News as Editor in Chief as well as The Next Web, TechCrunch, and Mattermark.<\/p>","cbAvatar":"https:\/\/techcrunch.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/05\/Screen-Shot-2021-04-30-at-12.12.07-PM.png","twitter":"alex","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/techcrunch.com\/wp-json\/tc\/v1\/users\/428363"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/techcrunch.com\/wp-json\/tc\/v1\/users"}]}}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"id":2569536,"date":"2023-07-14T10:43:29","slug":"france-economy-internet-technology-telecommunication","type":"attachment","link":"https:\/\/techcrunch.com\/2023\/07\/14\/designers-sue-shein-over-ai-ripoffs-of-their-work\/france-economy-internet-technology-telecommunication\/","title":{"rendered":"Shein-FRANCE-ECONOMY-INTERNET-TECHNOLOGY-TELECOMMUNICATION"},"author":133574547,"jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"license":{"source_key":"getty images","person":"PHILIPPE LOPEZ\/AFP"},"authors":[133574547],"caption":{"rendered":"
This picture taken on Mars 6, 2019 in Paris shows the logo of the online e-commerce website “Shein”. – Wish, Joom, Shein, AliExpress: These new marketplaces, highly appreciated by young people for promising broken prices on popular brands, are shaking up the online commerce sector to the point of competing with Amazon. (Photo by Philippe LOPEZ \/ AFP) (Photo credit should read PHILIPPE LOPEZ\/AFP via Getty Images)<\/p>\n"},"alt_text":"Shein logo over keyboard","media_type":"image","mime_type":"image\/jpeg","media_details":{"width":2600,"height":1730,"file":"2023\/07\/GettyImages-1129009719.jpg","filesize":746212,"sizes":{"thumbnail":{"file":"GettyImages-1129009719.jpg?resize=150,100","width":150,"height":100,"filesize":746212,"mime_type":"image\/jpeg","source_url":"https:\/\/techcrunch.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2023\/07\/GettyImages-1129009719.jpg?w=150"},"medium":{"file":"GettyImages-1129009719.jpg?resize=300,200","width":300,"height":200,"filesize":746212,"mime_type":"image\/jpeg","source_url":"https:\/\/techcrunch.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2023\/07\/GettyImages-1129009719.jpg?w=300"},"medium_large":{"file":"GettyImages-1129009719.jpg?resize=768,511","width":768,"height":511,"filesize":746212,"mime_type":"image\/jpeg","source_url":"https:\/\/techcrunch.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2023\/07\/GettyImages-1129009719.jpg?w=1024"},"large":{"file":"GettyImages-1129009719.jpg?resize=680,452","width":680,"height":452,"filesize":746212,"mime_type":"image\/jpeg","source_url":"https:\/\/techcrunch.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2023\/07\/GettyImages-1129009719.jpg?w=680"},"1536x1536":{"file":"GettyImages-1129009719.jpg?resize=1536,1022","width":1536,"height":1022,"filesize":746212,"mime_type":"image\/jpeg","source_url":"https:\/\/techcrunch.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2023\/07\/GettyImages-1129009719.jpg?w=1536"},"2048x2048":{"file":"GettyImages-1129009719.jpg?resize=2048,1363","width":2048,"height":1363,"filesize":746212,"mime_type":"image\/jpeg","source_url":"https:\/\/techcrunch.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2023\/07\/GettyImages-1129009719.jpg?w=2048"},"tc-social-image":{"file":"GettyImages-1129009719.jpg?resize=1200,798","width":1200,"height":798,"filesize":746212,"mime_type":"image\/jpeg","source_url":"https:\/\/techcrunch.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2023\/07\/GettyImages-1129009719.jpg?w=1200"},"guest-author-32":{"file":"GettyImages-1129009719.jpg?resize=32,32","width":32,"height":32,"filesize":746212,"mime_type":"image\/jpeg","source_url":"https:\/\/techcrunch.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2023\/07\/GettyImages-1129009719.jpg?w=32&h=32&crop=1"},"guest-author-50":{"file":"GettyImages-1129009719.jpg?resize=50,50","width":50,"height":50,"filesize":746212,"mime_type":"image\/jpeg","source_url":"https:\/\/techcrunch.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2023\/07\/GettyImages-1129009719.jpg?w=50&h=50&crop=1"},"guest-author-64":{"file":"GettyImages-1129009719.jpg?resize=64,64","width":64,"height":64,"filesize":746212,"mime_type":"image\/jpeg","source_url":"https:\/\/techcrunch.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2023\/07\/GettyImages-1129009719.jpg?w=64&h=64&crop=1"},"guest-author-96":{"file":"GettyImages-1129009719.jpg?resize=96,96","width":96,"height":96,"filesize":746212,"mime_type":"image\/jpeg","source_url":"https:\/\/techcrunch.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2023\/07\/GettyImages-1129009719.jpg?w=96&h=96&crop=1"},"guest-author-128":{"file":"GettyImages-1129009719.jpg?resize=128,128","width":128,"height":128,"filesize":746212,"mime_type":"image\/jpeg","source_url":"https:\/\/techcrunch.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2023\/07\/GettyImages-1129009719.jpg?w=128&h=128&crop=1"},"concierge-thumb":{"file":"GettyImages-1129009719.jpg?resize=50,33","width":50,"height":33,"filesize":746212,"mime_type":"image\/jpeg","source_url":"https:\/\/techcrunch.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2023\/07\/GettyImages-1129009719.jpg?w=50"},"full":{"file":"GettyImages-1129009719.jpg","width":1024,"height":681,"mime_type":"image\/jpeg","source_url":"https:\/\/techcrunch.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2023\/07\/GettyImages-1129009719.jpg"}},"image_meta":{"aperture":"0","credit":"AFP via Getty Images","camera":"","caption":"This picture taken on Mars 6, 2019 in Paris shows the logo of the online e-commerce website \"Shein\". - Wish, Joom, Shein, AliExpress: These new marketplaces, highly appreciated by young people for promising broken prices on popular brands, are shaking up the online commerce sector to the point of competing with Amazon. (Photo by Philippe LOPEZ \/ AFP) (Photo credit should read PHILIPPE LOPEZ\/AFP via Getty Images)","created_timestamp":"1551830400","copyright":"","focal_length":"0","iso":"0","shutter_speed":"0","title":"FRANCE-ECONOMY-INTERNET-TECHNOLOGY-TELECOMMUNICATION","orientation":"1","keywords":["telecommunication","Horizontal","ILLUSTRATION","topix","bestof"]}},"source_url":"https:\/\/techcrunch.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2023\/07\/GettyImages-1129009719.jpg","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/techcrunch.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/2569536"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/techcrunch.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/techcrunch.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/attachment"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/techcrunch.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=2569536"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/techcrunch.com\/wp-json\/tc\/v1\/users\/133574547"}]}}],"wp:term":[[{"id":577052802,"description":"Retail, online shopping, e-commerce, and social commerce are a huge and ever-changing industry. Our commerce news covers everyone from Amazon, Shopify and Walmart to all the newest and hottest DTC brands, as well as influencers making the shift into selling products online.","link":"https:\/\/techcrunch.com\/category\/commerce\/","name":"Commerce","slug":"commerce","taxonomy":"category","parent":0,"yoast_head":"\nCommerce News | TechCrunch<\/title>\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\t\n\t\n\t\n\n\n
Cruise, the embattled<\/span> GM self-driving car subsidiary, is laying off 900 employees, or about 24% of its workforce, TechCrunch has exclusively learned. The layoffs are part of a plan to slash costs and attempt to revamp the company following an October 2 incident that left a pedestrian stuck under and then dragged by one of its robotaxis.<\/p>\n An email, penned by newly minted president and CTO Mo Elshenawy, was sent this morning to the entire 3,800-person workforce. The email, which TechCrunch has viewed, began with a resigned tone: “We knew this day was coming, but that does not make it any less difficult\u2014especially for those whose jobs are affected,” Elshenawy wrote. Workers were expected to be informed within the hour of receiving the company wide email as to whether they would be losing their job.<\/p>\n GM, which acquired Cruise in 2016, was rewarded by shareholders for the cutbacks. GM shares rose 4.8% to $35.64 following the news.<\/p>\n Cruise is targeting non-engineering jobs in the layoffs, particularly those people who worked in the field, commercial operations and corporate staffing, according to the email. The company has also ended additional assignments of contingent workers who supported its driverless operations. Engineering, a category that makes up the bulk of the Cruise workforce, is largely being preserved, according to the content of the email and discussions with internal sources.<\/p>\n The email continued:<\/p>\n Today, we are making staff reductions that will affect 24% of full-time Cruisers, through no fault of their own. We are simplifying and focusing our efforts to return with an exceptional service in one city to start with and focusing on the Bolt platform for this first step before we scale. As a result, we are reducing our employee counts in operations and other areas. These impacts are largely outside of engineering, although some Tech positions are impacted also.<\/span><\/p><\/blockquote>\n Workers will remain on the payroll through February 12 and will be eligible for an additional eight weeks of pay, with long-term employees offered an additional two weeks\u2019 pay per every year at Cruise over three years, according to the email to staff. Anyone laid off will also receive their 2023 bonus (eligible target payout) on January 5, 2024. Other parts of the severance package include health benefits through the end of May, two months contribution into their 401(k) plan and continued time on payroll through March 24 for immigrants in lieu of a lump-sum severance payment to allow visa holders additional time to help transition and manage their immigration status.<\/p><\/div>\n The company also said that all employees, regardless of whether they were laid off, will receive their January 15th vesting through its employee share-selling program.<\/p>\n Cruise issued a statement confirming the layoffs.<\/span><\/p>\n \u201cWe shared the difficult news that we are reducing our workforce, primarily in commercial operations and related corporate functions,” the emailed statement reads. “These changes reflect our decision to focus on more deliberate commercialization plans with safety as our north star. We are supporting impacted Cruisers with strong severance and benefits packages and are grateful to the departing employees who played important roles in building Cruise and supporting our mission.\u201d<\/p>\n The layoffs come just a day after nine senior leaders (SLT) at Cruise, who worked in its commercial operations, legal and policy departments, were dismissed<\/a> by the company’s board. COO Gil West and David Estrada, who was head of government affairs, were among that group.<\/p>\n Elshenawy reiterated the company would be narrowing and refocusing its efforts, information shared last month following the resignation of co-founder and CEO Kyle Vogt<\/a> and some executive shuffling that included appointing Craig Glidden<\/a>, GM\u2019s EVP of legal and policy and a Cruise board member, as chief administrative officer at Cruise. Jon McNeill, a member of GM\u2019s board, was also named vice chairman of the Cruise board. McNeill, who joined the Cruise board recently and was previously chief operating officer at Lyft and president of Tesla, now serves alongside GM Chair and CEO Mary Barra.<\/p>\n Cruise executives said at the time they wanted to take a measured business approach that preserves cash and improves safety culture in an attempt to put GM\u2019s troubled autonomous vehicle subsidiary on the right path. The first steps in that rebuilding plan, which included pausing production on its Origin robotaxi, were laid out in an internal email sent to employees in late November by Elshenawy, who was executive vice president of engineering at Cruise and ascended into the president role after co-founder and CEO Vogt resigned.<\/p>\n Elshenawy repeated that intent in the Thursday morning email stating that the company was “simplifying and focusing our efforts to return with an exceptional service in one city to start with and focusing on the Bolt platform for this first step before we scale.”<\/p>\n Cruise used all-electric Chevy Bolt vehicles, which have been specifically manufactured to support its self-driving system, in its robotaxi fleet. The company intended to shift toward a custom-built autonomous vehicle called the Origin.<\/p>\n The layoffs have been largely expected at Cruise for weeks now. Last month. Barra reiterated plans for Cruise to be more \u201cdeliberate\u201d when operations eventually resume at the troubled self-driving vehicle subsidiary. For GM, that includes slashing spending<\/a> at Cruise \u201cby hundreds of millions of dollars\u201d in 2024, an action that most expected would result in widespread layoffs.<\/p>\n GM and the Cruise board have been scrambling ever since the October 2 incident put the company in the crosshairs of state, local and federal agencies. However, Cruise’s robotaxi operations in San Francisco had been criticized by the public and city officials almost immediately after the California Public Utilities Commission issued the company in August the final permit required to operate commercially. Videos of Cruise robotaxis blocking traffic and driving into a construction site were shared on social media. But it was a crash with an emergency response vehicle that began to chip away at the company’s seemingly impenetrable exterior.<\/p>\n This story is developing ….<\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" Cruise, the embattled GM self-driving car subsidiary, is laying off 900 employees, or about 24% of its workforce, TechCrunch has exclusively learned. The layoffs are part of a plan to slash costs and attempt to revamp the company following an October 2 incident that left a pedestrian stuck under and then dragged by one of […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":133574188,"featured_media":2623874,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"amp_status":"","relegenceEntities":[],"relegenceSubjects":[],"carmot_uuid":"c9dc435a-3a27-3851-b60a-442f351b53f2","footnotes":"","apple_news_api_created_at":"2023-12-14T15:50:05Z","apple_news_api_id":"10bed264-7c5a-4c1b-93fc-855eece11fd4","apple_news_api_modified_at":"2023-12-15T00:36:49Z","apple_news_api_revision":"AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAACA==","apple_news_api_share_url":"https:\/\/apple.news\/AEL7SZHxaTBuT_IVe7OEf1A","apple_news_coverimage":0,"apple_news_coverimage_caption":"","apple_news_is_hidden":false,"apple_news_is_paid":false,"apple_news_is_preview":false,"apple_news_is_sponsored":false,"apple_news_maturity_rating":"","apple_news_metadata":"\"\"","apple_news_pullquote":"","apple_news_pullquote_position":"","apple_news_slug":"","apple_news_sections":"\"\"","apple_news_suppress_video_url":false,"apple_news_use_image_component":false},"categories":[2401],"tags":[419944026,1452,22376,73527,26402,576654085],"crunchbase_tag":[],"tc_stories_tax":[],"tc_ec_category":[],"tc_event":[],"tc_regions_tax":[],"yoast_head":"\nCruise slashes 24% of self-driving car workforce in sweeping layoffs | TechCrunch<\/title>\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\t\n\t\n\t\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\t\n\t\n\t\n
An email, penned by newly minted president and CTO Mo Elshenawy, was sent this morning to the entire 3,800-person workforce. The email, which TechCrunch has viewed, began with a resigned tone: “We knew this day was coming, but that does not make it any less difficult\u2014especially for those whose jobs are affected,” Elshenawy wrote. Workers were expected to be informed within the hour of receiving the company wide email as to whether they would be losing their job.<\/p>\n
GM, which acquired Cruise in 2016, was rewarded by shareholders for the cutbacks. GM shares rose 4.8% to $35.64 following the news.<\/p>\n
Cruise is targeting non-engineering jobs in the layoffs, particularly those people who worked in the field, commercial operations and corporate staffing, according to the email. The company has also ended additional assignments of contingent workers who supported its driverless operations. Engineering, a category that makes up the bulk of the Cruise workforce, is largely being preserved, according to the content of the email and discussions with internal sources.<\/p>\n
The email continued:<\/p>\n Today, we are making staff reductions that will affect 24% of full-time Cruisers, through no fault of their own. We are simplifying and focusing our efforts to return with an exceptional service in one city to start with and focusing on the Bolt platform for this first step before we scale. As a result, we are reducing our employee counts in operations and other areas. These impacts are largely outside of engineering, although some Tech positions are impacted also.<\/span><\/p><\/blockquote>\n Workers will remain on the payroll through February 12 and will be eligible for an additional eight weeks of pay, with long-term employees offered an additional two weeks\u2019 pay per every year at Cruise over three years, according to the email to staff. Anyone laid off will also receive their 2023 bonus (eligible target payout) on January 5, 2024. Other parts of the severance package include health benefits through the end of May, two months contribution into their 401(k) plan and continued time on payroll through March 24 for immigrants in lieu of a lump-sum severance payment to allow visa holders additional time to help transition and manage their immigration status.<\/p><\/div>\n The company also said that all employees, regardless of whether they were laid off, will receive their January 15th vesting through its employee share-selling program.<\/p>\n Cruise issued a statement confirming the layoffs.<\/span><\/p>\n \u201cWe shared the difficult news that we are reducing our workforce, primarily in commercial operations and related corporate functions,” the emailed statement reads. “These changes reflect our decision to focus on more deliberate commercialization plans with safety as our north star. We are supporting impacted Cruisers with strong severance and benefits packages and are grateful to the departing employees who played important roles in building Cruise and supporting our mission.\u201d<\/p>\n The layoffs come just a day after nine senior leaders (SLT) at Cruise, who worked in its commercial operations, legal and policy departments, were dismissed<\/a> by the company’s board. COO Gil West and David Estrada, who was head of government affairs, were among that group.<\/p>\n Elshenawy reiterated the company would be narrowing and refocusing its efforts, information shared last month following the resignation of co-founder and CEO Kyle Vogt<\/a> and some executive shuffling that included appointing Craig Glidden<\/a>, GM\u2019s EVP of legal and policy and a Cruise board member, as chief administrative officer at Cruise. Jon McNeill, a member of GM\u2019s board, was also named vice chairman of the Cruise board. McNeill, who joined the Cruise board recently and was previously chief operating officer at Lyft and president of Tesla, now serves alongside GM Chair and CEO Mary Barra.<\/p>\n Cruise executives said at the time they wanted to take a measured business approach that preserves cash and improves safety culture in an attempt to put GM\u2019s troubled autonomous vehicle subsidiary on the right path. The first steps in that rebuilding plan, which included pausing production on its Origin robotaxi, were laid out in an internal email sent to employees in late November by Elshenawy, who was executive vice president of engineering at Cruise and ascended into the president role after co-founder and CEO Vogt resigned.<\/p>\n Elshenawy repeated that intent in the Thursday morning email stating that the company was “simplifying and focusing our efforts to return with an exceptional service in one city to start with and focusing on the Bolt platform for this first step before we scale.”<\/p>\n Cruise used all-electric Chevy Bolt vehicles, which have been specifically manufactured to support its self-driving system, in its robotaxi fleet. The company intended to shift toward a custom-built autonomous vehicle called the Origin.<\/p>\n The layoffs have been largely expected at Cruise for weeks now. Last month. Barra reiterated plans for Cruise to be more \u201cdeliberate\u201d when operations eventually resume at the troubled self-driving vehicle subsidiary. For GM, that includes slashing spending<\/a> at Cruise \u201cby hundreds of millions of dollars\u201d in 2024, an action that most expected would result in widespread layoffs.<\/p>\n GM and the Cruise board have been scrambling ever since the October 2 incident put the company in the crosshairs of state, local and federal agencies. However, Cruise’s robotaxi operations in San Francisco had been criticized by the public and city officials almost immediately after the California Public Utilities Commission issued the company in August the final permit required to operate commercially. Videos of Cruise robotaxis blocking traffic and driving into a construction site were shared on social media. But it was a crash with an emergency response vehicle that began to chip away at the company’s seemingly impenetrable exterior.<\/p>\n This story is developing ….<\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" Cruise, the embattled GM self-driving car subsidiary, is laying off 900 employees, or about 24% of its workforce, TechCrunch has exclusively learned. The layoffs are part of a plan to slash costs and attempt to revamp the company following an October 2 incident that left a pedestrian stuck under and then dragged by one of […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":133574188,"featured_media":2623874,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"amp_status":"","relegenceEntities":[],"relegenceSubjects":[],"carmot_uuid":"c9dc435a-3a27-3851-b60a-442f351b53f2","footnotes":"","apple_news_api_created_at":"2023-12-14T15:50:05Z","apple_news_api_id":"10bed264-7c5a-4c1b-93fc-855eece11fd4","apple_news_api_modified_at":"2023-12-15T00:36:49Z","apple_news_api_revision":"AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAACA==","apple_news_api_share_url":"https:\/\/apple.news\/AEL7SZHxaTBuT_IVe7OEf1A","apple_news_coverimage":0,"apple_news_coverimage_caption":"","apple_news_is_hidden":false,"apple_news_is_paid":false,"apple_news_is_preview":false,"apple_news_is_sponsored":false,"apple_news_maturity_rating":"","apple_news_metadata":"\"\"","apple_news_pullquote":"","apple_news_pullquote_position":"","apple_news_slug":"","apple_news_sections":"\"\"","apple_news_suppress_video_url":false,"apple_news_use_image_component":false},"categories":[2401],"tags":[419944026,1452,22376,73527,26402,576654085],"crunchbase_tag":[],"tc_stories_tax":[],"tc_ec_category":[],"tc_event":[],"tc_regions_tax":[],"yoast_head":"\nCruise slashes 24% of self-driving car workforce in sweeping layoffs | TechCrunch<\/title>\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\t\n\t\n\t\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\t\n\t\n\t\n
Today, we are making staff reductions that will affect 24% of full-time Cruisers, through no fault of their own. We are simplifying and focusing our efforts to return with an exceptional service in one city to start with and focusing on the Bolt platform for this first step before we scale. As a result, we are reducing our employee counts in operations and other areas. These impacts are largely outside of engineering, although some Tech positions are impacted also.<\/span><\/p><\/blockquote>\n Workers will remain on the payroll through February 12 and will be eligible for an additional eight weeks of pay, with long-term employees offered an additional two weeks\u2019 pay per every year at Cruise over three years, according to the email to staff. Anyone laid off will also receive their 2023 bonus (eligible target payout) on January 5, 2024. Other parts of the severance package include health benefits through the end of May, two months contribution into their 401(k) plan and continued time on payroll through March 24 for immigrants in lieu of a lump-sum severance payment to allow visa holders additional time to help transition and manage their immigration status.<\/p><\/div>\n The company also said that all employees, regardless of whether they were laid off, will receive their January 15th vesting through its employee share-selling program.<\/p>\n Cruise issued a statement confirming the layoffs.<\/span><\/p>\n \u201cWe shared the difficult news that we are reducing our workforce, primarily in commercial operations and related corporate functions,” the emailed statement reads. “These changes reflect our decision to focus on more deliberate commercialization plans with safety as our north star. We are supporting impacted Cruisers with strong severance and benefits packages and are grateful to the departing employees who played important roles in building Cruise and supporting our mission.\u201d<\/p>\n The layoffs come just a day after nine senior leaders (SLT) at Cruise, who worked in its commercial operations, legal and policy departments, were dismissed<\/a> by the company’s board. COO Gil West and David Estrada, who was head of government affairs, were among that group.<\/p>\n Elshenawy reiterated the company would be narrowing and refocusing its efforts, information shared last month following the resignation of co-founder and CEO Kyle Vogt<\/a> and some executive shuffling that included appointing Craig Glidden<\/a>, GM\u2019s EVP of legal and policy and a Cruise board member, as chief administrative officer at Cruise. Jon McNeill, a member of GM\u2019s board, was also named vice chairman of the Cruise board. McNeill, who joined the Cruise board recently and was previously chief operating officer at Lyft and president of Tesla, now serves alongside GM Chair and CEO Mary Barra.<\/p>\n Cruise executives said at the time they wanted to take a measured business approach that preserves cash and improves safety culture in an attempt to put GM\u2019s troubled autonomous vehicle subsidiary on the right path. The first steps in that rebuilding plan, which included pausing production on its Origin robotaxi, were laid out in an internal email sent to employees in late November by Elshenawy, who was executive vice president of engineering at Cruise and ascended into the president role after co-founder and CEO Vogt resigned.<\/p>\n Elshenawy repeated that intent in the Thursday morning email stating that the company was “simplifying and focusing our efforts to return with an exceptional service in one city to start with and focusing on the Bolt platform for this first step before we scale.”<\/p>\n Cruise used all-electric Chevy Bolt vehicles, which have been specifically manufactured to support its self-driving system, in its robotaxi fleet. The company intended to shift toward a custom-built autonomous vehicle called the Origin.<\/p>\n The layoffs have been largely expected at Cruise for weeks now. Last month. Barra reiterated plans for Cruise to be more \u201cdeliberate\u201d when operations eventually resume at the troubled self-driving vehicle subsidiary. For GM, that includes slashing spending<\/a> at Cruise \u201cby hundreds of millions of dollars\u201d in 2024, an action that most expected would result in widespread layoffs.<\/p>\n GM and the Cruise board have been scrambling ever since the October 2 incident put the company in the crosshairs of state, local and federal agencies. However, Cruise’s robotaxi operations in San Francisco had been criticized by the public and city officials almost immediately after the California Public Utilities Commission issued the company in August the final permit required to operate commercially. Videos of Cruise robotaxis blocking traffic and driving into a construction site were shared on social media. But it was a crash with an emergency response vehicle that began to chip away at the company’s seemingly impenetrable exterior.<\/p>\n This story is developing ….<\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" Cruise, the embattled GM self-driving car subsidiary, is laying off 900 employees, or about 24% of its workforce, TechCrunch has exclusively learned. The layoffs are part of a plan to slash costs and attempt to revamp the company following an October 2 incident that left a pedestrian stuck under and then dragged by one of […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":133574188,"featured_media":2623874,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"amp_status":"","relegenceEntities":[],"relegenceSubjects":[],"carmot_uuid":"c9dc435a-3a27-3851-b60a-442f351b53f2","footnotes":"","apple_news_api_created_at":"2023-12-14T15:50:05Z","apple_news_api_id":"10bed264-7c5a-4c1b-93fc-855eece11fd4","apple_news_api_modified_at":"2023-12-15T00:36:49Z","apple_news_api_revision":"AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAACA==","apple_news_api_share_url":"https:\/\/apple.news\/AEL7SZHxaTBuT_IVe7OEf1A","apple_news_coverimage":0,"apple_news_coverimage_caption":"","apple_news_is_hidden":false,"apple_news_is_paid":false,"apple_news_is_preview":false,"apple_news_is_sponsored":false,"apple_news_maturity_rating":"","apple_news_metadata":"\"\"","apple_news_pullquote":"","apple_news_pullquote_position":"","apple_news_slug":"","apple_news_sections":"\"\"","apple_news_suppress_video_url":false,"apple_news_use_image_component":false},"categories":[2401],"tags":[419944026,1452,22376,73527,26402,576654085],"crunchbase_tag":[],"tc_stories_tax":[],"tc_ec_category":[],"tc_event":[],"tc_regions_tax":[],"yoast_head":"\nCruise slashes 24% of self-driving car workforce in sweeping layoffs | TechCrunch<\/title>\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\t\n\t\n\t\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\t\n\t\n\t\n
Workers will remain on the payroll through February 12 and will be eligible for an additional eight weeks of pay, with long-term employees offered an additional two weeks\u2019 pay per every year at Cruise over three years, according to the email to staff. Anyone laid off will also receive their 2023 bonus (eligible target payout) on January 5, 2024. Other parts of the severance package include health benefits through the end of May, two months contribution into their 401(k) plan and continued time on payroll through March 24 for immigrants in lieu of a lump-sum severance payment to allow visa holders additional time to help transition and manage their immigration status.<\/p><\/div>\n The company also said that all employees, regardless of whether they were laid off, will receive their January 15th vesting through its employee share-selling program.<\/p>\n Cruise issued a statement confirming the layoffs.<\/span><\/p>\n \u201cWe shared the difficult news that we are reducing our workforce, primarily in commercial operations and related corporate functions,” the emailed statement reads. “These changes reflect our decision to focus on more deliberate commercialization plans with safety as our north star. We are supporting impacted Cruisers with strong severance and benefits packages and are grateful to the departing employees who played important roles in building Cruise and supporting our mission.\u201d<\/p>\n The layoffs come just a day after nine senior leaders (SLT) at Cruise, who worked in its commercial operations, legal and policy departments, were dismissed<\/a> by the company’s board. COO Gil West and David Estrada, who was head of government affairs, were among that group.<\/p>\n Elshenawy reiterated the company would be narrowing and refocusing its efforts, information shared last month following the resignation of co-founder and CEO Kyle Vogt<\/a> and some executive shuffling that included appointing Craig Glidden<\/a>, GM\u2019s EVP of legal and policy and a Cruise board member, as chief administrative officer at Cruise. Jon McNeill, a member of GM\u2019s board, was also named vice chairman of the Cruise board. McNeill, who joined the Cruise board recently and was previously chief operating officer at Lyft and president of Tesla, now serves alongside GM Chair and CEO Mary Barra.<\/p>\n Cruise executives said at the time they wanted to take a measured business approach that preserves cash and improves safety culture in an attempt to put GM\u2019s troubled autonomous vehicle subsidiary on the right path. The first steps in that rebuilding plan, which included pausing production on its Origin robotaxi, were laid out in an internal email sent to employees in late November by Elshenawy, who was executive vice president of engineering at Cruise and ascended into the president role after co-founder and CEO Vogt resigned.<\/p>\n Elshenawy repeated that intent in the Thursday morning email stating that the company was “simplifying and focusing our efforts to return with an exceptional service in one city to start with and focusing on the Bolt platform for this first step before we scale.”<\/p>\n Cruise used all-electric Chevy Bolt vehicles, which have been specifically manufactured to support its self-driving system, in its robotaxi fleet. The company intended to shift toward a custom-built autonomous vehicle called the Origin.<\/p>\n The layoffs have been largely expected at Cruise for weeks now. Last month. Barra reiterated plans for Cruise to be more \u201cdeliberate\u201d when operations eventually resume at the troubled self-driving vehicle subsidiary. For GM, that includes slashing spending<\/a> at Cruise \u201cby hundreds of millions of dollars\u201d in 2024, an action that most expected would result in widespread layoffs.<\/p>\n GM and the Cruise board have been scrambling ever since the October 2 incident put the company in the crosshairs of state, local and federal agencies. However, Cruise’s robotaxi operations in San Francisco had been criticized by the public and city officials almost immediately after the California Public Utilities Commission issued the company in August the final permit required to operate commercially. Videos of Cruise robotaxis blocking traffic and driving into a construction site were shared on social media. But it was a crash with an emergency response vehicle that began to chip away at the company’s seemingly impenetrable exterior.<\/p>\n This story is developing ….<\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" Cruise, the embattled GM self-driving car subsidiary, is laying off 900 employees, or about 24% of its workforce, TechCrunch has exclusively learned. The layoffs are part of a plan to slash costs and attempt to revamp the company following an October 2 incident that left a pedestrian stuck under and then dragged by one of […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":133574188,"featured_media":2623874,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"amp_status":"","relegenceEntities":[],"relegenceSubjects":[],"carmot_uuid":"c9dc435a-3a27-3851-b60a-442f351b53f2","footnotes":"","apple_news_api_created_at":"2023-12-14T15:50:05Z","apple_news_api_id":"10bed264-7c5a-4c1b-93fc-855eece11fd4","apple_news_api_modified_at":"2023-12-15T00:36:49Z","apple_news_api_revision":"AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAACA==","apple_news_api_share_url":"https:\/\/apple.news\/AEL7SZHxaTBuT_IVe7OEf1A","apple_news_coverimage":0,"apple_news_coverimage_caption":"","apple_news_is_hidden":false,"apple_news_is_paid":false,"apple_news_is_preview":false,"apple_news_is_sponsored":false,"apple_news_maturity_rating":"","apple_news_metadata":"\"\"","apple_news_pullquote":"","apple_news_pullquote_position":"","apple_news_slug":"","apple_news_sections":"\"\"","apple_news_suppress_video_url":false,"apple_news_use_image_component":false},"categories":[2401],"tags":[419944026,1452,22376,73527,26402,576654085],"crunchbase_tag":[],"tc_stories_tax":[],"tc_ec_category":[],"tc_event":[],"tc_regions_tax":[],"yoast_head":"\nCruise slashes 24% of self-driving car workforce in sweeping layoffs | TechCrunch<\/title>\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\t\n\t\n\t\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\t\n\t\n\t\n
The company also said that all employees, regardless of whether they were laid off, will receive their January 15th vesting through its employee share-selling program.<\/p>\n
Cruise issued a statement confirming the layoffs.<\/span><\/p>\n \u201cWe shared the difficult news that we are reducing our workforce, primarily in commercial operations and related corporate functions,” the emailed statement reads. “These changes reflect our decision to focus on more deliberate commercialization plans with safety as our north star. We are supporting impacted Cruisers with strong severance and benefits packages and are grateful to the departing employees who played important roles in building Cruise and supporting our mission.\u201d<\/p>\n The layoffs come just a day after nine senior leaders (SLT) at Cruise, who worked in its commercial operations, legal and policy departments, were dismissed<\/a> by the company’s board. COO Gil West and David Estrada, who was head of government affairs, were among that group.<\/p>\n Elshenawy reiterated the company would be narrowing and refocusing its efforts, information shared last month following the resignation of co-founder and CEO Kyle Vogt<\/a> and some executive shuffling that included appointing Craig Glidden<\/a>, GM\u2019s EVP of legal and policy and a Cruise board member, as chief administrative officer at Cruise. Jon McNeill, a member of GM\u2019s board, was also named vice chairman of the Cruise board. McNeill, who joined the Cruise board recently and was previously chief operating officer at Lyft and president of Tesla, now serves alongside GM Chair and CEO Mary Barra.<\/p>\n Cruise executives said at the time they wanted to take a measured business approach that preserves cash and improves safety culture in an attempt to put GM\u2019s troubled autonomous vehicle subsidiary on the right path. The first steps in that rebuilding plan, which included pausing production on its Origin robotaxi, were laid out in an internal email sent to employees in late November by Elshenawy, who was executive vice president of engineering at Cruise and ascended into the president role after co-founder and CEO Vogt resigned.<\/p>\n Elshenawy repeated that intent in the Thursday morning email stating that the company was “simplifying and focusing our efforts to return with an exceptional service in one city to start with and focusing on the Bolt platform for this first step before we scale.”<\/p>\n Cruise used all-electric Chevy Bolt vehicles, which have been specifically manufactured to support its self-driving system, in its robotaxi fleet. The company intended to shift toward a custom-built autonomous vehicle called the Origin.<\/p>\n The layoffs have been largely expected at Cruise for weeks now. Last month. Barra reiterated plans for Cruise to be more \u201cdeliberate\u201d when operations eventually resume at the troubled self-driving vehicle subsidiary. For GM, that includes slashing spending<\/a> at Cruise \u201cby hundreds of millions of dollars\u201d in 2024, an action that most expected would result in widespread layoffs.<\/p>\n GM and the Cruise board have been scrambling ever since the October 2 incident put the company in the crosshairs of state, local and federal agencies. However, Cruise’s robotaxi operations in San Francisco had been criticized by the public and city officials almost immediately after the California Public Utilities Commission issued the company in August the final permit required to operate commercially. Videos of Cruise robotaxis blocking traffic and driving into a construction site were shared on social media. But it was a crash with an emergency response vehicle that began to chip away at the company’s seemingly impenetrable exterior.<\/p>\n This story is developing ….<\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" Cruise, the embattled GM self-driving car subsidiary, is laying off 900 employees, or about 24% of its workforce, TechCrunch has exclusively learned. The layoffs are part of a plan to slash costs and attempt to revamp the company following an October 2 incident that left a pedestrian stuck under and then dragged by one of […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":133574188,"featured_media":2623874,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"amp_status":"","relegenceEntities":[],"relegenceSubjects":[],"carmot_uuid":"c9dc435a-3a27-3851-b60a-442f351b53f2","footnotes":"","apple_news_api_created_at":"2023-12-14T15:50:05Z","apple_news_api_id":"10bed264-7c5a-4c1b-93fc-855eece11fd4","apple_news_api_modified_at":"2023-12-15T00:36:49Z","apple_news_api_revision":"AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAACA==","apple_news_api_share_url":"https:\/\/apple.news\/AEL7SZHxaTBuT_IVe7OEf1A","apple_news_coverimage":0,"apple_news_coverimage_caption":"","apple_news_is_hidden":false,"apple_news_is_paid":false,"apple_news_is_preview":false,"apple_news_is_sponsored":false,"apple_news_maturity_rating":"","apple_news_metadata":"\"\"","apple_news_pullquote":"","apple_news_pullquote_position":"","apple_news_slug":"","apple_news_sections":"\"\"","apple_news_suppress_video_url":false,"apple_news_use_image_component":false},"categories":[2401],"tags":[419944026,1452,22376,73527,26402,576654085],"crunchbase_tag":[],"tc_stories_tax":[],"tc_ec_category":[],"tc_event":[],"tc_regions_tax":[],"yoast_head":"\nCruise slashes 24% of self-driving car workforce in sweeping layoffs | TechCrunch<\/title>\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\t\n\t\n\t\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\t\n\t\n\t\n
\u201cWe shared the difficult news that we are reducing our workforce, primarily in commercial operations and related corporate functions,” the emailed statement reads. “These changes reflect our decision to focus on more deliberate commercialization plans with safety as our north star. We are supporting impacted Cruisers with strong severance and benefits packages and are grateful to the departing employees who played important roles in building Cruise and supporting our mission.\u201d<\/p>\n
The layoffs come just a day after nine senior leaders (SLT) at Cruise, who worked in its commercial operations, legal and policy departments, were dismissed<\/a> by the company’s board. COO Gil West and David Estrada, who was head of government affairs, were among that group.<\/p>\n Elshenawy reiterated the company would be narrowing and refocusing its efforts, information shared last month following the resignation of co-founder and CEO Kyle Vogt<\/a> and some executive shuffling that included appointing Craig Glidden<\/a>, GM\u2019s EVP of legal and policy and a Cruise board member, as chief administrative officer at Cruise. Jon McNeill, a member of GM\u2019s board, was also named vice chairman of the Cruise board. McNeill, who joined the Cruise board recently and was previously chief operating officer at Lyft and president of Tesla, now serves alongside GM Chair and CEO Mary Barra.<\/p>\n Cruise executives said at the time they wanted to take a measured business approach that preserves cash and improves safety culture in an attempt to put GM\u2019s troubled autonomous vehicle subsidiary on the right path. The first steps in that rebuilding plan, which included pausing production on its Origin robotaxi, were laid out in an internal email sent to employees in late November by Elshenawy, who was executive vice president of engineering at Cruise and ascended into the president role after co-founder and CEO Vogt resigned.<\/p>\n Elshenawy repeated that intent in the Thursday morning email stating that the company was “simplifying and focusing our efforts to return with an exceptional service in one city to start with and focusing on the Bolt platform for this first step before we scale.”<\/p>\n Cruise used all-electric Chevy Bolt vehicles, which have been specifically manufactured to support its self-driving system, in its robotaxi fleet. The company intended to shift toward a custom-built autonomous vehicle called the Origin.<\/p>\n The layoffs have been largely expected at Cruise for weeks now. Last month. Barra reiterated plans for Cruise to be more \u201cdeliberate\u201d when operations eventually resume at the troubled self-driving vehicle subsidiary. For GM, that includes slashing spending<\/a> at Cruise \u201cby hundreds of millions of dollars\u201d in 2024, an action that most expected would result in widespread layoffs.<\/p>\n GM and the Cruise board have been scrambling ever since the October 2 incident put the company in the crosshairs of state, local and federal agencies. However, Cruise’s robotaxi operations in San Francisco had been criticized by the public and city officials almost immediately after the California Public Utilities Commission issued the company in August the final permit required to operate commercially. Videos of Cruise robotaxis blocking traffic and driving into a construction site were shared on social media. But it was a crash with an emergency response vehicle that began to chip away at the company’s seemingly impenetrable exterior.<\/p>\n This story is developing ….<\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" Cruise, the embattled GM self-driving car subsidiary, is laying off 900 employees, or about 24% of its workforce, TechCrunch has exclusively learned. The layoffs are part of a plan to slash costs and attempt to revamp the company following an October 2 incident that left a pedestrian stuck under and then dragged by one of […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":133574188,"featured_media":2623874,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"amp_status":"","relegenceEntities":[],"relegenceSubjects":[],"carmot_uuid":"c9dc435a-3a27-3851-b60a-442f351b53f2","footnotes":"","apple_news_api_created_at":"2023-12-14T15:50:05Z","apple_news_api_id":"10bed264-7c5a-4c1b-93fc-855eece11fd4","apple_news_api_modified_at":"2023-12-15T00:36:49Z","apple_news_api_revision":"AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAACA==","apple_news_api_share_url":"https:\/\/apple.news\/AEL7SZHxaTBuT_IVe7OEf1A","apple_news_coverimage":0,"apple_news_coverimage_caption":"","apple_news_is_hidden":false,"apple_news_is_paid":false,"apple_news_is_preview":false,"apple_news_is_sponsored":false,"apple_news_maturity_rating":"","apple_news_metadata":"\"\"","apple_news_pullquote":"","apple_news_pullquote_position":"","apple_news_slug":"","apple_news_sections":"\"\"","apple_news_suppress_video_url":false,"apple_news_use_image_component":false},"categories":[2401],"tags":[419944026,1452,22376,73527,26402,576654085],"crunchbase_tag":[],"tc_stories_tax":[],"tc_ec_category":[],"tc_event":[],"tc_regions_tax":[],"yoast_head":"\nCruise slashes 24% of self-driving car workforce in sweeping layoffs | TechCrunch<\/title>\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\t\n\t\n\t\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\t\n\t\n\t\n
Elshenawy reiterated the company would be narrowing and refocusing its efforts, information shared last month following the resignation of co-founder and CEO Kyle Vogt<\/a> and some executive shuffling that included appointing Craig Glidden<\/a>, GM\u2019s EVP of legal and policy and a Cruise board member, as chief administrative officer at Cruise. Jon McNeill, a member of GM\u2019s board, was also named vice chairman of the Cruise board. McNeill, who joined the Cruise board recently and was previously chief operating officer at Lyft and president of Tesla, now serves alongside GM Chair and CEO Mary Barra.<\/p>\n Cruise executives said at the time they wanted to take a measured business approach that preserves cash and improves safety culture in an attempt to put GM\u2019s troubled autonomous vehicle subsidiary on the right path. The first steps in that rebuilding plan, which included pausing production on its Origin robotaxi, were laid out in an internal email sent to employees in late November by Elshenawy, who was executive vice president of engineering at Cruise and ascended into the president role after co-founder and CEO Vogt resigned.<\/p>\n Elshenawy repeated that intent in the Thursday morning email stating that the company was “simplifying and focusing our efforts to return with an exceptional service in one city to start with and focusing on the Bolt platform for this first step before we scale.”<\/p>\n Cruise used all-electric Chevy Bolt vehicles, which have been specifically manufactured to support its self-driving system, in its robotaxi fleet. The company intended to shift toward a custom-built autonomous vehicle called the Origin.<\/p>\n The layoffs have been largely expected at Cruise for weeks now. Last month. Barra reiterated plans for Cruise to be more \u201cdeliberate\u201d when operations eventually resume at the troubled self-driving vehicle subsidiary. For GM, that includes slashing spending<\/a> at Cruise \u201cby hundreds of millions of dollars\u201d in 2024, an action that most expected would result in widespread layoffs.<\/p>\n GM and the Cruise board have been scrambling ever since the October 2 incident put the company in the crosshairs of state, local and federal agencies. However, Cruise’s robotaxi operations in San Francisco had been criticized by the public and city officials almost immediately after the California Public Utilities Commission issued the company in August the final permit required to operate commercially. Videos of Cruise robotaxis blocking traffic and driving into a construction site were shared on social media. But it was a crash with an emergency response vehicle that began to chip away at the company’s seemingly impenetrable exterior.<\/p>\n This story is developing ….<\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" Cruise, the embattled GM self-driving car subsidiary, is laying off 900 employees, or about 24% of its workforce, TechCrunch has exclusively learned. The layoffs are part of a plan to slash costs and attempt to revamp the company following an October 2 incident that left a pedestrian stuck under and then dragged by one of […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":133574188,"featured_media":2623874,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"amp_status":"","relegenceEntities":[],"relegenceSubjects":[],"carmot_uuid":"c9dc435a-3a27-3851-b60a-442f351b53f2","footnotes":"","apple_news_api_created_at":"2023-12-14T15:50:05Z","apple_news_api_id":"10bed264-7c5a-4c1b-93fc-855eece11fd4","apple_news_api_modified_at":"2023-12-15T00:36:49Z","apple_news_api_revision":"AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAACA==","apple_news_api_share_url":"https:\/\/apple.news\/AEL7SZHxaTBuT_IVe7OEf1A","apple_news_coverimage":0,"apple_news_coverimage_caption":"","apple_news_is_hidden":false,"apple_news_is_paid":false,"apple_news_is_preview":false,"apple_news_is_sponsored":false,"apple_news_maturity_rating":"","apple_news_metadata":"\"\"","apple_news_pullquote":"","apple_news_pullquote_position":"","apple_news_slug":"","apple_news_sections":"\"\"","apple_news_suppress_video_url":false,"apple_news_use_image_component":false},"categories":[2401],"tags":[419944026,1452,22376,73527,26402,576654085],"crunchbase_tag":[],"tc_stories_tax":[],"tc_ec_category":[],"tc_event":[],"tc_regions_tax":[],"yoast_head":"\nCruise slashes 24% of self-driving car workforce in sweeping layoffs | TechCrunch<\/title>\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\t\n\t\n\t\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\t\n\t\n\t\n
Cruise executives said at the time they wanted to take a measured business approach that preserves cash and improves safety culture in an attempt to put GM\u2019s troubled autonomous vehicle subsidiary on the right path. The first steps in that rebuilding plan, which included pausing production on its Origin robotaxi, were laid out in an internal email sent to employees in late November by Elshenawy, who was executive vice president of engineering at Cruise and ascended into the president role after co-founder and CEO Vogt resigned.<\/p>\n
Elshenawy repeated that intent in the Thursday morning email stating that the company was “simplifying and focusing our efforts to return with an exceptional service in one city to start with and focusing on the Bolt platform for this first step before we scale.”<\/p>\n
Cruise used all-electric Chevy Bolt vehicles, which have been specifically manufactured to support its self-driving system, in its robotaxi fleet. The company intended to shift toward a custom-built autonomous vehicle called the Origin.<\/p>\n
The layoffs have been largely expected at Cruise for weeks now. Last month. Barra reiterated plans for Cruise to be more \u201cdeliberate\u201d when operations eventually resume at the troubled self-driving vehicle subsidiary. For GM, that includes slashing spending<\/a> at Cruise \u201cby hundreds of millions of dollars\u201d in 2024, an action that most expected would result in widespread layoffs.<\/p>\n GM and the Cruise board have been scrambling ever since the October 2 incident put the company in the crosshairs of state, local and federal agencies. However, Cruise’s robotaxi operations in San Francisco had been criticized by the public and city officials almost immediately after the California Public Utilities Commission issued the company in August the final permit required to operate commercially. Videos of Cruise robotaxis blocking traffic and driving into a construction site were shared on social media. But it was a crash with an emergency response vehicle that began to chip away at the company’s seemingly impenetrable exterior.<\/p>\n This story is developing ….<\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" Cruise, the embattled GM self-driving car subsidiary, is laying off 900 employees, or about 24% of its workforce, TechCrunch has exclusively learned. The layoffs are part of a plan to slash costs and attempt to revamp the company following an October 2 incident that left a pedestrian stuck under and then dragged by one of […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":133574188,"featured_media":2623874,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"amp_status":"","relegenceEntities":[],"relegenceSubjects":[],"carmot_uuid":"c9dc435a-3a27-3851-b60a-442f351b53f2","footnotes":"","apple_news_api_created_at":"2023-12-14T15:50:05Z","apple_news_api_id":"10bed264-7c5a-4c1b-93fc-855eece11fd4","apple_news_api_modified_at":"2023-12-15T00:36:49Z","apple_news_api_revision":"AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAACA==","apple_news_api_share_url":"https:\/\/apple.news\/AEL7SZHxaTBuT_IVe7OEf1A","apple_news_coverimage":0,"apple_news_coverimage_caption":"","apple_news_is_hidden":false,"apple_news_is_paid":false,"apple_news_is_preview":false,"apple_news_is_sponsored":false,"apple_news_maturity_rating":"","apple_news_metadata":"\"\"","apple_news_pullquote":"","apple_news_pullquote_position":"","apple_news_slug":"","apple_news_sections":"\"\"","apple_news_suppress_video_url":false,"apple_news_use_image_component":false},"categories":[2401],"tags":[419944026,1452,22376,73527,26402,576654085],"crunchbase_tag":[],"tc_stories_tax":[],"tc_ec_category":[],"tc_event":[],"tc_regions_tax":[],"yoast_head":"\nCruise slashes 24% of self-driving car workforce in sweeping layoffs | TechCrunch<\/title>\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\t\n\t\n\t\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\t\n\t\n\t\n
GM and the Cruise board have been scrambling ever since the October 2 incident put the company in the crosshairs of state, local and federal agencies. However, Cruise’s robotaxi operations in San Francisco had been criticized by the public and city officials almost immediately after the California Public Utilities Commission issued the company in August the final permit required to operate commercially. Videos of Cruise robotaxis blocking traffic and driving into a construction site were shared on social media. But it was a crash with an emergency response vehicle that began to chip away at the company’s seemingly impenetrable exterior.<\/p>\n
This story is developing ….<\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" Cruise, the embattled GM self-driving car subsidiary, is laying off 900 employees, or about 24% of its workforce, TechCrunch has exclusively learned. The layoffs are part of a plan to slash costs and attempt to revamp the company following an October 2 incident that left a pedestrian stuck under and then dragged by one of […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":133574188,"featured_media":2623874,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"amp_status":"","relegenceEntities":[],"relegenceSubjects":[],"carmot_uuid":"c9dc435a-3a27-3851-b60a-442f351b53f2","footnotes":"","apple_news_api_created_at":"2023-12-14T15:50:05Z","apple_news_api_id":"10bed264-7c5a-4c1b-93fc-855eece11fd4","apple_news_api_modified_at":"2023-12-15T00:36:49Z","apple_news_api_revision":"AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAACA==","apple_news_api_share_url":"https:\/\/apple.news\/AEL7SZHxaTBuT_IVe7OEf1A","apple_news_coverimage":0,"apple_news_coverimage_caption":"","apple_news_is_hidden":false,"apple_news_is_paid":false,"apple_news_is_preview":false,"apple_news_is_sponsored":false,"apple_news_maturity_rating":"","apple_news_metadata":"\"\"","apple_news_pullquote":"","apple_news_pullquote_position":"","apple_news_slug":"","apple_news_sections":"\"\"","apple_news_suppress_video_url":false,"apple_news_use_image_component":false},"categories":[2401],"tags":[419944026,1452,22376,73527,26402,576654085],"crunchbase_tag":[],"tc_stories_tax":[],"tc_ec_category":[],"tc_event":[],"tc_regions_tax":[],"yoast_head":"\nCruise slashes 24% of self-driving car workforce in sweeping layoffs | TechCrunch<\/title>\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\t\n\t\n\t\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\t\n\t\n\t\n
Cruise, the embattled GM self-driving car subsidiary, is laying off 900 employees, or about 24% of its workforce, TechCrunch has exclusively learned. The layoffs are part of a plan to slash costs and attempt to revamp the company following an October 2 incident that left a pedestrian stuck under and then dragged by one of […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":133574188,"featured_media":2623874,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"amp_status":"","relegenceEntities":[],"relegenceSubjects":[],"carmot_uuid":"c9dc435a-3a27-3851-b60a-442f351b53f2","footnotes":"","apple_news_api_created_at":"2023-12-14T15:50:05Z","apple_news_api_id":"10bed264-7c5a-4c1b-93fc-855eece11fd4","apple_news_api_modified_at":"2023-12-15T00:36:49Z","apple_news_api_revision":"AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAACA==","apple_news_api_share_url":"https:\/\/apple.news\/AEL7SZHxaTBuT_IVe7OEf1A","apple_news_coverimage":0,"apple_news_coverimage_caption":"","apple_news_is_hidden":false,"apple_news_is_paid":false,"apple_news_is_preview":false,"apple_news_is_sponsored":false,"apple_news_maturity_rating":"","apple_news_metadata":"\"\"","apple_news_pullquote":"","apple_news_pullquote_position":"","apple_news_slug":"","apple_news_sections":"\"\"","apple_news_suppress_video_url":false,"apple_news_use_image_component":false},"categories":[2401],"tags":[419944026,1452,22376,73527,26402,576654085],"crunchbase_tag":[],"tc_stories_tax":[],"tc_ec_category":[],"tc_event":[],"tc_regions_tax":[],"yoast_head":"\nCruise slashes 24% of self-driving car workforce in sweeping layoffs | TechCrunch<\/title>\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\t\n\t\n\t\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\t\n\t\n\t\n
SAN FRANCISCO, CALIFORNIA – JUNE 08: In an aerial view, Chevrolet Cruise autonomous vehicles sit parked in a staging area on June 08, 2023 in San Francisco, California. Autonomous vehicle companies Cruise and Waymo have been testing their vehicles throughout San Francisco and residents are not happy with the problems that the cars are bringing […]<\/p>\n"},"alt_text":"SAN FRANCISCO, CALIFORNIA - JUNE 08: In an aerial view, Chevrolet Cruise autonomous vehicles sit parked in a staging area on June 08, 2023 in San Francisco, California. Autonomous vehicle companies Cruise and Waymo have been testing their vehicles throughout San Francisco and residents are not happy with the problems that the cars are bringing to the city. The cars frequently stop in the middle of roads for no reason, have driven through police crime tape and most recently struck and killed a dog. (Photo by Justin Sullivan\/Getty Images)","media_type":"image","mime_type":"image\/jpeg","media_details":{"width":1822,"height":1125,"file":"2023\/11\/GettyImages-1497020096.jpg","filesize":650039,"sizes":{"thumbnail":{"file":"GettyImages-1497020096.jpg?resize=150,93","width":150,"height":93,"filesize":650039,"mime_type":"image\/jpeg","source_url":"https:\/\/techcrunch.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2023\/11\/GettyImages-1497020096.jpg?w=150"},"medium":{"file":"GettyImages-1497020096.jpg?resize=300,185","width":300,"height":185,"filesize":650039,"mime_type":"image\/jpeg","source_url":"https:\/\/techcrunch.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2023\/11\/GettyImages-1497020096.jpg?w=300"},"medium_large":{"file":"GettyImages-1497020096.jpg?resize=768,474","width":768,"height":474,"filesize":650039,"mime_type":"image\/jpeg","source_url":"https:\/\/techcrunch.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2023\/11\/GettyImages-1497020096.jpg?w=1024"},"large":{"file":"GettyImages-1497020096.jpg?resize=680,420","width":680,"height":420,"filesize":650039,"mime_type":"image\/jpeg","source_url":"https:\/\/techcrunch.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2023\/11\/GettyImages-1497020096.jpg?w=680"},"1536x1536":{"file":"GettyImages-1497020096.jpg?resize=1536,948","width":1536,"height":948,"filesize":650039,"mime_type":"image\/jpeg","source_url":"https:\/\/techcrunch.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2023\/11\/GettyImages-1497020096.jpg?w=1536"},"tc-social-image":{"file":"GettyImages-1497020096.jpg?resize=1200,741","width":1200,"height":741,"filesize":650039,"mime_type":"image\/jpeg","source_url":"https:\/\/techcrunch.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2023\/11\/GettyImages-1497020096.jpg?w=1200"},"guest-author-32":{"file":"GettyImages-1497020096.jpg?resize=32,32","width":32,"height":32,"filesize":650039,"mime_type":"image\/jpeg","source_url":"https:\/\/techcrunch.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2023\/11\/GettyImages-1497020096.jpg?w=32&h=32&crop=1"},"guest-author-50":{"file":"GettyImages-1497020096.jpg?resize=50,50","width":50,"height":50,"filesize":650039,"mime_type":"image\/jpeg","source_url":"https:\/\/techcrunch.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2023\/11\/GettyImages-1497020096.jpg?w=50&h=50&crop=1"},"guest-author-64":{"file":"GettyImages-1497020096.jpg?resize=64,64","width":64,"height":64,"filesize":650039,"mime_type":"image\/jpeg","source_url":"https:\/\/techcrunch.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2023\/11\/GettyImages-1497020096.jpg?w=64&h=64&crop=1"},"guest-author-96":{"file":"GettyImages-1497020096.jpg?resize=96,96","width":96,"height":96,"filesize":650039,"mime_type":"image\/jpeg","source_url":"https:\/\/techcrunch.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2023\/11\/GettyImages-1497020096.jpg?w=96&h=96&crop=1"},"guest-author-128":{"file":"GettyImages-1497020096.jpg?resize=128,128","width":128,"height":128,"filesize":650039,"mime_type":"image\/jpeg","source_url":"https:\/\/techcrunch.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2023\/11\/GettyImages-1497020096.jpg?w=128&h=128&crop=1"},"concierge-thumb":{"file":"GettyImages-1497020096.jpg?resize=50,31","width":50,"height":31,"filesize":650039,"mime_type":"image\/jpeg","source_url":"https:\/\/techcrunch.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2023\/11\/GettyImages-1497020096.jpg?w=50"},"full":{"file":"GettyImages-1497020096.jpg","width":1024,"height":632,"mime_type":"image\/jpeg","source_url":"https:\/\/techcrunch.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2023\/11\/GettyImages-1497020096.jpg"}},"image_meta":{"aperture":"0","credit":"Getty Images","camera":"","caption":"SAN FRANCISCO, CALIFORNIA - JUNE 08: In an aerial view, Chevrolet Cruise autonomous vehicles sit parked in a staging area on June 08, 2023 in San Francisco, California. Autonomous vehicle companies Cruise and Waymo have been testing their vehicles throughout San Francisco and residents are not happy with the problems that the cars are bringing to the city. The cars frequently stop in the middle of roads for no reason, have driven through police crime tape and most recently struck and killed a dog. (Photo by Justin Sullivan\/Getty Images)","created_timestamp":"1686182400","copyright":"2023 Getty Images","focal_length":"0","iso":"0","shutter_speed":"0","title":"Self-Driving Cars, Now Common In San Francisco, Bring Backlash From Residents","orientation":"1","keywords":[]}},"source_url":"https:\/\/techcrunch.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2023\/11\/GettyImages-1497020096.jpg","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/techcrunch.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/2623874"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/techcrunch.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/techcrunch.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/attachment"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/techcrunch.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=2623874"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/techcrunch.com\/wp-json\/tc\/v1\/users\/24893112"}]}}],"wp:term":[[{"id":2401,"description":"Transportation news includes all the present and future ways people and packages get from Point A to Point B. Coverage includes scooters and e-bikes to autonomous vehicles, EVs, transit, and evTOLs. We cover auto tech players big and small, from Tesla, GM, Uber, and Lyft, to small startups entering the automotive tech space.","link":"https:\/\/techcrunch.com\/category\/transportation\/","name":"Transportation","slug":"transportation","taxonomy":"category","parent":0,"yoast_head":"\nTransportation & Auto News | TechCrunch<\/title>\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\t\n\t\n\t\n\n\n
Sandy Sholl and Adam Freede are no strangers to the world of fashion. They\u2019ve been at the helm of MadaLuxe Group, a luxury distribution platform for fashion and accessories, since 1990.<\/p>\n
Now they\u2019re adding AI-powered virtual try-on and styling technology to the list. Today, the pair launched Zelig, offering personalized technology that will eventually enable consumers to upload a photo to visualize how clothes, shoes and accessories look on their body type as they shop online. At launch, consumers can choose between more than 40 models of diverse body types, skin tones and hair colors.<\/p>\n
The technology uses a combination of artificial intelligence, machine learning and computer vision to do this. Zelig users can create different outfit combinations and then save them to their profile and even share them before purchasing complete looks.<\/p>\n
The concept of virtual try-on is not new. Large enterprises, like Walmart<\/a>, Google<\/a> and Amazon<\/a>, have invested in some kind of try-on technology. There are also a number of venture-backed startups in this sector, including Dia & Co.<\/a>, AIMIRR<\/a> and Revery.ai<\/a>, showing us how certain clothes might fit, while also attempting to reduce the number of returns.<\/p>\n\n Want to know how a dress looks on you? AIMIRR has your back \u2026 and front<\/a><\/p><\/blockquote>\n <\/iframe><\/div>\n Sholl told TechCrunch that Zelig is the first to offer this kind of \u201chyper-personalized online shopping experience\u201d meant to mimic what you might find if you tried on clothes at a retailer.<\/p>\n She explained that nowhere else can a shopper see themselves through the entire shopping journey.<\/p>\n \u201cSo many people, when we did our UX testing, forgot why they even picked certain styles out at the very beginning by the time they\u2019re finished with our shopping experience, so we thought that would be a really cool thing,\u201d Sholl said. \u201cWe have created hyper personalization that is driven by your customers’ actual engagement. It’s a competitive advantage for today, but absolutely a necessity for tomorrow.\u201d<\/p><\/div>\n Sholl likened Zelig\u2019s potential to those of enterprise customer relationship management tools Snowflake and Salesforce, noting, \u201cthey’re basically just taking the data and putting it into reporting for tomorrow. We are willing to advance this technology into a visual reporting tool, and we think it’s just the wave of the future in the next decade.\u201d<\/p>\n Sholl and Freede privately funded Zelig for the past three years, however, now they announce $15 million in Series A funding that values the pre-revenue company at $100 million. Financial services firm Hilco Global led the funding round, joined by global luxury investor Bezikian Zareh.<\/p>\n \u201cSandy Sholl and Adam Freede are innovators in the luxury fashion business with whom I\u2019ve had success with on previous investments, and Hilco Global is proud to be partnering with them again,\u201d Jeffrey Hecktman, CEO of Hilco Global, said in a written statement. \u201cWhile many tech companies are building solutions for an industry they don\u2019t know well, Zelig was founded by fashion experts with firsthand knowledge of how to solve the retail industry\u2019s biggest challenges.\u201d<\/p>\n Zelig intends to deploy the capital into technology development around its personalization capabilities and to build out additional features.<\/p>\n Sholl declined to name any brands with the launch of Zelig. However, with MadaLuxe repping merchandise from brands, including Versace, Gucci and Cartier, it\u2019s probably not a stretch to suggest some of these retailers \u2014 or the large department stores where they are sold \u2014 are likely to sign on in the future.<\/p>\n\n Advances in fit technology could minimize those onerous online returns<\/a><\/p><\/blockquote>\n <\/iframe><\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" Zelig users can create different outfit combinations and then save them to their profile and even share them before purchasing complete looks.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":133574474,"featured_media":2624548,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"amp_status":"","relegenceEntities":[],"relegenceSubjects":[],"carmot_uuid":"593a04ff-a252-3df2-8cd4-6d70252232e6","footnotes":"","apple_news_api_created_at":"2023-11-06T14:04:12Z","apple_news_api_id":"8659e6dd-b7ab-41a9-846a-b84a1f223a4e","apple_news_api_modified_at":"2023-11-06T14:04:12Z","apple_news_api_revision":"AAAAAAAAAAD\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/w==","apple_news_api_share_url":"https:\/\/apple.news\/Ahlnm3berQamEarhKHyI6Tg","apple_news_coverimage":0,"apple_news_coverimage_caption":"","apple_news_is_hidden":false,"apple_news_is_paid":false,"apple_news_is_preview":false,"apple_news_is_sponsored":false,"apple_news_maturity_rating":"","apple_news_metadata":"\"\"","apple_news_pullquote":"","apple_news_pullquote_position":"","apple_news_slug":"","apple_news_sections":"\"\"","apple_news_suppress_video_url":false,"apple_news_use_image_component":false},"categories":[577052802,20429,577030455],"tags":[577204237,9881,577204238,577204236,448353137,577204235],"crunchbase_tag":[],"tc_stories_tax":[],"tc_ec_category":[],"tc_event":[],"tc_regions_tax":[],"yoast_head":"\nLuxury clothing distributors get into virtual try-on tech; bag $15M Series A on a $100M valuation | TechCrunch<\/title>\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\t\n\t\n\t\n\n\n\n\n\n\t\n\t\n\t\n
Want to know how a dress looks on you? AIMIRR has your back \u2026 and front<\/a><\/p><\/blockquote>\n <\/iframe><\/div>\n Sholl told TechCrunch that Zelig is the first to offer this kind of \u201chyper-personalized online shopping experience\u201d meant to mimic what you might find if you tried on clothes at a retailer.<\/p>\n She explained that nowhere else can a shopper see themselves through the entire shopping journey.<\/p>\n \u201cSo many people, when we did our UX testing, forgot why they even picked certain styles out at the very beginning by the time they\u2019re finished with our shopping experience, so we thought that would be a really cool thing,\u201d Sholl said. \u201cWe have created hyper personalization that is driven by your customers’ actual engagement. It’s a competitive advantage for today, but absolutely a necessity for tomorrow.\u201d<\/p><\/div>\n Sholl likened Zelig\u2019s potential to those of enterprise customer relationship management tools Snowflake and Salesforce, noting, \u201cthey’re basically just taking the data and putting it into reporting for tomorrow. We are willing to advance this technology into a visual reporting tool, and we think it’s just the wave of the future in the next decade.\u201d<\/p>\n Sholl and Freede privately funded Zelig for the past three years, however, now they announce $15 million in Series A funding that values the pre-revenue company at $100 million. Financial services firm Hilco Global led the funding round, joined by global luxury investor Bezikian Zareh.<\/p>\n \u201cSandy Sholl and Adam Freede are innovators in the luxury fashion business with whom I\u2019ve had success with on previous investments, and Hilco Global is proud to be partnering with them again,\u201d Jeffrey Hecktman, CEO of Hilco Global, said in a written statement. \u201cWhile many tech companies are building solutions for an industry they don\u2019t know well, Zelig was founded by fashion experts with firsthand knowledge of how to solve the retail industry\u2019s biggest challenges.\u201d<\/p>\n Zelig intends to deploy the capital into technology development around its personalization capabilities and to build out additional features.<\/p>\n Sholl declined to name any brands with the launch of Zelig. However, with MadaLuxe repping merchandise from brands, including Versace, Gucci and Cartier, it\u2019s probably not a stretch to suggest some of these retailers \u2014 or the large department stores where they are sold \u2014 are likely to sign on in the future.<\/p>\n\n Advances in fit technology could minimize those onerous online returns<\/a><\/p><\/blockquote>\n <\/iframe><\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" Zelig users can create different outfit combinations and then save them to their profile and even share them before purchasing complete looks.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":133574474,"featured_media":2624548,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"amp_status":"","relegenceEntities":[],"relegenceSubjects":[],"carmot_uuid":"593a04ff-a252-3df2-8cd4-6d70252232e6","footnotes":"","apple_news_api_created_at":"2023-11-06T14:04:12Z","apple_news_api_id":"8659e6dd-b7ab-41a9-846a-b84a1f223a4e","apple_news_api_modified_at":"2023-11-06T14:04:12Z","apple_news_api_revision":"AAAAAAAAAAD\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/w==","apple_news_api_share_url":"https:\/\/apple.news\/Ahlnm3berQamEarhKHyI6Tg","apple_news_coverimage":0,"apple_news_coverimage_caption":"","apple_news_is_hidden":false,"apple_news_is_paid":false,"apple_news_is_preview":false,"apple_news_is_sponsored":false,"apple_news_maturity_rating":"","apple_news_metadata":"\"\"","apple_news_pullquote":"","apple_news_pullquote_position":"","apple_news_slug":"","apple_news_sections":"\"\"","apple_news_suppress_video_url":false,"apple_news_use_image_component":false},"categories":[577052802,20429,577030455],"tags":[577204237,9881,577204238,577204236,448353137,577204235],"crunchbase_tag":[],"tc_stories_tax":[],"tc_ec_category":[],"tc_event":[],"tc_regions_tax":[],"yoast_head":"\nLuxury clothing distributors get into virtual try-on tech; bag $15M Series A on a $100M valuation | TechCrunch<\/title>\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\t\n\t\n\t\n\n\n\n\n\n\t\n\t\n\t\n
<\/iframe><\/div>\n Sholl told TechCrunch that Zelig is the first to offer this kind of \u201chyper-personalized online shopping experience\u201d meant to mimic what you might find if you tried on clothes at a retailer.<\/p>\n She explained that nowhere else can a shopper see themselves through the entire shopping journey.<\/p>\n \u201cSo many people, when we did our UX testing, forgot why they even picked certain styles out at the very beginning by the time they\u2019re finished with our shopping experience, so we thought that would be a really cool thing,\u201d Sholl said. \u201cWe have created hyper personalization that is driven by your customers’ actual engagement. It’s a competitive advantage for today, but absolutely a necessity for tomorrow.\u201d<\/p><\/div>\n Sholl likened Zelig\u2019s potential to those of enterprise customer relationship management tools Snowflake and Salesforce, noting, \u201cthey’re basically just taking the data and putting it into reporting for tomorrow. We are willing to advance this technology into a visual reporting tool, and we think it’s just the wave of the future in the next decade.\u201d<\/p>\n Sholl and Freede privately funded Zelig for the past three years, however, now they announce $15 million in Series A funding that values the pre-revenue company at $100 million. Financial services firm Hilco Global led the funding round, joined by global luxury investor Bezikian Zareh.<\/p>\n \u201cSandy Sholl and Adam Freede are innovators in the luxury fashion business with whom I\u2019ve had success with on previous investments, and Hilco Global is proud to be partnering with them again,\u201d Jeffrey Hecktman, CEO of Hilco Global, said in a written statement. \u201cWhile many tech companies are building solutions for an industry they don\u2019t know well, Zelig was founded by fashion experts with firsthand knowledge of how to solve the retail industry\u2019s biggest challenges.\u201d<\/p>\n Zelig intends to deploy the capital into technology development around its personalization capabilities and to build out additional features.<\/p>\n Sholl declined to name any brands with the launch of Zelig. However, with MadaLuxe repping merchandise from brands, including Versace, Gucci and Cartier, it\u2019s probably not a stretch to suggest some of these retailers \u2014 or the large department stores where they are sold \u2014 are likely to sign on in the future.<\/p>\n\n Advances in fit technology could minimize those onerous online returns<\/a><\/p><\/blockquote>\n <\/iframe><\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" Zelig users can create different outfit combinations and then save them to their profile and even share them before purchasing complete looks.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":133574474,"featured_media":2624548,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"amp_status":"","relegenceEntities":[],"relegenceSubjects":[],"carmot_uuid":"593a04ff-a252-3df2-8cd4-6d70252232e6","footnotes":"","apple_news_api_created_at":"2023-11-06T14:04:12Z","apple_news_api_id":"8659e6dd-b7ab-41a9-846a-b84a1f223a4e","apple_news_api_modified_at":"2023-11-06T14:04:12Z","apple_news_api_revision":"AAAAAAAAAAD\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/w==","apple_news_api_share_url":"https:\/\/apple.news\/Ahlnm3berQamEarhKHyI6Tg","apple_news_coverimage":0,"apple_news_coverimage_caption":"","apple_news_is_hidden":false,"apple_news_is_paid":false,"apple_news_is_preview":false,"apple_news_is_sponsored":false,"apple_news_maturity_rating":"","apple_news_metadata":"\"\"","apple_news_pullquote":"","apple_news_pullquote_position":"","apple_news_slug":"","apple_news_sections":"\"\"","apple_news_suppress_video_url":false,"apple_news_use_image_component":false},"categories":[577052802,20429,577030455],"tags":[577204237,9881,577204238,577204236,448353137,577204235],"crunchbase_tag":[],"tc_stories_tax":[],"tc_ec_category":[],"tc_event":[],"tc_regions_tax":[],"yoast_head":"\nLuxury clothing distributors get into virtual try-on tech; bag $15M Series A on a $100M valuation | TechCrunch<\/title>\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\t\n\t\n\t\n\n\n\n\n\n\t\n\t\n\t\n
Sholl told TechCrunch that Zelig is the first to offer this kind of \u201chyper-personalized online shopping experience\u201d meant to mimic what you might find if you tried on clothes at a retailer.<\/p>\n
She explained that nowhere else can a shopper see themselves through the entire shopping journey.<\/p>\n
\u201cSo many people, when we did our UX testing, forgot why they even picked certain styles out at the very beginning by the time they\u2019re finished with our shopping experience, so we thought that would be a really cool thing,\u201d Sholl said. \u201cWe have created hyper personalization that is driven by your customers’ actual engagement. It’s a competitive advantage for today, but absolutely a necessity for tomorrow.\u201d<\/p><\/div>\n Sholl likened Zelig\u2019s potential to those of enterprise customer relationship management tools Snowflake and Salesforce, noting, \u201cthey’re basically just taking the data and putting it into reporting for tomorrow. We are willing to advance this technology into a visual reporting tool, and we think it’s just the wave of the future in the next decade.\u201d<\/p>\n Sholl and Freede privately funded Zelig for the past three years, however, now they announce $15 million in Series A funding that values the pre-revenue company at $100 million. Financial services firm Hilco Global led the funding round, joined by global luxury investor Bezikian Zareh.<\/p>\n \u201cSandy Sholl and Adam Freede are innovators in the luxury fashion business with whom I\u2019ve had success with on previous investments, and Hilco Global is proud to be partnering with them again,\u201d Jeffrey Hecktman, CEO of Hilco Global, said in a written statement. \u201cWhile many tech companies are building solutions for an industry they don\u2019t know well, Zelig was founded by fashion experts with firsthand knowledge of how to solve the retail industry\u2019s biggest challenges.\u201d<\/p>\n Zelig intends to deploy the capital into technology development around its personalization capabilities and to build out additional features.<\/p>\n Sholl declined to name any brands with the launch of Zelig. However, with MadaLuxe repping merchandise from brands, including Versace, Gucci and Cartier, it\u2019s probably not a stretch to suggest some of these retailers \u2014 or the large department stores where they are sold \u2014 are likely to sign on in the future.<\/p>\n\n Advances in fit technology could minimize those onerous online returns<\/a><\/p><\/blockquote>\n <\/iframe><\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" Zelig users can create different outfit combinations and then save them to their profile and even share them before purchasing complete looks.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":133574474,"featured_media":2624548,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"amp_status":"","relegenceEntities":[],"relegenceSubjects":[],"carmot_uuid":"593a04ff-a252-3df2-8cd4-6d70252232e6","footnotes":"","apple_news_api_created_at":"2023-11-06T14:04:12Z","apple_news_api_id":"8659e6dd-b7ab-41a9-846a-b84a1f223a4e","apple_news_api_modified_at":"2023-11-06T14:04:12Z","apple_news_api_revision":"AAAAAAAAAAD\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/w==","apple_news_api_share_url":"https:\/\/apple.news\/Ahlnm3berQamEarhKHyI6Tg","apple_news_coverimage":0,"apple_news_coverimage_caption":"","apple_news_is_hidden":false,"apple_news_is_paid":false,"apple_news_is_preview":false,"apple_news_is_sponsored":false,"apple_news_maturity_rating":"","apple_news_metadata":"\"\"","apple_news_pullquote":"","apple_news_pullquote_position":"","apple_news_slug":"","apple_news_sections":"\"\"","apple_news_suppress_video_url":false,"apple_news_use_image_component":false},"categories":[577052802,20429,577030455],"tags":[577204237,9881,577204238,577204236,448353137,577204235],"crunchbase_tag":[],"tc_stories_tax":[],"tc_ec_category":[],"tc_event":[],"tc_regions_tax":[],"yoast_head":"\nLuxury clothing distributors get into virtual try-on tech; bag $15M Series A on a $100M valuation | TechCrunch<\/title>\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\t\n\t\n\t\n\n\n\n\n\n\t\n\t\n\t\n
Sholl likened Zelig\u2019s potential to those of enterprise customer relationship management tools Snowflake and Salesforce, noting, \u201cthey’re basically just taking the data and putting it into reporting for tomorrow. We are willing to advance this technology into a visual reporting tool, and we think it’s just the wave of the future in the next decade.\u201d<\/p>\n
Sholl and Freede privately funded Zelig for the past three years, however, now they announce $15 million in Series A funding that values the pre-revenue company at $100 million. Financial services firm Hilco Global led the funding round, joined by global luxury investor Bezikian Zareh.<\/p>\n
\u201cSandy Sholl and Adam Freede are innovators in the luxury fashion business with whom I\u2019ve had success with on previous investments, and Hilco Global is proud to be partnering with them again,\u201d Jeffrey Hecktman, CEO of Hilco Global, said in a written statement. \u201cWhile many tech companies are building solutions for an industry they don\u2019t know well, Zelig was founded by fashion experts with firsthand knowledge of how to solve the retail industry\u2019s biggest challenges.\u201d<\/p>\n
Zelig intends to deploy the capital into technology development around its personalization capabilities and to build out additional features.<\/p>\n
Sholl declined to name any brands with the launch of Zelig. However, with MadaLuxe repping merchandise from brands, including Versace, Gucci and Cartier, it\u2019s probably not a stretch to suggest some of these retailers \u2014 or the large department stores where they are sold \u2014 are likely to sign on in the future.<\/p>\n\n Advances in fit technology could minimize those onerous online returns<\/a><\/p><\/blockquote>\n <\/iframe><\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" Zelig users can create different outfit combinations and then save them to their profile and even share them before purchasing complete looks.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":133574474,"featured_media":2624548,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"amp_status":"","relegenceEntities":[],"relegenceSubjects":[],"carmot_uuid":"593a04ff-a252-3df2-8cd4-6d70252232e6","footnotes":"","apple_news_api_created_at":"2023-11-06T14:04:12Z","apple_news_api_id":"8659e6dd-b7ab-41a9-846a-b84a1f223a4e","apple_news_api_modified_at":"2023-11-06T14:04:12Z","apple_news_api_revision":"AAAAAAAAAAD\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/w==","apple_news_api_share_url":"https:\/\/apple.news\/Ahlnm3berQamEarhKHyI6Tg","apple_news_coverimage":0,"apple_news_coverimage_caption":"","apple_news_is_hidden":false,"apple_news_is_paid":false,"apple_news_is_preview":false,"apple_news_is_sponsored":false,"apple_news_maturity_rating":"","apple_news_metadata":"\"\"","apple_news_pullquote":"","apple_news_pullquote_position":"","apple_news_slug":"","apple_news_sections":"\"\"","apple_news_suppress_video_url":false,"apple_news_use_image_component":false},"categories":[577052802,20429,577030455],"tags":[577204237,9881,577204238,577204236,448353137,577204235],"crunchbase_tag":[],"tc_stories_tax":[],"tc_ec_category":[],"tc_event":[],"tc_regions_tax":[],"yoast_head":"\nLuxury clothing distributors get into virtual try-on tech; bag $15M Series A on a $100M valuation | TechCrunch<\/title>\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\t\n\t\n\t\n\n\n\n\n\n\t\n\t\n\t\n
Advances in fit technology could minimize those onerous online returns<\/a><\/p><\/blockquote>\n <\/iframe><\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" Zelig users can create different outfit combinations and then save them to their profile and even share them before purchasing complete looks.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":133574474,"featured_media":2624548,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"amp_status":"","relegenceEntities":[],"relegenceSubjects":[],"carmot_uuid":"593a04ff-a252-3df2-8cd4-6d70252232e6","footnotes":"","apple_news_api_created_at":"2023-11-06T14:04:12Z","apple_news_api_id":"8659e6dd-b7ab-41a9-846a-b84a1f223a4e","apple_news_api_modified_at":"2023-11-06T14:04:12Z","apple_news_api_revision":"AAAAAAAAAAD\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/w==","apple_news_api_share_url":"https:\/\/apple.news\/Ahlnm3berQamEarhKHyI6Tg","apple_news_coverimage":0,"apple_news_coverimage_caption":"","apple_news_is_hidden":false,"apple_news_is_paid":false,"apple_news_is_preview":false,"apple_news_is_sponsored":false,"apple_news_maturity_rating":"","apple_news_metadata":"\"\"","apple_news_pullquote":"","apple_news_pullquote_position":"","apple_news_slug":"","apple_news_sections":"\"\"","apple_news_suppress_video_url":false,"apple_news_use_image_component":false},"categories":[577052802,20429,577030455],"tags":[577204237,9881,577204238,577204236,448353137,577204235],"crunchbase_tag":[],"tc_stories_tax":[],"tc_ec_category":[],"tc_event":[],"tc_regions_tax":[],"yoast_head":"\nLuxury clothing distributors get into virtual try-on tech; bag $15M Series A on a $100M valuation | TechCrunch<\/title>\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\t\n\t\n\t\n\n\n\n\n\n\t\n\t\n\t\n
<\/iframe><\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" Zelig users can create different outfit combinations and then save them to their profile and even share them before purchasing complete looks.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":133574474,"featured_media":2624548,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"amp_status":"","relegenceEntities":[],"relegenceSubjects":[],"carmot_uuid":"593a04ff-a252-3df2-8cd4-6d70252232e6","footnotes":"","apple_news_api_created_at":"2023-11-06T14:04:12Z","apple_news_api_id":"8659e6dd-b7ab-41a9-846a-b84a1f223a4e","apple_news_api_modified_at":"2023-11-06T14:04:12Z","apple_news_api_revision":"AAAAAAAAAAD\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/w==","apple_news_api_share_url":"https:\/\/apple.news\/Ahlnm3berQamEarhKHyI6Tg","apple_news_coverimage":0,"apple_news_coverimage_caption":"","apple_news_is_hidden":false,"apple_news_is_paid":false,"apple_news_is_preview":false,"apple_news_is_sponsored":false,"apple_news_maturity_rating":"","apple_news_metadata":"\"\"","apple_news_pullquote":"","apple_news_pullquote_position":"","apple_news_slug":"","apple_news_sections":"\"\"","apple_news_suppress_video_url":false,"apple_news_use_image_component":false},"categories":[577052802,20429,577030455],"tags":[577204237,9881,577204238,577204236,448353137,577204235],"crunchbase_tag":[],"tc_stories_tax":[],"tc_ec_category":[],"tc_event":[],"tc_regions_tax":[],"yoast_head":"\nLuxury clothing distributors get into virtual try-on tech; bag $15M Series A on a $100M valuation | TechCrunch<\/title>\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\t\n\t\n\t\n\n\n\n\n\n\t\n\t\n\t\n
Zelig users can create different outfit combinations and then save them to their profile and even share them before purchasing complete looks.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":133574474,"featured_media":2624548,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"amp_status":"","relegenceEntities":[],"relegenceSubjects":[],"carmot_uuid":"593a04ff-a252-3df2-8cd4-6d70252232e6","footnotes":"","apple_news_api_created_at":"2023-11-06T14:04:12Z","apple_news_api_id":"8659e6dd-b7ab-41a9-846a-b84a1f223a4e","apple_news_api_modified_at":"2023-11-06T14:04:12Z","apple_news_api_revision":"AAAAAAAAAAD\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/w==","apple_news_api_share_url":"https:\/\/apple.news\/Ahlnm3berQamEarhKHyI6Tg","apple_news_coverimage":0,"apple_news_coverimage_caption":"","apple_news_is_hidden":false,"apple_news_is_paid":false,"apple_news_is_preview":false,"apple_news_is_sponsored":false,"apple_news_maturity_rating":"","apple_news_metadata":"\"\"","apple_news_pullquote":"","apple_news_pullquote_position":"","apple_news_slug":"","apple_news_sections":"\"\"","apple_news_suppress_video_url":false,"apple_news_use_image_component":false},"categories":[577052802,20429,577030455],"tags":[577204237,9881,577204238,577204236,448353137,577204235],"crunchbase_tag":[],"tc_stories_tax":[],"tc_ec_category":[],"tc_event":[],"tc_regions_tax":[],"yoast_head":"\nLuxury clothing distributors get into virtual try-on tech; bag $15M Series A on a $100M valuation | TechCrunch<\/title>\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\t\n\t\n\t\n\n\n\n\n\n\t\n\t\n\t\n
Chinese Clothing Companies Zelig, virtual try-on, e-commerce<\/p>\n"},"alt_text":"Zelig, virtual try-on, e-commerce","media_type":"image","mime_type":"image\/png","media_details":{"width":2041,"height":1053,"file":"2023\/11\/Unknown.png","filesize":970183,"sizes":{"thumbnail":{"file":"Unknown.png?resize=150,77","width":150,"height":77,"filesize":970183,"mime_type":"image\/png","source_url":"https:\/\/techcrunch.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2023\/11\/Unknown.png?w=150"},"medium":{"file":"Unknown.png?resize=300,155","width":300,"height":155,"filesize":970183,"mime_type":"image\/png","source_url":"https:\/\/techcrunch.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2023\/11\/Unknown.png?w=300"},"medium_large":{"file":"Unknown.png?resize=768,396","width":768,"height":396,"filesize":970183,"mime_type":"image\/png","source_url":"https:\/\/techcrunch.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2023\/11\/Unknown.png?w=1024"},"large":{"file":"Unknown.png?resize=680,351","width":680,"height":351,"filesize":970183,"mime_type":"image\/png","source_url":"https:\/\/techcrunch.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2023\/11\/Unknown.png?w=680"},"1536x1536":{"file":"Unknown.png?resize=1536,792","width":1536,"height":792,"filesize":970183,"mime_type":"image\/png","source_url":"https:\/\/techcrunch.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2023\/11\/Unknown.png?w=1536"},"tc-social-image":{"file":"Unknown.png?resize=1200,619","width":1200,"height":619,"filesize":970183,"mime_type":"image\/png","source_url":"https:\/\/techcrunch.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2023\/11\/Unknown.png?w=1200"},"guest-author-32":{"file":"Unknown.png?resize=32,32","width":32,"height":32,"filesize":970183,"mime_type":"image\/png","source_url":"https:\/\/techcrunch.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2023\/11\/Unknown.png?w=32&h=32&crop=1"},"guest-author-50":{"file":"Unknown.png?resize=50,50","width":50,"height":50,"filesize":970183,"mime_type":"image\/png","source_url":"https:\/\/techcrunch.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2023\/11\/Unknown.png?w=50&h=50&crop=1"},"guest-author-64":{"file":"Unknown.png?resize=64,64","width":64,"height":64,"filesize":970183,"mime_type":"image\/png","source_url":"https:\/\/techcrunch.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2023\/11\/Unknown.png?w=64&h=64&crop=1"},"guest-author-96":{"file":"Unknown.png?resize=96,96","width":96,"height":96,"filesize":970183,"mime_type":"image\/png","source_url":"https:\/\/techcrunch.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2023\/11\/Unknown.png?w=96&h=96&crop=1"},"guest-author-128":{"file":"Unknown.png?resize=128,128","width":128,"height":128,"filesize":970183,"mime_type":"image\/png","source_url":"https:\/\/techcrunch.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2023\/11\/Unknown.png?w=128&h=128&crop=1"},"concierge-thumb":{"file":"Unknown.png?resize=50,26","width":50,"height":26,"filesize":970183,"mime_type":"image\/png","source_url":"https:\/\/techcrunch.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2023\/11\/Unknown.png?w=50"},"full":{"file":"Unknown.png","width":1024,"height":528,"mime_type":"image\/png","source_url":"https:\/\/techcrunch.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2023\/11\/Unknown.png"}},"image_meta":{"aperture":"0","credit":"","camera":"","caption":"","created_timestamp":"0","copyright":"","focal_length":"0","iso":"0","shutter_speed":"0","title":"","orientation":"0","keywords":[]}},"source_url":"https:\/\/techcrunch.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2023\/11\/Unknown.png","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/techcrunch.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/2624548"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/techcrunch.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/techcrunch.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/attachment"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/techcrunch.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=2624548"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/techcrunch.com\/wp-json\/tc\/v1\/users\/133574474"}]}}],"wp:term":[[{"id":577052802,"description":"Retail, online shopping, e-commerce, and social commerce are a huge and ever-changing industry. Our commerce news covers everyone from Amazon, Shopify and Walmart to all the newest and hottest DTC brands, as well as influencers making the shift into selling products online.","link":"https:\/\/techcrunch.com\/category\/commerce\/","name":"Commerce","slug":"commerce","taxonomy":"category","parent":0,"yoast_head":"\nCommerce News | TechCrunch<\/title>\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\t\n\t\n\t\n\n\n