\nAI scares the bejesus out of me<\/br>
\n2023-05-27 21:40:50<\/br><\/p>\n
Welcome to Startups Weekly. Sign up here<\/a> to get it in your inbox every Saturday morning. <\/em><\/p>\n Something really scary is happening. It\u2019s an internet-powered horror story unfolding in front of us in three interwoven acts: (1) AI technology is improving fast enough that I recently had a bit of an existential crisis, wondering if I, too, was an AI<\/a>. (2) People have no idea what\u2019s real and what isn\u2019t on the internet. (3) With the 2024 presidential election coming up, we have a recipe for disaster.<\/p>\n We may be so comprehensively copulated at this moment in time that digging our way out might prove impossible. Brew a cup of coffee and take a breath; I\u2019m exploring the full depth of my fears in \u201cOn the internet, nobody knows you\u2019re a bot.\u201d<\/a><\/p>\n Earlier this year Mary Ann reported that even well-funded fintech companies were going through rounds of layoffs<\/a>, but it appears that optimism has returned to the sector. This week, it transpired that celebrity investors (including Paris Hilton) piled into consumer savings startup Checkmate<\/a>, and Kyle reported that Nymbus landed a $70 million round of funding<\/a> to help drag banks away from legacy tech and into the new-fangled digital age.<\/p>\n Pay attention, though: You\u2019d be wrong to believe that all of this innovation is happening only in the major, obvious financial centers of the world. Over the past few weeks, we\u2019ve seen major innovations all over the world, including a major Brazilian player plotting to serve 11 African markets<\/a>, a startup helping Indonesians take control<\/a> over their credit scores, a bank raising $78 million<\/a> to expand operations across South Africa, Singapore and the Philippines, and stories coming out of India<\/a>, Kenya<\/a>, LatAm<\/a>, France<\/a>, etc. That\u2019s great news for startups that are looking for growth through international expansion. The playbook is there, as are the investment dollars.<\/p>\n Insert \u201chouse of credit cards\u201d joke here to make this image make even less sense.\u00a0Image Credits:<\/strong> Kuzma (opens in a new window)<\/span><\/a> \/ Getty Images<\/p>\n<\/div>\n The social media landscape continues to evolve at neck- and thumb-breaking speeds, with stories coming thick and fast across the TechCrunch news desk. The surgeon general this week stuck an oar in, suggesting that social media \u201ccan have a profound risk of harm to the mental health and well-being of children and adolescents.\u201d<\/a> As an adult who often finds that social media harms my mental health and well-being, color me a deep shade of unsurprised.<\/p>\n Some organizations are fighting back, including the state of Montana, who decided to try to ban TikTok altogether, citing it is taking action to \u201cprotect Montanans\u2019 private data and sensitive personal information from being harvested by the Chinese Communist Party.\u201d TikTok sued in return, claiming the ban violates the First Amendment<\/a>.<\/p>\n Florida\u2019s governor Ron DeSantis decided to just skip the announcement rally and announce his run for president on Twitter<\/a>, which brought the entire social media platform crunching to a halt<\/a>. I\u2019m wondering if we\u2019re starting to see why Elon Musk had an interest in buying Twitter: being front and center seems to be something he rather enjoys. Not gonna lie, though: I\u2019m so profoundly bored of the whole \u201cElon buys Twitter\u201d saga, but I can\u2019t look away. I\u2019m super grateful to Amanda and Alyssa for putting together a what-you-need-to-know about Elon Musk\u2019s Twitter<\/a> overview.<\/p>\n Misinformation continues to run rampant on social media, particularly illustriously illustrated by the incident that took place this week when a fake Pentagon attack hoax<\/a> was posted by a Twitter Blue-verified Twitter user called @BloombergFeed, confusingly unaffiliated with Bloomberg.<\/p>\n Image Credits:<\/strong> Bryce Durbin\/TechCrunch<\/p>\n<\/div>\n On June 7, TechCrunch will host City Spotlight: Atlanta. We have a slate of amazing programming planned, including a fireside chat with Ryan Glover, the co-founder of the fintech Greenwood, as well as a panel that examines the venture ecosystem within the Atlanta region and identifies the best ways to raise and meet with local venture capitalists. But that\u2019s not all. If you are an early-stage Atlanta-based founder, apply to pitch to our panel of guest investors\/judges for our live pitching competition; the winner gets a free booth at TechCrunch Disrupt this year to exhibit their company in our startup alley.\u00a0Register here.<\/a><\/p>\n Humanoid robots are forging ahead with literal leaps, and indeed, bounds. Brian has been on a roll, covering Figure\u2019s humanoid robot\u2019s first steps<\/a>\u00a0and the company\u2019s $70 million fundraise<\/a>. Meanwhile, Apptronik is teasing its to-be-revealed-this-summer robot<\/a>, and Sanctuary AI showed off its slightly creepy looking \u2018bot last week<\/a>, as well. It seems like the current tizzy of excitement about robots that look a little like humans got an inhuman tail wind when Elon Musk showed off Tesla\u2019s bipedal buddy in September last year<\/a>.<\/p>\n These days, we very rarely cover startups that are running crowdfunding campaigns here on TechCrunch \u2014 and with pretty good reason. Kickstarter and Indiegogo campaigns are awesome, but, as I covered last month, there\u2019s a lot of pitfalls when it comes to bringing a product to market<\/a>, and even well-meaning hardware campaigns fail from time to time. Our very own Mark Harris<\/a> was hired to do an in-depth report<\/a> on a high-profile failed drone project a few years ago and discovered, in a nutshell, that the campaign\u2019s founders were vastly over-optimistic and under-competent<\/a>. There are many failure modes; even being highly successful and delivering well-performing products is no guarantee that the resulting company succeeds. To wit, even Pebble (the makers of the first commercially viable smart watch) had to shutter its doors eventually<\/a>.<\/p>\n The reason I bring it up is that the team at Nuwa Pen (who I met at CES in January this year) just launched their Kickstarter. I wasn\u2019t going to cover it until I saw the crowdfunding video and noticed something weird: The pen the company had shown me wasn\u2019t capable of doing what the pen shown in the video was doing<\/a>.<\/p>\n These things terrify me.\u00a0Image Credits:<\/strong> Figure<\/p>\n Calling all early-stage startups! Apply to join the Startup Battlefield 200 cohort at TechCrunch Disrupt 2023. All finalists get expert training, VC networking, a booth at Disrupt, and the chance to compete for $100,000 in equity-free funds. Applications close May 31. Apply today<\/a>.<\/em> <\/br><\/br><\/br><\/p>\nFintech keeps printing dollars, pounds, dinar and rupees<\/h2>\n
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<\/p>\nDoing it for the LOLs<\/h2>\n
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TechCrunch (virtually) in Atlanta<\/h2>\n
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<\/p>\nThe highs and lows of hardware<\/h2>\n
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<\/p>\nEveryone\u2019s top reads on TechCrunch this week<\/h2>\n
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