Welcome to TechCrunch PM. This afternoon, we have a deep dive on the AI moratorium, the Equity gang’s thoughts on the future of AI and copyright, and the truth of Meta’s multimillion-dollar plans to woo researchers. We’ve also got Denmark’s shield against deepfakes, Texas’ porn problem, SpaceX’s crane collapse silence, an AI-powered pet spying startup, and more. Let’s go! |
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Image Credits: Benjamin Fanjoy/Bloomberg / Getty Images |
🛑 AI moratorium: A federal proposal that would ban states from regulating AI for 10 years could soon be signed into law as part of Trump’s “Big Beautiful Bill.” Despite support from AI leaders like Sam Altman and Republicans like Ted Cruz, the provision has received bipartisan criticism, with opponents saying it would block states from passing laws to protect consumers from AI harms and give AI firms the freedom to operate without much oversight. ⚖️ You win some, you win some: This week, both Meta and Anthropic scored early wins in court over how their models were trained on copyrighted material. The TechCrunch gang discussed the news and other highlights from the week on today’s Equity podcast. 🤑 We got AI money: While earlier reports that Meta is handing out $100 million signing bonuses to poached AI researchers may not be true, the company is definitely offering its targets multimillion-dollar pay packages to woo them to its superintelligence lab. |
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Image Credits: SeanPavonePhoto / Getty Images |
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👺 Copyright my face: The Danish government has a solution for deepfakes — changing copyright law to give its citizens the right to their own body, facial features, and voice. 🪪 Gonna need to see some ID: The Supreme Court has ruled to uphold a Texas law requiring porn sites — or sites with “sexual material harmful to minors” — to verify the age of all visitors. And not just by checking a box. Users showing up for a good time will need to upload their ID. 🔋 Power up: The AI game is really an energy game, and Meta is here to play this week with a string of deals that added over 1 gigawatt of generating capacity to its already considerable renewable power portfolio. 🏗️ Cranes and crickets: A crane collapsed at SpaceX’s South Texas rocket facility this week, and the company is acting like nothing happened. No acknowledgment of the crash itself or whether anyone was hurt. 😐 Creepy: Facebook wants to access your phone’s camera roll to automatically suggest AI-edited versions of photos, including ones that haven’t yet been uploaded to Facebook. Hard pass. |
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🎻 Let me cook: Tech executive and amateur conductor Mandle Cheungpaid the Toronto Symphony $400,000 to let him conduct a performance of Mahler’s "Resurrection," reports The New York Times. Many of the musicians weren’t happy about it, but the Symphony’s CEO said it was part of the orchestra’s efforts to diversify revenue. |
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