Stairway to heaven: Spotify's worried about the future, but its present is looking good

4/25/23 7:00PM

Stairway to heaven‍

‍Spotify announced yesterday that it has reached half a billion monthly active listeners. That marks a 22% increase compared to the previous year, making it the company's strongest first quarter ever, sending shares in SPOT up 5%.

The company wasn't quite as successful at getting those subscribers to cough up for their music — the number of paying subscribers only rose 15% — but it nevertheless caps the end of a solid quarter for the company, which had to layoff around 600 employees in January.

‍AI ft. Drake

‍The results come after a TikTok-inspired revamp of its app and with the company currently navigating a delicate balance between the benefits and costs of AI, with the CEO, Daniel Ek, calling the technology “cool and scary”.

On the one hand, the company has recently introduced an exciting new feature, AI DJ, which provides personalized music selections introduced by a lifelike DJ voice powered by AI — a feature that already reaches millions of active users every week.

On the other hand, the company faces the challenges of AI generated songs infringing on copyright, an issue which hit the headlines last week after a song created by AI, featuring fake versions of Drake and The Weeknd, had to be pulled from the platform after Universal Music claimed an infringement. That song racked up over 600,000 plays on Spotify alone, demonstrating the viral potential of AI-generated content.

We wanted AI to do our work, so we could spend our time making art. For now, at least, it seems like the other way round is more likely.

Rani Molla29m

California AG launches probe into xAI and Grok over sexualized deepfakes of women and children

The California attorney general just opened an investigation into xAI, Elon Musk’s AI startup, over chatbot Grok’s apparent role in generating nonconsensual sexual images of women and children. The probe centers on reports that Grok has been used to facilitate the creation of sexually explicit images without consent, many of which have circulated on X.

“The avalanche of reports detailing the non-consensual, sexually explicit material that xAI has produced and posted online in recent weeks is shocking,” Attorney General Rob Bonta wrote in a press release. “As the top law enforcement official of California tasked with protecting our residents, I am deeply concerned with this development in AI and will use all the tools at my disposal to keep California’s residents safe.”

California’s move follows growing scrutiny from U.S. lawmakers and the UK government over AI-generated sexual content and deepfakes.

xAI and Tesla CEO Musk earlier today wrote, “I not aware of any naked underage images generated by Grok. Literally zero.”

Grok is currently No. 5 on Apple’s free App Store.

Attorney General Bonta Launches Investigation into xAI, Grok Over Undressed, Sexual AI Images of Women and Children

California’s move follows growing scrutiny from U.S. lawmakers and the UK government over AI-generated sexual content and deepfakes.

xAI and Tesla CEO Musk earlier today wrote, “I not aware of any naked underage images generated by Grok. Literally zero.”

Grok is currently No. 5 on Apple’s free App Store.

Jon Keegan3h

Report: Microsoft on track to spend $500 million per year on Anthropic AI

Last fall, Microsoft and OpenAI’s $13 billion partnership seemed to finally be on solid ground.

OpenAI’s restructuring was completed on time, and the companies hammered out an updated agreement that secured OpenAI’s status as Microsoft’s AI provider of choice, but also allowed for Microsoft to work with other companies.

Now Microsoft is doing exactly that. Microsoft has been increasing its spending on Anthropic’s AI, and is on track to spend $500 million per year on the startup’s services, according to a new report from The Information.

The increasingly cozy relationship between the companies includes the rare move of Microsoft offering incentives to its salespeople that allows Anthropic sales to count toward their quotas, per to the report. Microsoft invested $5 billion in Anthropic as part of a big deal in November that included Nvidia.

Microsoft has also been using Anthropic’s AI to power more and more of its own products, such as Github Copilot and 365 Copilot.

Microsoft’s Spending on Anthropic AI Is on Pace to Hit $500 Million

Microsoft has also been using Anthropic’s AI to power more and more of its own products, such as Github Copilot and 365 Copilot.

Rani Molla4h

Report: Apple staggers Siri AI rollout, with key features pushed to summer

Thanks to Apple’s new partnership with Google, the Gemini-backed version of Siri should begin rolling out this spring, but several key features Apple previewed in 2024 may not come until summer, The Information reports.

The new Siri is soon expected to answer general questions with ChatGPT-like answers — rather than quoting directly from websites or not answering at all. But more personalized, proactive features, like, for example, remembering past conversations and information from them to suggest you leave for a planned trip earlier to beat traffic, may not be unveiled until June at the company’s Worldwide Developers Conference.

The report also clarifies that while Apple’s partnership with Microsoft-backed OpenAI, wherein users could summon ChatGPT for complex questions, isn’t changing, the Google deal might reduce the need for people to do so because Siri will likely be able to answer those questions itself. The Information notes, citing a person familiar with the deal, that the ChatGPT option hadn’t driven much traffic to OpenAI before.

How Apple is Using Gemini to Give ChatGPT-Like Answers

Tesla stops selling self-driving technology as a one-off, pivoting to a subscription model amid slowing vehicle sales

Starting Valentine’s Day, Full Self-Driving will be subscription only.

Rani Molla7h

RIP the metaverse

Meta seems to be winding down its metaverse ambitions. We took a look back at what the company was going for.

Rani Molla, Jon Keegan23h