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Around half a million writers will be eligible for a payday of at least $3,000, thanks to a historic $1.5 billion settlement in a class action lawsuit that a group of authors brought against Anthropic. This landmark settlement marks the largest payout in the history of U.S. copyright law, but this isn’t a victory for authors — it’s yet another win for tech companies. Tech giants are racing to amass as much written material as possible to train their LLMs, which power groundbreaking AI chat products like ChatGPT and Claude — the same products that are endangering the creative industries,…
OpenAI is reorganizing its Model Behavior team, a small but influential group of researchers who shape how the company’s AI models interact with people, TechCrunch has learned. In an August memo to staff seen by TechCrunch, OpenAI’s chief research officer Mark Chen said the Model Behavior team — which consists of roughly 14 researchers — would be joining the Post Training team, a larger research group responsible for improving the company’s AI models after their initial pre-training. As part of the changes, the Model Behavior team will now report to OpenAI’s Post Training lead Max Schwarzer. An OpenAI spokesperson confirmed…
LOS ANGELES (AP) — “Severance” and “The Studio” could bring in a boatload of early Emmys this weekend.Over the next two days, nearly 100 trophies will be handed out to many of TV’s finest at the Creative Arts Emmy Awards, the annual precursor to the main Primetime Emmy Awards, which will air on Sept. 14 on CBS.“Severance,” the top overall nominee this year with 27, could win as many as 13 for Apple TV+ on Saturday, which will be devoted to scripted shows while Sunday is dedicated to variety and reality TV. “The Studio,” also from Apple, is the top…
San Francisco (AP) — When Ryan Lee first played mahjong two years ago, he got hooked. He dug out sets of the classic Chinese tile game from his parents’ house and brought them to San Francisco, where he started hosting mahjong nights in his apartment.The gatherings became so popular that the 25-year-old Chinese American began hosting pop-up mahjong parties in restaurants, bars and nightclubs around San Francisco.Mahjong, invented in 19th century China, is gaining popularity with a new generation of players looking to get off their phones and socialize in the real world. Lee’s Youth Luck Leisure (YLL) Mahjong Club…
VENICE, Italy (AP) — The 82nd Venice Film Festival is coming to a close Saturday as its juries make final choices for the awards. The prizes, including nods for acting, directing and best picture, called the Golden Lion, will be handed out during an evening ceremony.This year’s competition lineup included many possible Oscar heavyweights. Kathryn Bigelow set off a warning shot about nuclear weapons and the apparatus of decision-making with her urgent, and distressingly realistic, thriller “A House of Dynamite.”Guillermo del Toro unveiled his “Frankenstein,” a sumptuously gothic interpretation of the Mary Shelley classic, with Oscar Isaac portraying Victor Frankenstein…
Investors are clearly bullish about former Salesforce co-CEO Bret Taylor’s AI agent startup Sierra. Sierra, which helps enterprises build customer service AI agents, announced it raised a $350 million funding round on Thursday. The round, led by earlier investor Greenoaks Capital, values the startup at $10 billion, according to a company blog post that confirmed an earlier report from Axios on Wednesday. Sierra was founded in early 2024 by Taylor and longtime Google alum Clay Bavor. The company claims to have landed hundreds of customers, including SoFi, Ramp, and Brex, among others, in its 18 months of operation. Sierra has…
Tesla has proposed a new 10-year compensation plan for CEO Elon Musk that could be worth as much as $1 trillion even as the EV maker’s car business stumbles and it sets its sights on humanoid robotics and AI. The company has tied the compensation to a number of benchmarks, one of which involves increasing Tesla’s overall valuation from around $1 trillion to more than $8 trillion. The plan would grant Musk more than 423 million additional shares in the company, boosting his level of control to around 25%. Musk has previously threatened to leave Tesla if he didn’t receive…
Snapchat is launching a new Lens that lets users create and edit images using a text-to-image AI generator, the company told TechCrunch exclusively. The new “Imagine Lens” is available to Snapchat+ Platinum and Lens+ subscribers. Imagine Lens allows users to create, edit, and re-create Snaps by entering their own prompts. They can then share the image with their friends, post it to their Story, or share it outside of Snapchat. While Snapchat already has numerous generative AI Lenses, the company notes that Imagine Lens is its first open prompt image-generation Lens. Users can generate images using custom prompts, like “create…
by Paul Heney Last updated: 7:00 AM ET, Fri September 5, 2025 It’s easy to categorize areas of the country as being unfriendly to LGBTQ citizens, but focusing on entire states can mean that queer travelers might miss out on some incredibly welcoming and diverse cities. San Antonio is certainly a place that the queer community should visit and celebrate, as the locals here are among the friendliest that my husband and I have encountered. There’s a palpable civic pride amongst locals, always wanting to assist travelers and recommend their favorite things. Here’s a rundown of some of what makes…
If you’re a founder who planned to wait until the last minute … this is it. Today is the final day to secure your exhibit table at TechCrunch Disrupt 2025. If you want to get in front of more than 10,000 startup and VC leaders, connect with media, and generate a nonstop pipeline this October, you need to act now. There are only a few tables left. Once they’re gone, they’re gone. Don’t let your competitor take the last table with your startup’s name on it. Book yours now. Image Credits:Halo Creative Here’s what you get when you exhibit at Disrupt…