The Big Picture

Among the A.I. Doomsayers

“The doomer scene may or may not be a delusional bubble—we’ll find out in a few years—but it’s certainly a small world. Everyone is hopelessly mixed up in everyone else’s life, which would be messy but basically unremarkable if not for the colossal sums of money involved. Anthropic received a half-billion-dollar investment from the cryptocurrency magnate Sam Bankman-Fried in 2022, shortly before he was arrested on fraud charges. Open Philanthropy, a foundation distributing the fortune of the Facebook co-founder Dustin Moskovitz, has funded nearly every A.I.-safety initiative; it also gave thirty million dollars to OpenAI in 2017, and got one board seat. (At the time, the head of Open Philanthropy was living with Christiano, employing Christiano’s future wife, and engaged to Daniela Amodei, an OpenAI employee who later co-founded Anthropic.) “It’s an absolute clusterfuck,” an employee at an organization funded by Open Philanthropy told me. “I brought up once what their conflict-of-interest policy was, and they just laughed.” (The New Yorker)

Deep Tech News

• Australian computer scientist is not Bitcoin creator Nakamoto, high court rules
• FCC Denies Starlink Low-Orbit Bid for Lower Latency
• Bioengineering company creates induced pluripotent stem cells from elephant skin cells
• Biden proposes 30% tax on crypto mining
• DeepMind AI Plays Goat Simulator
• Japan's Space One rocket explodes shortly after launch

JPEG of the Week

SpaceX’s Starship spacecraft made it to space and traveled more than halfway around the world Thursday before coming to a fiery end over the Indian Ocean, in the most successful demonstration to date of the vehicle NASA has chosen to one day land astronauts on the moon.

While the spacecraft did not survive reentry into Earth’s atmosphere, it completed a number of key milestones that were hailed as major steps toward helping SpaceX perfect the art of flying the world’s largest and most powerful rocket. In addition to a near-perfect launch, the craft flew for nearly an hour after lifting off from SpaceX’s private launch site in South Texas near the Gulf of Mexico. (via Elon Musk /Washington Post )

Peer Review

• Using light to precisely control single-molecule devices
• A new sensor detects harmful 'forever chemicals' in drinking water
• A physics-based predictive tool to speed up battery and superconductor research
• Scientists propose new scheme for the quantum battery using waveguides
• AI reveals prostate cancer is not just one disease
• Unraveling the origins of life: Scientists discover 'cool' sugar acid formation in space
• New research on tungsten unlocks potential for improving fusion materials
• Researchers achieve quantum key distribution for cybersecurity in novel experiment
• Scientists reveal the first unconventional superconductor that can be found in mineral form in nature
• Powerful new tool ushers in new era of quantum materials research
• 'GPS nanoparticle' platform precisely delivers therapeutic payload to cancer cells
• Genomic research may be key to understanding cancer resistance in Tasmanian devils
• Scientists ‘achieve the highest power density in the world’ for EV wireless charging
• Car batteries can optimize the power grid

Funding x M&A

• Proscia’s $46M Series C propels AI-driven pathology into the mainstream
• Empathy closes $47M for AI to help with the practical and emotional bereavement process
• Tierra Biosciences nabs $11M to create new AI-guided proteins
• Bear Robotics, a robot waiter startup, just picked up $60M from LG
• Quaise Energy Raises $21M to Accelerate Terawatt-Scale Deep Geothermal Energy
• Li-Cycle Announces $75M Strategic Investment from Glencore
• Polyhedra Network, a startup building a zero-knowledge interoperability protocol, raised a $20M round at a $1B valuation
• Carbonova, a startup turning greenhouse emissions into carbon materials, raised a $6M round
• Metal 3D printing startup Fluent Metal raised a $3.2M round
• Climate-tech startup CarbonCapture raised an $80M Series A
• Interlune, a startup aiming to commercialize natural resources from the moon, raised an $18M seed round
• Furno, a startup building super efficient modular kilns for the cement industry, raised a $6.5M seed round
• Orbio Earth, a startup building a satellite-based methane leak detection platform, raised a $4M seed round
• Autonomous vehicle software startup Applied Intuition raised a $250M Series E at a $6B valuation
• Simera Sense, a startup providing end-to-end optical solutions for the small satellite Earth observation industry, raised a $14.8M round
• Tierra Biosciences, a startup developing a platform for AI-guided custom protein synthesis, raised an $11M Series A
• Biobot, a startup specializing in robotic prostate biopsy and treatment solutions, raised a $24M Series B 
• Greenlyte Carbon Technologies, a German direct air capture startup, raised an $11.5M pre-Series A

Miscellanea

AI girlfriends are 7 times more popular than AI boyfriends / Google prevents Gemini AI from answering questions about upcoming elections / Cicadas' unique urination unlocks new understanding of fluid dynamics / Danish chef to launch gourmet dining to stratosphere / “xAI will open source Grok" / Claude 3 claims it's conscious, doesn't want to die or be modified / Interstellar signal linked to aliens was actually just a truck / Giant 'sand battery' holds a week's heat for a whole town / Giant Volcano Discovered on Mars / Everyday products you didn't know were made using prison labor / Insult Passphrase Generator / Boeing whistleblower John Barnett found dead / Poo bags and trackers: Nepal orders new Everest rules