Luke Miller was receiving a lot of robot kittens.

It was October, a week or two after OpenAI released DALL-E 2 to the public, and as a product manager who had worked on the AI image-generation model, Miller recalled fielding messages from family members and friends “from all walks of life” and, most frequently, from his 14-year-old niece, who has a penchant for cats.

Miller’s personal influx of kitten pictures was part of a much larger trend: DALL-E 2 and other image-generation models like it had been going viral for months.

Big picture: In 2022, companies working on generative AI have taken over headlines, social media, and even VC dollars, raising $1.3 billion through late November—a 15% spike year over year, even amid a broader market contraction, according to Pitchbook data.

• Users have already brought AI-generated art to a wide range of industries, from marketing and graphic design to film and retail.
• One creation was featured on the cover of Cosmopolitan. Another (controversially) won an art prize at a state fair.

But generative AI has also introduced a slew of ethical and legal questions. Click here to read the full story on AI art in 2022.—HF

What do Spain, the Czech Republic, and the Netherlands have in common? They were all knocked out of the World Cup running earlier than they hoped—and they’re among the more than 20 countries that have created laws regulating remote work since 2020.

• As more countries grapple with who should be allowed to work remotely and how remote work should be managed, HR leaders might wonder if the US will look overseas for legislation inspiration.
• But workplace experts told HR Brew that isn’t likely to happen.

Rules abound. While remote work became necessary around the world in 2020, governments began to establish guidelines for who can request to work from home, what work–life boundaries need to exist, and how remote workers should be compensated for personal utilities.

Gallup estimates that over 70 million US workers can do their jobs from home. The US does not currently have laws guiding remote-work arrangements, and there is no legislation in progress that would change that. Read the full story from HR Brew here.—KP

It’s late December, and another record-breaking year in VC funding is drawing to a close. Only this year, unlike in 2021, the likely record is “the biggest year-over-year reduction in funding,” not, uh, “the most money ever invested in a year.”

Let’s look ahead: Last week, we asked all of you to predict what 2023 would hold for VC funding. Here’s what the 884 respondents said:

• More than one-third (34%) said it would grow.
• Just under one-third (31%) said it would shrink.
• The plurality of respondents (35%) said VC funding would be flat.

What the experts think: Pitchbook released its 2023 US VC outlook this week, and it anticipates the cooled-off 2022 market continuing into next year. It anticipates headwinds for SPACs, later venture stages like growth, Series D and Series C, and mega-round funding (deals of $100+ million). But one bright spot in its outlook is that the firm expects seed-stage valuations and deal sizes to continue to rise, even if fewer deals get done.—DM

This week’s poll: Of the following technologies, which will be the most important in 2023?

Generative AI
EV batteries
🕶 The metaverse
🛰 Satellite connectivity

Stat: Meta plans to devote about 20% of its “overall costs and expenses” to Reality Labs in 2023, per Bloomberg.

Quote: “Recent attempts to monetize whales have garnered attention by valuing an ‘average’ whale at $2 million for carbon-capture and other services…We feel the scientific support for this valuation is lacking.”—The authors of a recent peer-reviewed study on the carbon sequestration potential of…whales

Read: Inside the world’s biggest tech bazaars—and what we can learn from key cities’ electronics districts.

Learn: Learning how to use Excel for personal finance may take a little work. Luckily, there are tons of shortcuts to make it easier. Here are some of our favorites.

Catch up on the top Emerging Tech Brew stories from the past few editions:

• The under-the-radar tech at the core of Matter’s smart-home platform
• A major homebuilder tests the market for climate-conscious homes
• Here’s how the battery industry evolved in 2022