Generative porn tech: The dark side of AI innovation

Today’s top story brings some continuing coverage of how artificial intelligence is affecting the porn industry. Nearly a year after taking a look at the early stages of AI-generated porn, we find that while this area of AI has evolved, the stakes get higher. Meanwhile, sex workers are being looped into conversations around what makes for good (or bad) nonplayable character content online.

Meanwhile, as you can see, there is a lot going on with AI, so you’d think it was an odd time to change jobs if you were neck deep in it. However, over at OpenAI, head of trust and safety Dave Willner stepped down.

And, in today’s top TechCrunch+ story, IBM’s earnings this past quarter leave us nonplussed, but they do show that Red Hat saved IBM’s bacon this quarter.

More top reads

Speaking of AI and safety: Top AI companies visit the White House to make “voluntary” safety commitments.

“Just an automaker with automaker problems”: Tesla’s margins remind us that the company is an automaker, not a tech company. (TC+)

Picture this: The makers of Camera+ releases Photon, a new image-capture app for pros.

Amazon bets on space, lots of it: Amazon is building a $120 million facility in Florida to process its Project Kuiper satellite.

Don’t bet on it: A group of high-profile investors are asking India PM Narendra Modi to reconsider a tax on online gaming.

In an instant: Now that FedNow is finally live in the U.S., find out how it will affect you.

All hail: Singapore’s ride-hailing and food delivery company Grab acquires the country’s third-largest taxi operator, Trans-Cab.

Flying too close to the sun: A solar panel malfunction on Astranis’ first commercial internet satellite is sending the company to Plan B.

From the “pod” files:

In today’s Equity podcast, Alex, Mary Ann and Becca dove into the Cameo layoffs, fintech secondary valuations, OnlyFans’ CEO stepping down, the AI-generated “South Park” episode and VanMoof’s bankruptcy. Listen to it.

More fodder for your Friday:

Telegram rolls out its Stories feature to Premium users

Pitch Deck Teardown: CleanHub’s $7M seed deck (TC+)

AMC scraps plan to charge more for better seats

Q2 fintech funding: LatAm, Caribbean more than doubles while payments takes a big hit

Startups with all-women founding teams raised just $1.4B in H1

If your founder team includes men and women, here’s some good news:

“Mixed-gender teams picked up 28.1% of capital raised in H1, which is up from raising 16.9% in H1 2022,” reports Dominic Madori-Davis.

However, women founders aren’t faring nearly as well, raising just $1.4 billion during the same period.

“The last time companies with all-women founders raised such a low H1 amount was in 2017, when they picked up $1.2 billion.”

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