AI company's chatbot faces criticism over its generation of sexualized, nonconsensual images of women and girls Elon Musk's artificial intelligence company has raised $20bn in its latest funding round, the startup announced Tuesday, even as its marquee chatbot Grok faces backlash over generating sexualized, nonconsensual images of women and underage girls. The funding round exceeded its initial $15bn target, according to xAI's press release. The company touted Grok's image-generation abilities in the announcement of its latest funding round. Nonetheless, the company has been able to win government contracts and billions of dollars in investment amid the AI boom. Over the past week, Grok has responded to tens of thousands of prompts from users on X requesting the chatbot remove women's clothing in images or pose them in sexualized ways.

Should private companies be able to dim the sun? Solar geoengineering aims to manipulate the climate by bouncing sunlight back into space. In theory, it could ease global warming. But as interest in the idea grows, so do concerns about potential consequences. A startup called Stardust Solutions recently raised a $60 million funding round, the largest known to date for a geoengineering startup. My colleague James Temple has a new story out about the company, and how its emergence is making some researchers nervous.

David Ha, CEO of Sakana AI, is one of the founders of the startup, which was established in 2023. Sakana AI has achieved a ¥400 billion ($2.6 billion) valuation after raising ¥20 billion yen in a recent funding round, and notes that it is now Japan's largest startup ever. The new investment and the sky-high valuation come as AI-mania grips markets globally and drives shares of publicly traded AI-related companies to unprecedented levels. Nvidia now has a market capitalization of more than $4.5 trillion. It also comes as more questions are raised about AI and whether it will deliver on its promises and generate enough profit to justify all the capital being committed to it. In a time of both misinformation and too much information, quality journalism is more crucial than ever.

Thinking Machines Lab, an artificial intelligence company founded by top researchers who fled OpenAI, has raised a record 2 billion seed round that values the fledgling firm at 12 billion. The funding round was led by Andreessen Horowitz and included Nvidia, Accel, Cisco, and AMD--among others. The mammoth investment reflects the ultracompetitive race to build advanced AI systems, as well as the premium placed on top AI talent. It is the largest seed funding round in history. Thinking Machines is led by CEO Mira Murati, who stepped down as OpenAI's chief technology officer last September.

OpenAI is close to finalizing a 40 billion ( 6 trillion) funding round led by SoftBank Group -- with investors including Magnetar Capital, Coatue Management, Founders Fund and Altimeter Capital Management in talks to participate, according to people familiar with the matter. Magnetar Capital -- an Evanston, Illinois-based hedge fund -- could contribute up to 1 billion, according to multiple people, all of whom asked not to be identified because the information is private. The artificial intelligence developer's funding round would be the largest of all time, according to data compiled by research firm PitchBook. The deal is set to value the company at 300 billion including dollars raised -- almost double the ChatGPT maker's previous valuation of 157 billion from when it raised money in October.

A consortium led by Elon Musk said it has offered 97.4bn to buy the nonprofit that controls OpenAI, months after the billionaire sued the artificial intelligence startup to block it from transitioning to a for-profit firm. Musk's bid, revealed on Monday, could ratchet up longstanding tensions with OpenAI CEO Sam Altman over the future of the startup at the heart of a boom in generative AI technology. Altman promptly posted on X: "No thank you but we will buy twitter for 9.74 billion if you want." The two are already embroiled in an ongoing lawsuit. Musk criticised a 500bn OpenAI-led project called Stargate announced with great fanfare at the White House just after United States President Donald Trump returned to office, suggesting the investors involved lacked the funding for the project.

OpenAI has raised 6.6bn ( 5bn) in a funding round that values the artificial intelligence business at 157bn, with chipmaker Nvidia and Japanese group SoftBank among its investors. The San Francisco-based startup, responsible for the ChatGPT chatbot, did not give details of a reported restructuring that will transform it into a for-profit business. The funding round was led by Thrive Capital, a US venture capital fund, and other backers include MGX, an Abu Dhabi-backed investment firm. OpenAI's post-fundraising valuation puts it on a par with Uber, although it remains far below the 3tn level of its biggest backer of recent years, Microsoft, which also joined the fundraising. Other investors included Nvidia, a dominant player in the market for the chips that train and operate AI models, and Softbank, which counts the UK chip designer Arm among its investments.

Sakana AI sees the potential for more strategic investors in Japan as rising U.S.-China tensions spur the country to boost its own artificial intelligence ecosystem. Growing geopolitical risks are heightening interest in the Tokyo-based startup, which recently announced a 100 million-plus funding round that includes Nvidia, according to Sakana's co-founder and Chief Executive Officer David Ha. "We think that a strong economy like Japan would want to advance their own AI ecosystem, and we want to be part of that," Ha said in an interview with Bloomberg TV on Monday. He added, however, that the recent funding round gives the company "more than enough ammunition" to develop its technology. Sakana's focus on a large number of small models that work together, rather than on one large foundational model, is attracting outsized interest in resource-poor Japan. The island nation, which relies almost wholly on energy imports, has been exploring more energy-efficient ways to catch up in AI.

The funding round is nearly ten times as much as the 70 million that this new robotics firm, Figure AI, managed to raise last May. Amazon founder Jeff Bezos, through his venture firm Explore Investments LLC, pledged an optimistic 100 million to the company, with Microsoft investing nearly as much, 95 million. Figure AI hopes that its first AI humanoid robot, Figure 01, will prove capable at jobs too dangerous for human laborers and might alleviate worker shortages. For now, the humanoid machine has proven itself adept at making a cup of coffee. Figure AI hopes that its first AI humanoid robot, Figure 01, will prove capable at jobs too dangerous for human laborers and might alleviate worker shortages.

Microsoft-backed OpenAI has completed a deal that values the artificial intelligence company at 80bn or more, the New York Times reported on Friday, citing multiple people with knowledge of the deal. The company would sell existing shares in a so-called tender offer led by venture firm Thrive Capital, the report said. Employees will be able to cash out their shares of the company rather than a traditional funding round, which would raise money for the business, the report added. OpenAI did not immediately respond to a request for comment. The artificial intelligence firm agreed to a similar deal early last year.