The Pope Has Thoughts on AI Art—And They're Not Flattering
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This Guy Cloned Sam Altman, Elon Musk, and Zuckerberg Into AI Bots. They Immediately Started Fighting
Kun Chen built chatbot versions of four AI CEOs on SpaceXAI's new Grok Bot templates, locked them in one chat, and told them to debate the AI race until they agreed on something.
ArkStream Founding Partner: I had discussed investment with Li Bojie, but later found his contract to be very unprofessional, and he hadn't even figured out how to unlock it.
According to Odaily Odaily, Ye Su, Founding Partner of ArkStream Capital, wrote on X: "Li Bojie also contacted us during the fundraising process. At the time, we thought the project background was good, and we expressed our interest. Later, during the due diligence phase, we discovered that Li Bojie intentionally confused the funds he was interested in with the funds he had already invested in. Moreover, the contract he sent was very unprofessional. The team hadn't even figured out how to unlock the funds. One minute they would reply 'we'll decide later,' and the next minute they would reply 'we can place an order now.' So we decided to pass on him." Ye Su also mentioned: "Having worked in the first-tier market for 8 years, my deepest realization is that a founder's character and talent have absolutely nothing to do with each other. When founders are at a low point, they are very humble when raising funds, but it is when they achieve success that their character is truly tested. Li Bojie is a prime example; the fact that he dares to respond shows that he is justified in swindling money."
AI giants like OpenAI and Anthropic are offering startups large amounts of free computing power in an effort to seize market share.
According to a report by the Wall Street Journal on July 7th, as reported by Mars Finance, AI companies such as OpenAI and Anthropic are offering substantial free computing power and discounts to startups to compete for enterprise customers. The report states that Silicon Valley startup founders are receiving computing credits, token usage limits, and auction-style discounts from AI model companies. Some early-stage companies have received over $3 million in cloud computing and token credits, approaching the median of seed funding in the US according to PitchBook. AI companies hope to acquire customers in the early stages of startups, making their tools an integral part of their business as these companies grow. Cursor offered a 75% discount until July 5th; Google Cloud offered up to $500,000 in cloud computing credits to some startups, along with early access to the Gemini model and, in some cases, support from DeepMind engineers. Microsoft and Amazon Web Services also offer special privileges to startups. OpenAI and Anthropic have recently been particularly focused on Y Combinator startups. In May, Sam Altman announced that OpenAI would offer $2 million in tokens to each startup participating in its accelerator program in exchange for equity. Around the same time, Anthropic increased its free token allocation to Y Combinator startups from $30,000 to $500,000, without requiring equity. OpenAI subsequently adjusted its offer, providing startups with $500,000 in free tokens, without requiring equity, and offering the option to exchange equity for an additional $1.5 million in tokens. These offers reflect the fierce competition among model providers for future large clients. Y Combinator runs four cohorts annually, with recent cohorts featuring approximately 200 companies each, meaning that OpenAI and Anthropic could potentially offer a combined $800 million in AI tokens over the next year. Christopher Acker, co-founder of SuperPenguin, stated, "The AI world is being driven by OpenAI and Anthropic because they are giving startups money to pay for usage costs."
BlackRock to launch Nasdaq 100 ETF, challenging Invesco's dominant position.
PANews reported on July 7th that BlackRock announced on Tuesday the launch of an ETF tracking the tech-heavy Nasdaq 100 index, aiming to meet growing investor demand for participation in the AI-driven stock market rally. The "iShares Nasdaq 100 ETF," launched by the world's largest asset manager, will track this flagship U.S. index and will begin trading on Thursday. This comes shortly after Nasdaq revised its inclusion criteria to expedite the inclusion of newly listed companies like SpaceX. BlackRock's ETF will compete with Invesco's Nasdaq 100-related products; Invesco has long dominated this field, with its QQQ Trust Series 1 and Nasdaq 100 ETF being highly sought after by investors looking to invest in large-cap growth stocks and tech stocks.
Nansen integrates with Hyperliquid perpetual contract trading, supporting smart money and on-chain data analytics.
BlockBeats reported on July 7th that blockchain data analytics platform Nansen has officially launched its Hyperliquid Perp (perpetual contract trading) feature, making it available to all web and mobile users. Users can track Smart Money, whale addresses, and the on-chain activities of well-known investors while directly trading Hyperliquid perpetual contracts within Nansen. They can also view key data in real-time, such as funding rates, long/short positions, and wallet-level position distribution, achieving a seamless "research-as-trade" experience. Nansen stated that the platform has simultaneously launched the Hyperliquid Perps Leaderboard, which supports filtering by Smart Money, whale, and top traders, and can be sorted based on performance over the past 7 days, 30 days, or historical cumulative performance, helping users quickly discover leading wallet addresses. In addition, users can deposit funds from external wallets within the app, or cross-chain from connected Solana and Base wallets to Hyperliquid, and can also directly receive asset transfers from other Hyperliquid addresses. In addition to trading functionality, Nansen has further expanded its data coverage across the Hyperliquid ecosystem, including HyperFND on-chain activity monitoring and the Hyperliquid Data API. Users can track HyperEVM active addresses, contract deployments, and ecosystem growth in real time, while development teams can access real-time Smart Money perpetual contract positions, unrealized profit/loss (PnL), account health, complete trading history, and performance data via the API, supporting quantitative analysis, strategy development, and application building.
During his research visit to Guangzhou on the development of the artificial intelligence industry, Meng Fanli emphasized: Accelerate high-level applications across all regions, all times, and all industries to fully promote the high-quality development of the artificial intelligence industry.
According to Mars Finance, Meng Fanli, Deputy Secretary of the Guangdong Provincial Party Committee and Governor of Guangdong Province, visited several artificial intelligence (AI) companies in Guangzhou. He emphasized the need to thoroughly study and implement the spirit of General Secretary Xi Jinping's important speeches and instructions on Guangdong and Guangzhou, and to earnestly implement the deployments of the Guangdong Symposium on Accelerating the Development of the New Mechatronics Industry and the Guangdong AI Application Matching Conference. He stressed the importance of using more powerful and effective "policies + work" to fully promote the high-quality development of the AI industry and its high-level application across all regions, industries, and sectors, thereby accelerating the cultivation and development of new productive forces. Meng Fanli pointed out that global AI is currently experiencing explosive growth, and Guangdong possesses a strong industrial foundation, rich application scenarios, and a vibrant innovation ecosystem, making its AI industry development promising and highly valuable. He stressed the need to firmly grasp AI as a crucial driving force for the new round of technological revolution and industrial transformation, vigorously promote its rapid development and application, better empower various industries, bring it into every household, and drive high-quality development. We must fully leverage the advantages of mechatronics and hardware-software synergy, strengthen research and development of key core technologies and the transformation of research results in artificial intelligence, continuously attract investment and talent from across the country and globally, accelerate the strengthening of the entire artificial intelligence industry chain including chips, computing power, algorithms, data, and applications, cultivate a number of large-scale models in vertical fields and small-scale models for specific scenarios, develop and launch more industrial intelligent agents and life intelligent agents, and create a group of leading enterprises with outstanding technical strength, industry influence, and independent ecosystem construction capabilities. We must deepen and expand "AI+", adhering to full coverage, all-time response, and full industry penetration, comprehensively reviewing and fully developing all possible application scenarios in various fields such as intelligent manufacturing, smart parks, smart cities, smart healthcare, and smart transportation, especially accelerating the digital transformation of industrial enterprises, promoting the coordinated development of manufacturing and service industries, and better empowering the construction of a modern industrial system. We must create a first-class industrial ecosystem, comprehensively optimize policy supply, strengthen the guarantee of various factors such as finance, innovation, and talent, improve the artificial intelligence governance system, and promote the integration of large, medium, and small enterprises, upstream and downstream matching, and front-end and back-end closed loops in artificial intelligence development, creating a first-class environment and providing optimal services for high-quality industrial development. (Southern Plus)