Seeking Alpha’s roundup of statements, announcements and remarks that could impact the technology sector.
- The Federal Trade Commission is investigating the potentially negative impact of AI chatbots on children and teens.
The agency said it is particularly concerned about children and teens forming “relationships” with the chatbots, which can effectively mimic human behavior. The investigation will focus on chatbots developed by Alphabet (NASDAQ:GOOG) (NASDAQ:GOOG), xAI, OpenAI, Meta (NASDAQ:META), Character Technologies, and Snapchat (NYSE:SNAP).
“The FTC inquiry seeks to understand what steps, if any, companies have taken to evaluate the safety of their chatbots when acting as companions, to limit the products’ use by and potential negative effects on children and teens, and to apprise users and parents of the risks associated with the products,” the agency said in a statement.
OpenAI, which was co-founded by Tesla (NASDAQ:TSLA) CEO Elon Musk, counts Microsoft (NASDAQ:MSFT) as a major backer. Tesla shareholders are slated to vote on whether the EV maker should invest in xAI, which is also owned by Musk, in November.
- China’s Ant Group has unveiled its first humanoid robot.
The robot, called R1, is being developed by Ant’s Shanghai Ant Lingbo Technology division, also known as Robbyant. Ant, best known for its fintech app Alipay, is backed by Chinese billionaire Jack Ma and affiliated with Alibaba (BABA).
“If humanoid robots are used in homes, they won’t just help with everyday tasks, they’ll act like super-smart brains, tapping into cloud-based AI to assist with even more things,” said Robbyant CEO Zhu Xing, according to Bloomberg.
“It makes sense for Ant to be doing this because our goal is to make people’s lives easier, whether it be in payments, finance or digital public services,” Xing added.
Other leading humanoid robot developers include Tesla (NASDAQ:TSLA) and China’s Unitree Robotics, which is reportedly readying an IPO.
- Blockchain-based fintech Figure Technology (NASDAQ:FIGR) raised approximately $588 million through its IPO on Thursday.
Figure offered 23.5 million shares priced at $25 per share. Certain selling shareholders offered an additional 8 million shares at the IPO price. Figure will not receive any proceeds from the shareholder sale, according to a statement.
The company had previously said it was looking to price the shares between $20 and $22 per share.