Rapid progress in artificial intelligence (AI) has spurred some leading voices in the field to call for a research pause, raise the possibility of AI-driven human extinction, and even ask for government regulation. At the heart of their concern is the idea AI might become so powerful we lose control of it. But have we… Read more »
South Australian customer retention fintech Sherlok has raised $3.4 million to help mortgage brokers get better home loan deals for their clients. The round was led by VC Rampersand, with participation from Investible and its Club Investible syndicate, supported by Paloma and Common Sense Ventures. A pioneering use case of open banking from the three-year-old… Read more »
In the final week of March 2023, the Future of Life Institute made headlines with its open letter, signed by some of the biggest names in tech, calling on all artificial intelligence (AI) labs to “immediately pause the training of AI systems more powerful than GPT-4”. It cited the need to allow safety research and… Read more »
Sydney broadband network analytics firm Canopus Networks, which helps telecommunications providers deliver low-latency lag-free gaming, has raised an additional US$3 million (AU$4.5M) in its Series A to take the total value of the round to US$10.6 million (A$15.7m). The latest round was led by US VC Konvoy Ventures, a gaming industry focused investor. Managing Partner… Read more »
The federal government is seeking feedback on mitigating any potential risks from the use of artificial intelligence technologies (AI) and how to build a safe framework for its use amid growing global concerns that seeing machine learning as potentially an existential threat to humanity. Science and industry minister Ed Husic released two discussion papers on… Read more »
Doomsaying is an old occupation. Artificial intelligence (AI) is a complex subject. It’s easy to fear what you don’t understand. These three truths go some way towards explaining the oversimplification and dramatisation plaguing discussions about AI. This week outlets around the world were plastered with news of yet another open letter claiming AI poses an… Read more »
Since its founding in 2016, Elon Musk’s neurotechnology company Neuralink has had the ambitious mission to build a next-generation brain implant with at least 100 times more brain connections than devices currently approved by the US Food and Drug Administration (FDA). The company has now reached a significant milestone, having received FDA approval to begin… Read more »
Enterprise software startup Complexica has raised $6.5 million in a round backed by Acorn Capital. The nine-year-old Adelaide tech company has now taken on $31 million in external capital over the last two years as it ramps up the use of artificial intelligence and machine learning in software for optimising and automating sales, marketing, and… Read more »
Deakin University’s Centre for AI and the Future of Business is holding its third annual AI Festival in Melbourne next week on June 1-2. The 2023 theme ‘Co-creating value with AI’ will bring together more than 150 business leaders, tech innovators, scholars, and policy makers, including 25 expert presenters. A series of panel sessions will… Read more »
Enterprise software startup Servicely has raised $3 million as it looks to transform how people work. The round was led by Sydney B2B SaaS focused venture fund EVP. The funding is allocated towards further international expansion and enhancing the startup’s Enterprise Service Management (ESM) platform. Servicely’s software-as-a-service (SaaS) platform uses artificial intelligence (AI) to augment… Read more »
Breakthrough Victoria, the state government’s $2 billion investment fund, has backed edtech startup Cadmus, which is helping universities detect generative AI plagiarism, chipping in $600,000 as part of an undisclosed total round for global expansion. Cadmus emerged in 2015 out of a research project at the University of Melbourne. The software platform has sophisticated learner… Read more »
Welcome to our regular column on the important things to see and do for the ANZ startup community, brought to you by the director of the Spark Festival, Maxine Sherrin. If you’d like to know more, sign up to the Weekly Sparks, Maxine’s roundup of all that’s on in Australian tech and startups, which comes out… Read more »
Debates about AI often characterise it as a technology that has come to compete with human intelligence. Indeed, one of the most widely pronounced fears is that AI may achieve human-like intelligence and render humans obsolete in the process. However, one of the world’s top AI scientists is now describing AI as a new form… Read more »
Turing Award winner and AI pioneer Geoffrey Hinton has resigned from his position with Google in order to speak more openly about the dangers of artificial intelligence, raising questions about whether tech giants have silenced the people most qualified to inform the public about the emerging technology’s effects. In 2012, Hinton and two of his students, Ilya Sutskever… Read more »
Former NSW digital government minister Victor Dominello has a new job after leaving politics at the March state election, signing on as the director of the university-based UNSW-UTS Trustworthy Digital Society Hub. The announcement comes on the same day Jihad Dib, the new Labor minister in charge of digital government marked Privacy Week, announcing the… Read more »
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