TechCrunch Industry News

OpenAI proposes taxes on AI profits, public wealth funds, and expanded safety nets to address job loss and inequality, blending redistribution with capitalism as policymakers debate AI’s economic impact. Also, Iran said it will target U.S.-linked data centers with new missile strikes, as the war between the U.S. and Iran escalates. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

A Democratic congressman had harsh criticism for Polymarket for allowing users to bet on the date the U.S. would confirm the rescue of Air Force service members shot down over Iran. Plus, it’s about to become more expensive for Claude Code subscribers to use Anthropic’s coding assistant with OpenClaw and other third-party tools. And, Tesla's headcount fell from 21,191 workers to 16,506 workers in 2025, according to a report, as it grappled with its second straight year of declining sales. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

The acting director of U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement told lawmakers that the use of Paragon spyware is necessary to counter terrorists’ “thriving exploitation of encrypted communications platforms.” Also, Tesla's deliveries in the first quarter were just 6% higher than last year, and Tesla now faces a third straight year of falling sales. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Sonder profiles are completely unstructured, encouraging users to build something that looks like a mood board or a digital collage Think MySpace rather than LinkedIn. Also, Anthropic executives said it was an accident and retracted the bulk of the takedown notices. And passengers in Baidu's robotaxis were trapped for up to two hours. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

FedEx recently announced a partnership with Berkshire Gray as the company works with external players to develop its automation tech. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

OpenAI's decision last week to shut down Sora, its AI video-generation tool, just six months after releasing it to the public raised immediate suspicions. The app had invited users to upload their own faces — so was this some kind of elaborate data grab? Also, Mantis takes disparate sources of data to make synthetic datasets that can be used to build so-called "digital twins" of the human body, representing anatomy, physiology and behavior. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

A new Stanford study tests how chatbots handle personal advice and where that can go wrong. Researchers measured sycophancy across multiple AI models and real-world datasets. Experiments show chatbots often validate risky behavior and people sometimes prefer flattering responses. The report explores how this could shape moral certainty and engagement incentives.

A leaked hacking toolkit puts millions of iPhones and iPads at risk. The conversation breaks down two advanced toolkits, Karuna and Darksword, and which iOS versions they target. Listeners hear how the leak enables easy drive-by infections and where attacks have been observed globally. Practical mitigation steps like updating iOS and using Lockdown Mode are highlighted.

A policy about region-weighted creator payouts on X gets paused after backlash and new rules target AI-generated war misinformation. A startup repurposes rocket telemetry tools for factory floors to make sensor data AI-ready and cut automated testing costs. Funding and big-name customers highlight the industrial shift toward advanced manufacturing data infrastructure.

A robotics company will integrate DeepMind's Gemini robotics models and share robot-collected data for testing and deployment across factories, auto plants, data centers and logistics. The conversation covers how hardware–software partnerships are accelerating physical AI and scaling autonomous robots. Also covered is a smart-ring maker’s renewed push into the U.S. market after resolving import issues.