November 21, 2024

How OpenAI stress-tests its large language models

OpenAI is once again lifting the lid (just a crack) on its safety-testing processes. Last month the company shared the results of an investigation that looked at how often ChatGPT produced a harmful gender or racial stereotype based on a user’s name. Now it has put out two papers describing how it stress-tests its powerful…

August 2023

Moniepoint cleared to acquire Kenyan fintech Kopo Kopo

August 22, 2023
The competition regulator in Kenya has given Moniepoint, the Nigerian fintech that provides business payments and banking platforms, the green light to acquire Kopo Kopo, a Kenyan-based company offering payments services and credit to businesses. Following the approval by Competition Authority of Kenya (CA), Moniepoint (formerly TeamApt) will expand its services to Kenya continuing its […]

Grip Security raises $41M to help enterprises manage their SaaS identity risk

August 22, 2023
Grip Security, which provides businesses with the tools to protect their SaaS applications and describes itself as the “industry’s first SaaS security control plane,” today announced that it has raised a $41 million Series B funding round led by Third Point Ventures. Previous investors YL Ventures, Intel Capital and The Syndicate Group also participated in […]

Cerby lands $17M to manage access to ‘nonstandard’ enterprise apps

August 22, 2023
Bel Lepe, a former Google software engineer, tells me that it always seemed risky to him that there were apps business users needed and used, but that IT and security teams were unwilling to approve them because of their lack of support for identity standards. It’s a legitimate issue. According to a Ponemon Institute survey, […]

Why we should all be rooting for boring AI

August 22, 2023
This story originally appeared in The Algorithm, our weekly newsletter on AI. To get stories like this in your inbox first, sign up here. I’m back from a wholesome week off picking blueberries in a forest. So this story we published last week about the messy ethics of AI in warfare is just the antidote, bringing my…

Why salt marshes could help save Venice

August 22, 2023
Venice, Italy, is suffering from a combination of subsidence—the city’s foundations slowly sinking into the mud on which they are built—and rising sea levels. In the worst-case scenario, it could disappear underwater by the year 2100. Alessandro Gasparotto, an environmental engineer, is one of the many people trying to keep that from happening. Standing on…

UK’s CMA confirms decision to block Microsoft-Activision but opens fresh probe of restructured deal proposal

August 22, 2023
The UK’s antitrust regulator has confirmed its April decision to block the $68.7BN Microsoft-Activision gaming mega-merger — rejecting arguments by Microsoft that it should overturn its original prohibition because of developments since the original decision. However in a simultaneous announcement today the Competition and Markets Authority (CMA) has opened a new investigation into a restructured […]