Facebook, Instagram owner Meta is struggling to fully contain and address hate speech ahead of the U.S. election.
| Photo Credit: Reuters

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Meta struggles to contain hate speech

Facebook, Instagram owner Meta is struggling to fully contain and address hate speech ahead of the U.S. election. Researchers tested how Facebook was dealing with hate speech ahead of the presidential vote by analysing 200,000 comments on the pages of 67 U.S. Senate candidates between September 6 and October 6.

Researchers found that Meta took days to react to egregious violations of its own “community standards” when it came to removing comments that referred offensively to Muslim and Jewish people, and speculated about one candidate’s sexual orientation in a dehumanising manner. The findings come as Meta has long faced criticism from researchers, watchdog groups, and lawmakers for not fostering a healthy information ecosystem during elections across the globe.

OpenAI looks to become for-profit

Sam Altman-led OpenAI is in early talks with the California attorney general’s office to change its corporate structure in a bid to become a for-profit business. A shift to being a for-profit company would mark a drastic reversal in governance structure for the AI pioneer, which was founded in 2015 as a non-profit AI research lab. However, the move would make the firm more attractive to investors.

Last month, the ChatGPT-maker closed a $6.6 billion funding round, which could value the company at $157 billion and cement its position as one of the most valuable private companies in the world.

Robot AI startup raises $400 million

Physical Intelligence, a startup that is developing foundational software for robots has raised $400 million in early-stage funding from Amazon’s Jeff Bezos, OpenAI, venture capital firms Thrive Capital and Lux Capital.

Physical Intelligence is seeking to make software that would work on any robot, eliminating the need to develop software for each specific task. The largest tech companies — Microsoft, Google, Meta, Amazon, and Nvidia — are investing billions in adopting AI. Multiple startups are foraying into robotic AI space, including Vicarious, which was acquired by Alphabet-owned Intrinsic in 2022, Universal Robots, Seegrid, and Covariant.