Plus: AI Kissing Apps Are Taking Deepfakes Mainstream |
Good morning,
Corporate training videos can be dull. But one British startup is betting it can use AI to change that.Synthesia’s AI avatars are already used by companies like Xerox, Spirit Airlines and chemicals giant DuPont to convert training text into videos in over 20 languages—with just one click. Synthesia just raised $180 million, valuing it at $2.1 billion, to make its avatars more lifelike and invest in tools for creating and hosting videos. Eventually, the company could compete with giants like OpenAI’s Sora or AI video startup Runway. But Synthesia’s lucrative niche making human proxies means its customers are more likely to be HR teams rather than Hollywood directors.
Let’s get into the headlines, |
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| Israel and Gaza-based militant group Hamas agreed to a ceasefire deal Wednesday after more than 15 months of fighting and just days before President-elect Donald Trump takes office. President Joe Biden said in a press conference that American hostages would be released as part of the first phase of the deal, but that all other details of the plan would be forthcoming. Officials believe 98 hostages remain in Gaza and that about 60 are still alive, per the Washington Post. If ByteDance were to sell TikTok to avoid an impending ban in the U.S. (which it has indicated it has no plans to do), how much would it be worth? Frank McCourt, the former Los Angeles Dodgers owner leading a group bidding for the social media giant, thinks TikTok’s U.S. business is worth $20 billion without its powerful “recommendation engine” which suggests new videos. But with the prized algorithm, one analyst thinks that a price of $300 billion “could be conservative.”
MORE: Trump is considering ways to prevent TikTok’s potential ban, including a possible executive order, according to the Washington Post. Meanwhile, the social media company’s CEO Shou Zi Chew plans to attend the president-elect’s inauguration next week, with the New York Times reporting that he was formally invited by the inaugural committee. |
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| | | AI Kissing Apps Are Taking Deepfakes Mainstream |
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| Meta and TikTok have run thousands of ads for apps that use AI to generate fake kissing videos of people, allowing users to upload photos of any two people and let AI convert them into a video of them kissing. The apps are being marketed as tools that would allow you to instantly “kiss anyone you want”—no consent required. Similar in concept to “AI nudifier” apps that produce nonconsensual deepfake pornography, these AI kissing apps create believable videos of people doing something they didn’t do. And the ease at which they do it is a concerning habitualization of deepfake imagery. While the ads are not sexually explicit like the deluge of AI-generated pornographic content that has engulfed social media platforms like Instagram, Reddit and YouTube, they can be equally dangerous, Haley McNamara, an executive at the National Center for Sexual Exploitation told Forbes. The companies behind these video generators appear to be based outside the U.S. in countries like the United Arab Emirates, Italy and China, according to their websites. The apps are available for free on Apple’s App Store and Google’s Play Store and already have millions of downloads. The spread of AI kissing apps, boosted by social media’s virality, illustrate a troubling mainstreaming of deepfakes in the age of generative AI. Use of these seemingly harmless apps could open the door to tools that could create more graphic imagery like deepfake porn and other types of image-based sexual abuse, McNamara said. “It’s just an absolute Pandora’s box,” she said. |
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| “The rise of an ‘AI kissing trend’ on social media platforms like Facebook, Instagram and TikTok represents the mainstreaming of deepfakes at a time when AI tools are being used to create nonconsensual pornographic deepfakes,” says Forbes reporter Rashi Shrivastava. “As is the case with AI image generators like Stable Diffusion, such systems can be misused to create videos of someone without their consent, and bully or harass them.” |
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| Inflation reached its highest level since the summer in December, at 2.9% year-over-year, though it was in line with economists’ projections. The higher inflation reading was at least in part a reflection of price increases tied to the turn of the calendar year, according to two Goldman Sachs economists. But core CPI inflation, which excludes food and energy price changes, was 3.2%, better than consensus estimates. MORE: Markets responded strongly to the report, the first inflation reading of the year, as the S&P 500 ended up 1.8%, the Dow Jones Industrial Average jumped 1.65% and the Nasdaq surged 2.45%, their best days since November 6. Still, one strategist warned the market’s recent fickle nature should keep investors on their toes. Payments startup Bolt’s $450 million raise is on ice after investors sued to block the round, but one Bolt shareholder has managed to escape the turmoil. Delaware’s Court of the Chancery ruled in a December 16 hearing that Bolt investor Activant Capital could sell $37 million of its shares back to the startup, ending a legal dispute that began in July 2023. |
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| Jeff Bezos’ space company Blue Origin successfully launched its New Glenn heavy lift rocket into orbit early Thursday—though it failed to meet a secondary goal of recovering a reusable booster stage of the rocket, which was lost during reentry. Still, the launch helps Blue Origin notch a key milestone as it aims to compete with Elon Musk’s SpaceX. Three-year-old startup Saronic, which aims to make a fleet of autonomous boats for the U.S. Navy, is in talks to raise $500 million, Forbes has learned. The fundraising round would value the nascent company at over $3 billion, the latest signal of booming venture capital interest in defense tech. |
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| In his farewell address Wednesday night, President Joe Biden warned Americans about what he called an oligarchy “of extreme wealth, power and influence” taking root in the U.S. The president also took aim at Big Tech, saying that he was “concerned about the potential rise of a tech-industrial complex,” while calling for more safeguards on powerful AI technologies. President-elect Donald Trump hosted 22 of the nation’s 27 Republican governors at a dinner at Mar-a-Lago last week. All these visitors, including dozens of other political powerbrokers, will likely boost Mar-a-Lago’s bottom line: Profits at the club have already more than doubled since the end of Trump’s first term. |
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| Drake sued Universal Music Group, which represents both himself and rapper Kendrick Lamar, accusing the major music company of defamation for releasing and promoting Lamar’s diss track “Not Like Us.” Drake’s lawsuit claims that UMG—but not Lamar—falsely promoted the ideas that Drake has committed acts of pedophilia and sex trafficking, which the rapper denies. |
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| The Transportation Department sued Southwest Airlines over “chronically delayed flights,” its latest action after fining JetBlue Airways over the same issue earlier this month. The lawsuit alleges Southwest flights from Chicago to Oakland and from Baltimore to Cleveland reached their destinations late nearly 200 times in 2022, according to CNBC. Brightline West, a bullet train project from billionaire investor Wes Eden to connect Las Vegas with suburban Los Angeles, is raising $2.5 billion from private investors with a tax-exempt bond offering. The new funding push, along with a $3 billion federal grant and other funds, is intended to help cover the estimated $12.4 billion needed to complete the line. Brightline seeks to launch passenger service by late 2028. |
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| As wildfires rage in Southern California, many are asking what they can do to help. Tax-exempt charities accepting wildfire-specific donations include the American Red Cross, the California Fire Foundation, the Los Angeles Food Bank and Direct Relief. Even if you’re not planning to claim a tax deduction, some of the tax rules that apply to charitable donations—like checking to see that the organization you’re giving to has its paperwork in order—are good rules to follow. MORE: Those impacted by the fire may get some relief from the IRS and the tax code, for instance, by taking |
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