The Last Seedance

Top News

ByeDance responds to Seedance IP complaints: Last week, we covered the Chinese AI giant’s new Seedance 2.0 text-to-video model, which has been used to generate dozens of viral clips currently blowing up social media, featuring recognizable celebrities and IP characters from Jerry Seinfeld to Spider-Man. On Friday, Disney sent ByteDance a cease-and-desist, accusing the company of training its models on a “pirated library” of copyrighted characters. In response, ByteDance tells BBC that the company “respects intellectual property rights” and will strengthen the app’s guardrails to prevent “unauthorized use of intellectual property and likeness by users.” If AI Slop is ever going to mature into a viable artistic medium, will it have to wean itself off of its addiction to copyright violations?
ElevenLabs sets “ruthless” sales quotas: During a recent appearance on the 20VC podcast, the text-to-voice startup’s VP of Sales Carles Reina previewed the extremely high standards they’re setting for the rank and file. Sales reps earning $100,000 per year are expected to hit $2 million in annual sales, or 20x their base salaries. As Reina explains, the company aims to hire fewer sales associates, keeping the overall team size low, so they can in turn better compensate individual workers. So long as they hit their quotas, of course. Still, the T500 AI company is on such a tear — hitting ARR of $330 million last year — you could theoretically argue that the product sells itself.
Ars Technica apologizes over fake AI quotes: An article published last week in the tech blog apparently featured “fabricated quotations generated by an AI tool.” Worse yet, the article attributed the hallucinated words to a real person — engineer and blogger Scott Shambaugh — who never actually spoke them aloud. According to a lengthy mea culpa post credited to editor-in-chief Ken Fisher, this was an isolated incident, and no further issues have been uncovered. The Ars post does not specifically exactly how this happened, noting simply that the quote made it online in violation of the site’s standards. Curiously enough, the subject of the original piece was AI overreach, covering a blog post Shambaugh wrote for his own site about a rogue AI agent independently authoring a “hit piece” about him after he rejected its code.

TWiST 500

AI giant Anthropic may be on the verge of losing out on its lucrative two-year Pentagon contract due to internal safety policies. The company has put guardrails in place to prevent its Claude models — including the Claude Gov system created specifically for the US military — from being used on mass surveillance projects, or autonomous weapons systems without a human in the loop.

The Pentagon, however, wants to adhere to less stringent guidelines, and allow for edge cases that might violate Anthropic’s rules but not federal law. The conversation appears to have reached an impasse, and the Department of War is reportedly weighing the possibility of designating Anthropic a “supply chain risk,” meaning any other organization that wishes to do business with the US military would be forced to cut ties to them. Time will tell if this is a genuine threat or a negotiating tactic, but it puts Anthropic in the unenviable position of choosing directly, and publicly, between ethics and revenue.

Elsewhere, autonomy aircraft and drone makers Shield AI signed a new agreement to collaborate on the US Air Force’s Collaborative Combat Aircraft (CCA) program. Shield has developed AI technology known as “Hivemind,” which operates uncrewed defense systems, allowing them to not just pilot aircraft and drones, but make quick decisions independent of any human intervention. That includes adjusting course, dodging obstacles, responding to emergency situations, and even completing missions. Last week, Bloomberg reported that the defense tech company is currently in talks to raise $1 billion, in a deal that would value them at around $12 billion. – Lon

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This Week in Startups

E2250: We talked to three awesome founders who are using OpenClaw like a real human co-worker, not just an AI helper. The list includes Ryan Carson, who built Antfarm, turning OpenClaw into a team of agents with specialized roles. Plus David Im, the creator of Clawra, an AI companion that learns more about you over time. Finally, we welcome Alex Liteplo of RentAHuman, the marketplace where bots can hire people, when they desperately need one in the loop.

E2249: Jason’s chatting with 2 more amazing founders making innovative new products on a special Thursday TWiST. First up, former LAUNCH staffer Presh Dineshkumar shows off Tempo, a new app from his startup The Wellness Company that monitors your health AND provides insightful, proactive, and most importantly consistent advice. THEN we’re chatting with Peter Cetale of Sourcerer, who’s using AI to simplify the sourcing and distribution process for manufacturers.

E2248: OpenClaw Mania continues on TWiST! Today, Jason welcomes former LAUNCH staffer Presh Dineshkumar, who shows off how he’s using Replicants behind-the-scenes to simplify workflows at his startup, The Wellness Company. (He’s named his bot Eywa, and she has access to his product and his emails.) PLUS we’re joined by special guests Vishnu and Sean Liu, whose OpenClaw projects are so impressive, Jason offers to invest right on the spot.

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