TechCrunch Top 3

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Biden embraces creators: The White House held its first ever Creator Economy Conference, during which the president told influencers that they were trusted and, well, influential. He's not wrong. Half of U.S. adults get some of their news from social media. But it felt a bit off that Biden was at once trying to court creators to play a role in political messaging, while simultaneously denying journalists from asking questions. Read more

RIP, CrowdTangle: Three months ahead of the election, Meta shut down CrowdTangle, a tool you've probably never heard of but was nonetheless beloved by journalists, researchers and politicians who used it to track disinformation on Facebook and Instagram. Critics say CrowdTangle's replacement, Meta Content Library, is less accessible, less user friendly, and limited in features. Read more

Keep calm and hack on: Over the weekend, a person who goes by the name "Robert" shared stolen docs from the Trump campaign with Politico. You may recall in 2016 there was a similar hack-and-leak operation targeting Hilary Clinton. Last time, the media took the news and ran with it, amplifying the Russian government's message. But this time? It looks like we've learned our lesson. Read more

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Morning must-reads

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🧑‍🔬 The godmother of AI: Renowned Stanford University AI professor Fei-Fei Li wants to create AI models that can estimate the 3D physicality of real-world objects without the need for extensive data collection. TC got the scoop that Li has raised over $100 million for her stealthy new startup, World Labs, valuing the company at over $1 billion. Read more

🎨 What even is art anymore? Filmmakers say that in the short term, generative AI won't change the way people make movies and TV. Today's text-based prompts for imagery are fundamentally limited in how they can be controlled and don't translate well into post-production. But in the long term, the changes to art could be beyond imagination. Read more

💰 Binance is back in India: After a seven-month government-imposed hiatus, Binance is back trading crypto in India. The crypto exchange had to register locally to comply with the country's anti-money laundering and counter financing of terrorism network. Something tells me Indian crypto exchanges won't be too pleased with Binance's return. Read more

🚀 To the moon: It's hard for retail investors to parse through the noise online about which stocks are a buy, hold or sell. TipRanks has gained in popularity recently by using AI and other analytics to make sense of it all. And its success has landed it a $200 million acquisition from Prytek. Read more

🤑 Save now, pay later: Klarna now lets customers in the U.S. and 11 European countries store money in a Klarna balance account, which can be used to pay for things in full or in installments. Consumers can also get cash back on shopping by making purchases through the Klarna app. Read more

A Message from Daniel P McLaughlin & Co. Auctioneers

Public Auction on August 20

You're invited to join a public auction for the business assets of InvestFin, a former fintech startup based in Delaware. Assets include finserv software and various intellectual property. The auction takes place on Tuesday, August 20, in New York City at the offices of Feuerstein Kulick LLP. Bid in person or by teleconference.

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Around the Web

🚫 FTC cracks down on fake online reviews: In less than 60 days, it will become illegal for companies to buy and sell fake consumer reviews, including AI generated consumer and celebrity testimonials, for products and services, reports Engadget. Finally. Read more

🚸 The kids are not all right: Over 60% of American Gen Z voters oppose making kids under 16 seek parental consent to use social media, reports Bloomberg. And more than 85% of them think there should be no limits on when they can receive social media notifications. But don't forget to touch some grass once in a while. Read more

🛑 Intel just couldn't keep up: SoftBank reportedly held talks with Intel about making an AI chip to compete with Nvidia, but the plan hit a wall after Intel couldn't meet SoftBank's requirements, according to the Financial Times. It would have been a win for Intel, which sort of needs one at the moment. Now SoftBank is looking to TSMC. Read more

Before you go

👺 The era of unhinged AI images: Black Forest Labs is the startup behind the new AI image generator in Elon Musk's latest version of Grok, and it has almost zero safeguards. TC reporter Max Zeff used it to generate an image of Donald Trump smoking a joint on the Joe Rogan show. Read more