Plus: Disney hires Character.AI CEO as entertainment company’s first chief technology officer. And AI startup Manus seeks to raise $500 million and weighs Hong Kong IPO. Julie Chang hosts.
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[00:00:01] Here's your afternoon TNB Tech Minute for Friday, September 18. I'm Julie Chang for The Wall Street Journal. California Governor Gavin Newsom signed an executive order increasing state oversight of AI safety risks. The order convenes experts to consider policies like independent safety evaluations for frontier AI labs, as well as create a kill switch for models. Per the order, California's government operations agency will evaluate these proposals within two months.
[00:00:31] Newsom criticized the federal government's lack of AI regulation and referred to President Trump and Congress as, quote, asleep at the wheel. Disney has hired Karandeep Anand, the head of startup Character AI, as its first chief technology officer. Character AI allows users to interact with AI-powered chatbot avatars ranging from real people like Elon Musk to anime characters.
[00:00:57] Anand will oversee Disney's internal technology and infrastructure, data and AI platforms, and product and engineering teams. Disney added that several of Anand's technical team from Character AI will also be joining the entertainment company. Finally, AI startup Manus is raising money and exploring a potential public listing in Hong Kong after severing ties with Meta. That's according to people familiar with the matter.
[00:01:22] The company is in talks with IDG Capital and Boyu Capital to raise about $500 million in a funding round that would value the startup at around $4 billion. Founded by Chinese entrepreneurs, Manus develops AI agents for complex tasks like generating research reports and presentation slides. It recently resumed independent operations after Chinese regulators blocked its more than $2 billion acquisition by Meta over national security concerns.
[00:01:51] Manus did not respond to requests for comment. And that's it for your TNB Tech Minutes. Tune in tomorrow for a special bonus episode on AI chatbots being used for mental health support and whether they are safe tools. And let us know if this video is fine as possible. If you'd like to stop that, let us know when you are related to the data.