This week, Meta released Glimmer, an open-weight AI model that anyone can download and run on their own hardware. This stands in stark contrast to Muse Spark, the company's more powerful model, which remains locked behind proprietary APIs. The release accompanied a letter from Mark Zuckerberg arguing that AI should be “for everyone” rather than controlled by a handful of labs. But as the hosts of TechCrunch's Equity podcast point out, this vision comes with some asterisks.
On this episode, hosts Kirsten Korosec, Anthony Ha, and Rebecca Bellan dive into Glimmer, Zuckerberg's 6,500-word manifesto, and other major headlines of the week. They also explore the true cost of the AI industry's escalating energy demands and examine a $250 million acquisition that went spectacularly wrong—complete with a missing CEO and a web of lawsuits.
In the episode:
- 00:00 – Intro
- 1:20 – Would you buy a $300 cocktail robot?
- 3:08 – Meta's Glimmer and the “AI for everyone” pitch
- 8:03 – Anthropic starts watermarking its writing, and users have thoughts
- 14:34 – Amazon's data center and its natural gas problem
- 16:37 – Startups racing to keep the grid from melting down: Form Energy, Reservoir, and Discovered Materials
- 23:28 – Joby Aviation buys into defense with Resonant Sciences
- 28:24 – The $250M VideoVerse-Minute Media deal, a missing CEO, and a mess of lawsuits
- 32:37 – Outro
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via TechCrunch AI