☕ Safety dance

Roblox's take on keeping kids safe.

May 20, 2024 It's Monday. New newsletter alert! Introducing Brew Markets, a daily afternoon newsletter that goes deeper into the markets than any Brew has gone before. With meme stocks meme-stocking, the Feds interest rates in flux, and AI set to change everything, Brew Markets will be your go-to guide for becoming a smarter investor. Sign up here. Issues will start hitting your inbox this week. In today's edition: When it comes to online safety, metaverse platform Roblox isn't playing around Here's where the AI arms race stands after a week of hectic hype Coworking with Alexis Baird —Kelcee Griffis, Patrick Kulp, Annie Saunders CONNECTIVITY Building blox Sopa Images/Getty Images Roblox bills itself as a playground where kids' imaginations can run wild, whether it's re-creating digital versions of chain restaurants or staging entire movies. Now, it's looking to bring a fresh voice to another (higher-stakes) sandbox: Capitol Hill. While execs from peer platforms like X, Discord, and Snap have been subpoenaed by Congress to testify about the dangers kids face online—and execs from others like Meta and TikTok have appeared voluntarily—Roblox public policy head Nicky Jackson Colaco said her platform isn't waiting to be summoned. In an interview with Tech Brew, Colaco said Roblox aims to be proactive and present itself as a partner for lawmakers who are working to balance child safety with the realities of online platforms. She added that AI has a big future for encouraging both civility and creativity on the platform. "I believe that the intention of all these laws that we're seeing now, and proposed regulations, are legitimately to keep children safe. And the question is, how do we do that in the right way?" she said. "There can be really productive conversations between tech companies and policymakers about how that happens. I think we'd really like to be part of those conversations." Continue reading here.—KG FROM THE CREW Give your desk an Excel makeover Want to impress your boss without saying a word? We've got the Excel shortcuts deskpad, phone charger, and the Freak in the Sheets mug available at a discount when you buy them together. Get the bundle that lets your coworkers know you've got your sheet together, now $25 off. AI Fever pitch Glenn Chapman/Getty Images Do you hear that? That's the sound of the tech press finally getting a chance to take a breath. OpenAI and Google unloaded a barrage of announcements this past week, leading some enthusiasts to proclaim that the dystopian future from the 2013 movie Her had arrived, while more skeptical observers questioned where the AI hype has gotten us after months of breathless rollouts. In any case, the week showed that competition between tech giants trying to own the generative AI space is still fierce, as the companies seemed determined to one-up one another in a race toward realizing multimodal all-purpose assistants. We'll get to the state of that arms race, but first, a quick recap of the news: No sign yet of GPT-5 or a rumored search competitor, but OpenAI announced on Monday a new model called GPT-4o (the "o" stands for "omni") that will be widely available as part of ChatGPT's free version. The company claimed the model is faster and cheaper than previous versions, with an improved understanding of vision and audio inputs. OpenAI employees wowed the audience with some on-stage demos of an intonation-heavy—and, as some observed, seductive—female voice for the new model interacting with images and performing translations. CEO Sam Altman claimed this voice mode would be available in "coming weeks." Two OpenAI leaders—chief scientist Ilya Sutskever and alignment researcher Jan Leike—announced their departures from the company. Continue reading here.—PK TOGETHER WITH BEAMERY How's your hiring eye? HR, talent, and business leaders should be skilled at spotting great talent. Beamery's Spark Live 2024 is the virtual conference diving into the world of global talent with star keynote speakers like US Soccer Hall of Famer Jill Ellis and AG1's President and COO Kat Cole. Save your seat. READER SPOTLIGHT Coworking with Alexis Baird Alexis Baird Coworking is a weekly segment where we spotlight Tech Brew readers who work with emerging technologies. How would you describe your job to someone who doesn't work in tech? I lead a team of product managers who have to balance the needs of our users, both pros and homeowners, with business goals and technical constraints to decide what and how to build the best possible experience. What's the most compelling tech project you've worked on, and why? We recently launched the biggest product update in Thumbtack's history, which includes 30 new features that help homeowners care for and improve their homes. We discovered that homeowners were uncertain about how and where to start, which led them to procrastinate on home projects. To help them move past this uncertainty, the team completely redesigned the Thumbtack app experience, introducing features from personalized guides to project plans to AI search to DIY tools and more. This new app is meant to simplify the process of homeownership and provide guidance on what projects to do, when to do them, and who to hire to get the most value out of your home. It was designed for today's generation of digitally native homeowners who want to manage everything from their phones, but weren't able to until now. What technologies are you most optimistic about? Least? And why? Can it be the same thing? As someone who studied computational linguistics many years ago, the last year with generative AI has been absolutely stunning. For years, I'd get questions about robots being able to take over what humans do and I'd laugh it off and tell people not to worry: The technology was nowhere close to replacing humans. My younger self would be blown away at how far (and fast) generative AI has come. Continue reading here. BITS & BYTES Stat: 25%. That's how much web traffic from search engines will fall by 2026, the Washington Post reported, citing data from Gartner, in a story about how changes to Google's flagship search could affect creators. Quote: "I don't know how people find it…I would love to just block all guys."—Lindsey Rowse, the owner of Tightspot Dancewear Center in Pennsylvania, to the New York Times in a story about Instagram ads for products geared toward young girls that draw adult men. Rowse added that she restricts her ads to women's accounts. Read: Prepare to get manipulated by emotionally expressive chatbots (Wired) SHARE THE BREW Share Tech Brew with your coworkers, acquire free Brew swag, and then make new friends as a result of your fresh Brew swag. We're saying we'll give you free stuff and more friends if you share a link. One link. Your referral count: 0 Click to Share Or copy & paste your referral link to others: emergingtechbrew.com/r/?kid=b3968dba Written by Kelcee Griffis, Patrick Kulp, and Annie Saunders Was this email forwarded to you? Sign up here.   Guide → What is AI?   Guide → What is 5G? Take The Brew to work Marketers: Marketing Brew Corporate: CFO Brew   HR Brew Tech: IT Brew   Retailers: Retail Brew Healthcare: Healthcare Brew Get smarter in just 5 minutes Business News: Morning Brew Money & Career: Money With Katie   Bossy   Brew Markets Interested in podcasts? Check out ours here ADVERTISE // CAREERS // SHOP // FAQ Update your email preferences or unsubscribe here. View our privacy policy here. 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