Good morning. Much ink has been rightfully spilled about the perils of AI chatbots and young users with not fully formed brains.
But what might emotionally manipulative AI do if it were set on the path of light—and tasked with keeping chronically lonely senior citizens engaged?
A new report suggests that some AI startups are looking into just that, with the hope that their wares can reduce anxiety and depression. Promising or bleak? I’ll let you decide. (But maybe call your Mom, yeah?)
Today’s tech news below. —Andrew Nusca
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Trump and Xi just might strike a TikTok deal, finally
Our long national TikTok nightmare may soon be over, at least if a White House cabinet member is to be believed.
Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent said Sunday that the U.S. and China have agreed to terms on the U.S. arm of Bytedance’s TikTok service.
“We reached a final deal on TikTok,” Bessent said on CBS’s Face the Nation. “We reached one in Madrid, and I believe that as of today, all the details are ironed out, and that will be for the two leaders to consummate that transaction on Thursday in Korea.”
He added: “My remit was to get the Chinese to agree to approve the transaction, and I believe we successfully accomplished that over the past two days.”
Trump and Xi are set to meet in South Korea during the Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation (APEC) Summit, which begins on Oct. 31.
It will be their first meeting during Trump’s second term and comes as both countries have repeatedly escalated trade restrictions against the other in a bid for global economic supremacy.
It has been a long road for TikTok. Congress signed into law a divest-or-ban order during the Biden administration, but Trump—whose Justice Department must enforce a ban—issued, then repeatedly extended, an enforcement pause in the interest of coming to terms about divestiture. —AN
Australia sues Microsoft over subscription price hikes
Should you be required to join the AI revolution if it costs more?
Australian regulators on Monday sued Microsoft for allegedly misleading customers into paying higher prices for software—45% more for a personal plan and 29% for a family plan—that included its AI assistant Copilot.
Could the customers have simply kept a “classic” subscription that excluded the new feature? Yes, but Australia’s Competition and Consumer Commission says that the option wasn’t revealed until consumers began the cancellation process, breaking consumer law.
“We’re concerned that Microsoft’s communications denied its customers the opportunity to make informed decisions about their subscription options,” said ACCC chair Gina Cass-Gottlieb, “which included the possibility of retaining all the features of their existing plan without Copilot and at the lower price.”
Microsoft told Reuters that it was reviewing the claim. The ACCC, as it’s known, seeks the full shebang: penalties, redress, injunctions, and costs.
The maximum penalty is A$50 million (about $32.6 million USD), three times the benefits obtained that were reasonably attributable, or 30% of adjusted turnover during the breach period—whichever is greater. —AN
Grab invests in May Mobility
If you’ve ever set foot in Singapore, you know Grab.
The ride-hailing and food delivery giant said Friday that it would make an undisclosed investment in the U.S. autonomous vehicle technology company May Mobility, which already has partnerships with stateside favorites Uber and Lyft.
The new multi-year partnership includes plans to launch robotaxis in Southeast Asia “as early as 2026.”
Grab says it will apply May’s autonomy expertise to its fleet management, vehicle matching, and routing systems. May, meanwhile, will use Grab, which controls a majority of rides in Singapore, to enter a lucrative new region.
The extra context to this arrangement is Grab’s maneuvering to merge with Indonesian rival GoTo, which runs the Gojek service and is backed by SoftBank and China’s Taobao, among others.
If it ever happens—facing antitrust scrutiny, the companies have twice started and ended discussions—May would also enjoy blanket coverage of the Indonesian market, too.
An engineer-turned-entrepreneur can dream, eh? —AN
More tech
—Robot hands are hard to build. They’ve been “stumping corporate and academic researchers for years” per a new WSJ report.
—SambaNova mulls a sale. The AI chip startup, last valued at $5 billion, reportedly struggled to complete a fundraising round.
—Kyrgyzstan launches a national stablecoin with help from Binance.
—BlaBlaCar goes to India. The French carpooling marketplace once abandoned the market; it’s now its biggest.
—Merge Labs makes a big hire. Sam Altman’s brain-computer interface startup reportedly taps star biomolecular engineer Mikhail Shapiro.
—First preview of Swift SDK for Android goes live, making it easier for devs to share code between iOS and Android.
—Apple iPad Pro vapor chamber? The liquid-cooling system may help improve performance à la iPhone 17.
