Samwise Tech/AI/Robotics Newsletter
Sunday, September 13, 2026
Anthropic CEO outlines plan to ‘pace the frontier’
Dario Amodei, CEO of Anthropic, published a blog post Saturday outlining three strategies for slowing AI development, which he calls “pacing the frontier.” Two recent events catalyzed the proposal: the OpenAI-HuggingFace security breach and AI’s accelerating ability to help build next-generation AI models. His first concrete commitment — inviting “embedded evaluators” from third-party organizations like METR to verify safety promises from inside Anthropic — is one the company is “unilaterally committing to.” Amodei also called for voluntary coordination among democratic-country AI labs and eventual global agreements, while acknowledging antitrust complications and Chinese competition as significant obstacles to both goals.
Sources: TechCrunch
OpenAI’s Sam Altman says it would be ‘ill-advised’ to go public in 2026
OpenAI CEO Sam Altman confirmed the company will not go public in 2026, calling this moment “ill-advised” for an IPO given ongoing AI safety issues. In a Fortune interview, Altman said OpenAI will go public “when we’re ready, which is when the business is ready, when we feel ready from what the moment is like in society with this technology.” OpenAI filed confidentially for an IPO in June and hired bankers targeting a third- or fourth-quarter 2026 listing, but Altman said the company has too much to do first. The New York Times had previously reported OpenAI was leaning toward a 2027 listing.
Sources: TechCrunch
Kimi-maker Moonshot AI targets $2B in annual revenue
Chinese AI lab Moonshot AI is targeting $2 billion in annualized revenue by year’s end, according to Bloomberg — double its reported run rate for August. The milestone would reflect the success of the company’s open-weight K3 model, which is generating up to 300 billion tokens per day on OpenRouter despite a slight decline from its peak usage. Moonshot’s projected run rate still lags well behind OpenAI’s reported $40 billion and Anthropic’s $65 billion. The announcement comes as Anthropic separately accused Moonshot of running an illicit distillation campaign — routing nearly 300,000 requests from its Kimi chatbot to Claude Opus while collecting over 23 million responses for training.
Sources: TechCrunch
Y Combinator’s Garry Tan wants US open-weight AI labs to ‘distill’ frontier models, too
Y Combinator CEO Garry Tan is urging regulators to leave AI model distillation alone — and argues American open-weight labs should be free to distill frontier models, too. In a CNBC interview and comments to TechCrunch, Tan argued against cracking down on distillation, the technique of prompting a frontier AI model to extract its reasoning and using those outputs in training. He proposed an “American distillation regime” where US open-weight labs could legitimately use frontier AI outputs, contending that frontier labs had no problem scraping vast amounts of human-generated copyrighted content for their own training data without seeking permission.
Sources: TechCrunch
Mecka AI nears $500M valuation in Sequoia-led deal amid rush for robot training data
Mecka AI, a two-year-old startup collecting human motion data to train humanoid robots, is nearing a Sequoia Capital-led financing round at a valuation of approximately $500 million, TechCrunch exclusively reports. The deal comes just three months after Mecka closed a $60 million Series A led by Framework Ventures. The startup pays people to record everyday tasks — making coffee, fixing cars — using body sensors and smartphones, then sells that motion data to robotics companies and AI labs. As of June, Mecka was projecting $100 million in annualized revenue by year’s end, reflecting surging demand from humanoid robot developers hungry for real-world physical training data.
Sources: TechCrunch
Tesla says it will finally unveil the second generation Roadster on October 1
Tesla announced Saturday that it will unveil the long-awaited second-generation Roadster on October 1, posting a “Go for launch” graphic on X with a “10.01” date. The sports car was first announced in November 2017 and has been repeatedly delayed. According to The Information, the original 2017 design has been completely scrapped in favour of a new, yet-to-be-revealed design that may include optional cold gas thrusters developed with SpaceX — technology Elon Musk previously promised would let the Roadster fly. Even after the October reveal, Musk has acknowledged the car won’t enter production for another 12 to 18 months.
Sources: TechCrunch
Revolut confirms customer data breach through fake government requests
British fintech Revolut confirmed it disclosed sensitive customer data to an unauthorized third party after being deceived by fraudulent requests sent from what appeared to be a legitimate government agency email domain. The exposed data included customers’ personal details — birth dates, addresses, phone numbers — along with identity document copies such as passports and driver’s licenses. Verification selfies, account statements, and transaction histories may also have been exposed, though customer funds were unaffected. Revolut said it blocked the fraudulent email address and alerted law enforcement and financial regulators. Security researcher ZachXBT reported the attack appeared to target high-net-worth users. Revolut serves more than 80 million customers globally.
Sources: TechCrunch
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