Technology

New York passes a bill to prevent AI-fueled disasters

New York state lawmakers passed a bill on Thursday that aims to prevent frontier AI models from OpenAI, Google, and Anthropic from contributing to disaster scenarios, including the death or injury of more than 100 people, or more than $1 billion in damages.

The passage of the RAISE Act represents a win for the AI safety movement, which has lost ground in recent years as Silicon Valley and the Trump administration have prioritized speed and innovation. Safety advocates including Nobel laureate Geoffrey Hinton and AI research pioneer Yoshua Bengio have championed the RAISE Act. Should it become law, the bill would establish America’s first set of legally mandated transparency standards for frontier AI labs.

The RAISE Act has some of the same provisions and goals as California’s controversial AI safety bill, SB 1047, which was ultimately vetoed. However, the co-sponsor of the bill, New York state Senator Andrew Gounardes, told TechCrunch in an interview that he deliberately designed the RAISE Act such that it doesn’t chill innovation among startups or academic researchers — a common criticism of SB 1047.

“The window to put in place guardrails is rapidly shrinking given how fast this technology is evolving,” said Senator Gounardes. “The people that know [AI] the best say that these risks are incredibly likely […] That’s alarming.”

The RAISE Act is now headed for New York Governor Kathy Hochul’s desk, where she could either sign the bill into law, send it back for amendments, or veto it altogether.

If signed into law, New York’s AI safety bill would require the world’s largest AI labs to publish thorough safety and security reports on their frontier AI models. The bill also requires AI labs to report safety incidents, such as concerning AI model behavior or bad actors stealing an AI model, should they happen. If tech companies fail to live up to these standards, the RAISE Act empowers New York’s attorney general to bring civil penalties of up to $30 million.

The RAISE Act aims to narrowly regulate the world’s largest companies — whether they’re based in California (like OpenAI and Google) or China (like DeepSeek and Alibaba). The bill’s transparency requirements apply to companies whose AI models were trained using more than $100 million in computing resources (seemingly, more than any AI model available today), and are being made available to New York residents.

While similar to SB 1047 in some ways, the RAISE Act was designed to address criticisms of previous AI safety bills, according to Nathan Calvin, the vice president of State Affairs and general counsel at Encode, who worked on this bill and SB 1047. Notably, the RAISE Act does not require AI model developers to include a “kill switch” on their models, nor does it hold companies that post-train frontier AI models accountable for critical harms.

Nevertheless, Silicon Valley has pushed back significantly on New York’s AI safety bill, New York state Assemblymember and co-sponsor of the RAISE Act Alex Bores told TechCrunch. Bores called the industry resistance unsurprising, but claimed that the RAISE Act would not limit innovation of tech companies in any way.

“The NY RAISE Act is yet another stupid, stupid state level AI bill that will only hurt the US at a time when our adversaries are racing ahead,” said Andreessen Horowitz general partner Anjney Midha in a Friday post on X. Andreessen Horowitz and startup incubator Y Combinator were some of the fiercest opponents to SB 1047.

Inside baseball policy thread: Last night, NY passed the RAISE act, which would establish some transparency requirements for frontier models. We @anthropicai haven’t taken a position on this bill. But I thought it’d be helpful to give some more context:

— Jack Clark (@jackclarkSF) June 13, 2025

Anthropic, the safety-focused AI lab that called for federal transparency sta n dards for AI companies earlier this month, has not reached an official stance on the bill, co-founder Jack Clark said in a Friday post on X. However, Clark expressed some grievances over how broad the RAISE Act is, noting that it could present a risk to “smaller companies.”

When asked about Anthropic’s criticism, state Senator Gounardes told TechCrunch he thought it “misses the mark,” noting that he designed the bill not to apply to small companies.

OpenAI, Google, and Meta did not respond to TechCrunch’s request for comment.

Another common criticism of the RAISE Act is that AI model developers simply wouldn’t offer their most advanced AI models in the state of New York. That was a similar criticism brought against SB 1047, and it’s largely what’s played out in Europe thanks to the continent’s tough regulations on technology.

Assemblymember Bores told TechCrunch that the regulatory burden of the RAISE Act is relatively light, and therefore, shouldn’t require tech companies to stop operating their products in New York. Given the fact that New York has the third largest GDP in the U.S., pulling out of the state is not something most companies would take lightly.

“I don’t want to underestimate the political pettiness that might happen, but I am very confident that there is no economic reason for [AI companies] to not make their models available in New York,” said Assemblymember Bores.

Technology

Pintarnya raises $16.7M to power jobs and financial services in Indonesia

Pintarnya, an Indonesian employment platform that goes beyond job matching by offering financial services along with full-time and side-gig opportunities, said it has raised a $16.7 million Series A round.

The funding was led by Square Peg with participation from existing investors Vertex Venture Southeast Asia & India and East Ventures.

Ghirish Pokardas, Nelly Nurmalasari, and Henry Hendrawan founded Pintarnya in 2022 to tackle two of the biggest challenges Indonesians face daily: earning enough and borrowing responsibly.

“Traditionally, mass workers in Indonesia find jobs offline through job fairs or word of mouth, with employers buried in paper applications and candidates rarely hearing back. For borrowing, their options are often limited to family/friend or predatory lenders with harsh collection practices,” Henry Hendrawan, co-founder of Pintarnya, told TechCrunch. “We digitize job matching with AI to make hiring faster and we provide workers with safer, healthier lending options — designed around what they can reasonably afford, rather than pushing them deeper into debt.”

Around 59% of Indonesia’s 150 million workforce is employed in the informal sector, highlighting the difficulties these workers encounter in accessing formal financial services because they lack verifiable income and official employment documentation.

Pintarnya tackles this challenge by partnering with asset-backed lenders to offer secured loans, using collateral such as gold, electronics, or vehicles, Hendrawan added.

Since its seed funding in 2022, the platform currently serves over 10 million job seeker users and 40,000 employers nationwide. Its revenue has increased almost fivefold year-over-year and expects to reach break-even by the end of the year, Hendrawn noted. Pintarnya primarily serves users aged 21 to 40, most of whom have a high school education or a diploma below university level. The startup aims to focus on this underserved segment, given the large population of blue-collar and informal workers in Indonesia.

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“Through the journey of building employment services, we discovered that our users needed more than just jobs — they needed access to financial services that traditional banks couldn’t provide,” said Hendrawan. “We digitize job matching with AI to make hiring faster and we provide workers with safer, healthier lending options — designed around what they can reasonably afford, rather than pushing them deeper into debt.”

image credits: Pintarnya (Founders of Pintarnya Ghirish Pokardas, Nelly Nurmalasari, and Henry Hendrawan)

While Indonesia already has job platforms like JobStreet, Kalibrr, and Glints, these primarily cater to white-collar roles, which represent only a small portion of the workforce, according to Hendrawan. Pintarnya’s platform is designed specifically for blue-collar workers, offering tailored experiences such as quick-apply options for walk-in interviews, affordable e-learning on relevant skills, in-app opportunities for supplemental income, and seamless connections to financial services like loans.

The same trend is evident in Indonesia’s fintech sector, which similarly caters to white-collar or upper-middle-class consumers. Conventional credit scoring models for loans, which rely on steady monthly income and bank account activity, often leave blue-collar workers overlooked by existing fintech providers, Hendrawan explained.

When asked about which fintech services are most in demand, Hendrawan mentioned, “Given their employment status, lending is the most in-demand financial service for Pintarnya’s users today. We are planning to ‘graduate’ them to micro-savings and investments down the road through innovative products with our partners.”

The new funding will enable Pintarnya to strengthen its platform technology and broaden its financial service offerings through strategic partnerships. With most Indonesian workers employed in blue-collar and informal sectors, the co-founders see substantial growth opportunities in the local market. Leveraging their extensive experience in managing businesses across Southeast Asia, they are also open to exploring regional expansion when the timing is right.

“Our vision is for Pintarnya to be the everyday companion that empowers Indonesians to not only make ends meet today, but also plan, grow, and upgrade their lives tomorrow … In five years, we see Pintarnya as the go-to super app for Indonesia’s workers, not just for earning income, but as a trusted partner throughout their life journey,” Hendrawan said. “We want to be the first stop when someone is looking for work, a place that helps them upgrade their skills, and a reliable guide as they make financial decisions.”

Technology

OpenAI warns against SPVs and other ‘unauthorized’ investments

In a new blog post, OpenAI warns against “unauthorized opportunities to gain exposure to OpenAI through a variety of means,” including special purpose vehicles, known as SPVs.

“We urge you to be careful if you are contacted by a firm that purports to have access to OpenAI, including through the sale of an SPV interest with exposure to OpenAI equity,” the company writes. The blog post acknowledges that “not every offer of OpenAI equity […] is problematic” but says firms may be “attempting to circumvent our transfer restrictions.”

“If so, the sale will not be recognized and carry no economic value to you,” OpenAI says.

Investors have increasingly used SPVs (which pool money for one-off investments) as a way to buy into hot AI startups, prompting other VCs to criticize them as a vehicle for “tourist chumps.”

Business Insider reports that OpenAI isn’t the only major AI company looking to crack down on SPVs, with Anthropic reportedly telling Menlo Ventures it must use its own capital, not an SPV, to invest in an upcoming round.

Technology

Meta partners with Midjourney on AI image and video models

Meta is partnering with Midjourney to license the startup’s AI image and video generation technology, Meta Chief AI Officer Alexandr Wang announced Friday in a post on Threads. Wang says Meta’s research teams will collaborate with Midjourney to bring its technology into future AI models and products.

“To ensure Meta is able to deliver the best possible products for people it will require taking an all-of-the-above approach,” Wang said. “This means world-class talent, ambitious compute roadmap, and working with the best players across the industry.”

The Midjourney partnership could help Meta develop products that compete with industry-leading AI image and video models, such as OpenAI’s Sora, Black Forest Lab’s Flux, and Google’s Veo. Last year, Meta rolled out its own AI image generation tool, Imagine, into several of its products, including Facebook, Instagram, and Messenger. Meta also has an AI video generation tool, Movie Gen, that allows users to create videos from prompts.

The licensing agreement with Midjourney marks Meta’s latest deal to get ahead in the AI race. Earlier this year, CEO Mark Zuckerberg went on a hiring spree for AI talent, offering some researchers compensation packages worth upwards of $100 million. The social media giant also invested $14 billion in Scale AI, and acquired the AI voice startup Play AI.

Meta has held talks with several other leading AI labs about other acquisitions, and Zuckerberg even spoke with Elon Musk about joining his $97 billion takeover bid of OpenAI (Meta ultimately did not join the offer, and OpenAI denied Musk’s bid).

While the terms of Meta’s deal with Midjourney remain unknown, the startup’s CEO, David Holz, said in a post on X that his company remains independent with no investors; Midjourney is one of the few leading AI model developers that has never taken on outside funding. At one point, Meta talked with Midjourney about acquiring the startup, according to Upstarts Media.

Midjourney was founded in 2022 and quickly became a leader in the AI image generation space for its realistic, unique style. By 2023, the startup was reportedly on pace to generate $200 million in revenue. The startup sells subscriptions starting at $10 per month. It offers pricier tiers, which offer more AI image generations, that cost as much as $120 per month. In June, the startup released its first AI video model, V1.

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Meta’s partnership with Midjourney comes just two months after the startup was sued by Disney and Universal, alleging that it trained AI image models on copyrighted works. Several AI model developers — including Meta — face similar allegations from copyright holders, however, recent court cases pertaining to AI training data have sided with tech companies.

Got a sensitive tip or confidential documents? We’re reporting on the inner workings of the AI industry — from the companies shaping its future to the people impacted by their decisions. Reach out to Rebecca Bellan at [email protected] and Maxwell Zeff at [email protected]. For secure communication, you can contact us via Signal at @rebeccabellan.491 and @mzeff.88.

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