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Starbase injury rates outpace rivals as SpaceX chases its Mars moonshot

SpaceX employees are more likely to be injured while working at Starbase than any of its other manufacturing facilities, according to company worker safety records reviewed by TechCrunch. Starbase, a sprawling launch-and-manufacturing site that recently incorporated as its own Texas city, logged injury rates almost six times higher than the average for comparable space vehicle manufacturing outfits and nearly three times higher than aerospace manufacturing as a whole in 2024, according to Occup

SpaceX worker injury rates at Starbase outpace industry rivals

SpaceX employees are more likely to be injured while working at Starbase than any of its other manufacturing facilities, according to company worker safety records reviewed by TechCrunch. Starbase, a sprawling launch-and-manufacturing site that recently incorporated as its own Texas city, logged injury rates almost six times higher than the average for comparable space vehicle manufacturing outfits and nearly three times higher than aerospace manufacturing as a whole in 2024, according to Occup

Starbase injury rates outpace rivals as SpaceX chases its Mars moonshot

SpaceX employees are more likely to be injured while working at Starbase than any of its other manufacturing facilities, according to company worker safety records reviewed by TechCrunch. Starbase, a sprawling launch-and-manufacturing site that recently incorporated as its own Texas city, logged injury rates almost six times higher than the average for comparable space vehicle manufacturing outfits and nearly three times higher than aerospace manufacturing as a whole in 2024, according to Occup

OpenAI, Google, and Meta Researchers Warn We May Lose the Ability to Track AI Misbehavior

Over 40 scientists from the world’s leading AI institutions, including OpenAI, Google DeepMind, Anthropic, and Meta, have come together to call for more research in a particular type of safety monitoring that allows humans to analyze how AI models “think.” The scientists published a research paper on Tuesday that highlighted what is known as chain of thought (CoT) monitoring as a new yet fragile opportunity to boost AI safety. The paper was endorsed by prominent AI figures like OpenAI co-founde

OpenAI and Anthropic researchers decry ‘reckless’ safety culture at Elon Musk’s xAI

AI safety researchers from OpenAI, Anthropic, and other organizations are speaking out publicly against the “reckless” and “completely irresponsible” safety culture at xAI, the billion-dollar AI startup owned by Elon Musk. The criticisms follow weeks of scandals at xAI that have overshadowed the company’s technological advances. Last week, the company’s AI chatbot, Grok, spouted antisemitic comments and repeatedly called itself “MechaHitler.” Shortly after xAI took its chatbot offline to addre

Topics: ai grok models safety xai

The votes are in: TechCrunch Disrupt 2025 Audience Choice winners revealed for roundtables and breakouts

You voted — they made it onto the TechCrunch Disrupt 2025 agenda! After reviewing hundreds of standout Call for Content submissions and opening the vote to the TechCrunch audience, we’ve locked in the top five roundtables and top five breakout sessions. Without further ado, meet the exceptional tech voices — and the sessions they’ll lead — that will shape the conversation at Disrupt 2025, taking place October 27–29 at San Francisco’s Moscone West. Visit the agenda page for full session and spe

Tesla moves to expand Robotaxi to Phoenix, following rival Waymo

Elon Musk's Tesla has applied to test and eventually deploy its Robotaxi vehicles in Phoenix, Arizona, following in the footsteps of market leader Waymo. Tesla has applied to conduct autonomous vehicle testing and operations, with and without human safety drivers on board, in Arizona, a spokesperson for the Arizona Department of Transportation told CNBC on Thursday. A decision on the application is expected at the end of July, and Tesla has "expressed interest in operating within the Phoenix Me

California lawmaker behind SB 1047 reignites push for mandated AI safety reports

California State Senator Scott Wiener on Wednesday introduced new amendments to his latest bill, SB 53, that would require the world’s largest AI companies to publish safety and security protocols and issue reports when safety incidents occur. If signed into law, California would be the first state to impose meaningful transparency requirements onto leading AI developers, likely including OpenAI, Google, Anthropic, and xAI. Senator Wiener’s previous AI bill, SB 1047, included similar requireme

I extracted the safety filters from Apple Intelligence models

Decrypted Generative Model safety files for Apple Intelligence containing filters Structure decrypted_overrides/ : Contains decrypted overrides for various models. com.apple.*/ : Directory named using the Asset Specifier assosciated with the safety info Info.plist : Contains metadata for the override AssetData/ : Contains the decrypted JSON files : Contains decrypted overrides for various models. get_key_lldb.py : Script to get the encryption key (see usage info below) : Script to get the en

The Download: how AI could improve construction site safety, and our Roundtables conversation with Karen Hao

More than 1,000 construction workers die on the job each year in the US, making it the most dangerous industry for fatal slips, trips, and falls. A new AI tool called Safety AI could help to change that. It analyzes the progress made on a construction site each day, and flags conditions that violate Occupational Safety and Health Administration rules, with what its creator Philip Lorenzo claims is 95% accuracy. Lorenzo says Safety AI is the first one of multiple emerging AI construction sa

How generative AI could help make construction sites safer

To combat the shortcuts and risk-taking, Lorenzo is working on a tool for the San Francisco–based company DroneDeploy, which sells software that creates daily digital models of work progress from videos and images, known in the trade as “reality capture.” The tool, called Safety AI, analyzes each day’s reality capture imagery and flags conditions that violate Occupational Safety and Health Administration (OSHA) rules, with what he claims is 95% accuracy. That means that for any safety risk the

Helix: A Modern, High-Performance Language

Helix: A Modern, High-Performance Language. Key Goals of Helix: High-performance: The language is designed to be as fast as C, with modern features and a more expressive syntax. Safety: Focused on safe memory management without sacrificing developer productivity and freedom. Borrow Checker: Implements a Advanced Memory Tracking system for memory safety, while being far less strict than other languages. Robustness: Provides tools and features that ensure code stability and reduce runtime err

Tech firms face demands to stop illegal content going viral

Tech firms face demands to stop illegal content going viral Oliver Griffiths, online safety group director at Ofcom, said its proposed measures seek to build on existing UK online safety rules but keep up with "constantly evolving" risks. These could also include making some larger platforms assess whether they need to proactively detect terrorist material under further online safety measures. The UK regulator published a consultation on Monday seeking views on further protections to keep cit

Memory safety is table stakes

The past few years has seen a massive success story for systems programming. Entire categories of bugs that used to plague systems programmers—like use-after-free, data races, and segmentation faults—have begun to completely disappear. The secret to this new reality is a set of systems programming languages chief among them Rust—whose powerful type systems are able to constructively eliminate these kind of bugs; if it compiles, then it’s correct … or at least, will not contain use-after-free or

Memory Safety Is Merely Table Stakes

The past few years has seen a massive success story for systems programming. Entire categories of bugs that used to plague systems programmers—like use-after-free, data races, and segmentation faults—have begun to completely disappear. The secret to this new reality is a set of systems programming languages chief among them Rust—whose powerful type systems are able to constructively eliminate these kind of bugs; if it compiles, then it’s correct … or at least, will not contain use-after-free or

Tesla Robotaxi Safety Monitor Forced to Clamber Into Driver's Seat and Take Over, Passenger Says

Earlier this year, Elon Musk promised that Tesla's robotaxis would launch offering fully "unsupervised" rides with "no one in the car." That turned out to be a lie. And less than a week into the robotaxi service's debut, which is currently limited to a tiny geofenced area in Austin, Texas, it's already become apparent that the self-driving cars are very much reliant on the human supervisors — or "safety monitors" — that Musk was adamant he wouldn't need. In an incident shared on Wednesday, a p

Video Shows Tesla "Safety Monitor" Hitting Panic Button as Robotaxi Becomes Confused on Public Road

That could've been a lot worse. Tesla's extremely questionable Robotaxi launch has already seen some of its cars violate traffic laws. Now, new footage shows a Tesla robotaxi screwing up so badly that its human "safety monitor" is forced to hit the panic button — which is actually a touchscreen menu, in true tech industry fashion — heaping even more scrutiny onto the self-driving vehicles' capabilities. The footage, spotted by Teslarati, was taken by pro-Tesla influencer and investor Dave Lee

The Architects of Project 2025 Are Suddenly Very Concerned About AI Safety

The Heritage Foundation — the group behind the infamous Project 2025, the conservative policy plan that outlined regressive social policies and the consolidation of executive power that's served as a playbook for the Trump administration — is suddenly really, really down with AI regulation. Who could have guessed! The conservative think tank has recently been sharing a clip from a May episode of the "Heritage Explains" podcast in which Wesley Hodges, the Heritage Foundation's Acting Director of

Tesla Stock in Tailspin After Error-Plagued Robotaxi Debut

Things are veering way off the road for Tesla. In the wake of the long-awaited Robotaxi rollout in Austin, Tesla stock saw an initial bump — but those gains weren't able to withstand the ample bad press the autonomous cabs have gotten in the few days they've trawled Texas streets. On Tuesday, the botched Robotaxi launch led Tesla stock to drop more than four percent and nearly $15 in a single day. That falloff came after videos emerged showing the driverless cabs — which also, embarrassingly,

Government Alarmed by Videos of Tesla Robotaxis Immediately Breaking Road Laws

Tesla is already in hot water over its Robotaxi rollout in Austin. As Bloomberg reports, the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration (NHTSA) contacted Tesla just a single day after its Robotaxi launch over apparent traffic violations captured on video and posted to social media. Since Sunday, the Elon Musk-owned electric carmaker has been offering autonomous rides, albeit with a human safety monitor, to a select few individuals willing to pay for the novelty. As videos taken in the wake

Tesla’s robotaxis are operating in a regulatory vacuum

is transportation editor with 10+ years of experience who covers EVs, public transportation, and aviation. His work has appeared in The New York Daily News and City & State. This week, Tesla launched its long-promised robotaxi service in Austin, and almost immediately its vehicles were caught fucking up. In a YouTube video, a Tesla robotaxi briefly drives on the wrong side of the road. Another video shared by Ed Niedermeyer, the author of a book about Tesla’s origins, shows a robotaxi braking

US safety regulators contact Tesla over erratic robotaxis

US safety regulators contact Tesla over erratic robotaxis The BBC has contacted Tesla for comment. In a statement, the NHTSA said it was "aware of the referenced incidents and is in contact with the manufacturer to gather additional information." Videos posted online seem to show instances where the vehicles, which had a safety driver in the passenger seat, drive erratically. The firm's long-awaited robotaxis - which boss Elon Musk says are central to Tesla's future - were tried out on publi

US safety regulators contact Tesla over erratic robotaxis

US safety regulators contact Tesla over erratic robotaxis The BBC has contacted Tesla for comment. In a statement, the NHTSA said it was "aware of the referenced incidents and is in contact with the manufacturer to gather additional information." Videos posted online seem to show instances where the vehicles, which had a safety driver in the passenger seat, drive erratically. The firm's long-awaited robotaxis - which boss Elon Musk says are central to Tesla's future - were tried out on publi

Tesla robotaxi incidents caught on camera in Austin draw regulators' attention

A Tesla robotaxi drives on the street along South Congress Avenue in Austin, Texas, on June 22, 2025 Tesla was contacted by the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration on Monday after videos posted on social media showed the company's robotaxis driving in a chaotic manner on public roads in Austin, Texas. Elon Musk's electric vehicle maker debuted autonomous trips in Austin on Sunday, opening the service to a limited number of riders by invitation only. In the videos shared widely onli

Tesla’s robotaxis have already caught the attention of federal safety regulators

Federal safety regulators have reached out to Tesla a day after the automaker began providing rides in its branded robotaxis in Austin. The U.S. National Highway Traffic Safety Administration contacted Tesla after numerous videos posted online appear to show Tesla robotaxis violating traffic laws in South Austin, where the company is providing rides to invited customers. Bloomberg was the first to report that NHTSA reached out to Tesla. NHTSA confirmed to TechCrunch that is has contacted the au

Tesla’s first Robotaxi rides kick off in Austin, Texas

The June 22 launch of Tesla's robotaxis in Austin, Texas, actually occurred. It's a tentative first step for the company, however: a human "Tesla Safety Monitor" is accompanying the first riders. There are also only ten cars and rides are limited to certain Tesla users. Those early riders and influencers have been sharing their experiences on social media, mostly (surprise) on X. Most of the early riders appear to be pro-Tesla users, with a company mention in their social media bio or a Tesla c

Microsoft's Family Safety Feature Is Blocking Chrome: Here's the Workaround

Microsoft's Family Safety feature is designed to block certain types of websites from children. Apparently, it's also been blocking Google's Chrome browser -- but there is a workaround. Chrome, a web browser launched by Google in 2008 -- is not working when users have the Family Safety Feature enabled. The first report of the bug seems to date to June 3, when a user posted on Google's online support board. The user noted that Chrome constantly closed when the person tried to use it. Restarti

Windows parental controls are blocking Chrome

Stop me if you've heard this one before: Microsoft is making it harder to use Chrome on Windows. The culprit? This time, it's Windows' Family Safety feature. Since early this month, the parental control measure has prevented users from opening Chrome. Strangely, no other apps or browsers appear to be affected. Redditors first reported the issue on June 3 (via The Verge). u/Witty-Discount-2906 posted that Chrome crashed on Windows 11. "Just flashes quickly, unable to open with no error message,"

Microsoft is blocking Google Chrome through its family safety feature

is a senior editor and author of Notepad , who has been covering all things Microsoft, PC, and tech for over 20 years. Earlier this month, Microsoft’s Family Safety feature, primarily used by parents and schools as a set of parental controls and filters, started randomly blocking Google’s Chrome browser from opening on Windows. The first reports surfaced on June 3rd, with some Chrome users noticing the browser kept closing or wouldn’t open. Microsoft has introduced a bug into Family Safety tha

The quest to defend against tech in intimate partner violence

As technology evolved, the ways abusers took advantage evolved too. Realizing that the advocacy community “was not up on tech,” Southworth founded the National Network to End Domestic Violence’s Safety Net Project in 2000 to provide a comprehensive training curriculum on how to “harness [technology] to help victims” and hold abusers accountable when they misuse it. Today, the project offers resources on its website, like tool kits that include guidance on strategies such as creating strong passw