Meta released Glimmer this week, an open-weight AI model anyone can download and run on their own hardware — a contrast to Muse Spark, the company’s more powerful model that stays locked behind its own APIs. The release landed alongside a letter from Mark Zuckerberg arguing AI should be “for everyone” rather than controlled by a handful of labs, but as Equity’s hosts point out, the vision comes with some asterisks.
On this episode of TechCrunch’s Equity podcast, Kirsten Korosec, Anthony Ha, and Rebecca Bellan take a look at Glimmer, Zuckerberg’s 6,500-word manifesto, and more of the week’s headlines, from the true cost of the AI industry’s energy needs to a $250M acquisition gone very wrong.
Subscribe to Equity on YouTube, Apple Podcasts, Overcast, Spotify and all the casts. You also can follow Equity on X and Threads, at @EquityPod.
00:00 Intro
1:20 Would you buy a $300 cocktail robot?
3:08 Meta’s Glimmer and the “AI for everyone” pitch
8:03 Anthropic starts watermarking its writing, and users have thoughts
14:34 Amazon’s data center and its natural gas problem
16:37 The startups racing to keep the grid from melting down: Form Energy, Reservoir, and Discovered Materials
23:28 Joby Aviation buys into defense with Resonant Sciences
28:24 The $250M VideoVerse-Minute Media deal, a missing CEO, and a mess of lawsuits
32:37 Outro
