Reuters
The U.S. Justice Department's top prosecutor in San Francisco is targeting artificial intelligence (AI) and other tech start-ups that defraud investors before they go public, he told Reuters. Ismail Ramsey, who became U.S. attorney for the Northern District of California a year ago, said his office is uniquely positioned to crack down on tech start-ups that mislead investors on the path to initial public offerings (IPOs) given his proximity to Silicon Valley venture and angel investors. High-profile examples of such frauds by start-ups include Theranos, whose founder Elizabeth Holmes and president Ramesh "Sunny" Balwani were convicted of deceiving Silicon Valley investors about the start-up's blood-testing technology, or uBiome Inc, a San Francisco start-up whose co-founders were charged with defrauding investors about its ability to expand clinical tests to monitor gut health.