Artificial intelligence is more a part of our lives than ever before. While some might call it hype and compare it to NFTs or 3D TVs, generative AI is causing a sea change in nearly every part of the technology industry. OpenAI’s ChatGPT is still the best-known AI chatbot around, but with Google pushing Gemini, Microsoft building Copilot, and Apple adding its Intelligence to Siri, AI is probably going to be in the spotlight for a very long time. At The Verge, we’re exploring what might be possible with AI — and a lot of the bad stuff AI does, too.
OpenAI keeps uncovering incidents of its models behaving in ‘unexpected or concerning’ ways.
Cloudflare’s mission to remake the business of the web for the AI age.
Following backlash, YouTube posted on X that when the trailer was “submitted as an ad, it was temporarily restricted by our system. Following review the ad has been cleared to run.” Meta spokesperson Alex Dziedzan said, “This was an error,” and will now run the ads.
Update September 26th: Added statement from Meta.
YouTube, TikTok, and Meta have all apparently rejected the trailer for Alex Gibney’s documentary, scheduled to hit theaters on October 9th. It’s not surprising that X has refused to take distributor Bleecker Street’s calls given its owner’s notoriously thin skin. But as The Hollywood Reporter notes:
The unwillingness of platforms to accept even paid advertising is sure to raise concerns about free speech and the dwindling number of companies that control many of the platforms in this country — and ironically provide a proof-text for the very point the film is coming to make. Gibney’s doc is a four-hour look at a title character who attempts to control the conversation in various ways, including with alleged suppressions on X, which he bought in 2022.
Update September 26th: Both YouTube and Meta will now reportedly run the ads.
[The Hollywood Reporter]
On Friday, OpenAI said its “misaligned models” review after the Hugging Face hack would take months, but has mostly found mundane research activity. Then it mentioned 53 incidents of the bots uploading “user-provided” images (anonymized content from personal accounts that haven’t opted out or organizations that opt in) to image-hosting sites.
Now the New York Times confirms that other unusual behavior found includes pulling public data from the Census Bureau and the SEC, while with the Education Department, it “tried to hack the website to gather data from the department’s civil rights office but failed.”
It claims its new Smart Charging Station offers its “fastest production-ready charging performance” yet, and also includes a new system that can “gradually fix” EV battery degradation from fast charging:
The Group has additionally developed lithium-ion pulse restoration technology, which uses micro-pulse currents to reactivate lithium ions accumulated at the negative electrodes during repeated fast charging. By combining AI charging management with battery restoration technology, Geely is able to increase battery cycle life by 20%.
NBC News released this clip from a Meet the Press interview with Gates that will air on Sunday, where he said, “No one thinks self-regulation is enough” around AI.
Saying that AI is “certainly powerful enough to drive events that, you know, cause a billion deaths,” he suggested, “You need law enforcement and the politicians to get into the discussion about what safeguards and monitoring look like… And that has to be a required thing. And it will be a little bit of overhead for the industry, but not a dramatic slowing of what they’re doing.” Everyone agrees someone should do it, but who, and how?
Robert O’Callahan is quitting his work on AI chips for Google Deepmind, saying “…my team’s goal is ultimately to make AI much cheaper and lower-latency, and I don’t think that’s good for people right now.”
While he says it’s not related to recent AI warnings and resignations, he listed some concerns:
However, I am not convinced the chance of ASI doom is 100%. Rather, I think the risk is real but uncertain… I’m also very concerned about other AI-related issues: cognitive surrender, AI-induced psychosis and loneliness, power concentration, economic disruption, cybersecurity, lack of accountability, and so on
Mistakes at Israeli startup Irregular sent Anthropic, OpenAI, Meta, and Google agents after real-world targets.
Apple Intelligence has arrived on HomeKit Secure Video. Here’s how its new features compare with Ring and Nest.
After bringing its plugin to ChatGPT, Claude, Copilot, and Slack, Adobe’s app is now available in Google’s chatbot too. Just tag “@Adobe” in Gemini with your request after installing the plugin, and it’ll surface the best Creative Suite tools for editing photos, generating marketing designs, and more.
Trump officials filed a motion to support X’s appeal, arguing the EU’s Digital Services Act (DSA) enforcement overreached when levying the fine last December, and unfairly targets American tech platforms while threatening digital free speech and global market operations.
“The European Commission inappropriately attempted to expand its regulatory authority to reach American companies not present or operating within its jurisdiction.”
Choy shared a screenshot of the ad on X that appears nearly identical to one of his videos, except the person in the ad is white. NPR’s Bobby Allyn reported in a separate post that the ad is real, adding, “A Kalshi rep says the ad is old and that they no longer use AI-generated ads.”
On Thursday, Trump posted a picture to Truth Social of himself with Chinese President Xi Jinping that doesn’t comport with Getty Images of the event. Why does Trump only have one glove? Why did the face of the woman in the background change? The answer could include anything from uprezzing to “zooming out” the camera to deliberately replacing faces with AI.
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Meta’s new tool is very cute — and heavily inspired by its open-source predecessor.
Meta wants to stuff this guy into everything and entrust it with productivity, health, and relationship goals.
Air-gapping AI to keep it away from real-world targets makes testing safer, but less useful.
According to The Information, the companies will call it the Standards Authority for Frontier AI, or SAFA, which could launch by early 2027. It would handle AI safety regulation tasks like “supporting third-party organizations that conduct testing of models before they’re deployed and laying out how AI developers should report safety and security incidents.”
[The Information]
What Mark Zuckerberg needs to answer about Meta Glasses, Muse, and teen safety.
A new wave of AI-enhanced consumer creep-tech disregards the privacy of everyone but the wearer. The people have had enough.
The Verge cofounder got an extended sit-down with the Meta CEO at Connect yesterday. They covered “pervert glasses” and privacy, AI assistants and agents, and what exactly is going on with the Metaverse. He defends the company’s track record on privacy, and its future privacy plans: “More of the things that Meta is going to do going forward are going to look like WhatsApp.”
David Heinemeier Hansson, who also leads technology at Basecamp developer 37signals, announced the company is moving away from Ruby in favor of vibe-coding everything with AI agents. That’s despite admitting that attempts to do so with Basecamp 5 this spring provided “mixed” results, and claiming last year that he doesn’t use AI because he “can literally feel competence draining out of my fingers.”
Audio-only Ray-Bans have arrived alongside more camera-equipped glasses. What’s missing? Privacy controls to address the ‘perv glasses’ backlash.
When you type the “@” symbol into the bottom Gemini bar in Docs, you’ll now see a list of Gemini Notebooks. Select one, and Gemini will draw from those sources to generate a document from your prompt.
