When he named Brendan Carr as his FCC chair, Trump called him a "warrior for free speech." We wrote about how he has become a warrior against it. Gift link: wapo.st/4pxe2t0

OpenAI won't say whose content it used to train its video generator Sora. Here are some clues. Gift link: wapo.st/3KeqLR0

Top story on @washingtonpost.com this morning: www.washingtonpost.com/politics/202...

Who's using ChatGPT?

"The complaint filed by Juliana’s parents is the third high-profile case in the past year brought by a U.S. family alleging that an AI chatbot contributed to a teen’s death by suicide." www.washingtonpost.com/technology/2...

A new wrongful death lawsuit alleges that Character AI and Google are liable for the death by suicide of a 13-year-old girl in Colorado, Juliana Peralta This is the third wrongful death claim against a popular AI app for a teen's death by suicide this year www.washingtonpost.com/technology/2...

Visceral closeup videos of Charlie Kirk getting shot in the neck were everywhere on social media. A lot of parents were not pleased that mainstream social apps’ algorithms showed it to their kids. Story today by @tatumhunter.bsky.social & me (gift link): wapo.st/4n6oBSi

I asked Bluesky how it's moderating graphic videos of the Charlie Kirk assassination, as well as responses that glorify violence or call for retribution. From a Bluesky spokesperson: "We're suspending accounts that are encouraging violence; we are taking down close-up videos of the event."

Business Insider yanked 40 essays with suspect bylines. A @washingtonpost.com probe into these mass retractions found key links between the bogus writer “Margaux Blanchard” and another individual, suggesting a broader scheme. Here’s what I found: www.washingtonpost.com/business/202...

🚨Journalism job alert🚨 We're hiring an investigative reporter to join my team at @wired.com. We're looking for someone who has both traditional and non-traditional reporting skills (coding/data work/OSINT, etc). Fit the bill? Come work with me! condenast.wd5.myworkdayjobs.com/CondeCareers...

New: My deep dive into the business of AI slop. wapo.st/4mFECxC

A horrifying investigation into the chart crime scene that is the AI industry by @shiraovide.bsky.social, with top notch illustration from the great Elena Lacey www.washingtonpost.com/technology/2...

Meta fired its fact-checkers, citing concerns of liberal bias, and replaced them with a version of X's "Community Notes." How's that going? Well, my coworker @geoffreyfowler.bsky.social proposed 65 fact-checks debunking false posts... and only 3 got approved. www.washingtonpost.com/technology/2...

Wired rules. Just an incredible group of journalists who are completely meeting the moment. And you can subscribe for $2 a month, which is insane www.wired.com/story/a-new-...

New: As Trump prepares to unveil his "AI Action Plan," more than 80 labor, environmental, consumer and tech watchdog groups have signed on to a "People's AI Action Plan" that calls for regulations that put ordinary people's interests over those of the industry. www.washingtonpost.com/politics/202...

UK government minister: AGI by 2029 Also UK government: HS2 high speed rail project won't be complete until sometime after 2033 www.learningfromexamples.com/p/the-uk-exp...

New from me. Hope you’ll give it a read www.washingtonpost.com/technology/2...

New: If a person spewed Nazi garbage like Grok, they'd get fired in an instant. Elon Musk's chatbot just got a promotion. Why don't companies face any consequences for AI disasters? There might be a few ways to turn the tide ... wapo.st/4095Rbh

Google co-founder Sergey Brin called the U.N. “transparently antisemitic” in an internal forum for employees. His comments came in response to a U.N. report that alleged technology firms profited from “the genocide carried out by Israel” in Gaza.

new from me and @gerritd.bsky.social wapo.st/4lg3pIh (gift link) on an internal forum for Google Deepmind employees, Sergey Brin called the UN a “transparently antisemitic organization” after a new UN report accused tech companies of profiting from genocide in Gaza

Scoop: Google cofounder Sergey Brin branded the United Nations "transparently antisemitic" on an internal company message board, in comments that left some staff confused and upset www.washingtonpost.com/technology/2... via @gerritd.bsky.social @nitasha.bsky.social

In a stunning reversal, the Senate voted 99-1 this morning to strip from Trump's big bill a 10-year moratorium on state-level AI regulations. Gift link to my story on how it happened and who's celebrating: wapo.st/3TOyiaG

Good thread that serves as a cautionary tale for using AI at work even in ways that seem to be the intended uses (and often even encouraged by bosses). Please don’t dunk on OP, we need more people like him admitting to this kind of thing openly and honestly.

A lot of people say generative AI shouldn't infringe on copyright. These researchers actually tried to do it. The result: an 8 terabyte dataset of text that's openly licensed or in the public domain & 7 B parameter model that performs as well as Meta's Llama 7B www.washingtonpost.com/politics/202...

All the maneuvers Musk has used on Trump's critics — the trolls, the memes, the brigading, the insinuations of personal scandal — were suddenly deployed against Trump, making for an extremely awkward yet perversely entertaining day on X. www.washingtonpost.com/technology/2...

AI chatbots now rival social media for the stickiest apps by time spent -- but AI companions and girlfriends/boyfriends soak up much much more of their users' time than do ChatGPT and Claude

AI is speedrunning the social media era by optimizing chatbots for engagement, user feedback, time spent. Evidence is mounting that this poses unintended risks, includ. chats from peer-reviewed research, OpenAI's "sycophancy" debacle, & Character ai lawsuits www.washingtonpost.com/technology/2...

Chatbots optimized to keep you chatting have the potential to hack human attention and emotions much more powerfully than social media ever could www.washingtonpost.com/technology/2... via @nitasha.bsky.social

Meta is a defense contractor. "The company announced on Thursday that it will work with defense technology start-up Anduril to offer the U.S. military and its allies technology for soldiers involving augmented reality and artificial intelligence software."

Breaking news: The Court of International Trade ruled that President Donald Trump exceeded his authority in imposing tariffs on all imported goods. The president invoked a 1977 law that granted him emergency powers over the economy.

Have you Deep Researched it? Try NotebookLM. It’s in Google Search with AI Overviews. It’s literally on AI Mode. Dude just ask Gemini. You can Lens it. There’s an AI Summary for you. www.washingtonpost.com/technology/2... via @geoffreyfowler.bsky.social

AI Hallucination Celebrating JG Ballard Inadvertently Celebrates JG Ballard

One of the hard lines on facial recognition technology in the U.S. has been using it to do live searches on real-time cameras. The Washington Post reports that's been happening in New Orleans, however, by a police-adjacent nonprofit called PROJECT NOLA. www.washingtonpost.com/business/202...

Applications for the AI Spotlight Series Editor’s course, in collaboration with @africacheck.org, close soon! Learn with @binajv.bsky.social & @simonite.bsky.social how to identify #AI stories, reporting opportunities, and to avoid common pitfalls that can mislead your audience. 👉 bit.ly/4iZU19O

man those critics who called out altmans call for regulation in 2023 as cynical posturing to protect his lead in AI and he would change course once he got there were fuckin right on the money

sam altman went to congress and did the meme

2023 Sam Altman: Tells Congress a new agency should be created to require licenses for powerful AI models 2025 Sam Altman: Tells Congress requiring licenses for powerful AI models would be "disastrous" www.washingtonpost.com/technology/2... via @gerritd.bsky.social

At the Sam Altman-backed startup World's "At Last" event in San Francisco tonight with @kylierobison.com and @laurengoode.bsky.social where I have become a verified human. Around the 26.2 millionth

Judge refers Apple and one of its finance execs for potential criminal investigation for violating an order to loosen app store restrictions on developers. Exec "outright lied under oath," her ruling says. via @shiraovide.bsky.social www.washingtonpost.com/technology/2...

WaPo Exec Editor Matt Murray on AG Bondi's new media guidelines: "The 1st Amendment is central to our democracy & an enshrined constitutional right for all Americans.Any govt effort to subpoena reporters and their records threatens those constitutional rights for the indpt press." shorturl.at/k9YbB

Ed Martin's latest target: Wikipedia. The interim U.S. attorney and pro-Trump bulldog has sent a letter seeming to threaten the Wikimedia Foundation's tax-exempt status over allegations that it is "spreading propaganda." Our story: www.washingtonpost.com/technology/2...

last year i had the surreal experience of a film crew shooting me working from home and interviewing me for a documentary about AI and copyright. (they saw... a lot of typing, lol.) but it's out now & it's a good overview of artist pushback on genAI! www.youtube.com/watch?v=nwxt...

Tesla earnings down 71 percent in latest quarterly report www.washingtonpost.com/technology/2...

New: The govt pledged to closing the Education Department wants to tell schools to embrace AI: "Under the draft executive order, federal agencies would be instructed to take steps to train students in using AI and to incorporate it into teaching-related tasks" www.washingtonpost.com/education/20...

Nominating @jetjocko.bsky.social to get zapped by lasers to experience the "novel colors" made by selectively stimulating different cone cells in the retina and write about what he saw. "Human subjects ... describe the color as blue-green of unprecedented saturation" www.science.org/doi/10.1126/...

Judge Boasberg finds probable cause for contempt of court (!) in flight deportations case, citing in part a Washington Post graphic I made outlining the timing of flights and his orders. Very cool to see this impact. storage.courtlistener.com/recap/gov.us...

Blue Origin hyped its launch of the first all-female space crew since 1963. But the company recently edited its website to remove references to a "commitment to diversity." A mention of "Diversity, Equity, Inclusion and Belonging" became simply “inclusivity." www.washingtonpost.com/style/of-int...

Scoop: DOGE now controls how grant opportunities get posted across government. DOGE engineer removed users’ permissions to post to Grants-dot-gov without telling them. Now requests flow thru DOGE-controlled mailbox. with @carolynyjohnson.bsky.social + @hannahnatanson.bsky.social

Very informative chart from Washington Post

Breaking news: NASA’s science budget could be cut nearly in half under an early version of President Donald Trump’s budget proposal to Congress, a move that would terminate billions of dollars’ worth of ongoing and future missions.