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.
It directly competes with OpenAI’s ChatGPT Gov.
The policy could set X up to make AI training deals.
Google’s new feature in Labs will create the visualizations to “help bring financial data to life for questions on stocks and mutual funds,” according to a blog post. You can ask Google a follow-up question, too, and “AI Mode understands what to research for you.”
Here’s a video of the feature, from Google’s post:
On Thursday, the Oversight Board overturned Meta’s decision to leave up a Facebook post showing an AI deepfake of Brazilian soccer star Ronaldo Nazário in an ad for a gambling app. The ad was viewed more than 600,000 times and received more than 50 reports.
The Oversight Board points to a larger problem at Meta, saying it is “likely allowing significant amounts of scam content on its platforms” and that reviewers aren’t “empowered” to enforce the platform’s policy against deepfake scams.
Angelo Sotira’s display, called Layer, is designed to house a kind of “generative AI art,” which TechCrunch explains involves artists writing their “own software to create digital AI artworks that change over time.” The display comes with a dedicated GPU capable of rendering “infinite variations” of generative art in full resolution.
The head of the AI video platform on Hollywood, copyright, and the future of filmmaking.
Dario Amodei, Anthropic’s co-founder and CEO, writes in The New York Times that though he understands the motivations behind the proposal, “a 10-year moratorium is far too blunt an instrument. A.I. is advancing too head-spinningly fast.”
He’s advocating for a federal transparency standard instead: “Without a clear plan for a federal response, a moratorium would give us the worst of both worlds — no ability for states to act, and no national policy as a backstop.”
I deepfaked my dead parents and kissed Edward Cullen.
The public’s negative response to previous instances of major Hollywood firing up the generative AI slop machine might make you think that entertainment execs have cooled on the technology. But a new report from Vulture makes it sound like more and more studios are jumping on the bandwagon and trying very hard to keep it a secret.
[vulture.com]
Google is rolling out a new Gemini AI-powered feature to users with eligible Google Workspace or Google AI plans that pops up a “Catch me up” shortcut to go over recent edits in Google Docs, as well as comments on other types of files, complete with a warning that “Gemini may display inaccurate info.”
It’s supposed to roll out over the next couple of weeks, providing either a high-level summary across all of your files in the sidebar or overviews of changes to a specific file via a new activity indicator.
The New York Times is reporting on Ripple, a Washington Post initiative that’s apparently looking to open up its opinion pages to writing from “...from other newspapers across America, writers on Substack and eventually nonprofessional writers.”
That last bullet point would reportedly be assisted by the “Ember” AI writing coach with a paint-by-numbers approach to creating strong stories. As Liz’s thread goes on to point out, beyond the Forbes and Huffington Post echoes, it’s also a reminder of Tribune Publishing’s short “content curation and monetization engine” era as Tronc.
Amazon MGM Studios is reportedly making a movie that will depict the rollercoaster couple of days in November 2023 when OpenAI CEO Sam Altman was ousted by the board, then pulled an “Uno Reverse” and was re-hired, after which nearly all of the board members in question subsequently departed.
Luca Guadagnino is in talks to direct, according to The Hollywood Reporter, with Andrew Garfield in talks to play Sam Altman. Production could begin as soon as this summer, per the report, with filming locations in San Francisco and Italy.
[hollywoodreporter.com]
OpenAI says it’s rolling out a “lightweight version” of the memory improvements it launched in April for paying customers to its free user tier. From now on, ChatGPT will reference both saved memories and recent conversations in chats.
One thing that has irritated me for years is the claim AI will change everything — it’s just an article of faith, and I’m not inclined toward religion. Here is a rational argument about how AI will change programming, and it also level-sets by saying what that means: “If you’re making requests on a ChatGPT page and then pasting the resulting (broken) code into your editor, you’re not doing what the AI boosters are doing.” We all deserve better arguments for AI actually being useful, like the one Thomas Ptacek makes here.
[fly.io]
Were you feeling left out by the terrible economics of Musk’s Twitter buyout? Great news! xAI, which now owns Twit — I mean, X — is selling shares. Also, Neuralink, newly freed from those pesky FDA staffers overseeing its applications, raised more money. has raised $650 million. Plus, there will be a public demo in two weeks! You know, if I were a cynical person, I might think Musk was trying to publicly distance himself from his time at DOGE.
Over the weekend, Molly White noted the existence of a chatbot called “Looksmaxxing GPT.” It told one user he was “subhuman” and began recommending surgeries. Body dysmorphia has been on the rise among men and boys, and a chatbot featured on ChatGPT’s front page that makes things worse seems like a bad idea. White reported it, but OpenAI thinks this chatbot is fine.
I think education is a perfect microcosm of the whole AI debate. There are some interesting and cool things to do with AI in the classroom! It might also be rotting kids’ brains! But all the responses 404 Media compiled from educators make one thing particularly clear: technology is changing really fast, and we haven’t had nearly enough time to figure out how to react. I really feel for these teachers.
[404media.co]
The first is CoCounsel for tax, audit, and accounting professionals, which can perform tasks like client file reviews, memo drafting, and compliance checks. An agentic tax prep application that can draft tax returns is also in the works, called Ready to Review.
Thomson Reuters’ embrace of generative AI was noted by Reuters president Paul Bascobert on Decoder last month. The CoCounsel launch is “just the start” according to Thomson Reuters’ announcement, with agentic workflows for legal, risk, and compliance “coming soon.”
[thomsonreuters.com]
Samsung is planning a big investment in Perplexity that could bring the AI search engine’s app and assistant to Samsung’s upcoming devices and its web browser, according to a report from Bloomberg.
If this rumor pans out, Samsung would join Motorola in offering users the option to set Perplexity as their default assistant instead of Google Gemini.
That’s according to The Wall Street Journal, which says fully automated AI ads are on the roadmap for 2026. Zuckerberg has already hinted at the plans, which will see advertisers provide an image of a product and set a budget, getting a full ad campaign in return. The AI will decide which Facebook and Instagram users to target, and offer personalization like changing the setting of an ad to match where the prospective customer lives.
Bloomberg reporter Mark Gurman’s Power On newsletter follows up on his earlier news that Apple’s operating systems will switch to Madden-style numbering by saying the new Mac update will be Lake Tahoe-themed.
With just one more week to go before WWDC 25, he’s also suggesting this will be a “gap year” for Apple’s AI ambitions, with projects like LLM Siri, a true ChatGPT competitor, and an Apple Intelligence-enhanced version of its Shortcuts app still in development but possibly not ready for a preview.
This bad chatbot advice to a fictional former addict is referenced in a Washington Post article about the risks of AI companies optimizing bots for increased engagement, with bigger risks than a version of ChatGPT that “glazes too much.”
It’s from a recent study where researchers reported AI models could test well on benchmarks for sycophancy and toxicity, but also “suddenly act harmfully in the presence of gameable user character traits.”
Google’s AI Overviews told Wired (and me, when I tried) that no, it is not 2025.
A Google spokesperson said to Wired that the company is “actively working on an update to address this type of issue.”
