Last year, the White House struck a landmark safety deal with AI developers that saw companies including Google and OpenAI promise to consider what could go wrong when they create software like that behind ChatGPT. Now a former domestic policy adviser to President Biden who helped forge that deal says …
Read More »Google's AI Overview Search Results Copied My Original Work
Last week, an AI Overview search result from Google used one of my WIRED articles in an unexpected way that makes me fearful for the future of journalism. I was experimenting with AI Overviews, the company’s new generative AI feature designed to answer online queries. I asked it multiple questions …
Read More »Russians Love YouTube. That’s a Problem for the Kremlin
In December 2020, Vladimir Putin held his end-of-the-year press conference as normal. Despite the Covid-19 pandemic still raging in Russia and worldwide, the president insisted that things would be OK. He had set aside 350 billion rubles ($4.8 billion) “to give social benefits to people, families, both children, doctors, and …
Read More »Google Cut Back AI Overviews in Search Even Before Its ‘Pizza Glue’ Fiasco
As anyone who so much as glanced at the internet in the past few weeks probably noticed, Google’s sweeping AI upgrade to its search engine had a rocky start. Within days of the company launching AI-generated answers to search queries called AI Overviews, the feature was widely mocked for producing …
Read More »AI Is Your Coworker Now. Can You Trust It?
Generative AI tools such as OpenAI’s ChatGPT and Microsoft’s Copilot are rapidly evolving, fueling concerns that the technology could open the door to multiple privacy and security issues, particularly in the workplace. In May, privacy campaigners dubbed Microsoft’s new Recall tool a potential “privacy nightmare” due to its ability to …
Read More »Android Now Lets You Edit Text Messages
Hey u up? I miss u babbe. That’s the kind of immediately regrettable text you’ll now be able to salvage on Android Messages. This week, Google announced a bunch of new features coming to its Android mobile platform, and perhaps most useful among them is the ability to edit messages …
Read More »Google Admits Its AI Overviews Search Feature Screwed Up
When bizarre and misleading answers to search queries generated by Google’s new AI Overview feature went viral on social media last week, the company issued statements that generally downplayed the notion the technology had problems. Late Thursday, the company’s head of search, Liz Reid, admitted that the flubs had highlighted …
Read More »Google's AI Overviews Will Always Be Broken. That's How AI Works
A week after its algorithms advised people to eat rocks and put glue on pizza, Google admitted Thursday that it needed to make adjustments to its bold new generative AI search feature. The episode highlights the risks of Google’s aggressive drive to commercialize generative AI—and also the treacherous and fundamental …
Read More »You Think You Know How Misinformation Spreads? Welcome to the Hellhole of Programmatic Advertising
Disclosure: Longtime journalist Steven Brill is the founder or cofounder of a number of publications and companies, including NewsGuard, where he is the co-CEO and coeditor in chief. Among other services, NewsGuard offers advertisers brand-safety services aimed at countering the pitfalls of unvetted programmatic advertising. This story is excerpted from …
Read More »A Nonprofit Tried to Fix Tech Culture—but Lost Control of Its Own
In a couple of short years, the Integrity Institute, a think tank founded by former Facebook employees, has become an influential voice on how to make social media safer. Its research on issues like election misinformation and online bullying have influenced European Union regulators and US lawmakers, and have become …
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