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Thousands of gig workers are earning money by having recorded conversations with strangers. The recordings are then sold as training data to artificial intelligence companies. Issie Lapowsky reports for Bloomberg Businessweek that the work is emotionally demanding, technically strict and raises serious questions about privacy and the future of human labor. The platform at the …
The open web faces an existential threat from Big Tech and artificial intelligence companies. Anil Dash warns on his personal website that 2026 could be the year the open internet as we know it ceases to exist. The open web allows anyone to create and publish content using publicly documented standards, share it freely worldwide, …
The companies behind AI-powered search tools like Google’s AI Mode and ChatGPT are increasingly shaping which brands consumers discover. The SEO industry is racing to exploit that influence, and some of the tactics are already working. The Verge reports on a growing wave of manipulation attempts targeting AI search systems. One widespread tactic involves companies …
Two recent studies paint a concerning picture of how artificial intelligence tools are changing the way people think, reason, and express themselves. Taken together, the research suggests that widespread AI use is not only reducing users’ critical engagement with information, but may also be narrowing the diversity of human thought on a broader scale. Researchers …
OpenAI built its reputation on ChatGPT, the chatbot that introduced millions of people to generative AI. But a series of product failures, cancelled deals, and a shifting competitive landscape are raising questions about whether the company can hold on to its lead. The most visible sign of trouble came when OpenAI abruptly shut down Sora, …
Google’s AI Overviews are accurate about 91 percent of the time. This sounds good at first, but Tripp Mickle and colleagues report for The New York Times that this still means the search engine delivers tens of millions of incorrect answers every hour. The New York Times commissioned AI startup Oumi to test Google’s system …
The leaders of the two most powerful AI companies in the world are locked in a bitter personal and professional rivalry that is influencing how artificial intelligence develops globally. Keach Hagey reports for The Wall Street Journal that the conflict between OpenAI CEO Sam Altman and Anthropic CEO Dario Amodei stretches back nearly a decade …
A new study finds that artificial intelligence systems are excessively agreeable when users seek advice on personal and interpersonal matters. Myra Cheng reports for Stanford University that large language models (LLMs) consistently side with users, even when their behavior is harmful or illegal. The researchers tested 11 major LLMs, including ChatGPT, Claude, Gemini, and DeepSeek. …
As artificial intelligence becomes a standard workplace tool, companies are beginning to monitor how much it actually costs to use. Katherine Bindley reports for the Wall Street Journal that businesses are tracking employee AI consumption through a metric called tokens, the basic unit that measures computing effort behind every AI interaction. For text-based tasks, roughly …
Large language models can build apps, predict protein structures and generate realistic videos. But they consistently fail at one fundamental human skill: writing well. Jasmine Sun reports for The Atlantic that modern AI systems are structurally built in ways that actively work against good writing. And that is quite surprising: Today’s most powerful AI models …