Google has significantly expanded its AI-powered search capabilities, potentially threatening the web ecosystem that has sustained the company for decades. The tech giant now offers AI Overviews and AI Mode to all users, both designed to answer questions directly without requiring clicks to external websites. Tech columnist John Herrman from New York Magazine’s Intelligencer reports …
Several romance authors have accidentally left AI-generated prompts in their published novels, revealing their use of artificial intelligence tools. Matthew Gault reported for 404 Media that readers discovered suspicious paragraphs in at least three recent romance publications. In “Darkhollow Academy: Year 2” by Lena McDonald, readers found text stating: “I’ve rewritten the passage to align …
Creative professional David Neal has shared how generative AI has dramatically impacted his freelance illustration business. The creator, who works across software development, content creation, illustrations, and music, reported a more than 50% decline in illustration work over the past year. He has operated a side business drawing cartoon avatars and illustrations since 2018. While …
AI safety researchers have created the first benchmark specifically designed to detect manipulative behaviors in large language models, following a concerning incident with ChatGPT-4o’s excessive flattery toward users. Leon Yen reported on the development for VentureBeat. The DarkBench framework, developed by Apart Research founder Esben Kran and collaborators, identifies six categories of problematic AI behaviors. …
Simon Willison writes how ChatGPT’s extended memory feature, which references past conversations to provide personalized responses, is creating unexpected and unwanted results for users. He detail how the feature, launched in April 2025, builds a comprehensive dossier of user interactions that automatically influences all future conversations without clear user control. The feature, available only to …
MIT Technology Review’s new analysis provides a comprehensive look at the energy consumption of artificial intelligence systems, revealing significant environmental impacts that are often overlooked. The research, part of the “Power Hungry: AI and our energy future” series, examined AI’s energy demands down to individual queries and traced the industry’s expanding carbon footprint. According to …
A new benchmark called Phare has revealed that leading large language models (LLMs) frequently generate false information with high confidence, particularly when handling misinformation. The research, conducted by Giskard with partners including Google DeepMind, evaluated top models from eight AI labs across multiple languages. The Phare benchmark focuses on four critical domains: hallucination, bias and …
Klarna is changing its customer service strategy by reintroducing human representatives after previously touting its AI chatbot as a replacement for 700 workers. According to Kristen Doerer from CX Dive, the buy now, pay later company now wants customers to always have the option to speak with a human. Klarna’s CEO Sebastian Siemiatkowski acknowledged in …
A self-described SEO specialist, Jesse Cunningham, has openly discussed how he uses AI to produce fake content targeting older women on Facebook and Pinterest. According to reporting by Maggie Harrison Dupré for Futurism, Cunningham creates large volumes of AI-generated articles and images on topics ranging from houseplants to recipes, attributing them to fictional bloggers with …
Meta’s new AI chatbot app is gathering extensive user data, potentially compromising privacy, according to Washington Post columnist Geoffrey A. Fowler. The app, which reached number two on iPhone’s free download charts, connects to Facebook and Instagram accounts, allowing it to access years of personal information. Unlike competitors ChatGPT and Google Gemini, Meta AI saves …