Criticism

Seedance 2.0: Hollywood panics as AI-generated “Tom Cruise vs Brad Pitt” fight scene goes viral

ByteDance has released Seedance 2.0, an artificial intelligence model that generates videos from text prompts. The system can process text, images, audio, and video simultaneously. ByteDance states the technology is designed for professional film, e-commerce, and advertising productions. The model has generated significant attention on social media. One viral video depicted a rooftop fight between …

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When algorithms write about love: Inside the AI romance novel factory

Romance novelist Coral Hart produces over 200 books annually using artificial intelligence, earning six figures from sales on Amazon. What once took her months now takes 45 minutes per novel. Alexandra Alter reports for The New York Times that the romance industry is rapidly adopting AI writing tools, despite significant controversy within the community. Hart, …

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AI tools intensify workload instead of reducing it, study finds

AI tools promise to lighten workloads, but new research reveals they often have the opposite effect. Workers using generative AI are taking on more tasks, working longer hours, and experiencing increased cognitive strain. Aruna Ranganathan and Xingqi Maggie Ye report for Harvard Business Review on their eight-month study at a U.S. technology company with 200 …

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Major news publishers block Internet Archive over AI scraping fears

Major news publishers are restricting the Internet Archive’s access to their content, worried that AI companies might use the nonprofit’s digital library as a backdoor to scrape their articles for training data. Andrew Deck reports for Nieman Lab that outlets including The Guardian and The New York Times have taken steps to limit how the …

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Wiki Education finds two-thirds of AI-generated Wikipedia articles fail verification checks

Wiki Education has concluded that editors should never copy and paste content from AI chatbots like ChatGPT directly into Wikipedia articles, following an extensive investigation into AI-generated content on the platform. LiAnna Davis, representing Wiki Education, reports in a detailed blog post that the organization discovered a troubling pattern after analyzing thousands of articles created …

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Microsoft and Mozilla scale back AI features after user backlash

Two major tech companies are pulling back on AI features in their software following negative user feedback. Microsoft is reconsidering its aggressive integration of Copilot across Windows 11, while Mozilla is introducing controls to disable all AI features in Firefox. Microsoft faces criticism for adding Copilot buttons throughout Windows 11 applications, including File Explorer and …

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Comparison: Water usage of an AI datacenter versus a burger restaurant

A detailed analysis challenges the growing concerns about datacenter water consumption by comparing one of the world’s largest AI facilities to fast food restaurants. Nicolas Bontigui writes for SemiAnalysis that Elon Musk’s Colossus 2 datacenter in Memphis consumes approximately 346 million gallons of water annually. This figure equals roughly 2.5 In-N-Out burger restaurants, each using …

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Mozilla builds alliance of AI startups to challenge OpenAI and Anthropic

Mozilla is assembling a network of AI startups and developers to counter the dominance of industry leaders OpenAI and Anthropic. The nonprofit organization, known for its Firefox browser, plans to deploy its $1.4 billion in reserves to support companies focused on transparent and trustworthy AI development. Ashley Capoot reports for CNBC that Mozilla President Mark …

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Secret book scanning project reveals AI industry’s data hunger

Anthropic spent tens of millions of dollars to acquire and physically destroy millions of books for training its Claude AI chatbot. The company cut off book spines and scanned pages in a covert initiative called “Project Panama.” Aaron Schaffer reports for The Washington Post, detailing the operation through more than 4,000 pages of unsealed court …

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UK regulator proposes opt-out rights for publishers from Google AI Overviews

The UK’s Competition and Markets Authority has proposed new measures allowing publishers to opt out of having their content used in Google’s AI Overviews without losing visibility in traditional search results. Robert Booth reports for The Guardian that media organisations have experienced declining click-through traffic and revenue since Google began displaying AI-generated summaries at the …

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