July 23, 2026
(TIME) – According to one count by The Information, more than 300 cities, towns, and counties—including Monterey Park, Calif., Dekalb County, Ga., and Jefferson County, Pa.—have placed bans or moratoriums on the construction of hyperscale data centers. In the first … Read More
July 22, 2026
(NYT) – I’m not aware of any brain scan studies published so far that show how attachment hacking affects the brain’s reward systems. We do know that all addictions — whether to cocaine, gambling or shopping — seem to generate … Read More
July 22, 2026
(404 Media) – Cops and drone companies seem increasingly eager to put weapons on their drones. The New Orleans Police Department (NOPD) looked at ways to arm quadcopter drones with weapons, according to a draft version of its drone manual … Read More
July 21, 2026
(TechCrunch) – Craneware’s flagship accounting and billing software is used by thousands of clinics, hospitals, and pharmacies across the United States. The company did not say exactly what kinds of data were taken in the breach, only noting that a … Read More
July 21, 2026
(Washington Post via MSN) – The launch of Foundation in 2024 was a radical step, given many in the industry’s long-standing opposition to letting autonomous devices decide where to attack without human sign-off and promises by other leading robot companies … Read More
July 21, 2026
(NYT) – Political campaigns have something new to worry about these days: unflattering or incomplete information produced by A.I. programs when voters ask questions about candidates. Mr. Lloyd, 33, relied on a report on his A.I. presence from CampSight, a … Read More
July 21, 2026
(WSJ) – White House is divided on how to respond to recent advances in Chinese AI, has weighed crackdown measures Silicon Valley and Washington are debating a multibillion-dollar question: Should American companies be able to use Chinese artificial-intelligence models? OpenAI … Read More
July 20, 2026
(Washington Post via MSN) – The adolescent boys indicated in the questionnaire that they found themselves frequently thinking about social media. They wanted to use it less often, but felt unable to stop. A year later, when their parents were … Read More
July 20, 2026
(The Atlantic) – In the data-center age, the business of tech companies is more like oil-refining than coding. The AI boom has showered some of the nation’s most prominent companies in market value. OpenAI and Anthropic are now the two … Read More
July 17, 2026
(The Economist) – They are having too much impact on young people’s lives Chinese tech firms are stripping human-like personas from their chatbots in order to comply with new government rules aimed at reducing “emotional dependence” on AI. The regulations, … Read More
July 17, 2026
(The Guardian) – Designers say that as well as offering a degree of protection from surveillance, their clothes make a powerful fashion statement about the importance of privacy As facial recognition technology is rolled out across Britain’s public spaces, a … Read More
July 16, 2026
(The Humanist Review) – To understand AI’s effect on moral character, ethicist Kwame Anthony Appiah goes back to John Stuart Mill, and the idea that people are shaped by their choices. Technologies that extend human powers may also, by degrees, … Read More
July 16, 2026
(BBC) – Some apps are sharing users’ health data. New research uncovers which apps lock down your privacy, and which don’t. Stardust is a period tracking app that combines users’ menstrual cycles with astrology and horoscopes. It also makes bold … Read More
July 16, 2026
(The New Yorker) – You can now make a virtual replica of a loved one. The question is what it can give you in return. Gaia Alari, a thirty-six-year-old artist, lives in Bergamo, Italy. In the past few years, her … Read More
July 16, 2026
(Nature) – Digital people are fulfilling roles from running hospitals to giving lectures to offering companionship. At the Hong Kong University of Science and Technology in Guangzhou, students can listen to lectures given by AI avatars that look and speak … Read More
July 16, 2026
(New Yorker) – “What is it, Roschelle?” the orb asked. Cece recognized it as an Amazon Echo, often referred to as an Alexa. Roschelle had them all around the house—she bought the first ones when Cece and Zi were still … Read More
July 15, 2026
(Washington Post via Yahoo! News) – Over the past year, lawsuits have been piling up against AI companies in courts across the United States and abroad, alleging that chatbots encouraged people to harm themselves or provided advice on how to … Read More
July 14, 2026
(WSJ) – One family sold its struggling farmland for $22 million, joining a new class of multimillionaires who are cashing in on the AI data-center boom Towns and neighborhoods across the country have rejected data centers. Residents have staged noisy … Read More
July 14, 2026
(ABC 7) – University of Chicago Law School announced it will ban phones and laptops in the classroom for first-year students in its new AI strategy. The school made the announcement Thursday as part of a broader plan to respond … Read More
July 13, 2026
(Ars Technica) – Humanoid robots have surgically removed the gallbladders from living animals in an unprecedented medical experiment—but not as autonomous machines capable of replacing human doctors. Instead, skilled human surgeons remotely controlled the robots’ movements in a new example … Read More
July 10, 2026
(Ars Technica) – OpenAI is facing calls for “serious sanctions” after fighting to keep news organizations from snooping through millions of logs to find evidence of users skirting their paywalls by prompting ChatGPT to regurgitate their articles. This evidence is … Read More
July 10, 2026
(Psyche) – Americans are secretive about their intense emotional relationships with AI companions like Replika, Nomi and Character.AI because they fear they’ll seem delusional if they talk about them publicly. But many are also secretive because they feel pressure to … Read More
July 10, 2026
(Wired) – A regulatory loophole has let in thousands of new fossil-fuel-burning power sources across the state. The AI business is booming—but residents feel blindsided. With some 300 data centers already in operation and 200 more in development, Texas could … Read More
July 9, 2026
(Wired) – As part of Meta’s Muse Image model rollout, Instagram users with public accounts need to opt out to block AI generations of their content. Meta launched its inaugural AI image model from the Meta Superintelligence Labs on Tuesday, … Read More
July 8, 2026
(Wired) – In a world regulated by devices, humanity has become disconnected from the physical world—from stick-shift cars to postcards. If gratification is so easy, why don’t you feel more gratified already? Because it’s gotten harder. It’s still easy to … Read More
