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
July 8, 2026
(Wired) – The lab will beam back data to train AI models to predict how proteins behind age-related diseases like Alzheimer’s and certain cancers behave. Space is becoming the next frontier in longevity research. A British startup just launched self-run … Read More
July 6, 2026
(NYT) – For generations, writing up a summary of a patient exam was a vital step for physicians trying to make an accurate diagnosis. What happens when A.I. does it for them? This process involves more than merely transcribing a … Read More
July 2, 2026
(Wired) – Welcome to the “Temu experience of telehealth,” where everyone from Grindr to MAGA influencers can open a virtual clinic selling weight loss drugs and more. JustAnswer is part of a growing movement of newbie virtual clinic owners who … Read More
June 30, 2026
(SFGate) – Newspaper publishers across the country are suing OpenAI and Microsoft for allegedly scraping their websites to train their flagship artificial intelligence models. The lawsuit, filed in the U.S. District Court for the Southern District of New York on … Read More
June 29, 2026
(WSJ) – How AI’s sycophantic responses, language mirroring and hyperpersonalized content work together to send some people into a spiral We’ve all experienced the tendency of AI chatbots to tell us what we want to hear, but there are two … Read More
June 29, 2026
(Washington Post via MSN) – You wake up to your 7 a.m. alarm feeling relatively refreshed and ready to tackle the day ahead. But when you check your smartwatch, you’re surprised to see a low sleep score staring back at … Read More
June 29, 2026
(Wired) – After weeks of negotiations, the White House permitted Anthropic to grant access to its most advanced AI model to a select group of US companies and government agencies. The US government has eased the restrictions it imposed on … Read More
June 25, 2026
(Wired) – The biodegradable material can help improve healing after surgery—or an avocado-related accident. Roughly 500,000 Americans suffer nerve injuries that require treatment each year, whether from an errant attempt to hack out an avocado pit or an unfortunate woodworking … Read More
June 25, 2026
(Wired) – The startup Coherence Neuro is now testing a brain-computer interface that could one day use electrical stimulation to prevent tumors from growing. A San Francisco startup with ties to Elon Musk’s Neuralink has started testing its brain implant … Read More