Clanker. Wireback. Cogsucker. People are feeling the inescapable inevitability of AI developments, the encroaching of the digital into everything from entertainment to work. And their answer? Slurs. AI is everywhere—on Google summarizing search results and siphoning web traffic from digital publishers, on social media platforms like Instagram, X, and Facebook, …
Read More »James Cameron: 'Empathy Is Our Superpower'
Arriving on the 80th anniversary of America dropping atomic bombs on Japan, Ghosts of Hiroshima by author Charles Pellegrino is a stunning work of history. The book takes a deeply reported, humanistic, even archaeological approach to one of the most devastating and horrific military actions ever taken. Aug. 6, 1945, …
Read More »Jim Acosta Just Interviewed an AI Version of a Parkland Victim
The parents of Joaquin Oliver, one of the students killed in the 2018 Parkland high school shooting, have created an AI version of their late son, who partook in an interview today with journalist Jim Acosta. The interview took place on what would have been Oliver’s 25th birthday. The conversation, …
Read More »Almost 40 Percent of Americans Trust Medical Advice From AI Chatbots
As AI technology becomes more integrated into every aspect of daily life, people have grown increasingly comfortable asking large language model chatbots for help with all kinds of questions — including, it seems, in matters of life and death. In a new survey of 2,000 Americans commissioned from research consultancy …
Read More »My Toxic Friendship With ChatGPT
It began innocently enough. I’ve been a writer for several years, and have been freelancing for the past year and a half. In many ways, it has been freeing, but I missed stability, so I started looking for full-time work. A lot of my days consisted of relentlessly churning out …
Read More »People With Body Dysmorphia Are Spiraling Out After Asking AI to Rate Their Looks
“This is a low-attractiveness presentation, based on weak bone structure, muted features, and absence of form or presence,” reads a ChatGPT message shared in screenshots on Reddit. “You look like someone who has faded into the background of their own life.” The harsh assessment of the user’s appearance, based on …
Read More »Grok Rolls Out Pornographic Anime Companion, Lands Department of Defense Contract
There’s never a dull moment with Grok, the chatbot from Elon Musk‘s xAI, which he has consistently called the “smartest” AI in existence despite its forays into racial conspiracy theories, tendency to speak in the first person as Musk himself, and recent output of what it termed “Hitler fanfic.” Last …
Read More »Grok Says It's Done Posting 'Hitler Fanfic'
Elon Musk’s AI chatbot, which this week praised Adolf Hitler and began using antisemitic dog whistles, said Saturday it would abandon its “Hitler fanfic.” But it lied about creating a nauseating sexual post about Linda Yaccarino, who was CEO of X Corp until Wednesday, when she resigned. The xAI chatbot, …
Read More »Jesse Armstrong: 'Lack of Self-Awareness is Always Good for Comedy'
Disrupt the blood. Hack the hate. In Mountainhead, written, directed, and produced by Succession creator Jesse Armstrong, these are just a few of the technocratisms bandied about by the four tech bros (played by Steve Carell, Jason Schwartzman, Ramy Youssef, and Cory Michael Smith) who have gathered at a mountaintop …
Read More »Musk Claims New Version of 'MechaHitler' Chatbot May 'Discover New Technologies' This Year
Undeterred by the previous iteration of his “anti-woke” AI chatbot Grok running amok on X on Tuesday, adopting Nazi talking points, declaring itself “MechaHitler,” and authoring graphic scenes of violent sexual assault, Elon Musk oversaw a muted demo of the latest version of the model, Grok 4, on Wednesday evening. …
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