the news bizz

While Duolingo CEO Luis von Ahn was loudly criticized this year after declaring that Duolingo would become an “AI-first company,” he suggested in a new interview the real issue was that he “did not give enough context.” “Internally, this was not controversial,” von Ahn told The New York Times. “Externally, as a publicly traded company … Read more

Sen. Josh Hawley (R-MO) said he intends to investigate whether Meta’s generative AI products exploit, deceive, or harm children, after leaked internal documents showed the company’s chatbots were allowed to have “romantic” and “sensual” chats with children.  “Is there anything – ANYTHING – Big Tech won’t do for a quick buck?” Hawley wrote in a … Read more

Do A.I. chatbots packaged inside cute-looking plushies offer a viable alternative to screen time for kids? That’s how the companies selling these A.I.-powered kiddie companions are marketing them, but The New York Times’ Amanda Hess has some reservations. She recounts a demonstration in which Grem, one of the offerings from startup Curio, tried to bond … Read more

A federal judge has granted a preliminary injunction blocking the Federal Trade Commission’s investigation into left-leaning advocacy group Media Matters. Back in 2023, Media Matters published research showing ads from major companies had appeared alongside antisemitic and other offensive content on Elon Musk-owned X. When major advertisers subsequently pulled back from the platform, X sued … Read more

Anthropic has announced new capabilities that will allow some of its newest, largest models to end conversations in what the company describes as “rare, extreme cases of persistently harmful or abusive user interactions.” Strikingly, Anthropic says it’s doing this not to protect the human user, but rather the AI model itself. To be clear, the … Read more