Artificial intelligence is more a part of our lives than ever before. While some might call it hype and compare it to NFTs or 3D TVs, generative AI is causing a sea change in nearly every part of the technology industry. OpenAI’s ChatGPT is still the best-known AI chatbot around, but with Google pushing Gemini, Microsoft building Copilot, and Apple adding its Intelligence to Siri, AI is probably going to be in the spotlight for a very long time. At The Verge, we’re exploring what might be possible with AI — and a lot of the bad stuff AI does, too.
Project Luna — a round screen with a swiveling head that reminds me of Samsung’s “AI OLED Turntable” — offers a glimpse of what’s to come from Samsung’s design, according to chief design officer, Mauro Porcini. Samsung teased the bot in a YouTube Shorts, and now Fast Company has some exclusive details.
Sources told Axios that the agency was among the roughly 40 organizations granted access. This, despite the Pentagon arguing that Anthropic is a threat to national security. The NSA has reportedly been using it primarily to identify vulnerabilities in its own network, but considering its track record, it’s understandable if you’re wary.
The New York Times has found hundreds of fake accounts on Instagram, TikTok, and Facebook that appear to be a pre-midterm push to get conservative voters to the polls in support of Trump’s agenda. The accounts often use the same captions and awkward phrasing.
It’s not clear who created the A.I. accounts, and determining whether they are the product of a hired content farm, a foreign influence operation, an experiment or something else is difficult, experts said. They all agree, however, that creating such avatars is becoming easier, especially for contractors and marketing companies that now specialize in developing and dispatching A.I. avatars in bulk for increasingly low prices.
[New York Times]
Panic detailed the changes in a policy that went into effect this month. For now, however, Panic will allow Catalog titles that “have used AI assistance in the coding process,” but those games will be flagged to note that.
For its own games, Panic cofounder Cabel Sasser recently told The Verge that it does not “have any interest in generative AI-created products.”
[Playdate]
Claude Design — powered by the company’s newest model, Opus 4.7 — allows users to create designs, prototypes, pitch decks, marketing materials, and more. It’s available in research preview for paying subscribers.
[Anthropic]
SimpleClosure, a startup that helps struggling companies shut down, launched a new tool for businesses that want to sell off old code, Slack messages, emails, and workspace information to data-hungry AI companies, as reported by Forbes:
The demand for this real-world enterprise data has spurred on a new industry of ‘reinforcement learning gyms,’ which specialize in using defunct company data to build simulated environments where AI agents can practice navigating real workplaces.
Despite Anthropic’s ongoing battle with the Pentagon, Bloomberg reports that the White House Office of Management and Budget’s CIO told government officials that it is preparing for their agencies to use Anthropic’s cybersecurity-focused AI model.
Anthropic’s private cybersecurity-focused model is being used by a handful of large companies, including Nvidia, Apple, and JPMorgan Chase, to plug high-stakes vulnerabilities in their systems, creating a lot of buzz. On the podcast, I unpacked the model, the competition, and the stakes.
Union leaders across industries joined the Vermont senator to push for jobs protections as the technology quickly evolves. Sanders has called for a pause on data center construction and warned that left unchecked, within ten years, “the idea of a manufacturing job will no longer exist.”
Along with an upgraded Android CLI, Google is launching a new Android skills GitHub repository and an Android Knowledge base, which can provide AI agents with the information and resources they need to perform coding tasks.
Codex can now use your macOS apps on its own.
The company is apparently reversing course in its approach to military dealings. Google currently has a contract that allows the DOD to use Gemini for “all lawful purposes,” but only in unclassified settings. According to The Information:
Google’s proposed contract language appears to mirror the terms OpenAI secured in an agreement it struck with the Pentagon over the use of its AI earlier this year… However, lawyers also said at the time that language in OpenAI’s contract that seemed to preclude the use of its AI for fully autonomous lethal weapons and mass domestic surveillance wouldn’t necessarily prevent those applications because OpenAI also agreed that its technology could be used for “all lawful purposes.”
The head of OpenAI has a reputation for deception. The New Yorker’s Ronan Farrow on why that matters.
This free, crowd-sourced tracker website is one of the most comprehensive attempts we’ve seen to keep tabs on where new data centers are being proposed. Maps are currently available across 18 states, with data compiled from public sources. You can read about the Data Center Proposal Tracker creator’s methodology here.
The plans, which were revealed in a letter seen by Wired, come in response to a bipartisan push to find out how much energy data centers are sucking up. The Energy Information Administration reportedly plans to launch the nationwide surveys after it wraps up pilot surveys in data center-heavy areas, such as Texas, Washington state, Washington DC, and northern Virginia.
Verge favorite Matt Levine weighs in on the New Allbirds Thing. The financing is the crucial part — so some “institutional investor” is “essentially buying $50 million worth of stock at the old, defunct-sneaker-company price, and selling it at the new, AI-neocloud-company price,” maybe. Neocloud market looking frothy, imo.
[Bloomberg]
The NAACP is suing xAI to block Elon Musk’s Colossus 2 data center project outside of Memphis, TN, claiming that the project is operating 27 gas turbines without an air permit and in violation of the Clean Air Act.
“By looking to evade clear air laws to operate dirty turbines that emit pollution and known carcinogens, these companies are following a shameful, familiar pattern: asking Black and frontline communities to bear the toxic brunt of ‘innovation,” said Abre’ Conner, NAACP Director of Environmental and Climate Justice.
Google said Gemini Robotics-ER 1.6 is “our safest robotics model to date,” enabling robots to reason and understand their environments with “unprecedented precision.” That includes reading instruments like pressure gauges, which Boston Dynamics demonstrates with its dog-like robot, Spot.
I’ve not been convinced by the Pixel 10 Camera Coach, which gives basic tips like zooming in to frame your subject. But are Huawei’s new AI-based pose recommendations for the Pura 90 much better? Selfies aside, how is the person being photographed meant to see what’s on the phone anyway?
Anthropic says the changes to the desktop app make it easier to work on multiple tasks at once, with a new sidebar for managing sessions, a drag-and-drop layout for customizing the app’s workspace, and a built-in terminal and file editor.
The feature, which allows Gemini to pull information from your Gmail, Google Photos, Search, and YouTube watch history, is now available globally — except in the UK, Switzerland, and the European Economic Area, according to Google spokesperson Elijah Lawal.
Personal Intelligence is coming to Google AI Plus, Pro, and Ultra subscribers in these areas first before launching for free users.
