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Born This Way

Google's AI Overviews Will Always Be Broken. That's How AI Works

Google rushed out fixes after its AI search feature made errors that went viral. Fundamental limitations of generative AI mean that it will still screw up sometimes.
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The Daylight Tablet Returns Computing to Its Hippie Ideals

Eat Rocks

Google Admits Its AI Overviews Search Feature Screwed Up

Artificial Intelligence

Chatbots Are Entering Their Stone Age

Anthropic and other big AI startups are teaching chatbots “tool use,” to make them more useful in the workplace.

Anduril Is Building Out the Pentagon’s Dream of Deadly Drone Swarms

The US military aims to maintain its dominance by building autonomous attack drones that collaborate with humans and overwhelm defenses in swarms.

Pocket-Sized AI Models Could Unlock a New Era of Computing

Research at Microsoft shows it’s possible to make AI models small enough to run on phones or laptops without major compromises to their smarts. The technique could open up new use cases for AI.

The Low-Paid Humans Behind AI’s Smarts Ask Biden to Free Them From ‘Modern Day Slavery’

African workers who label AI data or screen social posts for US tech giants are calling on President Biden to raise their plight with Kenya's president, William Ruto, who visits the US this week.

Social Media

Most US TikTok Creators Don’t Think a Ban Will Happen

The Chinese-owned app is in serious trouble in Washington, but a survey of US creators suggests TikTok’s influencer economy is carrying on with business as usual.

Twitter Is Finally Dead

Twitter is fully X.com now. Given its transformation since Elon Musk bought it, that may be a small mercy.

Maven Is a New Social Network That Eliminates Followers—and Hopefully Stress

Twitter cofounder Ev Williams is backing a new social network called Maven, which trades likes and follows for algorithms designed to foster serendipity and deep discussion.

I Went Undercover as a Secret OnlyFans Chatter. It Wasn’t Pretty

Your online influencer girlfriend is actually a rotating cast of low-wage workers. I became one of them.

Startups and Tech Culture

WeWork Survived Bankruptcy. Now It Has to Make Coworking Pay Off

The troubled company is back from the brink, but will emerge from bankruptcy to a world where coworking’s long-term future is much less certain.

A Nonprofit Tried to Fix Tech Culture—but Lost Control of Its Own

Two ex-Facebook employees founded the nonprofit Integrity Institute to clean up tech platforms. Now it’s reeling amid fights on Slack and one founder’s resignation after an external HR investigation.

It’s Time to Believe the AI Hype

Some pundits suggest generative AI stopped getting smarter. The explosive demos from OpenAI and Google that started the week show there’s plenty more disruption to come.

Deadspin’s New Owners Are Embracing Betting Content—but Not AI

The future of once-beloved sports blog Deadspin has been murky since it was acquired by an unknown company called Lineup Publishing in March. The new ownership told WIRED they “don't want to ruin it.”

Blockchain and Cryptocurrency

How Researchers Cracked an 11-Year-Old Password to a $3 Million Crypto Wallet

Thanks to a flaw in a decade-old version of the RoboForm password manager and a bit of luck, researchers were able to unearth the password to a crypto wallet containing a fortune.

The $2.3 Billion Tornado Cash Case Is a Pivotal Moment for Crypto Privacy

Tuesday’s verdict in the trial of Alexey Pertsev, a creator of crypto-privacy service Tornado Cash, is the first in a string of cases that could make it much harder to skirt financial surveillance.

A Vast New Data Set Could Supercharge the AI Hunt for Crypto Money Laundering

Blockchain analysis firm Elliptic, MIT, and IBM have released a new AI model—and the 200-million-transaction dataset it's trained on—that aims to spot the “shape” of bitcoin money laundering.

Crypto FOMO Is Back. So Are the Scams

After cryptocurrency prices spiked, scammers have flooded the market with fake tokens that promise investors great riches, but leave them penniless. It’s working.

Policy and Telecoms

Judge Hints at Plans to Rein In Google’s Illegal Play Store Monopoly

“Google as an illegal monopolist will have to pay some penalties,” US federal judge James Donato said Thursday, in a hearing discussing next steps after a jury found the company breached antitrust laws.

Would You Still Use Google if It Didn't Pay Apple $20 Billion to Get on Your iPhone?

A US judge who will decide Google’s fate in a historic antitrust trial suggested it was “odd” for the company to say it has the best search engine but also pay Apple billions to lock out rivals.

The Affordable Connectivity Program Kept Them Online. What Now?

Millions of people relied on the federal Affordable Connectivity Program to stay online and access work, health care, and school. Now that the program has expired, some fear being cut off.

Net Neutrality Returns to a Very Different Internet

The FCC voted 3-2 to restore net neutrality rules that had disappeared during the Trump administration.

Computers and Software

Generative AI Is Totally Shameless. I Want to Be It

The best thing about brain-melting software like ChatGPT? It doesn’t feel remorse.

Inside the Cult of the Haskell Programmer

It’s spooky. It’s esoteric. It’s also the key to understanding the rise and relevance of functional programming.

Stack Overflow Users Are Revolting Against an OpenAI Deal

Members of the software developer community have reported deleting or altering their posts to prevent them from being used by OpenAI.

Why Apple’s iPhone Browser-Choice Option Sucks

European iPhone owners are being shown a new pop-up screen listing alternatives to the Safari browser. The developers of the browsers shown on that screen are torn about the user experience.

Transportation

Teslas Can Still Be Stolen With a Cheap Radio Hack—Despite New Keyless Tech

Ultra-wideband radio has been heralded as the solution for “relay attacks” that are used to steal cars in seconds. But researchers found Teslas equipped with it are as vulnerable as ever.

Biden Is Trying to Buy EVs Time With New Tariffs on China. It Might Not Work

America now has 100 percent tariffs on Chinese electric vehicles, but with US automakers struggling to compete and its reliance on China’s materials, will this help? Mercedes, BMW and VW think not.

An Innovative EV Motor Used by Lamborghini, McLaren, and Ferrari Is Being Mass-Produced by Mercedes

Compared to the usual EV power plants, axial-flux motors are smaller and lighter, and have more torque. But they're hard to make at scale. Now Mercedes is bringing them to the masses.

We Tried the World’s Most Expensive Racing Simulator

Dynisma’s $2 million rig is state of the art. Just ask Ferrari, which has one for its F1 team. Now that a consumer model is in development, we decided to test the ultimate driving simulator.

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