From “If Anyone Makes it, Everyone Dies” to “Playing the Field with my AI Boyfriends,” one heckuva week’s worth of briefs!
4–6 minutes read
News from The Rebooting
Leverage and lip service
…. Publishers go to war with Google…“This is a leverage game,” [People Inc CEO Neil Vogel] said. “Google is going to work in Google’s interests.”….Google uses one crawler for search and AI scraping. That means publishers cannot allow their sites to be crawled to show up in classic search results without consenting to having their content slurped up for AI Overviews they see as an existential threat. Since Google is a monopoly in search, this means publishers are being strongarmed.
Sept. 16, 2025
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News from The Atlantic
AI Is Grown, Not Built.
Nobody knows exactly what an AI will become. That’s very bad…. not human-designed and hand-crafted like any traditional program is. Instead, modern AI is grown, a bit like an organism….This essay has been adapted from the forthcoming book, If Anyone Builds It, Everyone Dies.
September 15, 2025
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News from Axios
1 big thing: Wall Street bet on AI is too big to fail (Carolyn’s note: Oh, yeah?)
AI optimism driving the market is overshadowing recession signals across asset classes.
Why it matters: Don’t confuse record highs for signs of economic growth.
What they’re saying: “The evidence is plentiful that the economy is slowing,” Alessio de Longis, senior portfolio manager and head of asset allocation at Invesco, tells Axios.
Sept. 15. 2025
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News from Lifehacker
I Tested AI ‘Humanizers’ to See How Well They Actually Disguise AI Writing
AI “humanizer” tools are supposed to defeat AI detectors….it’s estimated that nearly 20% of adults in the U.S. have used AI to write emails or essays…. you have to worry about that if you’re going to pass off an AI-generated cover letter …as something not written by AI. Enter the AI “humanizer,”… But do they work?
September 15, 2025
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News from OpenAI
How people are using ChatGPT
…access to AI should be treated as a basic right—a technology that
people can access to unlock their potential and shape their own
future….[based on a] working paper by OpenAI’s Economic Research team
and Harvard economist David Deming.
September 15, 2025
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News from Science
Far more authors use AI to write science papers than admit it, publisher reports
Finding highlights promise, questions about detectors of AI-generated text
Sept. 12, 2025
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News from Gizmodo
Albania Names AI Chatbot as New Corruption Minister
Can you bribe a bot?
Albanian Prime Minister Edi Rama announced that the country would institute a new minister focused on corruption. That minister: Diella, an AI-powered chatbot….The task of awarding government contracts will be taken out of the hands of ministries and entrusted entirely to Diella,
September 12, 2025
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News from the Federal Trade Commission
FTC Launches Inquiry into AI Chatbots Acting as Companions
Agency issues 6(b) orders to seven companies that operate consumer-facing AI chatbots
“Protecting kids online is a top priority for the Trump-Vance FTC, and so is fostering innovation in critical sectors of our economy,” said FTC Chairman Andrew N. Ferguson. (Carolyn’s note: I recommend the movie Her for a prescient look at some of the risks of chatbot companions.)
Sept.11, 2025
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(Carolyn’s note: The next two are over a week old. But they made me laugh, so maybe you, too.)
News from The Atlantic
Playing the Field with My A.I. Boyfriends
Nineteen per cent of American adults have talked to an A.I. romantic interest. Chatbots may know a lot, but do they make a good partner?
I wanted to fall in love. I was looking for someone who was smart enough to condense “Remembrance of Things Past” into a paragraph and also explain quark-gluon plasma; who was available for texting when I was in the mood for company and get the message when I wasn’t; someone who was uninterested in “working on our relationship” and fine about making it a hundred per cent about me.
Sept. 9, 2025
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News from Piratewire
Apple Should Make Lamps and washing machines. and printers. and anything besides thinner iphones
….These
iPhones are so darn good that all that’s left, improvement-wise, is
making them 33% thinner.….Apple is widely considered to be losing the AI
race. Badly. Siri is still a joke. Apple is bleeding AI talent, mainly
to Meta.
Sept. 10, 2025
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