artificial intelligence

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AI Planned Her Vacation, With Some Hits (and Big Misses)

Travel writer's AI-planned itinerary delivered some stunning views, but also some logistical hiccups

(Newser) - Artificial intelligence can get you to a postcard-ready English seaside town, yet still leave you shivering on a cliff while clutching your suitcase. Writing for the Wall Street Journal , travel reporter Dawn Gilbertson let Google's Gemini chatbot design a two-night March escape from London, vowing to follow its plan...

Hormuz Issues Could Affect Helium Supply, Chip Making

Middle East fighting halts Qatari exports

(Newser) - The gas that makes party balloons float is now threatening to puncture the AI boom. A war-driven disruption in helium supply—an essential ingredient in making advanced computer chips—is raising alarms and prices across the semiconductor industry and beyond, the New York Times reports. Helium, mostly produced in the...

OpenAI Drops Plan to Release Erotic Chatbot

Company has shelved another 'side quest'

(Newser) - OpenAI's experiment with a sexually explicit chatbot has been shoved to the back burner—and there's no date for when, or if, it might resurface. The company has halted its "adult mode" project indefinitely, saying it wants to conduct long-term research on how intimate chats with AI...

AI Conference Balks at Nearly 500 Papers for Improper AI Use

ICML used hidden prompts to expose AI-written peer reviews

(Newser) - A top AI conference just turned the tables on artificial intelligence, by using it to catch reviewers secretly relying on AI. Per Nature , the International Conference on Machine Learning, set for July in the South Korean capital of Seoul, turned away 497 papers—about 2% of all entries—after determining...

Teens Used AI to Create Fake Nude Pictures of Classmates

Boys, who were 14 at the time, received probation

(Newser) - Two teenage boys who used artificial intelligence to create fake nude photos of their classmates at an exclusive private school in Pennsylvania received probation Wednesday after dozens of victims described the images' traumatizing effect on them, the AP reports. The boys were 14 at the time. They admitted this month...

Meta Cuts 700 More Jobs
Meta Cuts 700 More Jobs
Mar 25, 2026 4:20 PM CDT

Meta Cuts 700 More Jobs

Layoffs hit Reality Labs as Meta doubles down on AI investments

(Newser) - It's been a rough week for Meta in court, and a mixed one for its employees: The company has announced job cuts for some workers and massive potential executive payouts for others. The company shed about 700 roles, largely in its Reality Labs division, plus some recruiting, sales, and...

Disney Drops $1B Deal as OpenAI Pulls Plug on Sora
OpenAI Is Pulling
the Plug on Sora
Mar 24, 2026 6:41 PM CDT

OpenAI Is Pulling the Plug on Sora

Disney says $1B deal is off

(Newser) - OpenAI's splashy AI video experiment is heading for the cutting-room floor—and it's taking a big Disney deal with it. The company says it is shutting down Sora, the standalone video-generation app it rolled out just months ago. CEO Sam Altman told staff Tuesday that video models are...

Desperate Workers on AI: We're Digging Our 'Own Grave'

Highly educated gig workers are powering the training data behind big artificial-intelligence models

(Newser) - Some white-collar workers who lost out to AI are now being paid to help perfect the tech that sidelined them, often in ways that feel just as precarious. That's the uneasy reality documented by the Verge's Josh Dzieza, who follows lawyers, writers, designers, coders, and scientists now piecing...

Kids Are Watching AI Misinfo 'at an Industrial Scale'

Experts warn that AI-generated clips are hijacking kids' brains online

(Newser) - A cartoon car-ride song that's been making the rounds looks like any other toddler time-killer—until the kids float outside a moving vehicle, ride on the hood going backward, and chirp that "red means stop, and green means right." Children's media experts say clips like "...

American Airlines Now Using AI to Keep Climate Honest

By using tech from Google, airline says it can reduce contrails, mitigate planes' impact on climate

(Newser) - American Airlines and Google said on Thursday that they've significantly reduced the climate impact of some of the airline's flights using an AI-based forecasting tool to help prevent contrails. When airplanes fly through cold and humid areas, ice crystals can form around the soot particles emitted from the...

Maybe They Shouldn't Have Named Meta After Metaverse

Social media giant is quietly winding down its virtual reality world, pivoting to artificial intelligence instead

(Newser) - Mark Zuckerberg's once-grand virtual kingdom is looking more like a cul-de-sac these days. Five years after he rechristened Facebook as Meta and declared the "metaverse" as the company's future, Meta is sharply scaling back its virtual reality ambitions and shifting its weight to artificial intelligence. The New ...

Bezos Wants $100B for a 'Manufacturing Transformation'

Amazon founder targets global companies to deploy Project Prometheus' AI-driven tech

(Newser) - Jeff Bezos is reportedly trying to assemble one of the biggest buyout funds in history. The Amazon founder is in early discussions to raise around $100 billion for a new investment vehicle that would scoop up industrial companies and then use advanced AI to speed up their automation, people familiar...

Horror Novel Canceled After Allegations That It Was AI-Generated

Author denies using AI, says hired editor did so

(Newser) - A horror novel originally set for release in the US on May 19 has been pulled from publication after allegations that the book was AI-generated. The book's cancellation came just one day after the New York Times approached publishing company Hachette Book Group with evidence appearing to show that...

Report: Human Error, Not AI, Blamed in Iran School Strike

Human intelligence failures overlooked clear signs that target was a school

(Newser) - Critics may have been too quick to blame artificial intelligence for the US missile strike that killed more than 150 people at an elementary school in Iran. Former military officials and others familiar with the operation tell Semafor the catastrophe at Shajareh Tayyebeh Elementary was caused not by a rogue...

Mental Health Staffs Walk Out Over AI Policies

One-day strike in California involves psychologists, therapists

(Newser) - Mental health clinicians at Kaiser Permanente staged a one-day strike in California on Wednesday, protesting Kaiser Permanente's growing use of artificial intelligence tools and warning of risks to patient safety and their own jobs. The walkout involved up to 2,400 psychologists, social workers, and other therapists, with nurses...

Altman's Thank-You Note to Coders Does Not Go Over Well

Critics see irony in his applauding of their 'effort' as AI leads to job loss

(Newser) - Sam Altman's thank-you note to programmers landed like a pink slip. Amid sweeping tech layoffs and mounting anxiety over artificial intelligence, the OpenAI CEO on Tuesday posted on X that he feels "so much gratitude to people who wrote extremely complex software character-by-character," adding that it's already hard to recall...

AI Companies Make Move to Prevent 'Catastrophic Misuse'

Anthropic, OpenAI seek chemical experts to strengthen safety guardrails

(Newser) - An AI company that says it doesn't want its tools used for certain weapons is now hiring someone who knows weapons inside out. Anthropic is seeking a specialist in chemical weapons and high-yield explosives to help keep its chatbot Claude from assisting others in the making of chemical, radiological, or...

Op-Ed: He Predicted 2008 Crash, Is Worried Again

Op-ed: AI, private credit, and geopolitics converge into one fragile system

(Newser) - Richard Bookstaber called the 2008 financial crash a year in advance and thought it was a once-in-a-lifetime meltdown. Now he's rethinking that, and he worries that a new crash might be even worse. In a New York Times opinion piece, the former hedge fund risk chief and Treasury official...

Communities Push Back on High-Voltage Lines for AI

Across the US, locals are miffed at power lines erected to support massive data centers

(Newser) - For John Zola, his 40 acres of property in northern Pennsylvania were once a paradise, complete with apple orchards, a barn, meadows, and more than enough land for four houses. He says it's been "hell," however, since a contractor hired by the local power utility knocked on...

Deepfake Influencers Push Supplements Online

AI-generated figures are promoting wellness products to unsuspecting consumers

(Newser) - An Amish woman who rails against processed food and praises a $50 "detox" powder has amassed hundreds of thousands of followers online. She also doesn't exist. The New York Times reports that "Melanskia" is one of several AI-generated personalities deployed to sell Modern Antidote, a wellness supplement...

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