Author: IQ TIMES MEDIA
A federal judge has sided with Anthropic in its twisty legal battle with the Trump administration, awarding the tech company an injunction against the government’s recent order that labeled it a “supply chain risk,” the Wall Street Journal reports. On Thursday, Judge Rita F. Lin of the Northern District of California ordered the Trump administration to rescind its recent designation of Anthropic as a security risk, as well as to back off its order that federal agencies cut ties with the company. “It looks like an attempt to cripple Anthropic,” Lin reportedly said during the court proceedings. Lin ultimately argued…
When it comes to AI chatbots, there’s currently a war on for consumer attention. All the big chatbot providers are looking to increase their user count and, in a minor coup for itself, Google just made it significantly easier for users of those other chatbots to defect to Gemini. On Thursday, the company announced what it calls “switching tools,” new widgets that are designed to allow users to transfer “memories” (basically chunks of personal information) and even entire chat histories from other chatbots directly into Gemini. Users can easily share “key preferences, relationships, and personal context” in this way, the…
A federal judge has granted Anthropic a major reprieve as the AI company challenges the Pentagon’s effective blacklisting. Loading audio narration… On Thursday, US District Judge Rita Lin granted Anthropic’s request for a preliminary injunction to temporarily block the “Presidential Directive” that ordered federal agencies to stop using Anthropic’s technology, and Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth’s decision to formally label the AI frontier model maker as a “supply chain risk.”Lin also stayed the effective date of the supply-chain designation, meaning that it cannot take place while the injunction is in place.The decision is a victory for Anthropic and its CEO Dario…
As AI makes inroads into the worlds of editorial and media, websites are scrambling to establish ground rules for its usage. This week, Wikipedia banned the use of AI-generated text by its editors — although it stopped short of banning AI outright from the site’s editorial processes. In a recent policy change, the site now states that “the use of LLMs to generate or rewrite article content is prohibited.” This new language updates and clarifies previous, vaguer language that stated that LLMs “should not be used to generate new Wikipedia articles from scratch.” AI in Wikipedia articles has become a…
Mark Zuckerberg wants Meta to be “AI-native.” An internal document shows one way the company’s CEO plans to get there.The company has set goals for how much some employees should use AI tools for tasks such as coding.Meta employees created a document to collect information about these goals from across different organizations, according to a copy seen by Business Insider. It includes goals set late last year and for 2026.Tech companies are using various methods to motivate staff to use AI, such as tying AI use to performance reviews and gamifying AI use with competitive leaderboards.The document states that Meta’s…
OpenAI has put the kibosh on yet another project — at least for the time being. On Thursday, the Financial Times reported that the AI company would be “indefinitely” pausing plans to develop an “erotic” mode for ChatGPT. The proposed “adult mode,” which CEO Sam Altman first floated in October, had inspired considerable controversy from tech watchdog groups as well as from OpenAI’s own staff. In January, a meeting between company executives and its council of advisers got heated, with one of the advisers cautioning that OpenAI could be in the process of developing a “sexy suicide coach,” The Wall…
BATON ROUGE, La. (AP) — In a pivotal moment that underscored how powerful and immersive social platforms can be for children and teens, a jury in California this week found both Meta and YouTube liable for mental health harms to kids using their services. The jury’s decision in the first-of-its-kind lawsuit — centered on social media addiction — was applauded by doctors and advocates, who say they are hopeful it could eventually lead to industrywide changes.“I am excited about the outcome of the litigation, in part because we’ve had basically seen these platforms sort of go unregulated for many years…
Two U.S. senators on Thursday fired the latest salvo in an increasingly active front against data centers and their energy use. Senators Josh Hawley and Elizabeth Warren sent a letter to the U.S. Energy Information Administration (EIA) asking it to collect details on energy use from data centers — and how that use is affecting the grid. The senators urged the EIA “to establish a mandatory annual reporting requirement for data centers and other large loads,” they wrote in the letter, which TechCrunch has viewed. “As electricity demand growth continues to accelerate after years of relative stagnation, the lack of reliable,…
Last fall, Sam Altman told us he was about to bring spicy chat — “erotica for adults,” in his words — to ChatGPT. Loading audio narration… That never happened, and now it looks like it never will: Altman’s OpenAI has put those plans on hold “indefinitely,” per the Financial Times.This is Altman’s second big walkback in the last few days. Earlier this week, the company canned Sora, the briefly popular video app it rolled out last fall. I’ve asked the company for comment.Both retreats are supposed to be part of a new push at OpenAI to focus the company’s efforts…
WASHINGTON (AP) — The Education Department will relocate from its headquarters to a smaller Washington office as part of the Trump administration’s dismantling of the agency, officials said Thursday. The agency has seen its ranks thinned by mass layoffs since President Donald Trump took office and its headquarters building has been 70% vacant, the Education Department said. In its place, the Energy Department will assume the lease in the building. Education Secretary Linda McMahon hailed it as a milestone in the administration’s efforts to shutter the agency, which Trump ordered to close a year ago this month. “Thanks to the…