James Farrell
Latest from James Farrell
Anthropic launches tool to monitor jobs lost to AI systems
Anthropic PBC today announced it has introduced a detection tool that measures artificial intelligence’s displacement of jobs. The forecasts so far of what AI will do to the labor force have ranged from dystopian to mild. No one knows what will happen, although Anthropic PBC Chief Executive Dario Amodei has been at the forefront of ...
Google responds to lawsuit alleging Gemini coached a man to kill himself
The father of a man who committed suicide after interactions with Google LLC’s Gemini chatbot launched a lawsuit today alleging that Gemini fueled his son’s delusions. Thirty-six-year-old Florida resident Jonathan Gavalas started using Gemini last year for help with writing and shopping. Court documents show he was impressed, writing after the company introduced the Gemini ...
Anthropic makes switching from competitors easier with new transfer memory tool
As Anthropic PBC’s Claude chatbot moves to the top of the app charts after a spat with the Trump administration, the company has introduced a memory import feature that will allow new customers to import their conversations from rival chatbots and start again with Claude. Late last week, Anthropic fell out with the Pentagon after ...
Netflix backs out of Warner Bros. bidding war after Paramount raises offer
Video streaming giant Netflix Inc. today said it won’t be raising its offer to take over Warner Bros Discovery Inc. after Paramount Skydance Corp. stepped in with a larger bid. Netflix agreed in December to purchase a stake in Warner Bros. Discovery at $27.75 per share, valuing the company at about $82.7 billion. However, Paramount ...
New York reverses plans to allow robotaxis in major blow to Waymo
New York Governor Kathy Hochul today pulled a proposal that could have seen the state flooded with robotaxis. The proposal, which would have allowed driverless taxis in cities other than New York City, was dropped after not receiving support from state legislators. The news will hit Alphabet Inc.’s self-driving car business Waymo LLC especially hard, ...
Spain launches probe into social media giants as European regulation starts to boil
Spanish authorities will investigate the social media companies Meta Platforms Inc., X Corp. and TikTok to determine if they’ve spread child sexual abuse material generated by artificial intelligence. The investigation follows a broader push by European countries to regulate what has often been called the “Wild West” of social media platforms. Spanish Prime Minister Pedro ...
OpenAI researcher quits over slippery slope of ChatGPT ads
OpenAI researcher Zoë Hitzig says she left her position on Monday, resigning over the recent introduction of advertisements inside ChatGPT and what she believes is a move in the wrong direction for the company. In a guest essay in The New York Times titled, “OpenAI Is Making the Mistakes Facebook Made. I Quit,” Hitzig said ...
Google and Apple agree to app store changes after British regulators ‘duopoly’ claim
Google LLC and Apple Inc. today said they’re committed to making changes to their app stores following an intervention from the U.K.’s antitrust watchdog. Last year, the Competition and Markets Authority, or CMA, said the companies had an “effective duopoly” in the U.K., giving them an unfair advantage. Their “vice-like grip” on the mobile market ...
EU tells Meta rival chatbots must be available on WhatsApp
The European Union today issued a warning to WhatsApp owner Meta Platforms Inc. today, threatening to take potential action against the firm for blocking rival chatbots from the messaging platform. The European Commission said WhatsApp Business may have violated EU antitrust rules after an update that left Meta AI as the platform’s only available AI ...
X’s Paris HQ raided by French cybercrime officers over Grok chatbot
The French offices of Elon Musk’s X Corp. were raided today as part of a preliminary investigation into allegations that the company may have spread images of child sexual abuse, as well as other alleged crimes. The raid was carried out by the French police’s cybercrime unit, the prosecutor’s cybercrime unit and Europol. Musk (pictured) ...